@SteveTaylor Thanks for looking at it. I have a hard time rejecting it since I have no other explanation for how all of the "disruptions" occur in the acrostics, but it sure is weird. FWIW, it appears to be published in a real journal -- somehow the pdf provides (at least a semblance of) legitimacy....

@Susan Wow, indeed! I'm sure this is gross oversimplification, but is he basically saying at the end that apparent wrong or missing grammar (missing Nun) is intentional much in the same way a modern poet or hymn writer will use bad grammar or make up a conjugation (o'er for over) just to "make it fit"?

That's not connected to the acrostic distruption though, I take it? Which I really didn't understand, not knowing Hebrew. I vaguely remember learning about the acrostic nature, but thought it was mostly just Psa. 139

@Susan Interesting one, Susan. I've got a special interest in this question, but haven't spent time with this particular paper. (There is a better HTML version of it, btw.) If I have any thoughts (won't be soon, though!), I'll ping them your way ... FWIW!

@Richard Sorry about the flag reject, I was distracted. I meant the other button.

Does anyone else find it interesting how WoundedEgo argues so much about translations of words with people, when at the opening of this question of his he admits "I don't know any foreign languages except Pig Latin"? Its no wonder I struggle to get him to understand certain points in textual debates.

@Davïd Thanks. If you have any reading recommendations on the topic of "defective" (Biblical) acrostics more generally I'd be interested in that too. If it occurs to you.

@Joshua I think it's not a matter of grammar, just the integrity of the acrostic. 139's not an acrostic, but you may be thinking 119 which is the most elaborate in that a bunch of lines begin with the same letter, which is why it's so long.

Lamentations also consists of several acrostics. And Proverbs 31, in addition to the Psalms ones.

I always find it inspiring how much pleasure the Biblical authors took in their letters.

@Caleb Given that we can revise just about anything else around here, you'd think there'd be a way to fix that.

@Susan oh of course. I'm ashamed. I knew it was 119. But the number of letters matters too? So like a poet saying something oddly just to preserve the meter? In this case, preserve integrity of acrostic?

@Joshua No reason to be ashamed.... I don't think I realized there were more than 34 and 119 before asking that question. It was when I started looking into it and found the list that I ran across the similarity with 25. I think the idea that the number of letters/word (and the numerical value of the letters) matters is that author's idea, not sure how widely that's accepted.

If the form critics are right and the Psalms were written for liturgical settings (or in imitation of such works), I'm not sure it makes sense to go counting numbers, but probably not everybody thinks they were originally liturgical.

But it's not especially satisfying in a liturgical setting to have missing/added letters either!