| The Audacity of Prayer A Fresh Translation of the Book of Psalms Read a Sample How to Pray the Psalms |
| Introduction to The Book of Psalms This collection of religious poems is known in Judaism as “The Book of Praises.” Among Christians, it is called “The Book of Psalms.” The word “psalm” is a Greek word meaning a song sung to musical accompaniment. The Book of Psalms is often referred to as the Psalter. According to Charles Ryrie, the Book of Psalms is itself divided into five sub- books, the length of each more or less determined by the length of ancient scrolls. Each of the five books within the Book of Psalms would fit on one scroll, just as each of the five books of the Law would. Book I: Psalms 1-41. Book II: Psalms 42-72. Book III: Psalms 73-89. Book IV: Psalms 90-106. Book V: Psalms 107-150. The numbering of the Psalms in the Vulgate is slightly different from Dr. Ryrie’s divisions above. The Vulgate Psalter combines Psalms 9 and 10 from standard English translations. Psalm 147, in turn, is divided in the Vulgate into two separate Psalms. Thus, many English favorites, such as Psalm 23, are numbered differently in the Latin. I have added the standard English numbering to the beginnings of each of the Psalms effected by this difference, for the reader’s convenience. The work, originally written in Hebrew, was translated into Greek in the 3rd Century before Christ. In the 3rd Century of the Common Era, the great Christian scholar Origen created The Hexapla, a multi-columned version of what we know of as The Old Testament, as a way of correcting the errors that had crept into the text at the hands of copyists through the centuries. Jerome, who translated the Old Testament into Latin between 383 and 405 CE, used Origen’s Hexapla in creating his translations. Jerome’s text, then, represents the high-water mark of classical, Latin-based, biblical scholarship. It became the standard Bible of the Western church for several hundred years. There are two versions of the Psalter associated with Jerome’s translations. In the first version, he revised and corrected an existing Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin,” translation of the Septuagint, the earlier Greek translation, which had become the Bible of the Christian church. Not totally satisfied, he decided to craft another translation from the Hebrew itself. This decision led Jerome, already a middle-aged man, to study Hebrew at the feet of Jewish rabbis, in order to pass Hebrew scripture on more faithfully to Christian readers. Both versions of the Psalms survived, each one playing the prominent role in various different locations. In Gaul, present-day France, Jerome’s Septuagint translation of the Psalms was used most commonly in the Old Testament. Alcuin, an English scholar called to Charlemagne’s court, standardized the so-called Gallican Psalter for the Church at large. It became the definitive Vulgate Psalter thereafter, though the other translation also survived. (Continues in second column --->) |
| ISBN # 978-0-9644609-9-7 English Edition ISBN # 978-0-9644609-8-0 Latin-English Edition ©2009, John G. Cunyus All Rights to the English Translation and Commentary Reserved. All Rights to Cover art Reserved. www.JohnCunyus.com. Latin text from “The Latin Vulgate.” Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, Fourth Revised Edition, edited by Roger Gryson, © 1994 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. Used by permission. |
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| (Introduction, Continued) Because the Gallican Psalter was based on the Septuagint, it more accurately reflects the Book of Psalms as the first generation of Hellenistic Christianity would have known it. The Hebrew-based Psalter would have been unknown to non-Jewish Christians of the early centuries. For such Christians, the Bible existed in Greek, rather than Hebrew. Some ask, why translate a translation? What advantage is there in studying the Latin, when the original language, Hebrew, is still available? The answer lies in the historical nature of the Bible. It exists in its original languages, certainly. Yet it also existed profoundly in Greek, Latin, and many other languages as well. To understand historical persons and events more clearly, it helps to understand scripture as they did. Most of Jesus’ contemporaries and followers knew the Bible in Greek, rather than in Hebrew. Later, when Rome’s empire divided and Western Europe was increasingly cut off from the mainstream of ancient civilizations, the Bible existed in Latin. An illustration may help. Though the book of Psalms had existed for centuries in Hebrew, it existed in Hellenistic culture from the 3rd Century B.C.E., as the Septuagint, the Bible of most of the early Christian Church. The Greek word “Christ” translates the Hebrew Masiach, meaning “anointed one,” or “king.” Thus, the Septuagint Psalter, rendered by Jerome into the Latin Gallican Psalter, is filled with Christological references. Reading the Septuagint or Jerome’s translation of it, one sees immediately how early Christian preachers could speak about Christ using the Psalter as a source. Modern English translators for many centuries have taken pains not to use the Greek word “Christ” in the Psalter. “Christ” has taken on too specifically Christian a meaning, obviously, to render it a fair translation of the Hebrew original. Nevertheless, “Christ” was the word used, both in Greek-speaking synagogues and early Christian ecclesias. They literally could not avoid talking about “Christ” if they talked about the Psalter at all. Such a sense of the Psalms as an intensely Christological book has vanished, largely, from contemporary thought. Yet the Greek and Latin texts use the word Christ throughout. Perhaps reading their version of the Psalms will give more profound insight into who Christ is, at least as the original core of Greek and Latin speakers understood Him. John Cunyus Dallas, Texas January 1, 2009 |
| Comments "Out of many available translations of the Psalms into English, I find your translation the best: it is a very close, linguistically conscious translation of the Gallican Psalter – so good that it can not only help to disambiguate the more difficult passages in the English texts but also help those whose Latin is not good enough to be able to trace the intricacies of these early renderings into English. Since your translation is so extraordinary among the existing Modern English texts, I wrote a section in my book devoted to it . . ." Magdalena Charzyńska- Wójcik, PhD John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland |