Sixteen Psalms

(With Apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford and David, Son of Jesse)

By Rob S. Rice

I logged onto the system, there was E-Mail there.
The Boss wrote "We've got some text we've got to prepare,
"We have the whole thing ready on disks, -line and ROM's!"*
And since then I've spent all my time coding Psalms.

CHORUS:

You code sixteen Psalms
And what do you get?
A bad case of eyestrain
And reason to fret.
St. Peter, don't you call me upon Judgement day,
I'd have to encode every word that you say!

I woke up one morning with my vision all blurred,
I looked at the screen, couldn't make out a word.
I coded sixteen psalms in beta greek code,
And the drive wouldn't save it, transcribe it, or load.

CHORUS

I looked at the lemma** and it just didn't fit,
With what Rahlfs*** had noted in the massive app. crit.,****
With sixteen psalms didn't have time to think:
_testes redolent_: the witnesses stink!

CHORUS

_R_ead _O_nly _M_emory, specialized chips. A slight exaggeration.
A portion of an ancient text disputed for paleographic reasons.
The German editor of CCAT's text of the Septuagint Greek Psalms.
**** Apparatus Criticus, the burial ground of variants and past editors of the text, printed at the bottom of the page.