It is for respite that we return to the gardens

Today slightly windy and rainy - this graveyard is just behind my daughter's house where I am staying this weekend.
and here are some pictures from yesterday of the garden behind the Selwyn chapel

Mary Herbert and Psalm 137

Psalm 137 continuing the exploration of reception history

Given the immense amount of information in Sue Gillingham's presentation on Psalm 137, I have decided that I have done the psalm an injustice in being unaware of how it is used - so apart from the sources I already know like Neale and various commentaries and my comfort level with the text, I will now consider some of the leads in the Conference information.

First - the text again for remembering (my translation)
Three voices - plural first person, singular oath first person, second and third person report as prayer

By the torrents of Babel there we sat yea we wept in remembering Zion on willows in the midst of her we hung our strings for there our captors asked us the words of a song and our tormentors mirth "Sing to us a song of Zion" how will we sing such a song of יְהוָה on strange ground?

If I forget you Jerusalem let my right hand forget let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you if I do not take you Jerusalem as my chief mirth

Remember יְהוָה of the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem those saying Expose expose her to the foundations Devastating daughter of Babel happy the one who makes peace with you even weans you as you have weaned us happy the one who takes and dashes your unweaned against the rock.

The first thing I came across is a critique of canonical criticism¹ - as limiting the reading of Scripture. But he quickly moves to commendation because "the forces operating within the canonical approach itself did not allow me to accept the readings already available to me". And this note too: "two thousand years of opportunity does not necessarily mean that we have become very good at reading the canonical text". So Lyons offers here a reading of the films Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects (1995) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) in the light of their reception of Psalm 137.

Lyons begins with Origen's analogy - My unreported notes read: "the allegories are awful. Origen - Christian readings have lost their material reality." Here is a citation of Origen. He has allegorized the children away:

The infants of Babylon, which means confusion, are the confused thoughts caused by evil which have just been implanted and are growing up in the soul. The man who takes hold of them, so that he breaks their heads by the firmness and solidarity of the Word, is dashing the infants of Babylon against the rock; and on this account he becomes blessed (Contra Celsum, VII.22).

C.S. Lewis is quoted next further informing our present with Origen's analogy

I know things in the inner life, which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred… Knock the little bastards’ brains out, And “blessed” is he who can, for it’s easier said than done.

I recommend the rest of the article - it is a good summary of the history which Lyons is critical of as hiding the reality of the psalm. The film applications are quite striking.

The psalmist sees the inflicting of shame on his enemies as a way of negating the ongoing loss of honour which had been inflicted on him. Since Babylon had already fallen, this was to be achieved rhetorically, by the constant repetition of the psalm within the ongoing life of Israel. Babylon’s destruction was to be made obvious to all Israel by the open recitation of an Israelite desire which could never have been voiced openly within the living Babylonian Empire.

I wonder if there is more to say.

References (1) William John Lyons, ‘A Man of Honour, A Man of Strength, A Man of Will? A Canonical Approach to Psalm 137’, Didaskalia 16 (2005), pp. 41-68.

More on music - 2 Chronicles and chironomy

Chironomy - the hand gestures indicate the music

Suzanne Haik Vantoura writes in her book concerning the te-amim - Only the signs below the text had fixed meaning. The signs above the text being subordinate to those below.

John Wheeler, editor of Haik Vantoura's English translation, has an article on chironomy here. The mapping of sound, scale, harmony and cadence onto hand gestures holds the complexity of a language of musical notation in a transmittable form. Suzanne Haik Vantoura points out the meaning then of a verse like 1 Chronicles 25:6

כָּל־אֵלֶּה עַל־יְדֵי אֲבִיהֶם בַּשִּׁיר בֵּית יְהוָה

All these were under the musical direction (lit. under the hands - in the song) of their father [in] the house of יְהוָה (or possibly in the song of the house...?)
כל־א֣לה על־ידי֩ אביה֨ם בש֜יר ב֣ית יהו֗ה

(JPS 1917 All these were under the hands of their fathers for song in the house of the LORD assuming that אביהם is used distributively of each father of the sons named.)

(Aside: you can do almost anything in translation! What could one do to resolve ambiguity with music?) The subsequent mapping of hand gestures to the written text is also a credible language coding scheme and efficient - no longer requiring individual directors for each voice or instrument. Even the rubrics were meant to be sung.

