Oct 6, 2015

Poetry in the Greek New Testament

"Man cannot live without a song"--I read a sentence somewhat like this in Our Father Abraham by Marvin Wilson, but now I'm too lazy to find the exact quote and the page number. Anyway, recently I feel deeply that a person really cannot live without songs. Singing is different from speaking. We need songs. In seeking to immerse myself in NT Greek / Koine Greek, I really need songs--songs of praise and prayers. The NT contains no book of psalms. So I start excerpting and learning the Psalms quotations in the NT, together with other verses written in the genre of poetry, such as quotations of the OT prophets. Exclamations, crying out to the Lord, expressing wonder and amazement, pouring out one's heart to the Lord with words of biblical songs, singing--is essential. Life is not prosaic.

Unfortunately I am not good at composing tunes. So for the time being I read them aloud as poems with feeling. I hope that someone can turn these NT Greek poetic lines into songs with tunes. If you have done so, please tell me! Actually I'd like to try to make music with these words, but I do not have a guitar or a piano here when I'm sojourning in another city!

1. What is Man
Heb 2:6-8=Psa 8:4-6
τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὅτι μιμνῄσκῃ αὐτοῦ, [ind. pres. mid.]
ἢ υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ὅτι ἐπισκέπτῃ αὐτόν;


ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι παρ᾽ ἀγγέλους, [ἐλαττοω][βραχυς, εια, υ. acc. n.]
δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφάνωσας αὐτόν,
πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ.
2. O the Depth!
Rom 11:33-36, with Isa 40:13 and Job 41:11
Ὦ βάθος πλούτου καὶ σοφίας καὶ γνώσεως θεοῦ!
ὡς ἀνεξεραύνητα τὰ κρίματα αὐτοῦ
καὶ ἀνεξιχνίαστοι αἱ ὁδοὶ αὐτοῦ. [incomprehensible]
τίς γὰρ ἔγνω νοῦν κυρίου; ἢ τίς σύμβουλος αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο; [adviser]
ἢ τίς προέδωκεν αὐτῷ, καὶ ἀνταποδοθήσεται αὐτῷ;
ὅτι ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα·

αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν!

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