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90-516: A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation : a book containing a verse translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry , meant to be sung as hymns in a church . Some metrical psalters include melodies or harmonisations. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation , especially in its Calvinist manifestation. During

180-673: A Catholic ), and also in 1560 a Parisian publisher posthumously printed a volume of his secular chansons – a form he had condemned as "dissolute" during his Geneva years. Louis Bourgeois is the one most responsible for the tunes in the Genevan Psalter , the source for the metrical psalmody of both the Reformed Church in England and the Pilgrims in America. In the original versions by Bourgeois,

270-513: A Biblical translation had been repudiated by the Church of England . A flowering of English hymnody had occurred under writers such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley , but their hymns were freed from the stricture that each verse had to be a translation of a scriptural text. Attitudes towards the Biblical text itself had also changed, with closer emphasis being paid on its exact phrasing. This new regard for

360-629: A Georgian alphabet was likely still motivated by Christians who wished to translate holy scriptures. In the 6th century, the Bible was translated into Old Nubian . By the end of the eighth century, Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians ) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least, the portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac to Sogdian , the lingua franca in Central Asia of

450-619: A Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew letters. Jerome also reports in his preface to St Matthew that it was originally composed "in Hebrew letters in Judea" not in Greek and that he saw and copied one from the Nazarene sect. The exact provenance, authorship, source languages and collation of the four Gospels is unknown but subject to much academic speculation and disputed methods . Some of the first translations of

540-556: A Koine Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures in several stages (completing the task by 132 BC). The Talmud ascribes the translation effort to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285–246 BC), who allegedly hired 72 Jewish scholars for the purpose, for which reason the translation is commonly known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta , "seventy"), a name which it gained in "the time of Augustine of Hippo " (354–430 AD). The Septuagint (LXX),

630-882: A capella to Goudimel's harmonies for over two centuries. The Lobwasser psalms are still in use in the Amish congregations in North America, who took them with the Swiss Hymnbooks to the New World. The music edition of 1576 was reprinted in 2004, which was a result of the International Psalm Symposion in Emden . In 1798 the German pastor in Den Haag Matthias Jorissen gave out his: "Neue Bereimung der Psalmen" which replaced

720-508: A collections of psalm-tunes , most of which were translated by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze . The extent to which he was composer, arranger or compiler was not certain, until a long-lost copy of the Genevan Psalter of 1551 came to the library of the Rutgers University . In an Avertissement (note) to the reader Bourgeois specifies exactly what his predecessors had done, what he had changed and which were his own contributions. He

810-515: A completely new translation. It is available in words only, and in staff and sol-fa split-leaf formats. The Canadian Reformed Churches have published and sing from Book of Praise , the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1961, 1972, 1984, 2014), containing English versifications for all the Genevan tunes. In 2015 Premier Printing published New Genevan Psalter which consists of the 150 Psalms as found in

900-699: A long section of prose prayers largely drawn from the English Forme of Prayers used in Geneva. Sternhold and Hopkins wrote almost all of their Psalms in the "common" or ballad metre . Their versions were quite widely circulated at the time; copies of the Sternhold and Hopkins psalter were bound with many editions of the Geneva Bible , and their versions of the Psalms were used in many churches. The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter

990-484: A matter of private devotion unless given a musical setting for trained choirs or for congregational singing. Rather than iambic pentameter, in England and Scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries, the overwhelming preference in rural congregations was for iambic tetrameters (8s) and iambic trimeters (6s), ridiculed in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , in which Nick Bottom and the other "rude mechanicals" obsess over

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1080-466: A number of different collections, published between 1533 and 1543; in the latter year Marot published Cinquante Pseaumes , a collection of 50 psalms rendered into French verse. The full psalter containing all 150 canonical Psalms, plus the Nunc Dimittis , appeared in 1562. The French psalms were set to melodies that were harmonized and altered for congregational singing. Music for the Genevan Psalter

