St.Augustine

Although dense, I found Augustine's writing to be informative and engaging. Of his many points about knowledge and learning in his second book I thought one of his points that was most inherent to the Psalms was his point about language and research. His point was that in order to complete interpret and understand scripture one needs two know that language that the original text was in and that its necessary to look at other manuscripts and scriptures to get a full understanding of any given passage.(pg 38)

I find this really relevant to our past reading of the psalms for a couple of reasons. First is that Alter who translated our book of psalms must have the most complete understanding of the psalms because he looked at the psalms in there original language. Not only this but he looked at the psalms in terms of there original poetic style. Alter is thus truly aware of what has been lost in translation.

Secondly, if one wants to interpret the psalms properly, I think knowledge of Hebrew tradition and scripture is pivotal because the psalms are full of allusions to history and scripture. If you don't know the allusions, than you are not getting the full meaning out of the psalms.

So, props to St. Augustine for helping us understand the psalms.