The Psalter According to the Seventy (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA)

[David James]

Product Details



Hardcover: 300.0 pages
Publisher: Holy Transfiguration Monastery; 3rd Printng edition (1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0943405009
ISBN-13: 978-0943405001
Price new: from $32.95
Price used: from $19.12
Links: amazon.com
Description: This is a light-blue cloth heavy-duty hardcover with gold stamping, printed on heavy opaque acid-free paper and smyth-sewn for durability. It contains the complete Book of Psalms from the Bible translated into traditional ecclesiastical English from the 1821 Moscow edition of the Septuagint, divided into kathismata for liturgical use. The psalm numbering follows that of the Septuagint, but not the verse numbering standard, for example, in Slavonic editions. Also included are the nine biblical odes (canticles) from the Septuagint, as well as Psalm 151. Probably the most widely used English Psalter in Orthodox Churches. Its large, clear print and readable layout make it easy on the eyes. Many pages are adorned with monochrome icons or iconographic line drawings by the iconographer, Photios Kontoglou. Red ink is employed to distinguish words not read aloud liturgically. First published in 1974.

[David James]

Now in its third printing, this book is well-known to English-speaking Orthodox Christians, as it first appeared fully a generation ago, in 1974, at the dawn of the period when English began to be widely adopted as a liturgical language in Eastern Orthodoxy. It also appeared before the translation of most of the Orthodox Church’s liturgical books into English. Since so much of the liturgical text is comprised of quotations from the Psalms, and many of the translators took pains to conform their translations to this text, its influence has been compounded correspondingly. Like all the publications of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, this book is handsomely designed in a legible font and well printed and bound on high-quality paper. St. Xenia Russian Orthodox Church in Methuen, Massachusetts, has an original edition on its cleros, which has withstood continual use for 35 years and is still in good condition, with an intact binding. Nevertheless, this translation is not much loved. Most people use it because they believe it is more faithful to the Septuagint text than the King James, or the Coverdale text of the Book of Common Prayer. It is that, but not unerringly so, at least in comparison to the Slavonic and Latin, as we shall see below, nor does this Psalter follow the usual verse numbering of Church editions of the Septuagint Psalter in Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic. The book’s main problem is its pedestrian and occasionally opaque translation; for, despite the translators’ claim to “have purposely chosen a style of English following that of the King James version,” they apparently had no ear for the music of the actual King James text, or for the original Coverdale translation that underlies the King James version. Right away, in Ps 1:1, which concludes in the KJ and Coverdale with “in the seat of the scornful,” this translation has, “in the seat of the pestilent,” apparently following the Douai-Rheims [“in the chair of pestilence”]. What exactly does that mean? The Latin (with which Coverdale and the translators of the KJ presumably were familiar) *is* “pestilentia,” but the Slavonic is “gubiteljei” – “of the nasty (or malicious).” It seems the original KJ word would serve just as well – better, even, since it is more familiar. A more problematic example is Ps. 17:30, where “oti en soi risthisomai apo peiratiriou” is translated as “for by Thee shall I be delivered from a host of robbers,” [a possible meaning, in Greek], but since the Latin [a temptatione] and Slavonic [ot iskushenia] both mean “from temptation,” it clearly should be “by Thee shall I be delivered from temptation, which is the first reading in my Greek lexicon, and makes more sense in context. Or how is Ps. 41:2 [Ps. 42:1 in the King James], “Like as the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God,” improved by “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so panteth my soul…”? Such examples could be multiplied almost ad infinitum. Pick a psalm, or even a verse, and compare it with the originals. If you are familiar with them, you are liable to be annoyed. A lesser issue, but still an inconvenience, is the omission of the traditional prayers before and after reading the Psalter, as well as the penitential troparia and prayers following the kathismata, which (in the Russian usage, at least) are used when reading the Psalter over the dead at wakes. For these, the observant Orthodox Christian must still search elsewhere.

[Father David Moser]

A lesser issue, but still an inconvenience, is the omission of the traditional prayers before and after reading the Psalter, as well as the penitential troparia and prayers following the kathismata, which (in the Russian usage, at least) are used when reading the Psalter over the dead at wakes. For these, the observant Orthodox Christian must still search elsewhere.

Actually this does exist. The Protection of the Mother of God parish in Rochester NY (http://www.POMOG.org) at one time printed a whole series of liturgical books, including the Psalter, in English and Slavonic (with Russian characters) side by side. The Psalter (English is the Holy Transfiguration translation) includes the troparia and prayers with each Kathisma (translated by Isaac Lambertson). It does not seem to have the Odes, however, and simply lists the scriptural reference to them in one of the appendices.

Fr David Moser

[Thomas Carroll]

A lesser issue, but still an inconvenience, is the omission of the traditional prayers before and after reading the Psalter, as well as the penitential troparia and prayers following the kathismata, which (in the Russian usage, at least) are used when reading the Psalter over the dead at wakes. For these, the observant Orthodox Christian must still search elsewhere.

Dear brother in Christ David,

I am all but certain that the prayers and troparia to which you refer are absent from the Psalter published by Apostoliki Diakonia (because we are in the middle of moving, it will be a few days before I can confirm this). Do these prayers and troparia have Greek antecedents or are they peculiar to the Slavonic Psalter?

Thomas Carroll

[David James]

Dear Thomas:

I would be surprised if there is no historical Greek antecedent for the Kathisma prayers in the Slavonic Psalter, but I do not know that for certain. Nevertheless, the Holy Transfiguration Monastery was a part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia when their Psalter was first published, so the omission is glaring. Even if the Kathisma Prayers are not included in modern Church editions of the Greek Psalter, the failure to even mention the existence of these prayers in the introduction [after criticising Fr. Lazarus (Moore) for omitting the Canticles from his translation] is puzzling, since the Slavic use is so widespread in world Orthodoxy, not to mention their own jurisdiction at the time.

David James


Dear brother in Christ David,

I am all but certain that the prayers and troparia to which you refer are absent from the Psalter published by Apostoliki Diakonia (because we are in the middle of moving, it will be a few days before I can confirm this). Do these prayers and troparia have Greek antecedents or are they peculiar to the Slavonic Psalter?

Thomas Carroll