1170-818: A revision of earlier Latin translations, was dominant in Western Christianity during the Middle Ages . The Latin-speaking western church led by the Pope did not translate the Scriptures or liturgy into languages of recently converted peoples such as the Irish, Franks or Norsemen. By contrast, the Eastern Orthodox Church, centred in Constantinople, did, in some cases, translate the Scriptures and liturgy, most successfully in

1260-561: A ruler in England, had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch , which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect ; these are called

1350-564: Is James 5 :13 ( KJV ) "Is any merry? let him sing psalms." (The word translated "sing psalms" in the KJV at James 5:13 is ψαλλετω. Some other versions give more general translations such as "sing praise" in the ESV .) Another key reference is Colossians 3 :16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." The need

1440-486: Is one of the three main composers of the hymn tunes to the Genevan Psalter. Unfortunately, he fell foul of local musical authorities and was sent to prison on 3 December 1551 for changing the tunes for some well-known psalms "without a license." He was released on the personal intervention of John Calvin , but the controversy continued: those who had already learned the tunes had no desire to learn new versions, and

1530-589: Is similar to the Gregorian tones of the Latin Sarum Rite psalter, and it can be found in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians . A single note is given for each syllable in each verse, in keeping with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer 's mandate for the reformed Edwardian liturgy . The goal was to emphasize simplicity and to encourage attentiveness to what was being sung by omitting complex vocal ornamentation. In addition to

1620-456: The New Version of the Psalms of David was the work of Nahum Tate (who was later named poet laureate ) and Nicholas Brady . A second edition was published in 1698, and supplements were issued in 1700, 1702, 1704 (twice) and 1708. Their Augustan version shows somewhat more polish than the 17th century versions. The hymn Through all the changing scenes of life is the setting of Psalm 34 from

1710-648: The Wessex Gospels . Around the same time, a compilation now called the Old English Hexateuch appeared with the first six (or, in one version, seven) books of the Old Testament. The arrival of the mendicant preaching orders in the 12th century saw individual books being translated with commentary, in Italian dialects. Typically the Psalms were among the first books to be translated, being prayers: for example,

1800-568: The Byzantine text-type , and the Western text-type . Most variants among the manuscripts are minor, such as alternative spelling, alternative word order, the presence or absence of an optional definite article ("the"), and so on. Occasionally, a major variant happens when a portion of a text was missing or for other reasons. Examples of major variants are the endings of Mark , the Pericope Adulteræ ,

1890-714: The Cathar and Waldensian heresies, in South France and Catalonia. This demonstrates that such translations existed: there is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized. A group of Middle English Bible translations were created: including the Wycliffean Bibles (1383, 1393) and the Paues New Testament, based on the Vulgate. New unauthorized translations were banned in England by

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1980-659: The Comma Johanneum , and the Western version of Acts . The discovery of older manuscripts which belong to the Alexandrian text-type, including the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus , led scholars to revise their view about the original Greek text. Karl Lachmann based his critical edition of 1831 on manuscripts dating from the 4th century and earlier, to argue that the Textus Receptus must be corrected according to these earlier texts. Early manuscripts of

2070-513: The Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the Book of Revelation ), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added). Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 405. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising these earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to

2160-610: The Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede , which is said to have been prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in c. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic was started in 863 by Cyril and Methodius . Alfred the Great ,

2250-651: The Masoretic text , but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek, and nearly all modern translations are to some extent based upon the Greek text. Origen 's Hexapla ( c.  235 ) placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament: the Hebrew consonantal text, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters (the Secunda ),

2340-513: The Pauline epistles and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever. The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text. There is also a long-standing tradition owing to Papias of Hierapolis (c.125) that the Gospel of Matthew was originally in Hebrew. Eusebius (c.300) reports that Pantaenus went to India (c. 200) and found them using

2430-536: The RPCNA , again for the purposes of making the words more modern, and also to replace some of the more difficult-to-sing tunes, such as Psalm 62B, with tunes that are easier to sing. The new edition, The Book of Psalms for Worship , was released in 2009. The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland , however, produced a split-leaf version of the Scots Metrical Psalter , but with additional "Alternative versions" of

