iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah I think I must have got something wrong but I'm sure he'll clarify soon. And of course radiocarbon dating is talking about when the skins were made not the end of the story. I think it's about explaining the statistical picture of decreasing deviation from MT tracking along Qum-->Mas-->Mur

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 1h

Thanks I'll chase this one up. I've loved everything else of hers I've read!

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 5h

But yeah, I need to clarify that with him. If the site was still occupied, weren't the texts living? Or is he saying only the biblical texts were deposited earlier and the sectarian texts came later? In any case, I've emailed to clarify!

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 5h

It's Young 2002 Stabilization of the Biblical Text (DSD). It puts these texts on a line of development which explains the narrowing in (what become necessarily) later Judean Desert deposits. It also aligns with the Popovic AI/C14 article from last year which pushed a lot of dates back.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 9h

Okay now I'm reading the opposite! A view I hadn't read before: the scrolls were already deposited in the caves in the mid-first century BCE and by the time of the Jewish War they had all pretty much already aligned on what would become the MT. Is this commonplace or am I just late to the party?

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It's nice to find an article which says exactly what you're trying to say but more succinctly! In this case it's Albrektson (1978 VTS) explaining why diversity gave way to unity. It's not because the Rabbis sat around and agreed on the MT, but because everyone else died. Natural selection, baby!

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Eva Mroczek knocks it out of the park again. An engrossing read.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thanks so much for sharing this. Absolutely love it.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

On why Ruth is said to return (שוב) to a place she has never been, LaCocque quotes André Neher, “In biblical thinking, the _return_ is not history beginning anew, but the continuation of a history whose sequence seemed to be impossible.”

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I had never noticed 1 Samuel 22:3-4 before. LaCocque suggests Ruth is a Midrash on this passage, essentially answering the question, “Why are David’s parents welcome in Moab?”

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Please tell me this is where we get the English word "shriek" from

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wonder if it's significant that the end of Psalm 72 has been removed in more than one manuscript. While it was literally chopped out in the quote skeet, in this late C13 (Parm. 1872) one it was only crossed out. We don't talk about Shlomo?

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Meanwhile the end of Book I and beginning of Book II is very expansive. They both receive a punny doxology: Book I: praise to the God who is "first" and last. Book II: with the help of the the Rock who has no "second". www.nli.org.il/en/manuscrip...

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Someone was not a fan of what Radak had to say at the end of Psalm 72 in this manuscript (or how it was copied?). The end of the previous page and the beginning of this are absent, until the note that that was the end of Book II and Book III starts here

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Although set earlier, we all had to watch Puberty Blues at high school in the 90s. Similar vibe to Breakfast Club but Australian and on the beach. Can’t beat Bueller for longevity though.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Lovely artwork above this ץ (Psalm 90) next to the note that this is now Book IV (ספר רביעי). This manuscript (Parm. 3239) was copied in 1284, not even 50 years after Radak died. It still astounds me, both the work that went into it, and that I can scroll through it from the comfort of my couch.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

sorry alt text: is this butterfly meme. hymenaeus and philetus looking at a butterfly (life now) asking, "is this the resurrection?" as a reference to 2 Timothy 2:17-18

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Sermon prep on 2 Timothy 2 going well

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Here’s a glimpse of this sweet manuscript from the 1200s with the Psalms and Radak’s commentary. The book endings are really nicely done.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Finally, here's what you find at the end of Psalm 106. Back to the normal formula. I love in Psalm 107 how the terminal nun of זפון (north) is connected to the resh at the end of מדבר, as if we hold the rrrr. Beautiful work from 8 centuries ago.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

You also notice a lack of consistency in these "book" formulas. Here for instance from Book III to IV there's no mention of the end of Book III, just the beginning of Book IV. it's also nice to see the ruled lines not rubbed out to show the grid they were working from in the centre.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Here's the end of Book II and beginning of III. You can see here someone had all their hard work crossed out.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

These images are from The Palatina Library, Cod. Parm. 1872, dated ca 1160-1235. Scans are via the NLI. www.nli.org.il/en/discover/...

nli.org.il

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

What's interesting to me is how this manuscript includes "the second book" with the first line of Psalm 42 at the top of the page, as if it was part of the biblical text. There goes my theory that "books" were paratextual; here it's right in there with the verse.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's PhD Friday and I am again looking at ancient Hebrew Psalms manuscripts, this time with a 12-13thC Radak commentary. He wants no one to be unaware that this is "the end of the first book"; it's so important it's written twice!

