The Serugin, Te’amim, and Meturgeman in Christian Perspective-part 3

The Serugin, Te’amim, and Meturgeman in Christian Perspective-part 3

            Some Christian musicians have been led to believe that historically musicians who have loved and served God by musicing unto Him over the many centuries made no significant distinction [except for words] when it came to the music part of sacred and profane music. Many Christian musicians have been erroneously taught that, when it comes to sacred musicing, historically it has been understood that the music part of musicing is benign, amoral and without cause and effect. This false notion causes one to suppose that the music part of music is incapable of transmitting any understandable meaning to the listener. Hopefully this discussion will help to put to rest this unfounded notion when one becomes aware of just how important the music part of music was in the sacred musicing of ancient Israel and how diligently these ancients strove to keep the music notation of the entire Tanakh preserved with meticulous accuracy.

             We will see in this discussion that, the ancient Levite musicians and the ancient scribes, ancient Jewish music scholars and scholars [some in the last century and in this century] have believed that the way that the Tanakh was cantilated gave meaning to the Text.  When one becomes aware of how diligently ancient scribes and musicians worked to “build up a wall around the Torah”, it becomes apparent that, to those men, the struggle to prevent the vilification of the music part of music of the Bible was extremely important because they believed that its function was spiritually efficacious.  If these ancients had believed that the music part of music did not matter to the meaning of the Tanakh, they would doubtlessly not have spent their entire lives “building up a wall around the notation of the Torah.”

          The existence of the abbreviated manuscripts of the OT called the serugin are well known among Jewish writers, but are not often mentioned by other Bible scholars and historians.  Some of the fragments of these manuscripts that are centuries old have been found in genizot [storage areas].  Fragments of these serugin manuscripts that contain the te’amim have been found in Cairo Egypt and in other places.  They are abbreviated Aramaic translations of the Hebrew texts of the OT.  The existing serugin manuscripts are at least as early as the time of the Second Temple.  However, it is unknown just when in the course of history serugin were first used. For a very thorough treatment of the use of the te’amim and some mention of the serugin see chapter eight of my book Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective.