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Greek Psalms in a Year (feel free to join us)


Abram K-J

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With the recently released Göttingen edition of the Psalms and Odes in Accordance, I'm going to be reading through the Greek Psalms in a year, with a group started by someone who was in a Greek Isaiah in a Year group I led two years ago.

 

That Isaiah group was great fun. Please, fellow Accordance-using Greek readers, consider joining us! I had a great workspace set up for Greek Isaiah and will do the same for the Psalms. I can't wait to do the readings. The Greek Psalter is beautiful (as is its Hebrew counterpart).

 

The reading starts January 1, 2015. I collected a few more details and put them here.

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These kinds of study groups are the best! So much fun. I've just joined a similar group (with focus on Syriac apocrypha). I haven't read Syriac in a year now, so I'm looking forward to "knock the rust off", so to speak.

Edited by Pchris
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We'll have a lot of fun and learn much as well.

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I want to help pull together a list of resources for reading through Greek Psalms.

 

Is anyone interested in contributing to that? I know Tony Pyles will be; he's already recommended this book. And I just saw this today from Brill.

 

I'm just getting into Evernote--isn't there a way to publicly collaborate on a note? If so (I'll bet Rick M. or Graham could confirm), I'll get one set up, and keep track of things there.

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If you only have the free level of Evernote any shared resources are read only. You have to upgrade to a premium level to have collaborative notes.

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If I upgrade to Premium (doing a free trial now), can even non-Premium users collaborate to a note I start (as a Premium user)?

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only one way to find out… (well, maybe there's more than one, but that's not rhetorically powerful)

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Okay--stay tuned. I think I have your email address, so maybe I'll send you a "tester."

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Abram,

 

this looks very interesting! Could you maybe elaborate a bit on this? How does it work? :)

Also, since I have Koine Greek vocabulary of merely 650 words (I know all the words which occur >50 times in NT, and now learning all which occur >=5 times in NT) and my grammar is rudimentary - I know case endings and could parse maybe 2/3 of tenses, and that's it (I am a pure chemistry student in uni) - would it make much sense for me to join this?

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If you scroll down the Facebook group page (here), you will see that Russell has described how he pulled together the reading plan. Other than that, the idea is that participants read on their own (or with others in person if they can), then post questions, comments, observations, links, etc. in the Facebook group.

 

I think you could at least give it a shot--the Psalms are poetry, of course, and poetry in any language is always the hardest genre in that language. Maybe read a Psalm or two now and see what you think?

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Thanks Abram!

 

I will surely give it shot instead of my daily Greek NT reading.

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LXX Greek in general (and especially poetry) is harder than NT Greek, but that can be a good thing!

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Definitely, as long as it stays a nice challenge and not something too discouraging. I imagine after reading LXX, NT in Greek is so much more easier to read.

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Yes, definitely! Even though Matthew is harder Greek than Mark or John, going to it from a year of Greek Isaiah made Matthew seem easier.

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This sounds great! Only one crucial question, can people who do not own this Accordance module be able to follow along?

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Hey Abram, Russell

 

I'm not sure if I will participate or not - I'm reading Genesis right now in the morning and Hebrews in the evenings. I have just completed Hebrews and will start again on it soon because of its complexity. So I may not have time. But ....

 

I wanted to ask something about vocab. Are you just using Accordance glosses and output from Analysis or Parsing from queries against the LXX (Rahlfs or Goettingen or ....) ? If you are it would be a simple matter to get lists for weeks or months onto something like Cram so that people can crib vocab on their phones or the web. I do this all the time and have tooling for it.

 

Anyhow let me know what you think.

 

Oh and are building a User Tool for this ?

 

Thx

D

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This sounds great! Only one crucial question, can people who do not own this Accordance module be able to follow along?

 

Ah, yes, of course! I was just making sure to include a product link to keep it Accordance-relevant (though it already is for me and will be for others).

 

You can find the full LXX text from the German Bible Society free and online here: Rahlfs online.

 

The Rahlfs text in Accordance (or Swete, for that matter) will also give you the Greek Psalms--apparatuses would be optional, and only of interest to those who wanted to do textual criticism/analysis along the way.

