"Thou are God", or "Thou art God"
By Ed Piper
A lot of the younger generation didn't grow up with thee's and thou's in church, in their hymnals and in their Bible translations.
Case in point is the famous Isaac Watts hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past". Watts, a prolific and renowned hymnist, penned this ode to God's faithfulness in 1719, using words from Psalm 90.
In the second verse, as the hymn is printed in the red 1955 Hymnbook of the Presbyterian Church (USA) which I grew up singing in church from, it says in the second line, "From everlasting Thou art God/To endless years the same."
Years ago, around the time of going to seminary, or shortly thereafter, I went through The Hymnbook and culled all the hymns that I recognized from my youth. I painstakingly typed the lyrics of each hymn, loving music and singing as I do.
I later added the information provided in the red hymnal on each of these hymns, the lyricist, the date of publication, and any other information I could find.
This proved to be too distracting and cumbersome, so I subsequently "slimmed down" my lyric sheets, which now consist of 29 pages on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper printed out, by deleting the lyricist and date information.
But I retain the number the hymn is assigned in my beloved Hymnbook, which I have a copy of in good condition from my years leading the worship service at Mount Laguna, in the mountains east of San Diego.
(I have another copy, faded on the cover from the sun beating on it in the pew rack at the back of the sanctuary of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Camarillo, which I attended beginning at age 10.)
To show how errors can occur in manuscript copying, over the years I had mistakenly typed "Thou are God" in the above cited verse. A few days ago, I was singing "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" and thought, the "are" should be "art". Let's see what the hymnal says.
And sure enough, the version in The Hymnbook says "Thou art God". I made the change in my Google document, and moved on.
If you think back--and friend Art Miley and I talked about this--Bible translations of not too long ago contained thou's and thee's: The RSV, which began to be issued in the 1950's, translates Psalms with these elements from the King's formal English.
The NRSV, which later revised the Revised, doesn't use thee, thou, thy, thine in Psalms.
So, along with the generational split over contemporary and traditional worship music in church, which you don't hear anything about these days, there is a split between those generations that were raised on thee's and thou's, and those who weren't.
In fact, come to think of it, I haven't heard any arguments recently over the contemporary/traditional music split, which 10 years ago was a raging argument. I remember Gary Demarest's comment regarding older folks who would not stomach the newer praise music: "You would think that we had some music from the last 50 years." And he was a retired pastor of the older generation.
A lot of the younger generation didn't grow up with thee's and thou's in church, in their hymnals and in their Bible translations.
Case in point is the famous Isaac Watts hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past". Watts, a prolific and renowned hymnist, penned this ode to God's faithfulness in 1719, using words from Psalm 90.
In the second verse, as the hymn is printed in the red 1955 Hymnbook of the Presbyterian Church (USA) which I grew up singing in church from, it says in the second line, "From everlasting Thou art God/To endless years the same."
Years ago, around the time of going to seminary, or shortly thereafter, I went through The Hymnbook and culled all the hymns that I recognized from my youth. I painstakingly typed the lyrics of each hymn, loving music and singing as I do.
I later added the information provided in the red hymnal on each of these hymns, the lyricist, the date of publication, and any other information I could find.
This proved to be too distracting and cumbersome, so I subsequently "slimmed down" my lyric sheets, which now consist of 29 pages on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper printed out, by deleting the lyricist and date information.
But I retain the number the hymn is assigned in my beloved Hymnbook, which I have a copy of in good condition from my years leading the worship service at Mount Laguna, in the mountains east of San Diego.
(I have another copy, faded on the cover from the sun beating on it in the pew rack at the back of the sanctuary of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Camarillo, which I attended beginning at age 10.)
To show how errors can occur in manuscript copying, over the years I had mistakenly typed "Thou are God" in the above cited verse. A few days ago, I was singing "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" and thought, the "are" should be "art". Let's see what the hymnal says.
And sure enough, the version in The Hymnbook says "Thou art God". I made the change in my Google document, and moved on.
If you think back--and friend Art Miley and I talked about this--Bible translations of not too long ago contained thou's and thee's: The RSV, which began to be issued in the 1950's, translates Psalms with these elements from the King's formal English.
The NRSV, which later revised the Revised, doesn't use thee, thou, thy, thine in Psalms.
So, along with the generational split over contemporary and traditional worship music in church, which you don't hear anything about these days, there is a split between those generations that were raised on thee's and thou's, and those who weren't.
In fact, come to think of it, I haven't heard any arguments recently over the contemporary/traditional music split, which 10 years ago was a raging argument. I remember Gary Demarest's comment regarding older folks who would not stomach the newer praise music: "You would think that we had some music from the last 50 years." And he was a retired pastor of the older generation.
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