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Are you asking if Psalms should be sung in Hebrew?
If you are asking based on english translations, then which translation would you like to choose?
I think it is important that translated material from the Scriptures not only be as accurate as possible, but also reflect the Scriptural genre, or content type. Thus I think it is really very useful to have the psalms translated into English poetry, because they are meant to be poetic. The really good thing is that the Hebrew poetic form can be maintained in any language as it gets a lot of its poetic value from various types of parallelism.
Since the psalms were given by God to be sung they should be translated in as accurate a way as possible producing songs in the receptor language which in the case of English means meter and rhyme.
What I'm sasking is whether or not it permitted under RPW to alter the sentence structure of a psalm for the purpose of accommodating and facilitating a better rhythmic and melodic feel so long as it does not change the essential meaning of the intended text?
Aha! That's what I was looking for! Thank you!What I'm sasking is whether or not it permitted under RPW to alter the sentence structure of a psalm for the purpose of accommodating and facilitating a better rhythmic and melodic feel so long as it does not change the essential meaning of the intended text?
What is the standard that you start with? The original Scottish Psalter? The KJV of the Psalms? The Hebrew Psalter? The Confession of Faith doesn't dictate a manner in which the Psalms are to be sung in Chapter XXI so it's impossible to determine.
What I'm sasking is whether or not it permitted under RPW to alter the sentence structure of a psalm for the purpose of accommodating and facilitating a better rhythmic and melodic feel so long as it does not change the essential meaning of the intended text?
This addresses some of the issue perhaps.
Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed
Here is what the objectors are seemingly trying to say. “You folks are not really singing the words of God. You are just singing the words of man as they understand the words of God to be. And that is the same thing we are doing. When we sing John Wesley or Fanny Crosby or Isaac Watts, we are just singing their interpretation of the word of God. That is all we are doing and that is all you folks are doing when you sing a paraphrase.”
But the objection breaks down. Even if I were reading the New International Version of the Bible, you would still recognize it as a poor translation of the Word of God. But if I were to stand in the pulpit and read Matthew Henry’s commentary on the same passage, no one would understand that to mean that I was reading the Word of God. That is the difference between singing Isaac Watts and singing even the poorest translation of the Psalms.
Aha! That's what I was looking for! Thank you!What I'm sasking is whether or not it permitted under RPW to alter the sentence structure of a psalm for the purpose of accommodating and facilitating a better rhythmic and melodic feel so long as it does not change the essential meaning of the intended text?
What is the standard that you start with? The original Scottish Psalter? The KJV of the Psalms? The Hebrew Psalter? The Confession of Faith doesn't dictate a manner in which the Psalms are to be sung in Chapter XXI so it's impossible to determine.