Freeing Biblical Poetry to Sing

Abstract

This article claims that the cognitive effects of music on the brain reinforce the Biblical exhortation to "Sing to the Lord a new song" (Psalm 96:1, Colossians 3:16). Then it explores how this is borne out in poetic translations of Biblical Hebrew poetry into indigenous song forms in Natügu [ntu] and English [eng]. The numerous positive results of using sung poetic translations support the psycholinguistic literature, and suggest that to achieve similar benefits it should become standard best practice in Bible translation to set Biblical poetry translations to music.

Why Consider Local Genres in Translation?

“…A handful of scholars and practitioners in the Bible translation world have suggested-and demonstrated-that rendering passages in comparable genres of the receptor culture can have a remarkable impact. These authors have written on the power of the Psalms in local genres (e.g., Boerger 2016;Dickie 2022;Salisbury 2015;Wendland 2017;Zogbo and Wendland 2020) and on the effectiveness of local-style proverbs for wisdom sayings from the Old Testament (e.g., Salisbury 2014;Unseth 2006) and New Testament (e.g., Pluger 2015). Wendland (2011) and Wilt and Wendland (2008) have addressed the subject more comprehensively, providing resources and vision for matching the wealth of biblical genres with comparable genres in receptor cultures.…”