2520-423: The Scots Metrical Psalter , with the intention of making the words more modern and the translation more accurate. These were produced in 1889 (a split-leaf brown book), 1911 (unpopular due to musical complexity), 1920 (a green book) and 1929 (also green, an expanded version of the 1920 one), 1950 (a blue book), and 1973 (a maroon one) called The Book of Psalms for Singing . A further revision has been undertaken by

2610-589: The Scottish Metrical Psalter , to be used throughout the Church of Scotland . This showed some improvements, but ballad metre remained ubiquitous: One of the most widely known hymns in Christian worship, " The Lord's my Shepherd ", is a translation of Psalm 23 appearing in the 1650 Scottish Psalter. But by the time better metrical psalms were made in English, the belief that every hymn sung in church had to be

2700-736: The Torah began during the Babylonian exile , when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues . By the 3rd century BC, Alexandria had become the center of Hellenistic Judaism , and during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC translators compiled in Egypt

2790-575: The earliest Polish translation from 1280. There are numerous manuscripts of the Psalms in Catalan from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, translated from the Vulgate, Occitan, French and Hebrew, with a New Testament and full bible translation made in the 1300s. Parts of an Old Testament in Old Spanish from the late 1300s still exist. Monks completed a translation into Franco-Provençal (Arpitan) c.1170-85, commissioned by Peter Waldo . The complete Bible

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2880-663: The 1640s, the English Parliamentarians Francis Rous and William Barton both authored their own metrical paraphrases. Their translations were scrutinised by the Westminster Assembly and heavily edited. Rous's original version of Psalm 24 read: After much alteration, a much-altered translation based on Rous's work was approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and published in 1650 as

2970-552: The 5th century, Mesrob Mashtots translated the Bible using the Armenian alphabet invented by him. Also dating from the same period is the first Georgian translation. The creation of the Georgian scripts , like the Armenian alphabet, was also attributed to Mashtots by the scholar Koryun in the 5th century. This claim has been disputed by modern Georgian scholars, although the creation of

3060-570: The Aramaic language) was translated into Aramaic (the so-called Targums, originally not written down), Greek and Syriac . The New Testament, written in Greek, was first translated into Syriac, Latin and Coptic – all before the time of Emperor Constantine. By the year 500, the Bible had been translated into Ge'ez , Gothic , Armenian and Georgian. By the year 1000, a number of other translations were added (in some cases partial), including Old Nubian, Sogdian, Arabic and Slavonic languages, among others. Jerome 's 4th-century Latin Vulgate version,

3150-418: The Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance . Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages. The Old Testament, written in Hebrew (with some sections in the book of Daniel in

3240-402: The Book of Praise as well as the Ten Commandments and the Songs of Mary, Zechariah and Simeon. A split-leaf psalter (sometimes known as a " Dutch door " psalter) is a book of Psalms in metrical form, in which each page is cut in half at the middle, so that the top half of the pages can be turned separately from the bottom half. The top half usually contains the tunes, and the bottom half contains

3330-452: The Calvinists, rejected the use of instrumental music and organs in church, preferring to sing all of the music a cappella . Even today, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America , the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland , and other Reformed churches of the Scottish tradition maintain this practice. During the pre-reformation days, it was not customary for lay members of a church's congregation to communally sing hymns. Singing

3420-412: The Church of Constantinople. Athanasius ( Apol. Const. 4 ) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans . Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists , and that Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 , Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus are examples of these Bibles. Together with

3510-433: The Countess of Pembroke, completed the translation of the final two-thirds of the psalter. Together they used a dazzling array of stanza forms and rhyme schemes—as many as 145 different forms for the 150 psalms. The Sidney Psalter was not published in its complete form until the twentieth century, but it was widely read in manuscript, and influenced such later poets as John Donne and George Herbert . However, poetry remains

3600-405: The Genevan editions and many new psalms by John Hopkins, Thomas Norton , and John Markant to make up The Whole Booke of Psalmes, Collected into English Meter . In addition to metrical versions of all 150 psalms, the volume included versified versions of the Apostles' Creed , the Magnificat , and other biblical passages or Christian texts, as well as several non-scriptural versified prayers and

