READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

  A reflection on the earliest modern English versions of Psalm 23, found in the pewsheet for the fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd),  St. Peter’s Eastern Hill, the 26 th of April, 2026   “The Lord is my shepherd; I can want nothing.” This year is the 500 th anniversary of   William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, published only a decade before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. Some of his versions of Books of the Old Testament have survived, though he was put to death before completion of that task.   “He feedeth me in a green pasture, and leadeth me to a fresh water.” We glimpse Tyndale in the unsigned Matthew Bible (1537), brought out a year after his execution in the Netherlands. Fellow Protestant translator Miles Coverdale included all available Tyndale translations and was himself a collaborator with Tyndale on the Pentateuch. Some of those translations were still in manuscript.   “He quickeneth my soul, and bringeth...

Psalm: Heidelberg West Day 9 The Bible and Shakespeare are non-starters on a desert island. The rules of that game imply that the island consists of the Bible and Shakespeare. Here is the book that I have been reading every year, in one way or another, though especially in church, since I was born. It is the Book of Psalms. All 150 appear in the Bible, but also in every kind of translation in pew notes, overheads, powerpoints, CD booklets, &c. Lately someone has been painting the word around more desolate parts of Melbourne. 'Someone', though it's probably a collective of psalmists, given the varying calligraphic styles of PSALM. In keeping with this exercise, here are 100 words on a word in the title: Psalm (July) Lately we sing the oldest songs. The only book I’ve heard every year of my life. Lately, this July, I heard an explanation of discernment. We live with God within the spacious confines of consolation and desolation. Whoever we are in all t...