Translating the Psalms for Today

David Ker has a great post up entitled Death Metal Psalms. This graph strikes me as excellent:

What we need today is a Death Metal Psalmist. Someone who can take the anguish and goth of the Hebrew Psalms and express it in thudding drums and bass and the howling guitars of Heavy Metal. Hard Rock music is the closest thing to the Psalms in English today. It seethes with anger, violence, and pleading to a God who shrugs at our suffering.

I don’t follow David at all, of course, insofar as he prefers to read the Psalms in a paraphrase rather than a translation. Besides, he really should learn Hebrew. If he doesn’t, how he is going to understand the angels when he gets to heaven?

I don’t know about Heavy Metal music. It’s not my thing. When I take my youth to Youth Convo, and the Christian Heavy Metal bands go at it, I plug my ears. Plus, I try to keep the girls away from the band members. I don’t like the looks of them. Give me Bruce Cockburn any day. Someone who knows how to howl like a banshee, but also cry like a baby. Someone who wears two earrings, not a hundred in every imaginable orifice. Do Heavy Metal bands cry like a baby in their music? I don’t trust musicians who don’t know how to cry, and cry softly.

I like the looks of the church Jim Getz goes to, and the musicians who play there. I try to imagine the music from the pictures. My own congregation’s jazz band is good enough that if I didn’t have to be in church anyway, I would still come.

My wife Paola’s church, a start-up, has lots of contemporary music. It’s a hands-on family church (website down at this time – sorry), designed around the needs of young children, and is transitioning to becoming a “full-service” omni-generational congregation. I love the way they add new members. Mostly formerly unchurched people, or people recovering from bad experiences elsewhere, they also steal from the megachurches. The latter are full of talented people sitting on their hands with nothing to do. Steal’em, I say. They’ve been needing a drummer. One of the Moms with young children, a funky ex-hippie not known for inviting anyone to church – Jesus only got her into church recently – overheard that a work colleague of hers was a drummer. “By the way,” she said, “I go to a really cool church, and we need a drummer.” After an animated discussion, the deal is sealed. The young man has been attending the megachurch everyone is going to – because of the great preaching music. But he accepts the invitation, and comes with his family the very next Sunday. He brings his drums along, sets up, and starts to play. He is seamlessly added into the music ministry of the church. That’s the way to do it.

Here’s a question for David Ker and Peter Kirk, who want Bibles free of language your average 5^th grader doesn’t get (there’s a place for Bibles at that reading level, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want such Bibles read in worship, or used without supplement in an adult Bible study class, or made the basis of an annotated study Bible, not that anyone would). When the great hymn writers of past and present, who translate not one psalm, but a whole cross-section of psalms into the space of a single song, do they field-test their language, and leave out words and expressions 5^th graders wouldn’t get?

I don’t think so.

Comments

[Doug Chaplin]

The angels may speak Hebrew amongst themselves. But you forget that they speak to Yahweh in (mainly Tudor) English.

[JohnFH]

Good comeback, Doug. That's another language David - and I - need to work on: Tudor English.

[Peter Kirk]

Did David say all Bibles must be at 5th grade level? I didn't. But they don't need to be in a language which even you need to work on either.

I won't speak for past generations of songwriters. But as for current ones, I don't know what contemporary songs they sing at Paola's cool sounding church, but the ones we sing at my church mostly, although not invariably, use good modern English which is understood by our congregation members, probably even the 5th grader equivalents. I don't know if the songwriters field test them before publishing them, but they certainly get field tested afterwards, and if found wanting by the discerning crowds of young and not so young churchgoers they quickly find their way on to the massive heap of new songs which are never sung.

[JohnFH]

Peter,

These are the kind of songs one might hear in a groovin’ church today – you are welcome to field-test the language with 5th or 8th graders of your choosing:

Johnny Cash
"The Man Comes Around"

"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold a white horse"
There's a man goin' 'round takin' names,
And he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same,
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down.
When the man comes around.
The hairs on your arm will stand up,
At the terror in each sip and in each sup.
Will you partake of that last offered cup,
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around.
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come,
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks,
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks,
Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom.
Then the father hen will call his chickens home,
The wise man will bow down before the throne.
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns,
When the man comes around.
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still.
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still.
Listen to the words long written down,
When the man comes around.
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come,
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree.
The virgins are all trimming their wicks,
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees.
It's hard for thee to kick against the prick,
In measured hundredweight and penny pound,
When the man comes around.

