The Psalter.

The new psalter, mandated by the bishops of eleven English-speaking conferences, and written by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), is finished. There are some shockers among the verses: "We finished you off" (Ps. 35, v. 25). "Stop tormenting me!" (addressed to God, 39:11). "Too bad for you!" (40:16). "Defend me from liars and thugs" (43: 1). "We drink them by the barrel" (80:6). "Lurching and reeling like drunks" (107:37).

Admittedly, these are in keeping with the commission's aim, stated in an afterword, "to render into idiomatic English the best critical Hebrew and Greek texts available." But some of this work seems almost Runyonesque.

However, the goal of idiomatic English is achieved, and has the virtue of making comprehensible many odd old expressions in the traditional Rheims-Douai and King James Bibles, a virtue, it should be noted, already found in the French and English Jerusalem Bibles, the New American Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and the Grail translation of the Psalms.

Rome has already objected to several changes in the new Sacramentary. Will the gender-neutral language of the Psalter call down more ukases? With very few exceptions, the Psalter deletes all masculine pronouns--he, him, his--and nouns--man, men, sons, brothers, brethren, forefather--in favor of I, you, we, they, whoever, human, and humankind. For example, Ps. 1 begins, in the Rheims-Douai: "Blessed is the man...." Now it reads, "If you would be happy...." And so it goes, almost universally, except for obviously historical kings et al. God is never he or him, but just God, repeated almost endlessly. Of course, in God there is no gender, as Thomas Aquinas tells us, but we have become so accustomed, Christian and Jew alike, by centuries of usage, to thinking of God as Father, that it will take some time for men--and for some women, too--to get used to the new termimology. We will certainly make the effort, in fairness to the half of the people of God who are female. The Psalter is an important step in the right direction.

The idiomatic language sought by the translators includes "use of contemporary poetic style." Besides the howlers quoted above, there are other verses which do not seem especially poetic. For example: "Don't let them gloat" (38:17). "God speaks, earth melts' (46:7). Both consist of four strong syllables in a row. This may be contemporary, but is it poetry?

Also, there is a deliberate attempt throughout to reduce the psalms to as few words as possible, and to use Anglo-Saxon monosyllables rather than Latinate polysyllables. For instance, Ps. 51 (50 in the Rheims-Douai) begins: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy./ And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my iniquity." In The Psalter, this reads: "Have mercy, tender God,/ Forget that I defied you./ Wash away my sin,/ Cleanse me from my guilt."

That's eighteen words, compared to thirty-seven in the Rheims-Douai, thirty-four in both the King James and the Greek Septuagint, and twenty-seven in the Latin Vulgate. Even if we ignore the doggerel, isn't this simply dumbing down the Scriptures?

Another stated aim of ICEL is to provide what is called a "dynamic equivalence," as opposed to a "formal equivalence" translation; by which I assume is meant that one makes clear the import, rather than the letter of the original. In this the translators have succeeded: the meaning of any given passage is usually quite clear.

Finally, the commission aimed "to be guided by the liturgical use of the psalms and canticles, and be fitting for musical setting." If by that is meant spoken recitation, then liturgical use can easily be made of this translation. But as for musical setting, I think the new psalms lend themselves to only very elementary chanting in traditional or modem psalmody. (This judgment seems confirmed by the also just-published Psalms for Morning and Evening Prayer, with their simple modem psalmody.) I fear that the commission's overwhelming use of monosyllables makes them unfit for any serious musical setting, that is, a setting involving sophisticated melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic patterns, imitation and counterpoint, and above all, imaginative musical development.

I sincerely hope that some composer(s) will prove me wrong: yet I have to wonder what Brahms would have made of "Your temple is my joy/Lord of heaven's might," instead of Luther's "Wie lieb sind mir deine Wohnungen, Herr Zebaoth--How lovely is thy dwelling-place, O Lord of hosts"--at the heart of his great German Requiem.

Ralph Thibodeau is professor emeritus of music and humanities at Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, Texas.