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Hey Abram, Russell

 

I'm not sure if I will participate or not - I'm reading Genesis right now in the morning and Hebrews in the evenings. I have just completed Hebrews and will start again on it soon because of its complexity. So I may not have time. But ....

 

I wanted to ask something about vocab. Are you just using Accordance glosses and output from Analysis or Parsing from queries against the LXX (Rahlfs or Goettingen or ....) ? If you are it would be a simple matter to get lists for weeks or months onto something like Cram so that people can crib vocab on their phones or the web. I do this all the time and have tooling for it.

 

Anyhow let me know what you think.

 

Oh and are building a User Tool for this ?

 

Thx

D

 

Russell could speak to the vocab. I made a list for Isaiah when I led that group, using Accordance. It looks like this (PDF).

 

There's an online reader, Daniel, too--

Can you provide a screenshot of what you mean?

 

Stay tuned on a User Tool...are you willing to help, if needed?

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Hey Abram,

 

Never seen that site before. Cool. So you have a way to generate vocab lists.

What I do allows me to use a flashcard program to drill with on my phone/laptop. I tend to do that for a day or so (depending upon how many words I have cram into my thick scone) and then I try to read without reference to the list - I fail of course, but not usually utterly dismally. :)

 

I can try to get a screen shot off my phone later or you can check out the iphone and android apps at cram.com - they have a bunch of screen shots though curiously not in koine.

 

Oh and I forgot. Is there a way to create your own devotional in Acc, ? I thought there was but maybe I'm just remembering a request for it. If you need a script to create one I should be able help.

 

Thx

D

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The only reason my excitement appears contained is because I've been asleep on the other side of the world from most of you. This is fantastic! Pardon me if I comment on a number of things from above, en masse.

 

As already mentioned, one can follow along in any number of LXX modules which include Psalms. If you'd prefer to make things more difficult for yourself (I love being able to turn off Instant Details!) you could get Swete's text of the Psalms on Google Books, or read along in Codex Sinaiticus (even reading the uncials from the photos, if you're up to it).

 

For vocab, Chamberlain's The Greek of the Septuagint would be a big help. Abram has reviewed it previously, and it's been requested for Accordance before, both here, and more recently, here (click through the link and add your voice!).

 

Athanasius's Epistle to Marcellinus re the use of the Psalms is a fun read to go along with this, and can be found in the Patrologia Graece on Google Books. It's available in English translation both in this book (together with his Life of Antony) and in this one (as an appendix to his On the Incarnation).

 

Re Evernote, from what I understand, as long as the person who owns a given note(book) has a premium account, others with whom it is shared can view and edit without themselves having a premium account. But that may have changed. I wonder if Evernote, or perhaps a dedicated blog, might be a good way for those of us who don't have (or deliberately gave up) Facebook to participate more fully…

 

Anyway, I'd better get some marking done. But, yay!

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There was talk of a series of commentaries on the LXX put together by the people who did the NETS, does anyone know if this series finally came about?

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The short answer is no. It has been very slow moving. The guidelines have now been posted here, and Al Pietersma has published commentary on a few psalms as his work has progressed, some of which are available on his page. The SBL series is focused on the text as produced (i.e., what is the translator doing in trying to understand and faithful render his Hebrew Vorlage).

 

There is a Brill series that is focused more on the text as received (i.e., what would a Greek reader make of this text as it stands), for which several volumes are already in print. The Psalms volume is not one of them, though.

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Re Evernote, from what I understand, as long as the person who owns a given note(book) has a premium account, others with whom it is shared can view and edit without themselves having a premium account. But that may have changed. I wonder if Evernote, or perhaps a dedicated blog, might be a good way for those of us who don't have (or deliberately gave up) Facebook to participate more fully…

 

Anyway, I'd better get some marking done. But, yay!

Helen: Would you (kindly) consider setting up a Greek Psalms in a Year forum here, if it's not too much trouble? I can elaborate on how I think it would benefit Accordance, and it certainly would be a kindness to those of us reading, especially since so far a number of us are Accordance users. I could help moderate if needed.

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I could help moderate, as well!


What would people like to see in an accompanying user tool (or notes)? General bibliography? Vocabulary? Perhaps some of us can collaborate, even using Scrivener or Evernote or some such tool…

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