Darlene Zschech
Better I Swear

and you try so hard to get over it
but thought of it just makes you sick
and your friends worry cause you can not eat
and you carve at night and cry yourself to sleep
and he's long gone from here
it just seems so unfair
it'll get better i swear
if he can't bother writing you won't bother to call
and if he can't bother caring you won't bother at all
cause it's something you're born with it's something you've known
and it's something you'll live with and you'll live it alone
cause you're long gone from here
it just seems so unfair
it'll get better i swear
it's got to get easier
it'll get better...better i swear
it was an accidental suicide
the only help you knew how to cry
on a school night you broadcasted live to the whole world
now the pundits all politicize
and the networks want it televised
they vie to pay the highest price for the footage
they put your face on tv screens
and on covers to sell their magazines
talk shows vilify your music scene for some ratings
you've become the latest ad campaign
they're cashing in on all your pain
they Che you up just to make a buck
it's a disgusting display

I don't know what some of the phrases exactly mean either, though the second, because it is less biblical, is relatively easier to understand. But it doesn't matter. That's my point. The Bible is a like any classic, like a Disney flick; you will catch what you need to at whatever age and understanding is yours, if you have a decent context in which to absorb it (where the Holy Spirit is at work, in Christian terms).

[Peter Kirk]

Well, maybe they sing this kind of stuff at Paola's church, but in my church we praise and worship God in our contemporary songs. I suppose the Johnny Cash piece is arguably that, but it is certainly not for suitable for congregational singing.

[JohnFH]

But there are plenty of passages in the Bible, among the Psalms as well, which are remarkable for archaic language and unusual turns of phrase, the kind of thing one expects in poetry. And let's not forget about Job or the prophets. So it's not just Johnny Cash.

Yet you wish for a translation of the Bible that removes these features from the text. I consider your attitude disrespectful of the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, if you say, there is a place for translations at a 5th grade or 8th grade level, I'm fine with that. But I want the Bible that is read in worship to be faithful to the stylistic choices of the original.

[Peter Kirk]

I accept that there are "unusual turns of phrase" in biblical Hebrew poetry, and I accept these in worship songs as well. As for "archaic language", language which was actually archaic when it was written, I know that the book of Esther (which is not poetry) has been thought to be this, but is there any evidence that any Psalms or even Job were archaic when they were written? Of course they later became archaic, which is why they have to be translated into modern language.

Anyway I think you are putting words into my mouth by suggesting that I am calling for any features of the original text to be removed from Bibles read in church. What I was writing about here was worship songs.

[JohnFH]

Peter,

I am delighted if you are now willing to preserve archaic language, unusual turns of phrase, and so on, in the Bible if not in worship songs. Perhaps, after all, you might even admit there is a place for language such as atonement and justification, and extra-biblical language as well, such as the Trinity.

It is well-known that songs like Exodus 15, Deut 32, Judges 5, and Habakkuk 3 are chock full of archaic language and unusual turns of phrase. Less often, but still frequently, as one expects in poetry, phrases and syntactic figures that would not pass field-testing now or then are found throughout the prophets, psalms, wisdom literature, and, I dare say, the various NT genres.

On top of that, an author might use specialized terminology on occasion, as in Isa 40-48 with respect to idol-making. Then as now, not everyone by any means would get every word or idiom.

Once again, I would suggest that this is constitutive of human communication. I do not wish to deny the beauty and helpfulness of a simplified version of scripture, or a clear paraphrase of its contents. If I did, it would be the same as saying that I thought the exposition of scripture is unnecessary.

On the contrary, the exposition of scripture has been a highly prized discipline and gift within the life of God's people ab initio. But notice that, until recently, no one thought to simplify the Bible itself in translation.

[Peter Kirk]

If you prove to me that dikaioo in the letters of Paul was archaic Greek, I will accept that it can validly be translated with an archaic (in this sense) English word like "justify".

The poems you mention are probably much older than the rest of the Hebrew Bible. They do not represent deliberate archaism by their authors, who presumably wrote in the natural language of their times. I accept that when they were incorporated into longer books they were already archaic in style and perhaps in vocabulary. That might provide some justification (in the strictly contemporary sense of this word!) for using somewhat more archaic language in translation of these rather small parts of the Bible, to reflect their distinctive style, perhaps with a footnote at each of these places to explain the unusual translation. It does not justify general use of archaic language throughout a Bible translation.

But notice that, until recently, no one thought to simplify the Bible itself in translation.

Nonsense! I have noticed what people long ago like Jerome and Luther wrote about the need for the Bible itself to be in language which ordinary people understand.

[JohnFH]

Peter,

you say,

That might provide some justification (in the strictly contemporary sense of this word!) for using somewhat more archaic language in translation of these rather small parts of the Bible, to reflect their distinctive style, perhaps with a footnote at each of these places to explain the unusual translation. It does not justify general use of archaic language throughout a Bible translation.

In other words, you feel under no obligation to respect the stylistic choices of the authors of scripture, but if someone does, you will not lambast them. I'll take it!

Dikaioo as used by Paul was not archaic Greek, but it was technical terminology. Preachers of DE, I've noticed, really don't like technical terminology. They try to do away with it.

You might take a look at how Jerome and Luther actually translate. It is a rhetorical trick to cite them as the patron saints of DE translation style. They preferred to Hebraize and Greek-ize where possible, even if it meant coining new phrases. They expected far more of their readers than do DE translators.