Psalm 8 "bachified"

Here is Johann Sebastian Bach's arrangement of Genevan Psalm 8. Note that it is a typical Bach arrangement in that it flattens the rhythm of the original, relies heavily on a raised seventh note, and ends on a picardy third. As such, it alters the dorian modal flavour of the melody.

The Psalms in wartime

This evening after dinner we read Psalm 27, which I thought appropriate in light of the events of the past hours. Here is something I wrote for the Center for Public Justice eight years ago, which I thought relevant to the current crisis: One Hundred Years Later: The Psalms and the First World War. An excerpt:

Nearly four decades ago, I visited Prague, the capital of what was still communist-ruled Czechoslovakia and, before the First World War, part of Austria-Hungary. During my time there, I purchased in an antiquarian bookshop a Czech-language New Testament and Psalms published in 1845 for “Evangelical Christians of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions,” that is, for Lutheran and Reformed Christians. The print was in the old German black letter font, and even some of the spelling was obsolete.

Meeter Center lecture coming up

In May I will be lecturing on the Genevan Psalter at Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, as guest of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies. This year marks the 460th anniversary of the Genevan Psalter's completion. More information forthcoming.

Psalm 82: the consensus of the metrical psalters?

As a follow-up to my previous posts on the identity of the "gods" in Psalm 82, I have consulted a few more metrical psalters. Here are stanzas 1, 7, and 8 of the version in the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter of 1562:

Among the princes, men of might,
the Lord himself doth stand,
To plead the cause of truth and right
with judges of the land.

But notwithstanding ye shall die
as men, and so decay;
O tyrants, you destroy will I,
and pluck you quite away.

Up, Lord, and let thy strength be known,
and judge the world with might:
For why? all nations are thy own,
to take them as thy right.

Where Alter's Psalter falters

Christian Courier has just posted my January column, titled, Where Alter's Psalter falters, with the following subtitle: "What's really going on in Psalm 82?" Here is an excerpt:

Although I generally appreciate Alter’s work, I question one element of his interpretive framework. This is relevant especially to Psalm 82 but to others as well. Throughout the Psalms he sees vestiges of Canaanite polytheistic religion, with many of the traditional attributes ascribed to Baal being reassigned to YHWH, including the often-used metaphors of riding on the clouds and defeating the waters of chaos.

Of course, there is little doubt that the early Hebrews were influenced by the surrounding peoples’ religions, as the Bible itself testifies. But I think it’s possible to exaggerate these mythological remnants in such a way as to miss something more concrete and obvious, which Alter is otherwise at pains to emphasize.

Read the entire article here. And read my full review of the Alter Psalter here.

Article in The Outlook

Not long ago I received a copy of the January/February issue of The Outlook carrying an article of mine, "The Genevan Psalter: Introduction." It is not posted online, so you will need to obtain a paper copy of the periodical to read it. A follow-up article on my own Genevan Psalter project will appear in a future issue.

Jamie Soles: Psalm 91

Here is Jamie Soles singing Psalm 91. Although the lyrics are from the Canadian Reformed Book of Praise and were meant to be sung to the proper Genevan melody, Soles has come up with his own tune:

Psalms in the night

The BBC carries a fascinating article about a phenomenon that is little remembered today but was thoroughly familiar with our not so distant ancestors: The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps', something about which I wrote nearly a decade ago: Rising at Midnight: Sleep Patterns and Daily Prayer. Prior to the invention of artificial lighting, human beings around the world slept in two shifts, once in the late evening, followed by a period of wakefulness, and then in the early morning. In the absence of the indoor lighting ubiquitous in our dwellings and late-night television, people generally retired early, woke up again around midnight for another period of activity, and then retired for another few hours, to wake again for the day. Not only is this testified to in the literature to which author Zaria Gorvett alludes, but it is found in the Bible as well:

Make no mistake

Must be a Portuguese or Brazilian monk . . . 

Ele deve ser um monge português ou brasileiro . . .

Genfi Zsoltár for guitar

 Psalm 65/72 performed on guitar:

'Gods' as judges: Jesus

After I posted 'Gods' as judges: Calvin and Zylstra, someone alerted me to this passage in the gospel of John:

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? (John 10:31-36)

Jesus here quotes from Psalm 82:6: "I say, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.'" John's account here appears to suggest that Jesus interpreted the "gods" in this text to refer not to mythological members of a divine council or to demonic spirits, but to human creatures. Thus Calvin and Zylstra draw on Jesus' own interpretation of the text.

