Dr Simon Reads...

Psalms 136-140 Surveillance, Vengeance and 70s German Pop Reggae. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP Psalms 136 “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” I said at the end of the last batch that I was hoping for something original, and here it is. Well, sort of. The subject matter of this psalm is nothing new in the psalms – it lists ways in which God is worthy of worship, from forming the world to taking the Israelites out of Egypt and helping them defeat the Ammonites and our old pal King Og. What is new, however, is the structure – every line ends with the chorus of “ for his mercy endureth forever ”, and...

Psalms 131-135 Welcome Home God. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP Psalms 131 “(A Song of degrees of David.) LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.” A really short psalm of just three verses, with the psalmist announcing how humble and well-behaved he is, all of which puts me in mind of the neologism “humblebragging”. Psalms 132 “A Song of degrees. LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions” If the idea of a song of degrees is one to be sung going up the temple steps, this one fits very well. It is a reminder of how David made a promise to build ...

Dr Simon Reads… 500 Words 2018 The final 50 stories are now up for the 2018 run of the BBC 500 Words Competition. For more information on the 500 Words competition see my post on the 2017 awards; but in brief it’s a creative writing competition run by the BBC for children aged 5-13, who can any kind of story they like, as long as it is within 500 words. Three winners from each of the two age categories (5-9 and 10-13) get their stories read out by a famous actor in a live final, plus win a big stack of books. Since its inception in 2011 it’s grown massively with tens of thousands of entries each year. In each of these ruminations I look at the winning stories, and the celebrity reading, but I encourage you to also check out the other 48 finalists for each year; the writing on display is often breath-takingly good. ( http://bbc.in/2pWJLrW ). This year I’m going to do something slightly different – give a brief description and discussion of each of the finalists, but by bi...

Psalms 126-130 Mowing Grass and Making Babies Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP Psalms 126 “(A Song of degrees.) When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.” I remember last time wondering when the meaning of the musical instructions became obscured. This psalm looks to be written after the Abyssinian captivity, making that disaster less likely to be when the knowledge was lost. I suppose it could refer to Egypt, but then Zion (i.e. the city of Jerusalem) didn’t exist at that point, so it must be one of the Mesopotamian invasions. Which would lend weight to my theory that it was the Jewish war of t...

Psalms 121-125 Singing Up The Stairs. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Psalms 121 “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.” This is another “ song of degrees ”, which I had to look up. Of course, it’s another form of instruction to the musicians, and is thought to be for a psalm that is to be sung while ascending the temple steps, possibly a verse per step. Which begs the question, and also one relevant to the other musical instructions – why does no-one know for sure? It’s interesting that the words have come down to us from two and a half to three thousand years ago, but on the way the music got lost. My gues...

Psalms 116-120 ‘A’, you’re Adorable. Plus the One Verse Psalm. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Psalms 116 “I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.” I can’t recall, in the previous 115 psalms, quite such a personal one as this. The majority of the psalms that give reason of why God should be worshipped tend to focus on the big events – saving the Israelites from Egypt, the sojourn in the desert, the conquest of the promised land, the raising of the temple in Jerusalem and so on. In this psalm, the psalmist says that he will worship God because God helped him in a time of need (delivering his soul from de...

Psalms 111-115 Meditations about Meditations. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Psalms 111 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments : his praise endureth for ever.” This is a short psalm, and one that succinctly tells the listener why God is great and why you should worship Him, even if, to my mind, the arguments are perhaps a bit circular. The last verse, the one quoted above, caught my eye though. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom makes a good saying, and it’s almost Islamic in its sentiment – that a person can never know true wisdom until they accep...

Psalms 106-110 Lords and The Lord and Gates of Bronze. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Psalms 106 “Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.” I remember last time the previous psalm recapped the patriarchs from Abraham through t Moses, and I mentioned that it was odd that the Red Sea wasn’t discussed. And now here it is, and this psalm continues the recap vein, so I can only assume that the last three were all part of the same writing process. Here, the psalmist continues to illustrate God’s greatness with examples from ea...