Poetry
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P is for Psalms
The Psalms are 150 compositions that defy monochromatic definitions— they are never solely poems or prayers or songs. In their threefold nature they are words addressed to God and at the same time the editors of the Hebrew Bible saw in them a greater value as Scripture. In some sense they are authoritative and normative. Continue reading
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Good Friday
My father, my father, why have you forsaken me? A cry of dereliction from parched lips. Real words unspoken yet perfectly formed, through Knotted stomach and coughed up bile. So can time heal this pain and this fear? Utter rejection—can it found some greater purpose? Entering something new by painful paradigm shift? Not a path Continue reading
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C is for Creation
There is no escaping the centrality of the theme of Creation in the Hebrew Bible. Not only is it encountered on numerous occasions, both explicitly and implicitly, but it is also the point of departure of the book of Genesis and therefore the whole Hebrew Bible. In the previous post we considered two polar opposite Continue reading
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Beautiful Lord: An Advent Reflection on Revelation 1:12‒18
What is Beauty? Beauty tends to be something that is peripheral to Western society and culture today. At least that is my view. When things are marginal there is a danger that they are neglected. Worse still, in an age of soundbites we might define important things by a short saying or an aphorism. In Continue reading
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Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as Midrash
Midrash is a complex type of Jewish exegesis that blossomed as Judaism become Rabbinic. One, and it is only one, of the tools of midrash is using diverse texts from the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) to answer questions asked by hearers of the text. In this way a deep reverence for the text is combined Continue reading
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Reflecting on Tweeting the Psalms: Psalms 81-100
I have been tweeting the psalms for well over two years now. The idea is a simple one: I pray a psalm a day as a basic daily devotional activity. I have set it as the bare minimum of my daily engagement with Scripture. Most days it is a foundation to other reading and reflection. Continue reading
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The Journey Motif in Life, Art and Scripture
Introduction Human beings have, since prehistory, attempted to explain life as a journey. In a physical sense life is a journey from the helplessness we display at birth to the lifelessness of death. The physical nature of ‘the end’ is all too tangible. Science can probe it and concludes it is indeed journey’s end. Many Continue reading
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T. S. Eliot and Reading the Psalms
I recently stumbled across an essay on Literary Criticism by T. S. Eliot.[1] A number of issues that Eliot explores in the paper resonate with how we might read the Psalms appropriately. I hope that looking at Eliot’s essay will bear fruit for our use of the Psalms today. I need to be clear from 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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What is the Context of a Psalm? Part 1: Poems, Prayers and Songs
The importance of taking the context of any text into account is an obvious part of interpretation. The notion of context with regard to biblical psalms is, however, a rather complex one. This post does not attempt any resolution of the matter, but rather aims to be a starting point for readers to rethink what 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 