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Timely. Just finished marking 20 Job papers 😅 I can appreciate how he feels.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I mean there's so many division traditions in the HB that dividing texts is clearly a thing. 150 is pretty close to perfect for that sort of thing eh

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"Whether this number was arbitrarily chosen and the contents were made to conform is a question which can remain only in the speculative." I'm trying to explain why the divergent number of psalms in the medieval Hebrew manuscripts have often been later corrected to 150. 2/2

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Does this sounds okay? On why there are 150 Psalms. 🪔 "150 is a highly manipulable number, meaning it can be divided into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths and tenths. The numbers either side are prime numbers, so from a purely utilitarian view, 150 is a much better number." 1/2

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I guess I'll see you at Radiohead in May then [sweats in credit card]

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

More than anything else, it's just slop and waffle. 11 pages in to a 15 page essay and they still haven't got to the point. I think from now I'm just going to call AI the "slop and waffle engine." As in, "did you write that, or did you just grab it out of the slop and waffle engine?"

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Maybe, but I’m here because Elon and Zuckerberg run the other places. Which I think automatically makes Bluesky better.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Seriously, AI has ruined education. Instead of marking being evaluating the arguments, I spend my whole time guessing if a bot wrote it. Like, who writes, "Let's wrap it up." as the introduction to their final paragraph? Gotta be a bot, yeah?

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I know nothing about American Football, but seeing as they’re playing at the spiritual home of Australian Rules Football, they could at least have an Aussie commentating - ideally someone who knows absolutely nothing about the sport! #nfl

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Nanny state. If a bloke can’t butter a bagel while driving with his knees through four lanes of traffic, then I don’t know what we’re doing here. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...

abc.net.au

Driver fined $1,000 for buttering bagel at the wheel

Police said the 29-year-old was caught driving with his knees while buttering the ring-shaped bread roll in the regional city of Toowoomba on Monday afternoon.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

RS with your home river This is the Murrumbidgee, which flows just near my parent's place in Canberra. Great place to cool off in summer.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Some work I did today on the "book" divisions in the Psalms. Here Radak says he's wrapping up Book III, praise to the shaper and doer (i.e. the creator), and now this is Book IV. Scroll through for the other book divisions.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Triple negative just dropped! Hebrews 13:5 rolls with an ουδέ ου μη

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The one just before 90 has a different verb גמר (not שלם) and another doxology, and introduces Book IV quite simply with זה, which seems rather flippant to me! These are all from www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL...

נגמר ספר שלישי
שבח אתן ליוצרי ועושי.
זה ספר רביעי.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Here's the second and fourth ones which both get straight to business:

end of book 2, "and I will begin book three!"

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Checking out the 1477 Radak Psalms commentary and enjoying the variation at the end of the "books". It's digitised at the NLI and fairly uniquely has the text inline with the commentary (rather than in a box in the centre or corner). 🪔 Here's the first division (41/42), which has a small doxology.

נשלם ספר ראשה תהלה לאל עליה ואתחיל ספר שיני

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Jonah gets a lot of mentions in humour studies. Absurdity, repetition, irony, ridicule, unexpected twists, parody - it's all there.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

My favourite is Rashi on Psalm 100, where he simple exegetes both options for the לו/לא question, as they are both equally likely.

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Oh yay! I’ve always wanted one of these spam messages. Oh wait - maybe my teenage son skipped school and travelled to Morocco and dropped his phone in water in one of the driest countries on earth and it’s legit after all…

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Ugh. This happens so often. For something which is supposed to be objective, it depends so much on who you get and what they think the rules are. Hope you can get it resolved soon

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Douglas Fyfe @duck5.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I didn't get all the way through this but the closest it could pin this Aussie was Rhode Island (~50%). We call the bugs that roll into a ball slaters.

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