I haven't looked into this much but in light of Yigal's explanation it would seem that making the separations in logical places was of little importance and that the aim was rather to divide the reading up into equally sized chunks.
I find this most interesting actually, because it does bring to light evidences about the older form and order of the cannon.
-----Original Message-----
From: Brak <Brak AT neo.rr.com>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:23:04 -0500
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Psalms and Sedarim
So this goes to my original question. IF these breaks indicate reading portions why are a lot of them placed in places where (in my logic) should be placed. Such as in the middle or the 2nd to the last or third to the last verse of a Psalm, or no breaks at the beginning of a book in the Minor Prophets. In many places the breaks are put in the middle of conversations and thoughts. In one place there is a list of genealogies. And a break is place in between a man's 4th son and his 5th son (I don't remember where it is at, I would have to look for it at a later time).
Yigal Levin wrote:
Dear James,
The sedarim are meand for daily reading, one seder a day. So the reader would go through the entire book in two months!
The intrduction to the Koren Tanakh, while not dealing specifically with the Psalms, does say the following: the division of the Torah into 154 sedarim follows the ancient custom of reading the Torah over a triannual cycle, one seder for each Sabbath (the present custom is to divide the whole Torah into 52 "parshiyot", one for each Sabbath of the year). Additionally, according to the Koren, the entire Tanakh is divided into 293 sedarim, which is the number of non-holydays in the solar year (that is, 365 minus 52 Sabbaths, 7 days of Passover, 1 of Shavuot, 2 of Rosh Hashanah, 1 Yom Kippur, 8 Sukkot and the 9th of Av). So, the division enables one to read through the entire Tanakh in a year of "weekdays", leaving the holidays and Sabbaths for their own assigned readings.
Yigal
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