3690-408: The Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite , one recension of the Septuagint, and the Greek translation of Theodotion . In addition, he included three anonymous translations of the Psalms (the Quinta , Sexta and Septima ). His eclectic recension of the Septuagint had a significant influence on the Old Testament text in several important manuscripts. In the 2nd century,

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3780-453: The Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition (" Vorlage ") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts. Christian translations of the Old Testament also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with

3870-476: The Huguenot Psalter is Psalm 134 (tune given above): Vous, saints ministres du Seigneur, Qui, dévoués à son honneur, Veillez la nuit dans sa maison, Présentez-lui votre oraison. A metrical psalter was also produced for the Calvinist Reformed Church of the Netherlands by Petrus Datheen in 1566. This Psalter borrowed the hymn tunes from the Genevan Psalter and consisted of a literal translation of Marot and Beza 's French translation. The Dutch psalter

3960-405: The New Version, and As pants the hart for cooling streams is a setting of Psalm 42. Isaac Watts produced a metrical psalter, in which he breaks out of the ballad metre in his 1719 The Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Apply'd to the Christian State and Worship , which, as the title indicates, was intended as an interpretation rather than a strict translation of

4050-444: The Old Testament was translated into Syriac translation, and the Gospels in the Diatessaron gospel harmony. The New Testament was translated in the 5th century, now known as the Peshitta. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the New Testament was translated into various Coptic (Egyptian) dialects. The Old Testament was already translated by that stage. In 331, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for

4140-417: The Peshitta, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. The Bible was translated into Gothic (an early East Germanic language) in the 4th century by a group of scholars, possibly under the supervision of Ulfilas (Wulfila). The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by

4230-610: The Protestant Reformation, a number of Bible texts were interpreted as requiring reforms in the music used in worship . The Psalms were particularly commended for singing. In particular, John Calvin said, When we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him Various Reformers interpreted certain scriptural texts as imposing strictures on sacred music . The psalms, especially, were felt to be commended to be sung by these texts. One example

4320-401: The Psalms, Crowley's psalter includes English versions of the canticles Benedictus , Magnificat , Nunc Dimittis , and Benedicite , as well as the Te Deum and the Quicumque Vult . These are the Cantica Prophetarium retained in the Book of Common Prayer from the Sarum psalter — key parts of the Divine Office . Crowley's lyrics are mainly based on Leo Jud 's Biblia Sacrosancta , which

4410-430: The Reformation, the Genevan Psalter , was authored for the Protestant churches of France and Geneva (called the Huguenots ). It has been in uninterrupted use to the present day by the Huguenot and other French-speaking Protestant churches. The texts of the French Psalter were brought together from two independent sources: the poet Clément Marot and the theologian Théodore de Bèze . Marot and Beza's psalms appeared in

4500-424: The Scottish Highland Presbyterian Churches where the practice of lining out is used, in accordance with the Westminster Assembly of Divines Directory for Public Worship. The corpus of tunes has shrunk over the years with only about twenty-four in general use. Many churches continue to use metrical psalters today. For example, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) produced psalm books based on

4590-457: The Septuagint contain several passages and whole books not included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh . In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or of Hebrew variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than previously thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of

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4680-399: The Septuagint was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians. It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew ( Masoretic Text ). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas ) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts; supposedly proving its accuracy. Versions of

4770-422: The Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script. They may have also translated parts of books into a Chinese . When ancient scribes copied earlier books, they wrote notes on the margins of the page ( marginal glosses ) to correct their text—especially if a scribe accidentally omitted a word or line—and to comment about

4860-433: The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter "obsolete and contemptible," "an absolute travesty," and "entirely destitute of elegance, spirit, and propriety." In 1819, Thomas Campbell condemned their "worst taste" and "flat and homely phrasing." In 1757, John Wesley described the verse of Sternhold and Hopkins as "scandalous doggerel". Sternhold and Hopkins render the beginning of the 24th Psalm in this way: First published in 1696,

