Session 8 - Module 2 - Psalms 1 and 2 and the Seams of the TaNaKh - Reading the Bible as Meditation Literature

All right, it's our final session. There's so many things that we could talk about and cool things to show you, but I can't talk about everything all the time all at once. So we're going to talk about just a few things for a bit of time at once. Psalm 1, we begin with this little survey of the word meditation, translated as meditation. And there were two moments that I mentioned where you get a portrait of the ideal reader of the Hebrew scriptures who meditates on them day and night. And one was from Psalm 1, the other was from Joshua, chapter 1, which is all the way back at the beginning. So I just want to jog our memories and just keep Psalm 1 on the brain. And recall that in Joshua, chapter 1, verse 7, God says to Joshua, be careful to obey the Torah, same word, Psalm 1, that my servant Moses gave you. Don't turn from it to the right or the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Copy and paste from Psalm 1, verse 3, everything he does, he will bring success. It's the same exact phrase. Keep the scroll of the Torah always on your mouth, meditate on it day and night, be careful to do everything written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful. It's that same phrase again. So it's more than coincidental that the portrait of Joshua is the same as the portrait of Psalm 1 guy. Elsewhere in Bible Project Classroom, there's a whole class called Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, that if you don't know about this already, you should because it's the coolest thing in the world. The oldest shape that we have for the arrangement of the scrolls of what Christians call the Old Testament is called Tanakh in Jewish tradition, which is an acronym, the T, the N, and the K, for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible. So the T refers to the Hebrew word Torah, which refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The N of Tanakh refers to this large middle section called the Prophets. This is the Hebrew word Nevi'im, begins with an N. And then the K of Tanakh is the Hebrew word Writings, Ketuvim, which refers to the third major collection of the Hebrew Bible. It's a collection of scrolls. So all of these different books of the Old Testament, whenever on one scroll together, they would have been kept in a library, probably a shelf like a wall with holes in it. But as a group of scrolls, at some point in the collection, the beginnings and endings of key places in these scrolls were coordinated together to unify the collection as a whole. And what's so interesting is that the opening two poems of the Psalm scroll, which is the traditional opening of that third section of the Writings, matches precisely the language from Joshua chapter one. We just looked at it with the Torah Meditator.

Isn't that interesting? That the first paragraph of the Prophets matches the first paragraph of the first poem of the Writings. That's interesting. Yeah. So remember how comparing beginnings and endings worked on the sentence level, then the paragraph level, and then on up? It's the same principle at work here. So somebody wants me to think about Joshua in relationship to Psalm one and two. Remember we just compared Psalm one and two and thought, are those about the same person? Let's ponder Joshua for a moment. Who's Joshua? When God says to Joshua, you will have success wherever you go, within the framework of the book of Joshua, what does that mean? Well, where is he? You know, and what's he about to do? He's about to go guide the people in to the land promised to Abraham. And there's all of these kings who are going to attack Israel from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west. And what's Joshua going to do to these kings if they attack? He's going to fight them and he's going to beat them. And he beats them all. And he even beats them without using swords, like blowing trumpets on So, isn't it interesting that what Joshua goes on to do in the book of Joshua is like what you read about in Psalm 2. Isn't that interesting? To give the people an inheritance and a possession. So what are broken out into separate ideas, meditating on Torah, being guided by God's living voice. Think of Joshua, don't use normal army tactics, in fact sheath all your swords and march around the city and blow trumpets. Like how is that not living by Yahweh's instruction? Because that's not really how you win a battle. And when he does the Psalm 1 thing, then what happens is the Psalm 2 thing. Joshua becomes actually a narrative image of the joined figure of Psalm 1 and 2 together. Isn't that fascinating? That can't be coincidence. So that was a little meditation there, I mean that was way too quick. And there's a lot more that's interesting there. But that becomes for me a confirmation that Psalm 1 and 2 are meant to be read together and that both together function as a messianic image, pointing forward to the advent of the

future son of David, who will do what Joshua did, but in a new and different way. Let's not forget that the name Yehoshua, which is the long form of the name of Yeshua, who's Jesus. So come now, come now, like what's going on? That's really interesting. All right, so that's Psalm 1 and 2. This is not the Psalm scroll, but it's a quick sketch. So the Psalm scroll consists of 150 poems and we had Psalm 1 and 2 at the beginning. Speaking of the beginnings and endings of things, what is very interesting about the conclusion to the Psalm scroll, the Psalms has a really clear beginning, we call it Psalms 1 and 2. It also has a really clear conclusion with the final five poems. And there's actually, internally, there's five sections to the book of Psalms. It's broken up into five, so there's both five kind of internal collections of poems and then it ends with a five poem conclusion. Psalms 146 through 150 are super fascinating and there's all of these interesting relationships between both Psalm 1 and 2 and, curiously, Genesis 1 through 3. So what I'm noticing is the beginning of the Psalm scroll and the ending of the Psalm scroll are rich with hyperlinks back to Genesis 1 and 2. Remember how the streams of water and the tree and God's instruction, all of that made us think about God's command to Adam and Eve about the tree, it was fed by the river, that kind of thing. The two paths of the righteous and the wicked in Psalm 1, first time the word path appears in the Hebrew Bible is the path leading out of Eden. So there's a path into Eden or a path out of Eden. It's one path, but two directions on it that lead you to two different destinations, life or death. Psalm 2, the king from the line of David subduing rebel nations, said on analogy to humans who are to subdue the chaos and the wildness of the earth, the rebel kings are invited to show discernment. Do you remember that? Be wise kings, show discernment and be warned. That word discernment is exactly what the woman sees that the tree of knowing good and bad will bring, but on her own terms.

