My Hebrew teacher is fantastic. So good, in fact, that the only way I know how to teach is to teach like him. So, when my new Tuesday night readers began reading Jonah last week, I got very excited about the fact that they are not far from the poetry of chapter 2, Jonah’s prayer. Chapter 1 is, syntactically, a typical Hebrew narrative. Then chapter 2 breaks out into a beautiful, prayed poem. To introduce us to moving from narrative to poetry in the same work, my teacher used an equally beautiful example from American history, and I’ll do the same with my new bunch of readers this Tuesday. Can’t wait.
The example used is none other than the appendix to “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas: An American Slave”. In it, Douglas masterfully describes the state of Christianity in his day. Some things are different, some are not. Theologically and sociologically, its one of the most powerful works in the English language. And the switch to poetry, the rhyme and the cadence, makes Douglas’ point in a way that his prose simply can’t. Read it and be blessed.
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