Here is another example  [click on show cantillation if necessary] Psalm 19:6 (7 Hebrew)

מקצ֤ה השמ֨ים מֽוצא֗ו ותקֽופת֥ו על־קצות֑ם

and a hint in the image below of how the mapping is done to modern notation. Note that the metheg has been understood at this site as related to stress and pronunciation rather than music - (Lambdin #11). Haik-Vantoura considers that the metheg moves the singer back to the tonic. (Her default tonic is E. Pitches are relative. Absolute pitches not known.)

These markings could be seen as the equivalent of punctuation and phrasing. This section of psalm 19 can be compared with the performance - hopefully ear, hand, eye, and voice will agree.

The videos etc which I had here are no longer available. You will find several sample performances on the music page.

The Oxford Psalms Conference - in sequence

Here are the posts for the Oxford Conference on the Psalms from Sept 22-24, 2010 in the order the topics were presented. These are reconstructed from my notes, from handouts, and from pictures I have taken or from the web. If you find errors or can offer clarifications please feel free to comment or email me at bobmacdonald at gx dot ca and I will adjust or correct the post.

• The site of the conference
• The conference and its Oxford context Welcome message and introduction
• David, Orpheus, and Reception History
• Archaeological Approaches The Psalms and Qumran
• Psalm 145 - the missing nun
• Qumran Psalms - 7 more examples
• Qumran Examples - three similar scribal difference...
• Qumran Examples - the remaining 4
• Hermeneutical Approaches Medieval Answers to Modern Questions
• Ancient Near Eastern Approaches Psalm 104 and Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun
• The Psalms and Sumerian Hymns
• Rhetorical Approaches Theodicy and the Psalms
• The Psalms and Christian Art Liturgical Psalters in Medieval Europe
• The Psalms and Jewish Art Chagall and Tudeley
• Modern Art in Interfaith Dialogue
• A Cantata of Psalms for the First Day of Sukkot The Music of the Bible
• Reception History Approaches The Reception of Psalm 137 in Jewish and Christian Tradition
• Continuing the exploration of Psalm 137 in Reception History
• Day 3 preview
• Redactional Approaches The Psalter as a Book
• Hebrew Text and Versions Translating the Psalms
• Translating
• My essay on Translating Biblical Poetry
• Abstracts of the Graduate Theses
• Summation Problems and Prospects in Psalmic Studies

Problems and Prospects in Psalmic Studies

Bring with joy your offerings to my house (Hossfeld's introductory statement for this lecture).

This is the final lecture though I may add some comments on the Student papers from their abstracts later - especially as they might indicate something about the future of Psalms study.

Presenter: Frank-Lothar Hossfeld - a happy person who had noted some points in the very short Q and A sessions when the students were presenting. I had lunch opposite him before his presentation. Then after his presentation, when we had no more time for questions, I mentioned my motivation for study of the psalms from the way they are used in Hebrews as the dialogue between the Father and the Son - and he was most happy to hear this as a motivation to study. Happy is the one to whom the Lord allows study and correction through the Psalter.

Aside: judging from a reading I was doing in the book that arose from the St Andrews conference on Hebrews and Christian Theology, I think it may have been Harold Attridge that I overheard pointing out the psalms as dialogue between the Father and the Son. His final paragraph in his essay is filled with this metaphor.

From the abstract: ... Since the 1980s [post form criticism and Gunkel], psalm and Psalter exegesis has been linked to this method but also exceeds it and has taken into account lectio continua and thus reading the collection of psalms as a Book. In this regard, every psalm has an intra-textual meaning as well as an inter-textual meaning within the context of different groups of psalms and collections. .. In order to explore the message of the psalms as well as the psalter one needs to take into consideration both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the text.... the aim is to indicate 1) theologically fundamental ideas throughout the different phases on the growth process and 2) leading ideas throughout the final shape of the Psalter - for example: the movement from lamentation to praise; the presentation of the history of Israel in the subdivision into 5 books; the relationship of the psalms to the temple as well as to Zion / Jerusalem; the relationship of the kingdom of God to the earthly king in Israel; the relevance of the piety of the poor.

