“To be or not to be, that is the question”~~“I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”~~“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the road less traveled by”~~“Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you”~~“Behold I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. I will rejoice in doing them good.”~~Upon the eve of the fourth dayDown the street and across the wayIf nothing contrary have you to sayLet us dine at Chipotle - Original Composition by Brandon Kinel-KobrinTexts recounting divine revelations have generally been highly even exceptionally poetic texts. This is because in the ancient world Poetry was considered the “Language of the Gods.”
Allan McNicholEntranced with Scripture as a source of ultimate truth, of ultimate guidance and eternal life, students paid little attention to the sheer poetry and beauty found in it. Generation after generation, the Bible was read as dogma, as law, as prayer, for edification. To read the Bible as literature or history would have been incongruous. To the mind of the faithful and particularly the mystic, any aesthetic appreciation of the Bible was regarded as a profanation.
The message of who God is and what he has done is not communicated in spite of its poetic form, but uniquely and exactly through that form.
1) It facilitates an encounter with the mind and heart of God Romans 11:34
Poetry persuades, not through argument alone, but through encounter – encounter with the voice that speaks through the prophet.”
David Seal2) Biblical Poetry is not “One and done” reading
Luke 1:66-67
“The chief characteristic of prophetic thought is the primacy of God’s involvement in history. History is the domain with which the prophets’ minds are occupied. They are moved by a responsibility for society, by a sensitivity to what the moment demands.”
Luke 1:68-69Psalm 18:2Luke 1:70-73Genesis 22:17-18Luke 1:74-75Genesis 2:15Numbers 18:5-6Ezekiel 44:141 Peter 2:9Luke 1:76Isaiah 40:3Luke 1:77-79Romans 11:32Isaiah 53:3-5Colossians 2:13-15
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