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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." * Interpretation and the Psalms4/18/2005 12:02:03The other day I discovered Augustine's commentaries on the Psalms. They are marvelous things, long meditations that open the songs utterly to a Christian interpretation, so alien to the Jewish reading yet seemingly perfectly suited. Reading Augustine's commentaries are like learning a new language, a whole new set of meanings for words. Any act of reinterpretation in Christianity recalls the passage in Luke 24 where the resurrected Jesus teaches the disciples the new understanding of the scriptures. But can this process be continued ad infinitum? Can we, like Jesus, go on interpreting and reinterpreting until the words have been stripped of raw meaning entirely? Certainly this would be to go to far. If God hopes to teach us through the scriptures, we must end our projections at some point and simply listen to what is said. This is where interpretation must tread very carefully. But I propse that this worry applies very little to the particular book of the Psalms. It is the only book in which any interpretation is by mercy permitted, in which God does not hold us accountable. Instead, they are simply cried to God, who will listen to all. Let our songs mean anything. Let the words take any meaning. The answer, though, for the answer we must listen, and by the answer we must be converted. It is a great service to interpret the Psalms as Augustine did. Doing so suggests a whole new meaning for the communication with God. A new vocabulary and freedom for crying in the same words as our ancestors. The words are given, but the meanings are ours and our hearts'. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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