Thank you, Dr. Ricks!

   Thanks to this man, the Roman group was able to translate their scroll. This Blog is dedicated to him because if it weren't for him, we would have never figured this thing out.
    I went to the JFSB knocking on every Hebrew or Arabic professor's door because, well.... I'm embarrassed to say they wouldn't answer my desperate emails.... So I became frantic. But thanks to this man, who graciously opened his door and let me into his office, our group has a translation! He said the Arabic was illegible... but he Hebrew he read just fine! He insisted that the direct translation was this: "When his Lord hear the words of his wife saying something like 'make me your servant or slave' he became angry." As I was writing his translation down I asked, "Something like?" and he said "Yes. Something like." So I wrote that down! Straight from the authority himself!
     Now, all that needs to be done is to carve it into our wax tablet! You'll see the final product tomorrow!

Psalms- Remembering Jehovah through Song

When I was looking for some ancient Hebrew oral subjects I thought I wouldn't be able to find anything. Then I realized that it was staring me in the face. Probably the most famous songs in Christian history the book of Psalms are a perfect example of oral expression in Hebrew culture.

Psalm 8 sung in Hebrew

It is important to recognize that the psalms are not doctrinal statements, creeds, or history but that they are both poetry and prayer, poetry intended to be set to music and prayed in worship. In ancient Israel, no less than in the modern world, poetry and music were the means by which people expressed the deepest of human feelings and emotions, the most profound of insights, and the most tragic and joyous of human experiences. It is no accident that after Israel’s deliverance from Egypt on the banks of the Reed Sea the people sang (Exod. 15:1-18)! Or that Hannah lapses into song at the dedication of Samuel (1 Sam. 2:1-10; note Lk. 1:46-55)! Or that David mourns Saul and Jonathan in a beautiful poetic elegy (2 Sam. 2:19-27). Much of the language of the Psalms is metaphorical and symbolic, the language of the poet.

The Psalter, as the Book of Psalms is often called, is actually a collection of different kinds of poetry spanning many centuries of history (from c. 1100 BC, Pss. 29, 68, to c. 400 BC, Ps. 119) and reaching essentially its present form around 300 BC. Evidences of the collective nature of the Psalter are seen in its division into five 'books' (for example, Ps. 72:20), the references to various authors (for example, Psalm 89), as well as the different time periods represented (Ps. 137 is clearly from the period of Exile, c. 550 BC).

In biblical worship, the psalms were chanted or declaimed. We do not know exactly how this music sounded, though recent research has confirmed the similarity between Hebraic music and ancient forms of Christian chant. (See the article on Music and Worship in the Bible on this web site.) The psalms formed part of the developing liturgy of the Eastern and Western churches, along with Greek and Latin hymnody. In the Western church, the psalms found more regular usage within the "offices" or daily periodic worship of the monastic communities. The Catholic heritage of chant, often called Gregorian chant because of the influence of Pope Gregory the Great (540-604), includes the use of the psalms sung to standard "tones" or melodies according to conventional rules. This music was performed by choirs of clergy or members of monastic orders, who had developed the necessary skills. Originally the psalms were sung monophonically, i.e. with one unharmonized melody, or "plain chant." In the later Middle Ages additional voices were introduced, with such devices as counterpoint (a different simultaneous melody) or organum (a sustained tone over which others sang the melody). The departure from the simpler form of chanting was opposed by those who believed that more elaborate musical detail called attention to the performance and thus degraded the worship of God.

This early psalmody was exclusively vocal. It is paradoxical that the psalms, which so often mention the use of musical instruments in the praise of God, were sung for centuries in the church without any instrumental accompaniment. Today both the Eastern Orthodox churches and some Reformed and other Protestant groups exclude musical instruments from use in worship.

Cited works:

http://www.crivoice.org/psalmsintro.html

http://www.laudemont.org/a-stp.htm