4950-399: The Sternhold and Hopkins psalter eventually incorporated a basic tune with the Anglo-Genevan edition of 1556. John Day 's The Whole Book of Psalmes (1562) contained sixty-five psalm tunes.) Crowley also included a calendar for calculating feast days as in the Book of Common Prayer , to which Crowley's psalter appears to be intended as a supplement. The music provided in Crowley's psalter

5040-510: The case of the Slavonic language of Eastern Europe. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium. (See List of English Bible translations .) Textual variants in the New Testament include errors, omissions, additions, changes, and alternate translations. In some cases, different translations have been used as evidence for or have been motivated by doctrinal differences. The Hebrew Bible

5130-411: The entire Bible in Latin is the Codex Amiatinus , a Latin Vulgate edition produced in 8th-century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow . Latin and its early Romance dialects were widely spoken as the primary or secondary language throughout Western Europe, including Britain even in the 700s and 800s. Between the 4th to 6th centuries, the Bible was translated into Ge'ez (Ethiopic). In

5220-523: The greater part of the New." Friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of the large Franciscan mission to Mongol China in the early 1300s translated the Psalms and New Testament into the language of the Tartars : the Uyghur language or perhaps the Mongolian language . A royal Swedish version of 1316 has been lost. The entire Bible was translated into Czech around 1360. The provincial synods of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234) temporarily outlawed possession of some vernacular renderings, in reaction to

5310-416: The letter of the Biblical text diminished the appeal of the psalters' previous versions; those who sang them no longer felt they were singing Scripture. The success of these newer hymns has largely displaced the belief that each hymn must be a direct translation of Scripture. Now, many hymnals contain Biblical references to the passages that inspired the authors, but few are direct translations of Scripture like

5400-419: The loose paraphrase Speculum Vitae Christi ( The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ ), which had been authorized into English around 1410. A Cornish version may have been made. The Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in 1416. Individual books continued to be translated: for example the Gospel of John in Slovak (1469). The first 12 books of the Old Testament in Danish (also used for Norwegian)

5490-448: The metrical psalters were. The Scottish Gaelic Psalter was produced by the Synod of Argyll . By 1658, the first fifty psalms had been translated into ballad metre due to the work of Dugald Campbell , John Stewart , and Alexander McLaine . A manuscript of the final 100 psalms was produced in 1691 with the entire Gaelic psalter, with revisions to the 'first fifty' being produced in 1694. The Gaelic Metrical Psalms are used to this day in

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5580-404: The music is monophonic , in accordance with the dictates of John Calvin, who disapproved not only of counterpoint but of any multiple parts; Bourgeois though did also provide four-part harmonizations, but they were reserved for singing and playing at home. Many of the four-part settings are syllabic and chordal, a style which has survived in many Protestant church services to the present day. Of

5670-433: The mynde, be reade and songe of al men . Printed in 1549, it was the work of Robert Crowley and was printed by him, Richard Grafton and/or Stephen Mierdman . Crowley's psalter is a rare example of two-color printing (red and black on the first four leaves) in this era, which makes it visually resemble medieval manuscript psalters. ( Christopher Tye and Francis Seager later included musical notation in their psalters, and

5760-422: The need for a prologue "written in eight and sixe". The three meters then in use: Common Meter (8,6,8,6), Long Meter (8,8,8,8), and Short Meter (6,6,8,6) remain in widespread use in hymnals today. Later writers attempted to repair the literary inadequacies of the Sternhold and Hopkins version. The Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first book published in the British colonies in America, was a new metrical psalter: In

5850-470: The old-fashioned psalm book for nearly 200 years. The present Hymnbook (1996) of the Evangelical-reformed Churches and the Old Reformed Churches of Germany contains the complete psalter with many psalms of Matthias Jorissen and other authors. It was an important decision of the synods to retain the psalms in the hymnbook with the Genevan tunes. The need and interest in the complete Jorissen- Psalter led to different new editions in 1931, 1951 and 2006. The last one