So that's an interesting little relationship. So that's Psalm 1 and 2 in Genesis 1 through 3. Psalm 146 through 50 is awesome. Here's just a few little things that you'll notice if you are looking for them. How good is life? That's how Psalm 146, come on, come on. In other words, the first word of Psalm 1 at the introduction, the first word of Psalm 146, the conclusion is that phrase, how good is life or how blessed are. You're like, come on, that's a good one. How good is life for those who have the God of Jacob as their delivering ally? is the maker of the skies and the land and the sea. Oh yeah, I read a story about that. Genesis two, verse one, and thus were finished the skies and the land. And notice how here the God of Jacob is the delivering ally, the Azar for Israel. In Genesis two, the making of the woman is God providing the woman as a Azar for the human, the delivering ally. So what God is to Israel is what the woman is to the man. Then that's a provocative thing to think about. Psalm 148, it goes, let the heavens praise Yahweh, let the clouds praise Yahweh, let the angels praise Yahweh, let the birds praise Yahweh, let the fish in the sea praise Yahweh, let Leviathan in the deeps praise Yahweh, let the creatures on the land praise Yahweh, let the plants praise Yahweh, let the, it just works through Genesis one,

calling every part of creation to praise. Psalm 150 says, let the sky, the blue thing up there, the blue dome up there, let that praise Yahweh, let everything, this is from the final line of the Psalms, let everything that has life breath, neshama, it's the word used from the life breath of the humans in Genesis one. This is so cool. So somebody really wants me to then take Psalm one and two as the intro, Psalm 146 to 50, view them as summing up the whole thing. Yahweh has raised up the king to bring justice to the rebel nations and let every layer of the cosmos as a result rejoice. And because that is how God is fulfilling his purposes for all of creation and for humanity. It's this crescendo. So we've just looked at beginnings. We looked at the beginning of Psalm one, the beginning of the prophets, the beginning of the Torah, and they're all linked together. And then we looked at the ending of the Psalms scroll, which is linked to the beginning of the Psalms scroll, which together is linked to the beginning of Genesis. How you doing? So this is totally how it works. I'm pretty animated because this is just the coolest stuff in the world. But I think for me, the light bulb moment was I was shown connections like this a long time ago

and I thought it was super cool. And I was excited as I am now. But then when I began to see that what your mind is doing on this highest level is the same thing you're being taught to do for how to read any biblical literature on the smallest level. Look at the parts. They're each one's an aspect, right? No one can offer the whole all at once. But your mind, as you saturate yourself in the literature and in the poems and in the stories, your mind will begin to create holes. And that patient sitting with this aspect and comparing it to that, this line to that line, the beginning to the end, the middle to each part is teaching you how to think and how to, not just how to read ancient literature, but how to think theologically, how to think about God and myself. And what you're doing as you read a story or a poem is the same muscle memory then that you can put to work when you are looking at the beginning and ending of the prophets and every level in between. I began to really read the opening line, opening paragraph of Psalm 1. In the Torah, Yahweh is his delight. Like there's something so aesthetically beautiful about how these texts work. They are about the infinitely beautiful God, but they're also just really awesome

and sophisticated and ornate. And they're beautiful. They are worth delighting in. And the more you delight in them, the more you'll be motivated to haggah on them. And I actually, I am now convinced that there is more than a human lifetime's worth of material to haggah. Like I don't have any hopes of doing this forever. I won't live long enough. And that's okay. But because it's like the journey is the destination also. And I'm being formed as I hear a voice that's not my own, but that also I'm bringing fully who I am and my experiences to these texts. And it can work together in a way that's not just, well, what do you think it means? And that's okay to say what you think it means, but I am also interested in what the authors think it means. And what if those two can be joined? And I think this is a way of reading that in my experience has joined them in a really transformative way for me. So I just unloaded a whole bunch there. Thoughts, reflections, and or questions? Yeah, I think there's a dimension within, presented here, the canonical approach of methodology regarding intertextuality that I think brings a beauty to, as we've been mentioning, this intentional formation of the text that we have before us, this final form,

which in my own approach, as I engage it, I find a lot of beauty present in the literary, artistic, bringing about of what's being communicated. So I enjoy it. You're into it. That's what I hear you saying. Yeah, maybe just to name that, this is a reading tool set that because we're trying to recover something that's at the roots of the Christian story, because this is a method, it's a way of reading and composing that Jesus himself would have learned to the literature of his Bible that we call the Hebrew Bible. So I have found this is a very unifying tool set across all the different parts of the Christian tradition, because this is certainly how Jesus was shaped, to read and make sense of these texts. And my experience is also in reading the Gospels, like weird things that Jesus says are often, the logic underneath them is he's putting together images from different parts of the scriptural collection in ways that actually do make sense once you see their interrelationships here. But if you don't know that, then talking about himself as a vine and a door, you're like, those are cool metaphors. But what about Psalm 80? Like Psalm 80 is really interesting. And where did Jesus get these ideas of vines and doors in a connected way, like that kind of thing.

