August 2015
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Psalmtweets: Psalms 61-70
This post continues the summary of recent psalmtweets. These psalmtweets are part of a set attempting to say something simultaneously about a specific psalm and the whole Psalter. This is working out with varying degrees of success. Psalm 61: The picture of eternal life in the Psalms is one of dwelling with Yahweh and worshiping… Continue reading
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The Unexpected Voice of God?
Sometimes strange things happen and we are left wondering if God is speaking to us in the most peculiar of ways. Something like this happened to me this morning. I was walking to work, a 35-40 minute stroll through parts of North Guildford. This is something I have taken to doing for just over a… Continue reading
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Musing About ‘The Road Goes Ever On’
In both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien presents a song, The Road Goes Ever On, which is said to have been written by Bilbo Baggins. It occurs once in The Hobbit and three times in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was an active churchgoing Roman Catholic and I suspect that… Continue reading
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Psalms for People under Pressure
Jonathan Aitken, Psalms for People under Pressure, London: Continuum (2004). This book is difficult to classify. In part this is because of the fame of the author. It is part commentary, part introduction to praying the psalms and part biographical. Many readers, i.e. those who know something of Jonathan Aitken’s ‘fall from grace’, will read… Continue reading
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Psalmtweets: Psalms 51-60
This is a continuation of my latest series of psalmtweets which is an attempt to see how each psalm contributes to the whole. This is part of a broader experiment in using psalmtweets as a daily spiritual discipline. Psalm 51: The Psalms speak of the need for a broken spirit and a willing spirit, all… Continue reading
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Exploring the Role of a Canon-Within-the-Canon in Biblical Interpretation, part 8
The Necessity of Diversity within the Canon Perhaps the strongest argument against the legitimacy of some inner canons used in a strong normative sense is that this does violence to a key aspect of the Bible. Though it is a truism of much modern biblical scholarship that dogmatic theology has no place in setting its… Continue reading
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Exploring the Role of a Canon-Within-the-Canon in Biblical Interpretation, part 7
The Inevitability of Presuppositions From the outset of these posts, it has been noted that the terms canon-within-the-canon and inner canon carry a large variety of meanings. Because of the high probability of misunderstanding in the short hand use of these terms it is suggested that neither is a very useful term. Rather more helpfully,… Continue reading
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Exploring the Role of a Canon-Within-the-Canon in Biblical Interpretation, part 6
The Quest for Understanding the Bible on its Own Terms There is not space herein to begin to explore what Childs famously termed a crisis in Biblical Theology. Childs’ reasons for arguing that such a crisis existed, and the fallout of his claim, are widely documented elsewhere.[1] The ‘crisis’ that Childs responds to is not… Continue reading
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Exploring the Role of a Canon-Within-the-Canon in Biblical Interpretation, part 5
History, Praxis and Paradigm Shifts Dunn comments ‘that all Christians have operated with a canon within the canon’.[1] This idea is not controversial today in the light paradigm theory (see below) and it is to be expected that if the Bible is a means of grace it will function within the context of the Church’s… Continue reading
About Me
This blog’s central aim is to explore all aspects of how the Psalter (the biblical psalms) functions as Scripture today.
To this end it will also include book reviews on the Book of Psalms and related topics.
Some posts will reflect more broadly on biblical interpretation or hermeneutics.
If you like what you see here and want to arrange for me to give a lecture, run a teaching event or a short retreat based around The Psalms then contact me so we can discuss how this might work.
PsalterMark 