Back in the days when the 1928 Prayer Book was in general use (and all was right with the world) neophyte lay readers would, in an attempt at efficiency, occasionally read the responsive psalm for the morning or evening office from the lectern Bible rather than the Prayer Book Psalter.
What followed was a pantomime guaranteed to raise sniggers in the choir. The lay reader would be visibly and increasingly puzzled by responses that failed to accord with the words of the King James Bible, while the congregation would be equally baffled by the unfamiliar words being read to them.
Eventually, the officiant would put an end to the agony of both parties by calling a halt to the proceedings and explaining what had gone wrong.
The words of the Psalms in the 1928 Prayer Book Psalter are not those of The King James Bible. The Prayer Book Psalter is taken from “The Great Bible”—an English translation of the Scriptures by Bishop Myles Coverdale. It was authorized for use in churches in 1540, more than 70 years before publication of the KJV.
The Coverdale Psalter remains England’s official version of the Psalms to this day. because the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer remains the Church of England’s official Prayer Book. Indeed, it was essentially the 1662 rite that was used at the recent British royal wedding.
It is a testament to the fundamental conservatism (with a small “c”) of Anglicans that the Coverdale Psalter was retained in the 1662 book when those of the King James Version supplanted Coverdale’s Epistles and Gospels.
The 1662 Book emerged from the Savoy Conference, convened in 1661, after the restoration of the monarchy and the episcopate, in order to reconcile dissident Puritan clergy with the established Church.
As radicals invariably do, the Puritans arrived at the conference with a list of non–negotiable demands. These included the abandonment of the use of vestments, especially the surplice; a ban on reading the Apocrypha during services; and the exclusive adoption of the King James Bible for use during services,
The bishops at the council refused to ban the use of vestments and were baffled by the Puritans objections to the Apocrypha. As Jesus had quoted from books of the Apocrypha, they asked what the objections were?
“It be not the Word of God,” the Puritans replied.
“Why, then, your interminable sermons?” asked the bishops, drily, “Be they the Word of God?”
But while the bishops refused to ban the reading of the Apocrypha at worship, they agreed to adopt the painstakingly translated King James Bible as the Church of England’s authorized version of scriptures.
At this point the people in the pews rebelled. Coverdale’s Psalms were the popular hymns of the 16th and 17th centuries. Rank–and–file Anglicans were not slow to express their outrage at the prospect of being deprived of well–loved hymnody. Thus Coverdale’s Psalter was retained.
Myles Coverdale (1488–1569) was a Cambridge–educated canon lawyer. He was fluent in both Latin and German, but not particularly learned in Hebrew or Greek. But while by the standards of his day he was not a notable scriptural scholar, he had a flair for the English written word.
Between 1526 and 1535, he produced the first complete English Bible to appear in print, while in voluntary exile in Europe. It was not a direct translation from the original tongues, as is the King James Bible. But Coverdale made up for his linguistic deficiencies by drawing on the scholarship of greats like William Tyndale and Martin Luther, and also the Vulgate, the Latin Bible.
Between 1535 and 1540 he published a number of scriptural translations, including one that compared the Vulgate with his own. In 1540 he was commissioned by Henry VIII to edit “The Great Bible” to be put in churches so every citizen should have access to a Bible.
Coverdale’s Bible rightly gave way to the formidable scholarship of the King James Bible, but there was no supplanting his masterful ability to reproduce the rhythms and cadences of Hebrew psalmody. The King James Version of the Psalms rank as fine English poetry, but they fail to reflect the earthiness and verve of the Hebrew so brilliantly captured by Coverdale.
Visitors might notice that words of the psalms sung at St. Stephen’s during Choral Mattins and Evensong are occasionally slightly different from those of the 1928 BCP Psalter. That is because we sing the original Coverdale versions contained in the Book of 1662.
Even though we refer to the 1928 Psalter as a Coverdale Psalter, it has not escaped the editor’s pencil. The Episcopal Church’s predilection for monkeying with genius by no means began in 1979. GPH
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