'Gods' as judges: Calvin and Zylstra

At the beginning of the month, I reviewed Robert Alter's Psalter and noted one area of disagreement, namely, his interpretation of Psalm 82, which he sees as a mythological vestige of Canaanite polytheism. By contrast, I've always seen it as God addressing earthly rulers claiming divinity who are remiss in their practical responsibilities to do justice within their jurisdictions. This is reflected in my own versification (© David T. Koyzis) as set to the proper Genevan tune:

Judging among divine pretenders,
in council God his verdict renders:
"How long," says he, "shall wickedness
be favoured over righteousness?
Give justice to the poor and needy,
rescue the helpless from the greedy.
Treat widows as is right and fair,
defend all orphans in your care.

Salmos 12 e 110

The Comissão Brasileira de Salmodia has posted Psalm 12 on its YouTube channel:

The group has posted several Psalms in recent days, including Psalm 110:

Obsessed with the Psalms

Some of us bring our passion for sung psalmody into the unlikeliest places.

The Alter Psalter: a review

For many years now I have followed the Book of Common Prayer's thirty-day schedule for praying through the Psalms, and during November I used Robert Alter's translation in The Book of Psalms for morning and evening prayers. During this time I read his commentaries for each Psalm as well, and I learned quite a lot in the process. As promised, here is my review of the collection.

To begin, I must admit that I have little grasp of the Hebrew language other than the ability to recite the alphabet. This, of course, would put me at a disadvantage with respect to a substantive review, which I shall not attempt here. Thus I limit myself to describing what Alter does in his translation and commentary and to alerting my readers to some interesting peculiarities unique to his work. What I can tell you is that Alter's scholarship is highly respected, with some exceptions, by his colleagues, and his translation of the entire Hebrew Bible, of which this is a part, represents a significant milestone in disseminating knowledge of the Scriptures and could well be seen as the culmination of his life's work.

Psalms and Proverbs: why?

For many years now publishers have marketed New Testaments as independent volumes, often with the Psalms appended. There is evidently demand for such books, as they are considerably smaller in size than a complete Bible and thus more portable. The drawback is that, because the Scriptures tell the story of our redemption in Jesus Christ, we are getting only the final chapters of a much longer narrative. Owners of a New Testament are assumed already to know the earlier story and can thus make sense of a volume beginning with the coming of Christ into the world.

The addition of the Psalms to such a volume makes liturgical sense, especially when seen against the backdrop of the traditional one-year lectionaries used for centuries in both western and eastern churches. A look at the Book of Common Prayer's lectionary reveals the generous use of epistle and gospel readings for every sunday of the ecclesiastical year and, of course, the complete Psalter of Miles Coverdale, but very little from the Old Testament. One-year lectionaries have been used by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Orthodox churches, with preaching typically based on the gospel lesson for the day. Hence the publication of New Testaments with the Psalms fits into a traditional liturgical pattern familiar to most Christians.

Comissão Brasileira de Salmodia

I have placed a link in the right sidebar to the Comissão Brasileira de Salmodia (Brazilian Commission of Psalmody, or CBS). This is a translation of the introductory paragraph on the front page:

CBS is a committee made up of reformed and confessional members of Christ's Church. We believe that the psalms should be sung by God's people scattered over the face of the earth, and we intend to contribute to their use among Portuguese-speaking Christians.

Judging from the list of Psalms, two things are apparent. First, not all the Psalms have yet been completed, and, second, there is more than one version of some of the Psalms. I will add a third to this: CBS's version of Genevan Psalm 150 appears to have borrowed my use of the double Alleluias for the two eight-syllable lines in each of the two stanzas.

The secret weapon of the Reformation

In the run-up to Reformation Day, Johan van Veen posted this article in Dutch: Het geheime wapen van de Reformatie, or The secret weapon of the Reformation. This is adapted from the google translation into English:

For several months I have been immersed in a thorough book on The Reformation, written by the British historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. It's a thick book – more than 700 pages plus an extensive notes apparatus . . . . I recently came to a section in which he deals with the troubles of France in the last decades of the 16th century. He shows how "ordinary believers" – he calls them laymen – got moving. Writings such as the Bible and Calvin's Institutes played a role in this . . . but those books were thick and expensive and therefore not widely distributed. He therefore seeks the explanation elsewhere: the Psalter. He even calls the rhymed psalms the "secret weapon" of the Reformation, not only in France, but wherever the Reformed brought new vitality to the Protestant cause.

The Alter Psalter

I have recently acquired a copy of this book, which I will be using in my prayers during November. Stay tuned for a review in December.

Reformation Day

Five-hundred four years ago yesterday, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, thus setting off the Reformation. Here is Martin Luther's free paraphrase of Psalm 46, Ein' Fest Burg, which we know in English as A Mighty Fortress: