There have been some additional translated versions of that verse that scan slightly better. Here's the one we sing every year with our church:
True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal
Lo, He shuns not the Virgin’s womb
Son of the Father, begotten, not created
Diving in with Hymnary's text comparison tool, there's some tracing that can be done to see roughly when some of these textual changes were first published, but it's hard to ascertain who specifically made each contribution as hymnals tend to consistently word the translation attribution something like, "Frederick Oakeley & others." To be transparent, I wasn't aware of the true but clunky earliest version, nor did I realize that other churches were leaving out perhaps the best verse of the song!
I’m so glad for the emphasis on biblical and doctrinal soundness seen in the modern Hymn movement of the last 25–30 years. But we fail our congregations if our hymn-writing is too far removed from basic songwriting principles like the one you’ve elucidated here. Good job, Dr. W. Also, that Harland quote is worth the whole article!
There have been some additional translated versions of that verse that scan slightly better. Here's the one we sing every year with our church:
True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal
Lo, He shuns not the Virgin’s womb
Son of the Father, begotten, not created
Diving in with Hymnary's text comparison tool, there's some tracing that can be done to see roughly when some of these textual changes were first published, but it's hard to ascertain who specifically made each contribution as hymnals tend to consistently word the translation attribution something like, "Frederick Oakeley & others." To be transparent, I wasn't aware of the true but clunky earliest version, nor did I realize that other churches were leaving out perhaps the best verse of the song!
I’m so glad for the emphasis on biblical and doctrinal soundness seen in the modern Hymn movement of the last 25–30 years. But we fail our congregations if our hymn-writing is too far removed from basic songwriting principles like the one you’ve elucidated here. Good job, Dr. W. Also, that Harland quote is worth the whole article!
Good to see you here, Matthew. I have been writing and reading for about 5 months.
I was thinking about Sovereign Grace’s adaptation of the verse to make it not clunky.