A New Psalter

The objective of the Anstey Psalter project is to prepare a new liturgical psalter for public worship (and private devotion) for Australian Anglican churches and ministry centres that:

• translates the psalms from the original Hebrew, taking into account latest scholarship;
• is comprehensible to contemporary English language speakers;
• is sensitive to contemporary cultural and ecclesial contexts;
• conveys an aesthetically pleasing rhythm and prosody, suitable for reading and singing;
  
• maintains where appropriate continuity with the Coverdale/KJV Psalter;
• includes the superscriptions (and other metatext) of the Psalter;
• is accompanied by musical settings composed for the project; and
• provides a Commentary on the translation as a separate publication

You can read more about the Translation Principles here, more about the musical compositions here and more about the trial here. You can read excerpts of the Anstey Psalter here.

The Anstey Psalter project is overseen by an Advisory Committee:

• Clive Rodger (chair)
• Rev'd Assoc Prof Matthew Anstey (translator)
• Rt Rev'd Dr Richard Treloar
• Rt Rev'd Prof Stephen Pickard
• Very Rev'd Chris Chataway
  
• Kathy Teague
  
• Jan Andrews
• Richard Black
• Rev'd Canon Stephen Daughtry
• Rev'd Dr Jane Foulcher

In 2017, General Synod passed motion R52/17:

“The General Synod, noting the changing contexts of mission
for the Anglican Church of Australia, requests the Liturgy
Commission to continue to develop texts in areas including
… [a] new liturgical psalter.”

The psalter project was proposed by Rev’d Assoc Prof Matthew Anstey who undertook to prepare the translation. Dr Anstey is an internationally recognised Biblical Hebrew scholar and parish priest at St Theodore’s, Toorak Gardens, Adelaide.

A pilot project received funding in March 2022 from General Synod and took place under the auspices of the Liturgy Commission. In late 2023 the Liturgy Commission decided not to continue oversight once the pilot concluded. However, the Commission strongly encouraged Dr Anstey to continue in a private capacity. Dr Anstey accordingly convened a new Psalms Advisory Committee.