Another cold day, into which I did not venture out at all. This is one of the marks of prudence and maturity. (I’ve been prudent and mature on winter days since I was about nine years old). I had translation work to do, and that’s what I did. I’m not yet half-way through reading Nansen’s book (the thing is long, I tell you. Conveys the true polar night experience).

So what shall I post? I noodled around on YouTube and discovered the clip above. It’s Sissel, of course, with the Heretic Tabernacle Choir, doing the first verse of the original version of a hymn I expect you know – “How Great Thou Art.” It started out as “O Store Gud” (O Great God) in Swedish. The writer was Carl Boberg, a lay minister in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. He wrote it in 1885, after watching a storm and its aftermath. Later he sold the rights to his church body.

In 1930, Stuart K. Hine, a British Methodist missionary in the Ukraine, heard a Russian version (translated from a German version) of the hymn being sung. He started using it in his services, then began composing a free English paraphrase of this translation of a translation. He also began adding verses of his own, in response to needs he discerned among the people he worked with.

During the winter of 1932-33, the Hines were forced to leave Ukraine because of Stalin’s diabolical Holodomor forced famine (one hopes some of the millions of victims found comfort in his hymn as they died). In 1939, World War II forced the Hines to return to England, where they settled in Somerset and ministered to Polish refugees. It was at that stage that his final verse, “When Christ shall come….”, was added.

The song in his version (Swedish-Americans already had their own, less singable translation) was apparently first introduced to the United States at a conference in Stony Brook, New York, in 1951. But J. Edwin Orr of Fuller Seminary discovered it being sung by a choir in India. He introduced it at a conference in San Bernadino, California in 1953. Manna Music bought the rights, and George Beverly Shea started singing it at Billy Graham’s crusade in Harringay, England, in 1954. And the rest is hymnody.

What do I think of Hines’ translation? I’ve got to say, I do a fair amount of song translation in my script work. And I’ve learned to kiss literal sense goodbye. If you can transpose some of the original images and turns of phrase, you’re doing great. For the rest, always prefer rhyme, meter, and singability to literal faithfulness. What you need to try to do is convey the subjective experience. That’s the best you can do. More than that is madness.

I’ve sung more faithful translations of this hymn once or twice. I must confess, they did not move my heart.

Wikipedia has the whole story of “How Great Thou Art” here.