A Poetic Translation of the Psalms

My new book entitled "The Psalms Resculpted: A Poetic Translation" has just been published and is available through Amazon.com. (Google search for "Milton Watt Resculpting" to find it). It's based on the principles discussed in my Ph.D. dissertation from Stellenbosch University (2015).  Dr. Christo van der Merwe and Dr. Ernst Wendland were my promoters (supervisors) for the dissertation.

Here is the information on the back cover:

Description: This work is a translation of the Psalms from Hebrew to English by a Bible translation specialist and a poet. The author uses his own methodology called “resculpting” to keep the shape of the original text without radically restructuring it. The form and meaning of the original message are both important and must be preserved in translation. 

The major goals of this resculpting translation are to keep as close as possible to the meaning of the Hebrew and to create a poetic message in English using a “rhyming organizational principle”. The translation is aimed for a Christian audience but is sensitive to a Jewish audience.

If you look up the book on Amazon.com, they include my 6-page introduction to the book, which gives more details of my approach. There are two small examples of poetic lines in the Introduction.

The following example from my book is a favorite, but is not in the Amazon "Look inside the book" feature:

1 Unity in community:

          How truly wondrous when the people of God

live as one in unity! 

2 Unity is like sacred oil 

          poured on the priest’s head, … 

                    flowing down on Aaron’s beard, … 

                oozing smoothly on his collar’s robe, …

            down, …

            and all around. 

3 Unity is like the dew of Hermon, 

               flowing down on Mount Zion. 

            Yes, there the Lord 

                        is expressing his blessing, 

                                      even life everlasting.