The Complete Psalms: The Book of Prayer Songs in a New Translation
With her introduction to this new translation of the biblical book of Psalms, Greenberg, a poet who has studied ancient Hebrew and Judaism, explains that she approached the work first as a personal spiritual exercise. That authentic engagement with these poems of universal human experience comes through in her translation, which moves freely between strict translation and loose interpretation as the author's artistic and religious impulses dictate. Greenberg's knowledge of the original language of the psalms and their stylistic characteristics keeps the book from becoming simply a meditation about, or reaction to, any existing version in English. She maintains the parallelism that is fundamental to Hebrew poetry, and her rendering is informed by the nuances of individual words or phrases. For example, in place of the familiar phrase "for your name's sake" in Psalm 23, Greenberg writes, "for that is your nature." Some readers may take issue with Greenberg's choices, but they should welcome this poetic translation as not only the work of a modern poet but also fresh commentary on one of the best-loved books of the Bible.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.