Blogging out temporarily

I hope for more tennis than computer time in San Diego - so no blogging here or at Bob's Blog till next week. [And no twittering either.]

I have a few things in the pipeline: Secundus knew Prisca and Aquila in Corinth - of course since he lived at the estate of Gaius - and he will recount their Pauline-flavoured commentary on the primary division point of Jew and Gentile. He may note how some other divisions of humanity, slave-free, male-female were only lightly touched upon in the literature available to him - but his memory is good. His next section will be to tell us how he and Prima, his sister, approached the fourfold gospel analytically. No doubt his perspective will improve if his 'creator' gets to some of the Gospel sections at SBL this weekend.

In the psalms area, I expect psalm 78 to occupy me for some time. I am about half way through and the cell structure is there, but I have not arranged the columns to see it yet. I hope some of you look at psalm 51 - it is a marvel of intricate construction. Sin, rejoicing, righteousness, and offering are all clearly shown in this image.

Here is the sequence:

1. look for the fourfold circles of verbs in the first column.
2. Observe the threefold circles of nouns in the same column.
3. See what they surround.
4. Observe then the linkages from part 1 to part 2:
5. in the circles: face/presence, and
6. circled: righteousness, delight, joy, crushed, sin-offering.
7. note then the circles in the second column - spirit-heart, and the tight circle of 'broken' around heart's repetition.
8. Note the sevenfold imprecation in the second column.
9. Note how unified the composition of the whole psalm is - like psalm 67 around God's righteousness (we will not forget God's tender mercies either - rachamim - stated once and a feature of Psalm 78 also).