In the Enlightenment, everything came into question. Skepticism was the order ot the day. Hossfeld made three points against the gattungkritik of Gunkel -

1. a few are already 1 form but are separated from context,
2. form prejudices the exegete, not only anthropology but also theology is to be seen in them,
3. the collection bears the impact of an orderly mind.

So: position sitz im buch determines the contextual meaning. (I am so sorry for the German - some terms you know are just untranslatable.) So also there is a Byblos Psalmus, a Sepher Tehillim, a Psalterium, a Torah of David, the Domus Magna of Jerome (and Bob's art gallery). So we must look for links between psalms, twins, clusters, collective superscriptions, groups e.g. 29 in 25-35 or 93-100 (also see my many summaries from the past three months.) There is a meaning as a whole (Wilson 1985 a complex literary structure) but also diachrony corrects synchrony.

From 2010-10-02

Aside: I was reading extensively this afternoon in Suzanne Haik Vantoura 1994  (and a later book, Braun, Music in Ancient Israel, that seemed to know very little about her claims though her book was in the bibliography). SHV comes to the conclusion that all the psalms were written by David because of the unifying effect of the music she has with some justification reconstructed. Let me ask you - can you write in the style of the 16th century? or of Bach? we were all taught to. So the claim of the school of Ibn Ezra is not justified by an equal music. Nonetheless I am delighted with SHV - her work is exactly the process of observation and deduction and confirmation with which I would approach a complex set of application programs.

Remaining notes from Hossfeld - Psalm 104 begins the praise words that are used to the end. Zion as the scene of the Psalter - the place of origin of Torah and prophesy, 75 psalms - God in Zion is a force - is it the mountain? the city? the temple? There is no Zion in Ezekiel. What is its relation to Jerusalem? national vs Zion universal?

Aside: Some of his talk was in German so I missed it - more than a few words. But one little bit he translated as the oscillating centre of dynamic creation of theology. O that we should learn to communicate simply. I was reading John Webster this afternoon and reading the Barth conference over the past week - so many words!

A deceptive cadence: Is Adonai king or is there a human king? The messianic subordinated to the theocratic? Is David an archetype?  After Psalm 89 there is no human king. Psalm 101 continues the themes of psalms 15 and 24. (I had been asking myself where this stepping stone was to 119.)

Finally - his last statements - The new song is already in the Old Testament. Psalms is theology in dialogue with invitation to all who read. No new psalter was written as echo to the appearance of the Son of God. The strongest bridge in the Jewish-Christian dialogue - (Conflict and Convergence being the theme of this conference) is the Psalter.

The Psalter as a Book

Presenter: Klaus Seybold (Basel)
From the abstract: ...to construct the genesis of the Psalter as a book

Psalm 40:8 - in the scroll of the book - does this suggest the formation of a book from an early collection of psalms? Then collecting psalms in exile.

2 Macc 2:13 - And these same things were set down in the memoirs, and commentaries of Nehemias: and how he made a library, and gathered together out of the countries, the books both of the prophets, and of David,

2Qps-a the psalms scroll in cave 4 and 11Qps-b of cave 11, also 4Qps-b and the Masada Ps-a and other fragments with new stichographic writing (expressing the text as lines + cola)

LXX Psalter in the form encountered in the NT Luke 20:42 - And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord (note how the inscription is used as part of the received text). Note also Luke 24:44, Acts 1:20.

Finally the Masoretic codices.

Four factors: collection of psalms in a fixed context, assimilation of the texts to the model 'Psalms', canonical intention of the whole collection as a book of David or a book of Moses, and the production of a sample edition of a biblical book.

All the above with a few interpolations from me is from the Abstract. Klaus Seybold then outlined a seven-step process in the evidence we have for the book of psalms. So I had completely misread this title - thinking it would be a literary reading (which we have already had) and not realizing it would be a diachronic or historical reading of the evidence. (I had been warned in a prior conversation with Prof. Seybold).

Aside: reading Childs this week, canonical intention is a phrase I have seen a few times. Clearly as a gene has no intent, neither does a poem or a collection of poems - but I think we can ascribe intent, particularly the intent to remember and in doing so to make present the history, to the community.

