The Dynamic Horologion is a neat site for one who would like to read through the Psalms in the Orthodox Christian tradition. It also includes the reader’s service version (that is, a text adjusted to be read by a layman, without the parts that are said by the clergy presiding, whether bishop, priest, deacon, or abbot) of various Orthodox services, which if you click on it in your browser, it’ll bring up the service scheduled for that time of day. It’s really neat. That site uses the translation of the Septuagint Psalms done by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Mass. You’ll find it at the very least to be interesting!

But on sites for reading the Psalms in general, aside from that, I don’t know of anything else. That site is just perfect for me, so I haven’t looked for anything else. Happy hunting!

You’re right about the council/counsel, of course. That’s an unintentional slip. Please do continue to contribute, if you like. The more, the better!

I haven’t really tried my hand at the informal/dynamic style before, but thought it would be fun to try, especially with the LXX input as a guide. There’s too much lost in any translation (even my own!) for me to be truly satisfied with them, however. Also, I’ve never paid close attention to the LXX Psalms before, so this is an opportunity to see what’s going on there. The translation is remarkably literal.

Christology in the OT should, I think, be looked at more in the context of the very strongly-worded Divine Sonship passages scattered through the Psalms and Prophets, which were likely originally composed/sung in a context referring to the Davidic King: the Son of David as Son of God. The postexilic development certainly continued to that of an eschatological Son of David to come, fulfilled in the appearance of Jesus, who appears as Son of God in a way not clearly foreseen at all in the earlier writings. That seems also to be the approach taken by the NT writers, to a more or less conscious extent. It’s an interesting direction to look, anyway.

Thanks again for your very helpful comments!

I’m just catching up with online reading after a vacation in Italy. I thought of you while writing my “June in Tuscany” post. I wanted to note a good introduction or two to icons and how to look at them. But you would do better than I at this.

I really like what you are doing here with the Psalms. The attempt to render the Hebrew-Greek semantic overlap is a worthy one. The offer of both a formal and informal translation is helpful.

I know these Psalms by heart, and have tried my hand at translating them many times. It is not surprising, then, that I would wish to take issue with some of your choices. For example, “council” in Psalm 1:1, precisely on the basis of the Hebrew-Greek overlap, is better rendered “counsel.” I could go on in this vein, and I will if you ask me, but it might become tedious.

As far as the historical and christological senses of Psalm 2 are concerned, I would distinguish them more emphatically than you do. I would argue that the psalm was probably read in view of a future fulfillment soon after the Davidic dynastic came to an effective end, perhaps as early as the 6th cent. BCE. Our positions are not that far apart.

As you probably know, Tyler Williams, Wayne Leman, and I discussed this matter online not too long ago.

John Hobbins
http://www.ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com