Translating Psalms from Orality to Performance: A Case Study with Psalm 3

Abstract

Psalms are performance literature and were prepared for communities to engage with orally. The sound patterns, rhythm, and use of many performance features strengthen the communication of the meaning and facilitate the audience to participate in the worship within the psalms. This paper explores an approach to translating psalms in which community poets and musicians begin by focussing on listening to the text and exploring orally the big themes and poetic patterns. Next they engage in various creative activities relevant to the text and to their contexts. Then they analyse the text carefully, using the traditional exegetical approach. This helps firm up the oral text, bringing it closer to the Hebrew, but retains the initial creativity that emerged in the earlier exercises. Finally, the exegetically-accurate written text is adjusted, as needed, for community performance. The methodology has been used with several communities in Africa and initial results are encouraging.