Seybold introduced his talk with an overview of Psalm 40 read historically - as if the scroll of the book was perhaps at least as long as book 1 of the Psalter. So the rescue (Psalm 40:2-6) and the new song (6-12) and the lament (=70) -It is worth reading again - e.g. here. (More prayer than lament and in the Monteverdi at Psalm 70 (69) it is seen together with the anticipation of praise.)

Aside: It is true here that Psalm 40 is quoted in the NT - and in doing so, the NT draws in the full allusion to psalms 40 and 70 and books 1 and 2. The title of Psalm 70 'to Remember' is thus associated with the trouble of David, the salvation of Psalm 22 (note the repeated reference to the great assembly) and the exile - even though this is not explicit in Book 1, it is included by implication in the refrain of Psalm 70 which is לְהַזְכִּיר lechazkir, 'as a memorial' or in the Greek eis anamnesin, exactly what is noted in the Eucharist, (anamnesis), at the elevation (and the translator adds εἰς τὸ σῶσαί με κύριον that the Lord may save me).

Seybold then took us on an imaginary journey through 7 steps in creating the Psalter as a book. (All the following transcribed from notes)

1. First book influenced all the following (Psalm 72:20 Here end the prayers of David 3-41...51-72, 72 interpreted as of David for Solomon)
2. Where? Temple library? copied for performance in Qumran, 2 Maccabees 2 a letter from Pharasaic circles as Nehemiah collected... so Judas ... 2nd C - copied for performance at Qumran
3. 4Qpsalms-a oldest complete pss 5-69, 19 fragments, early semi-formal hand, mid 2nd C BCE, 7.6 meters - 10 meter scroll (huge) 23x11 cm, Isaiah scroll is 7.5 m. (Aside A 10 meter scroll about 50% larger than Isaiah could hold the entire 5 books?) 150 BCE means not copied at Qumran, 5-69 arranged as in MT, ps31-->ps33, ps38-->ps71, superscriptions in the scrolls, 72-150? Did the scroll contain the whole psalter? Text near MT ps 136, 145 longer than MT. 
4. The 11th cave - best preserved 30-50 BCE 29 continuous columns, 52 columns beginning with ps90. Was cave 11 scroll a new collection? 1-89, 2A cave 11, 2B MT, Ed 1+2B Jerusalem Psalter edition? attributed to David were 3600 psalms through prophecy - Qumran read the Psalms as prophecy - (Aside: like the writer to the Hebrews)
5. Stichometric psalms - like Ps 119. 4Q psalms-b Herodian hand 91-118, Masada psalter 20 Nov 1963 81-85 stichometric. 4Qpsalms-c large and long scroll maybe the whole thing. Attempts to express the text as poetry - lines- cola etc.
6. Authors of NT Luke - David says in the book of Psalms, Acts, Peter - probably LXX - no MS available. Earliest ms of LXX is 4th to 5th C CCE. 100 ps texts cited in the NT. Psalms regarded as a prophetic book, history of LXX complicated, superscriptions may be very late in some MSS, Anastasios, Psalm 63. (Perhaps this last reference is to saint Anastasios who commented on psalm 63 - but I have no context nor do I know if this is LXX or MT numbering).
7. Finally MT - texts by assimilation, collection unifies, Book has canonical intention - cave 4 Torah Jerusalem temple centre, Moser psalter - accum to Torah, 5 books not shown in cave 11, Qumran 151 names David as prophet. 4th-3rd C BCE "original"?

Whew! The lecture was well paced so it was not hard to grasp the intent even with all this (to me) unfamiliar detail.

Responder: Professor David Howard (Bethel). First "imaginary" scroll in the German diachronic reconstruction. No thematic analysis as in the American synchronic analysis. Was 11Q psalms canon or liturgy? If liturgy then the order would not be preserved, but psalms would have been selected for copying and reciting / performance. Was it a sectarian canon?

Moses (Jerusalem) and David --- psalms insert --- Messianic thrust. Ps 1 - Torah shape, Ps 89 rejection of David, Royal frame songs in 1-3, David - Messianic king, Exemplar king, powerless fugitive. Counter cultural picture - Does psalter, like Job, critique Deuteronomy? Gerbrant, Patrick Miller, James Grout, R. Cole.