5940-442: The original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (including the Peshitta). The Codex Vaticanus dates to c.  325 –350, and is missing only 21 sentences or paragraphs in various New Testament books: it is one of the four great uncial codices . The earliest surviving complete single-volume manuscript of

6030-448: The original publication, by leading late Tudor and early Stuart English composers such as Thomas Morley , Thomas Tallis , John Dowland , and Thomas Tomkins . Another musical contributor to this volume was John Milton , the father of the poet of that name . By any objective measure of circulation Sternhold and Hopkins's psalter was a success. As a separate volume, it was re-printed more than 200 times between 1550 and 1640; in addition,

6120-429: The period of the English Reformation, many other poets besides Sternhold and Hopkins wrote metrical versions of some of the psalms. The first was Sir Thomas Wyatt , who in around 1540 made verse versions of the six penitential Psalms. His version of Psalm 130, the famous De profundis clamavi , begins: Sir Philip Sidney made verse versions of the first 43 psalms. After he died in 1586, his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert ,

6210-407: The provincial Oxford Synod in 1408 under church law; possession of material that contained Lollard material (such as the so-called General Prologue found in a few Wycliffite Bibles) was also illegal by English state law , in response to Lollard uprisings. Later, many parts of the Bible in Late Middle English were printed by William Caxton in his translation of the Golden Legend (1483), and in

6300-411: The psalms in this form were included in most editions of the Geneva Bible , and also in most versions of the Book of Common Prayer . They continued to be in regular use in some congregations until the late eighteenth century. Literary opinion after the sixteenth century, on the other hand, was decidedly negative. In his 1781 History of English Poetry , British poet laureate Thomas Warton called

6390-483: The psalms. As an example of what is meant by "Language of the New Testament", Psalm 35 ("A psalm of David") verses 13-14 ("But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I afflicted my soul with fasting.... I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother") becomes: "Behold the love, the gen’rous love, That holy David shows... The spirit of the gospel reigns, And melts his pious heart." His translation of Psalm 24 into long metre begins: During

6480-511: The text, since the original text contained only consonants . This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation; since some words differ only in their vowels their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages. The New Testament

6570-409: The text. When later scribes were copying the copy, they were sometimes uncertain if a note was intended to be included as part of the text. See textual criticism . Over time, different regions evolved different versions, each with its own assemblage of omissions, additions, and variants (mostly in orthography ). There are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations , notably a lost translation of

6660-488: The title The Psalms for Singing . The Melbourne Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia produced The Complete Book of Psalms for Singing with Study Notes in 1991. Music in staff format is provided in a variety of meters, mostly to established tunes. The texts draw from the best of older versions but provide much new material. The Free Church of Scotland published Sing Psalms in 2003, being

6750-567: The town council ordered the burning of Bourgeois's instructions to the singers, claiming they were confusing. Shortly after this incident, Bourgeois left Geneva never to return: he settled in Lyon, his Geneva employment was terminated, and his wife tardily followed him to Lyon. While in Lyon, Bourgeois wrote a fierce piece of invective against the publishers of Geneva. His daughter was baptized in Paris in May 1560 (as

6840-571: The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek , later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the Christian church and the basis of its canon . Jerome based his Latin Vulgate translation on the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the Masoretic text ), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books . The translation now known as

6930-459: The words included as the second half of the book. These were culled from a number of sources, including the RPCNA books mentioned above. Whenever a new version was necessary, they merely expanded their old book, without removing any of the old translations. One of these editions was produced in 1979. They were available in staff or sol-fa . A revised Psalter in more modern idiom was published in 2004 under

7020-470: The words. The tune and words can be matched by matching the meter ; each meter is a specification of line length and (implicitly) stressed syllables; if a tune is in Common Meter , any set of Common Meter words can go with it. Bible translation The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew , Aramaic , and Greek . As of September 2023 all of

7110-618: Was also published with music, much of it borrowed from the French Geneva Psalter. One setting from their collection that has survived is the metrical form of the Psalm 100 attributed to William Kethe , with the tune known as the Old 100th , often used as a doxology : In 1621, Thomas Ravenscroft published an expanded edition of the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter; Ravenscroft's edition added many more psalm tunes, some of which had been composed, since

