Many people think the Bible is like a hologram, any part of which shows the truth. The practice of scholars, preachers and teachers, of citing single verses or lists of verses to demonstrate something, encourages this view. The claim that the Bible is "inerrant" in all its parts seems to seal the idea. Yet in the Bible God itself told us in the Bible that it is false!
Juxtaposition: putting things together to make something "more than the sum of the parts" is a common artistic skill, it is common (but often unrecognised) in the Bible. As my least favourite book of the Bible helps reveal!
For those of you feeling deprived of no new episodes added to the humour in the Bible series, while you are waiting, you can head over to two posts of Lingamish's which elicited quite an array of candidates. First was Whoa to you who laugh and then incorrigibly followed by Funny Stuff in the Bible a short post with a long tail!
This post starts to talk about Psalm 22, mentioning Job 10 on the way, we will examine these passages as a way into understanding "complaint psalms". Complaints are the commonest type of psalm in the book of psalms. You might like to listen to my earlier post "Arguing with God: Jer 12:1-4" first, it sets the scene for this one, and should probably have been called "Complaint psalms: Part One"!
I hope the next post - in a few days - will follow up looking some more at Psalm 22.