And you're like, well, he wasn't just a colorful user of metaphors. There was a deep coherence to how images work in his thought and in his teaching. That's been a layer of discovery that's been really fun and is unifying, truly unifying in the Christian tradition. It's pretty cool. I just feel hopeful, I think, for just the average reader when they get a chance to practice the skill. I think there's a piece of delight that's been missing for a lot of people, including myself in past reading God's word. And I don't know why it's so delightful, to be honest, to make all these connections, but it's so delightful. Like when you're pulling it all out, you're like, oh wow, it's so beautiful, it's amazing. So delight is such a wonderful word because that's what I'm feeling. And then you're kind of waiting for your next adventure when you jump in. Yeah, what is it? Delight, it names an experience of surprise and taking pleasure in something that's just good in and of itself, like a flower or a playing child is just like, there's no debate here, that's just pure good. That's the word used. Yeah, my hunch is here at the table,

those of you taking the class online, if you're taking this class, you have already pre-selected, which means you're interested in the Bible in some way. And my hunch is we have all had seasons where delight is not the word that we would use to describe our relationship to scripture. Not that it's been bad, but there are some seasons where it doesn't feel that way. And that's okay. We're outside of Eden. Life's actually not that great out here, but there are these invasions of goodness, right? These surprises that we experience and if scripture can become more consistently a source of that in my life, apparently Psalm 1 is written by somebody who thinks that that should be more normal in our experience. What if it could be? That'd be pretty cool. I'd like that. What's so interesting about this tool set is it feels simple. It's not a silver bullet, but it has consistently, for me, brought that kind of delight in ways that I never expected. Maybe, a little bit of concluding autobiography about the genesis of this class, and I keep alluding to the tool set. I started reading the Bible in my mid-early twenties, and I didn't grow

up reading the Bible. I didn't know anything. And I had the experience of bewilderment mostly. I was down for Jesus, but half of what he said, like, rocked me at the core and made me want to follow him, and the other half was like, I don't know what he's talking about, but probably somebody knows what he means. So I signed up for classes at a local Christian college, and I sat in these classes with two wizard professors who were trying to invite people to learn how to read Scripture in its historical context so that you can hear what God has to say to his people that transcends that historical context. And learning how to appreciate it as literary art, as ancient Jewish literature, and that began me on a journey to really wanting to understand the kind of culture and assumptions about reality that would produce someone like Jesus and produce these texts. That led on a long journey. I went to school for too long, spent a lot of money to go to school. It's not reproducible. I don't recommend it to most people. But what I'm grateful for was a lot of years to sit reading ancient Jewish literature and ancient Near Eastern literature of all these times and places, and I made a bunch of friends along the way that were interested in the same things. That group of friends, friends of mine who are now professors of biblical studies at different universities, but we got, two of them hatched a plan a number of years ago with, why is it that the thing that we are so into is locked up in books that nobody reads, and we feel like this is probably really worth sharing with the world. So this group of friends started a research seminar called The Texture Seminar. There is a website all about their academic work and what they're doing at texturepoetics.com. What they're trying to do is from historical academic end is really inductively recover what is it that ancient Jewish scribes thought they were doing, and why did they make these texts the way that they are, and it's academic to the core, and I love it. And these are dear friends. But we start gathering every summer, and what we would do is work independently on some part of the Hebrew Bible, putting the tool set to work, and then coming together and comparing our notes. And it was kind of a way of like a laboratory, like almost like scientific, like see what we find, and then come together, and if only one of us saw a thing, we're like, maybe you're crazy. But if a whole bunch of us saw something, we're like, how are we all seeing the same thing when we put on the same tool set? And so we're multiple years into the project, and that's really the genesis of where all of this comes

for me over the last eight years that we've been working together. And I've learned so much from these friends and scholars. For me, this class and the Bible Project is a way of making as accessible as possible just some of these basic insights. If you happen to be a hyper nerd, and you want to follow the rabbit trail down all the academic literature, this website has all of that and more. But the heartbeat of it all truly is to help people rediscover a way of engaging Scripture that truly creates a sense of delight and discovery. And so to the degree that we've experienced that, I commission you to go explore other parts of the Bible, and then get friends together, and help them see what you're seeing, and share the love, you know? And my hunch is that it's more accessible than more of us imagine. We're actually going to have one more session, concluding session, where I'm going to say virtually nothing, and I would love to hear some of your concluding reflections. But for now, let us close our meditations on Psalm 102.