7200-471: Was done by the priests and other clergy ; communal singing of Gregorian chant was the function of professional choirs, or among communities of monks and nuns . The reformers, perhaps inspired by Erasmus's desire for all to know the scriptures, pursued singable versions of the Psalms and other Christian texts for the communal use of the Reformed churches . One of the greatest metrical psalters produced during

7290-428: Was felt to have metrical vernacular versions of the Psalms and other Scripture texts, suitable to sing to metrical tunes and even popular song forms. Following an interpretation of the regulative principle of worship , many Reformed churches adopted the doctrine of exclusive psalmody : every hymn sung in worship must be an actual translation of a Psalm or some other Biblical passage. Some Reformed churches, especially

7380-519: Was furnished by Loys Bourgeois and others like Guillaume Franc and a certain Maistre Pierre. The composer Claude Goudimel harmonized these melodies with great variation in the complexity of the music. In some cases each part matches note for note, while others are contrapuntal or even motets . Even more elaborate musical arrangements were composed in the seventeenth century by Paschal de l'Estocart and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck . An example of

7470-611: Was given out for singing of the people and not for scientific use only. Today, psalms make up a quarter (102) of the Protestant hymn book from 1998 in German Switzerland. Another German psalter is the Becker Psalter . The first complete English metrical psalter and the first to include musical notation was The Psalter of Dauid newely translated into Englysh metre in such sort that it maye the more decently, and wyth more delyte of

7560-714: Was in turn a fresh translation from the Hebrew that maintained fidelity to its lyrical arrangement. Crowley rendered all the psalms in simple iambic fourteeners which conform to the single, short, four-part tune that is printed at the beginning of the psalter. From Crowley's rendition of Psalm 24: For the sake of comparison, here is how the same text is rendered in contemporary English Bibles: Thomas Sternhold published his first, short collection of nineteen Certayn Psalmes between mid-1547 and early 1549. In December 1549, his posthumous : Al such psalmes of Dauid as Thomas Sternehold ... didde in his life time draw into English Metre

7650-449: Was made in c. 1480. Loys Bourgeois Knowledge of his early life is sparse. His first publication, some secular chansons , dates from 1539 in Lyon . By 1545 he had gone to Geneva (according to civic records) and become a music teacher there. In 1547 he was granted citizenship in Geneva, and in that same year he also published his first four-voice psalms. In 1549 and 1550 he worked on

7740-645: Was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra ) in Biblical Aramaic . From the 6th century to the 10th century AD, Jewish scholars, today known as Masoretes , compared the text of various biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud ) to

7830-460: Was printed, containing thirty-seven psalms by Sternhold and, in a separate section at the end, seven psalms by John Hopkins . This collection was taken to the Continent with Protestant exiles during the reign of Mary Tudor, and editors in Geneva both revised the original texts and gradually added more over several editions. In 1562, the publisher John Day brought together most of the psalm versions from

7920-671: Was revised on orders of the Dutch legislature in 1773, in a revision which also added non-paraphrase hymns to the collection. This psalter also continues in use among the Reformed community of the Netherlands, and was recently revised in 1985. In 1968 a new metrical psalmbook appeared, which is incorporated in the Dutch hymnbook; Liedboek voor de kerken of 1973. The Genevan Psalms were translated into German by Ambrosius Lobwasser (1515–1585) in 1573 "Psalter des königlichen Propheten Davids" and were sung

8010-464: Was translated into Old French in the late 13th century. Parts of this translation were included in editions of the popular Bible historiale , and there is no evidence of this translation being suppressed by the Church. In England, "about the middle of the fourteenth century — before 1361 — the Anglo-Normans possessed an independent and probably complete translation of the whole of the Old Testament and

8100-589: Was written in Koine Greek reporting speech originally in Aramaic , Greek and Latin (see Language of the New Testament ). The autographs , the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors or collators, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the manuscripts that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type ,

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