Haven't done one of these in a while. At this point, I am not sure if I will bring this series back on a regular basis or not. We shall see.
Revised Grail:
1 Alleluia!
Praise God in his holy place;
praise him in his mighty firmament.
2 Praise him for his powerful deeds;
praise him for his boundless grandeur.
3 O praise him with sound of trumpet;
praise him with lute and harp.
4 Praise him with timbrel and dance;
praise him with strings and pipes.
5 O praise him with resounding cymbals;
praise him with clashing of cymbals.
6 Let everything that breathes praise the LORD!
Alleluia!
NABRE:
1 Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy sanctuary;*
give praise in the mighty dome of heaven.
2 Give praise for his mighty deeds,
praise him for his great majesty.
3 Give praise with blasts upon the horn,
praise him with harp and lyre.
4 Give praise with tambourines and dance,
praise him with strings and pipes.
5 Give praise with crashing cymbals,
praise him with sounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath
give praise to the LORD!
Hallelujah!
* [Psalm 150] The Psalm is a closing doxology both for the fifth book of the Psalms (Ps 107–149) and for the Psalter as a whole. Temple musicians and dancers are called to lead all beings on earth and in heaven in praise of God. The Psalm proclaims to whom praise shall be given, and where (Ps 150:1); what praise shall be given, and why (Ps 150:2); how praise shall be given (Ps 150:3–5), and by whom (Ps 150:6).
* [150:1] His holy sanctuary: God’s Temple on earth. The mighty dome of heaven: lit., “[God’s] strong vault”; heaven is here imagined as a giant plate separating the inhabited world from the waters of the heavens.
6 comments:
So often I am left with a deep abiding need to take each psalm and two dozen English translations and piece together my own version based on the best line from this one and the best line from that one and massage them together into the best English version of it possible.
Well that is basically how the KJV was written, and before that,that was basically how Jerome made the Vulgate out of the fragments of Latin translations that he had with him.
Reading the NABRE, I like it better - the wording itself - but trying to chant it one after Gregorian fashion or even in Common Time, the Grail works far better (it mostly fits), whereas the NABRE fits not at all.
So, if that's the goal of the Grail, to be chanted or sung, it achieves its purpose.
Not to mention the unwarranted reading of Ptolemaic cosmology in to the text in the notes of the NABRE, which the notes do much more often than once.
Given that Ptolemy didn't live until hundreds of years after the Psalms were written I rather doubt they Ptolemy in mind, however that the Psalmist is using a literary device of imagining the heavens as being suspended above the Earth seems to me impossible to deny, you can find modern poetry that uses the same device, but such literary devices ought not be taken any more literally than the Biblical allusions to the Earth having corners or to the trees clapping their hands.
Hi,
I am copying and pasting the Nova Vulgata, psalm 150
http://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_vt_psalmorum_lt.html#PSALMUS 150
1 ALLELUIA.
Laudate Dominum in sanctuario eius,
laudate eum in firmamento virtutis eius.
2 Laudate eum in magnalibus eius,
laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis eius.
3 Laudate eum in sono tubae,
laudate eum in psalterio et cithara,
4 laudate eum in tympano et choro,
laudate eum in chordis et organo,
5 laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus,
laudate eum in cymbalis iubilationis:
omne quod spirat, laudet Dominum. ALLELUIA.
I do not know latin, but the Revised Grial version is very similar to the Nova Vulgata.
After this, I tend to like more the NABRE version because the effort to translate its poetic sense, which deserves more than a literal translations.
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