Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Singing the Psalms in Christian Worship: A History

An excellent short introduction, by Elizabeth Liebert. Another fine introduction, by Art Leonard. A humorous introduction, with interesting examples, by Richard Leach.  

“A homosexual's best friend is the Holy One, blessed is he”

The quoted statement comes from a prominent Orthodox rabbi in Israel, Yaacov Medan. Homosexuality is such a controversial subject that I bet a lot of people will dust off their Hebrew even if it’s rusty in order to follow the words in the original:

Photographs and Typology of the LMLK seals from Umm Tuba

Part of a vast archive of material collected by G. M. Grena, details and pics of the Umm Tuba LMLK seals here. G. M.’s blog went dead after McCain and Palin lost to the other side. Come on, G. M., stop crying in your beer and start chastising the deluded again, as you did in the good old days. I provide a brief discussion of another seal impression from UmmTuba here.

The Poetic Function: Nel vs. Jakobson

In his characterization of the poetic function, Nel is looking for a term that is broader than parallelism, the term Jakobson used, and capable of describing metalinguistic as well as linguistic phenomena. Recurrence is the term he reaches for, and he describes the modes of recurrence as involving identical, equivalent, or similar elements, and segments in a specific relationship to each other, such as identical sequence, distribution, opposition, or analogy.

Recurrence in Ancient Hebrew Poetry

The phenomenon of parallelism in biblical Hebrew poetry continues to attract the attention of researchers with diverse points of departure. In a series of forthcoming posts, I will highlight recent contributions by the following scholars: Philip Nel, Beat Weber, and Klaus Seybold. In conclusion, I will describe the need for a research database designed to facilitate the study of parallelisms in ancient Hebrew verse. This post concerns a seminal article by P. J. Nel entitled:

“Objective” morality overturned by objective science

In this post, I regurgitate a number of things that have long bounced around in my mind-body continuum, but which I frame in the language of the admirable synthesis in Thomas Kazen's "Dirt and Disgust: Body and Morality in Biblical Purity Laws," in Baruch Schwartz et al., eds., Perspectives on Purity and Purification in the Bible (London: T & T Clark, 2008) 43-64. References to and discussion of Damasio, Darwin, and Teehan are based thereon, though I am familiar with Damasio and Darwin's thought apart from Kazen’s discussion.

“Objective” morality debunked

In response to things said in my recent series on Darwin and God (starting here), Duane Smith, a well-adjusted atheist of the kind I enjoy chatting up more than I enjoy doing the same with my sometimes boring fellow-believers, has put up a post entitled Monkey Morality. Before engaging him on the issues, I wish to point out *the fact* I have in mind in responding as I do: I know Duane well enough to think of him as a morally responsible agent of the kind I fervently pray my children will turn out to be some day.

Praying with Lior

Praying with Lior, soon to appear in DVD (March 24), is a hardcore tearjerker. To this day, I lean on the faith and cheer of people like Lior in my congregation who have Down Syndrome or some other “disability.” Their “disability” makes them experience reality, cognitively and emotionally, in terms not quite like the way I do. When someone like Lior tells me after the service, “that was a great sermon,” I assure you, that makes my Sunday.

Congrats on Admission to a PhD Program in Hebrew Bible

Nevada is leaving the Geneva of the Midwest (one of them, anyway) for Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University to begin a PhD program in Hebrew Bible with Leo Perdue and Toni Craven. Hurrah indeed. Congratulations!

Psalm Singing in a Sephardic Synagogue in Safed, Israel

A fascinating essay on the subject by Essica Marks is available here. The essay summarizes the research and conclusions contained in her 2002 Bar-Ilan University PhD thesis. She interacts with the conclusions of Abraham Idelsohn advanced in his monumental monographs of the 1920s, and the more recent research of Reinhard Flender and Mira Spiegel.