Studies in the Psalms

Understanding Biblical Hebrew poetry is a formidable task and the complexity rises exponentially when attempting translation. This collection of studies examines both the analysis of select Psalms and their translation into English and a Bantu language. Wendland uses his “literary functional equivalence” (LiFE) approach to translation to discuss parallelism, chiastic structures, and other aspects of Hebrew discourse in poetry, and how these are manifested on both the micro- and macro-levels of a particular Psalm.

Readers of this volume will

• better appreciate the beauty and power of the Psalms with their diverse artistic and rhetorical features,

• be able to develop their own method of investigating biblical poetry,

• understand how to apply analytical insights to the practice of translation, and

• evaluate translation techniques in published Scripture versions.

This book gives analytic insights to translators, researchers, or commentators on biblical poetry.