Bay Psalm Book. The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre (1640), familiarly called the Bay Psalm Book, was the first book published in Anglo‐America, which underlines the importance that singing played in Puritan devotion. The Massachusetts clergy undertook the project because they judged the current most popular Psalter, Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins's Whole Book of Psalms (1562), an insufficiently literal translation of the Hebrew, and Henry Ainsworth's more accurate Book of Psalms (1612) problematic because of the author's separation from the Church of England. Thomas Welde, John Eliot, and Richard Mather penned most of the verses, while John Cotton wrote the preface. A consensus that the text warranted artistic improvement led Henry Dunster, president of Harvard College, and Richard Lyon to publish a revision, differently titled, in 1651.

The Bay Psalm Book played a central role in both public services and domestic devotions for over a century, since Puritans sang psalms to praise God, comfort the afflicted, admonish the wicked, urge sinners to Christ, and vivify their sense of heaven's imminent glory. Some scholars derogated the poetry's quality, calling attention to its forced rhymes and the inverted order of phrases, but its “singsong” cadences aided memorization, a useful means for increasing worshipers' participation in an age when books were scarce and many individuals could not read. The volume lost favor in the mid‐eighteenth century as congregations' musicianship improved and ministers accepted scriptural paraphrases as liturgically sound; still, the twenty‐seventh (and last) New England edition appeared as late as 1762.
See also Bible, The; Colonial Era; Literature: Colonial Era; Puritanism.

Bibliography

Zoltán Haraszti , The Enigma of the Bay Psalm Book., 1956.
Charles Hambrick‐Stowe , The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth‐Century New England, 1982, pp. 111–16.

Charles L. Cohen

BAY PSALM BOOK

BAY PSALM BOOK. The Bay Psalm Book, formally titled The Whole Book of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre (1640), was the first book printed on Anglo-American soil. The Puritan divines of the Massachusetts Bay Colony set out to produce a translation from the Hebrew that was reflective of their unique brand of Calvinism and more literal than the most popular Psalter of the day. Although approximately thirty clergymen contributed to the book, Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Welde were its primary authors. Scholars have disputed the authorship of the preface, some attributing it to Mather and others to John Cotton.

The use of the Bay Psalm Book in both public services and private devotions underscores the central place of song in Puritan religious life. The book's cultural significance was originally underestimated by modern scholars because of its awkward poetic style, but recent interpreters point out that the authors' primary aim was to translate the Scriptures as literally as possible into musical form. Furthermore, they stress that the book is an artifact of a society that defined itself through oral communication, and that its unsophisticated rhymes and phrasing facilitated memorization in an age when many could not read. The Bay Psalm Book went through twenty-seven editions, the last of which appeared in 1762.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amory, Hugh, and David D. Hall, eds. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E. The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

Haraszti, Zoltán. The Enigma of the Bay Psalm Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956.

K. HealanGaston

See alsoPuritans and Puritanism .

Bay Psalm Book common hymnal of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Written by Richard Mather , John Eliot , and Thomas Weld, it was published in 1640 at Cambridge as The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre. The announced effort of the authors to make a literal rendering at the expense of elegance is successful if the crudity of the verse be a criterion. This was the first book published in the Thirteen Colonies.

Bibliography: See Z. Haraszti, The Enigma of the Bay Psalm Book (1956).

Bay Psalm Book, name generally given to The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, the accepted hymnal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The translation was made by Richard Mather, John Eliot, and Thomas Weld, with the stated intention of sacrificing elegance to accuracy. It was published at Cambridge (1640) by Stephen Daye, and except for a broadside and a brief almanac was the first work printed in the colonies. John Cotton wrote the Preface.

Bay Psalm Book. The metrical version of the Psalms produced at Cambridge, Mass. (popularly known in the USA as ‘Bay State’), in 1640. It was the first book to be printed in British America.