Sub Tuum compares the two and explains why the Book of Divine Worship is better. By the way, I only recently saw the BDW for the first time. It is the approved book for Anglican Use, and it is thrilling to see:
Concordat com originali
Reverend Monsignor James P. Moroney
Committee on the Liturgy
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Censor
Imprimatur
Bernard Cardinal Law
Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision
August 28, 2003
And as Sub points out, the Psalms herein are entirely in the public domain.
That Psalter is approved for use in at least one version of the Roman Rite. Does that mean that, if sung, it can be used in the "normal" Roman Rite?
I've never been clear on the question of what can and cannot be sung at the Responsorial Psalm. The Musicasacra forum has long threads on this, and the opinions are all over the place. Suffice to say that there is no list of approved translations anywhere to my knowledge but I'm virtually certainly that the BDW would be included, of course.
While I am always glad to see something Anglican praised, and although the observations of Sub Tuum have a point, still the translator whom I trust is the one who knows Hebrew like the back of his hand, who was worked with Hebrew as his life's work, who has absorbed backwards and forwards Kraus' work on the Psalms, who knows both the Hebrew and English literary traditions, and who can write English well. His name: Robert Alter.
When a prayer book for oblates was in the works at a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery with which I'm affiliated, I suggested the use of the contemporary psalter from the BDW (or Book of Common Prayer 1979 from whence it came) as it was not under copyright. I also pointed out that at least one Roman Catholic religious community uses that psalter's original version (from when poet W.H. Auden was on the psalter committee for a time) – the Benedictines at Portsmouth Abbey in Rhode Island. I think my suggestion was seriously considered at "my" monastery, but I do understand the decision to stick with the 1963 Grail to keep in step with the monks' prayer.
Good article from a Portsmouth Abbey oblate newsletter about psalters and why the Abbey uses the Prayer Book Psalter Revised (1973), a close predecessor to the Book of Common Prayer 1979 psalter:
http://www.portsmouthabbey.org/page/820/37/
Quite true, Scott, about Portsmouth Abbey, and what a wonderful Community of monks!
But it's not an accident that those wise monks use the very-hard-to-find (search the Internet!) PREDECESSOR to the BCP 1979, and not that far more easily obtained successor. The Prayer Book Psalter Revised (1973), which the monks use, maintained the Christological "man" references, almost all of which were expunged from the BCP 1979!
In fact, friends tell me that the fact that the BCP 1979 Psalter (essentially an inclusive-language psalter!) made it into the Book of Divine Worship is of no small concern to the good people who put that book together; and that it will NOT be appearing in any future editions of the Book of Divine Worship, its place being taken, one assumes, by the 1973 non-neutered version.
That 1973 book, by the way, contains a wonderful explanation as to the several reasons the Standing Liturgical Commission went with a revision of Coverdale, i.e., a translation NOT based on Hebrew but based on Jerome's Vulgate . . . all solid reasons which everyone on here will already know and subscribe to: Christological, ecclesial, etc. In summary: because we pray the Psalms as Christians.
Finally, given what's happened with Vox Clara and the Received Text of the Missal, I'd be less-than-thrilled to see the name that appears under Concordat cum originali. If the reports are true, that person did no favours to the 2008 text approved by the bishops as a translation both accurate and literate, in accord with Liturgiam authenticam, the Ratio translationis and accepted English usage. In fact, there are entries on another blog under GRAIL PSALMS RELEASED which reference the leaked document "Areas of Difficulty with the Received Text," one of which is that INSTEAD of referring to the Vulgate and the Missal's Latin, the Vox Clara people and the Congregation went with the Revised Grail based on the Hebrew. A problem when it comes to the Propers, since these antiphons are always read not only Christologically but ecclesially as well.
Anonymous makes an excellent point about the 1973 Psalter. It is a better book on a number of counts.
"The very excellencies of the several modern versions militate against their suitability for the Church's purposes. With one exception (the English Revised Psalter), they are attempts, and some of them brilliantly successful attempts, to render into contemporary English speech the received Hebrew text of the Psalms, and even to press behind the received text (where it offers difficulties) to probable original readings. This is a laudable ambition in Biblical translation, and one rightly values the results of such scholarship in liturgical readings and for study. The Psalter, however, is not just another Old Testament reading; it is a thoroughly naturalized Christian literature; so that the question is not only, 'What did this passage mean to the Jewish worshiper in pre-Christian Jerusalem?; but also, 'What does the passage mean to the Christian Church which continues to use it in its worship?'
"The Prayer Book Psalter, unlike the rest of the Great Bible of 1536, was not translated 'out of the original tongues.' It was an English translation, with reference to contemporary German versions from the Latin Vulgate Psalter; and that, in turn, was St. Jerome's revision of an older Old Latin version, not his own translation from the Hebrew. Finally, the Old Latin itself was a translation from a Greek translation made in the second and first centuries before Christ (the "Septuagint"). Our Psalter, then, stands at several removes from the Hebrew original, and comes to us steeped in centuries of Jewish and Christian worship and interpretation.
"Moreover, the Psalter is not primarily a body of readings to which one listens, or which one reads in solitude. It is a hymnal intended for corporate congregational recitation. A version of the Psalms for public worship, therefore, must lend itself to congregational singing and reading. Any text, of course, can be set to music and sung by trained choirs; but the Prayer Book Psalter is demonstrably suitable, because of its flexible prose lines and its strongly rhythmical terminal patterns, both to reading and singing, not only by solo voices, but also in unison, antiphonally, and responsively, by a worshiping congregation. The metrical Psalters and the modern "Grail" version are designed for singing, but their strong metrical pulse makes for monotony and jerkiness in reading."
Preface, The Prayer Book Psalter Revised (1973)
I've never been clear on the question of what can and cannot be sung at the Responsorial Psalm.
If it's acceptable to sing the various "responsorial psalms" contained in Gather or Worship or Ritual Song with their original texts by the composer (i.e – not the actual psalm text), then why would it not be acceptable to use the BDW?
To add to my previous comment… I would just love to have the discussion with the person (Priest, Bishop, whomever…) that objected to the use of the Psalms in the BDW while allowing "Shepherd Me O God" or other such compositions… it would be a tough argument to make!