tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post8165887832233278322..comments2024-01-09T12:59:32.666+01:00Comments on Narrative and Ontology: Should we amend יְכוֹנְנֶֽהָ in Ps 24:2?Phil Sumpterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-51636811077409325402009-05-27T09:24:07.180+02:002009-05-27T09:24:07.180+02:00Thanks Bob. I've had a brief glance at the verse a...Thanks Bob. I've had a brief glance at the verse and will bear it in mind when I get to the interpretation bit of my exegesis. Job is referred to a fair bit in the commentaries.Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-37763743990686659052009-05-25T18:38:17.325+02:002009-05-25T18:38:17.325+02:00Phil - I wondered if you had found Job 22:16 "seiz...Phil - I wondered if you had found Job 22:16 "seized out of time, torrent poured on their foundation " as another allusion to the floods and foundation - perhaps showing that the ancients have a working mythology themselves - waters above and below the firmament being used to deal with the wicked - this foreshadowing the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world - anticipating 'out of time' exactly the problems we have with evil.Bob MacDonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11335631079939764763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-67851698222480681232009-05-14T19:22:00.000+02:002009-05-14T19:22:00.000+02:00To hear into the mind of the past is one of the th...To hear into the mind of the past is one of the things that a human can do. It's a primitive form of time travel :)<br /><br />But who can hear when the ear is not 'opened'? Or when the eye is so dominant as it is for us mechanicals.<br /><br />Neale (19th century cleric and hymn translator) uses the term mystical rather than 'spiritual' - see the dialogue <A HREF="http://drmacdonald.blogspot.com/2008/03/interpreting-bible.html" REL="nofollow">here</A> in which Iyov kindly interacted with me some time ago.<br /><br />While Spirit is good, spiritual has become a weak adjective in English usage - signifying every thing from New Age to mental arithmetic. I don't much like the mystical either for it tends to the bodiless. But mystical was his word in English at his time c 1860s. What I use today is dialogical or engaged or embodied/incarnational or whatever other term reaches or searches for a word that is creative in the present. So with respect to the Psalm in question - my thoughts while translating are in dialogue with the past poet(s) who wrote and collated the Psalms, and I hope with the Lord/God who interacted with them in their concretely realized turmoil trouble and joy. I say 'hope' because in my own concretely realized time, I am psychologically capable of too many degrees of forgetfulness and self-deception. Nevertheless - there is a real life in this holographic reality that we share and there was a time when I was less aware of it and less mature in it than I may be now - this Presence so willing it.<br /><br />It is in this spirit (mine) that I interpret (whether translating or reading or meditating on the instruction of the Spirit - in the Johannine sense of God is Spirit). I think it is a way of participation in the work of the Anointed. It is always through his death - the place where we meet God in any age - however it is symbolized for that time period.<br /><br />Important to say also that this may be 'explained' or 'smoothed out' using 100% human techniques and yet seeing the whole as 100% inexplicably 'of God'.<br /><br />So distinguishing the two (literal and mystical) is both an invitation and yet not a requirement. But in all things - 'making present' the past as if it were ours is of interest to us. Thinking of the past as over and done with is probably a metaphysical error.Bob MacDonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11335631079939764763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-8045023981334016452009-05-14T18:42:00.000+02:002009-05-14T18:42:00.000+02:00Thanks for this Bob, I haven't looked into Patrist...Thanks for this Bob, I haven't looked into Patristic interpretation yet. In this case, both the qatal and the yiqtol are translated as present, though they are depending on the Septuagint, which uses an Aorist in both cases! In light of this, it would seem that we ought to make a distinction between the spiritual and literal sense ... don't you?Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-7610283687266524832009-05-14T03:22:00.000+02:002009-05-14T03:22:00.000+02:00Phil - - J. M. Neale in his collection of the wisd...Phil - - J. M. Neale in his collection of the wisdom of the fathers on the psalms (4 volumes - very long subtitle: Commentary on the Psalms, primitive and medieval writers and from the various office books and hymns of the Roman, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Gallican, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac Rites) <br /><br />He writes this on Psalm 24:2 <br /><br />The literal sense of this verse is much disputed (much follows on Augustine, the Greek Fathers, S Crysostom ...) But in the mystical sense, the seas may be taken for troubles and temptations on which the earth, that is, the Church dispersed through the earth, is founded; while the floods signify the effusion of God's graces by which she is also established. The bitter water and the sweet water are both equally necessary for her; [if this is St C, I Bob think he's got it] the waves of the sea that "are mighty and rage horribly" on the one side; the rivers of the flood that make glad the city of God on the other. S. Ambrose, but less happily, understands both the seas and the floods of one and the same thing, namely, tribulation: in tribulation, says he, the Church is founded, in tempests and storms, in anxieties and griefs; and it is prepared in the floods of adversities.<br /><br />So - perfection of text and interpretation of verb form aside, there is in the history of reception a tradition that makes present the act of creation - particularly of the church in the earth. And it justifies, in its response to God, an understanding of such presence suggested by the translation. So 'establishes' gets my vote.Bob MacDonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11335631079939764763noreply@blogger.com