Post
by _Steve » Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:35 am
My problems with The Message are not limited to my objections to paraphrases in general. I like to read paraphrases (though I would never recommend that anybody use one for their primary Bible). An insightful paraphrase is like listenening to a good exposition. The question is whether The Message is even a good paraphrase.
Now here I am speaking from limited exposure. I was given a lovely, leather-bound copy of this book as a gift, when it was still a new version. I wanted to like it, but everywhere I read in it made me feel nauseated, so I threw it away (something I have done with no other version). I might have been hasty, and I suppose it would be good to have one on my shelf now. I think I tossed it because I thought its renderings were so absurd that it would never pass into general usage in the church.
Psalm 1:1 and other Pslams were among the first parts that I read. Immediately, I had the following impressions:
1) If it was intended to be a modern paraphrase to reach today's youth, it not only failed to speak in the language of today's youth, but it sounded ridiculous in the attempt. Do young people really talk about "saloons" and making "trips to the woodshed" (Ps.6:1-2)? It sounded like an old man's lame attempts to sound contemporary, though he had little idea what "contemporary" communication sounds like. It is an embarrassment.
2) In addition to being an embarrassment, it seemed as though the author was himself embarrassed about many of the politically-incorrect truths in the Bible (as per the examples cited by Homer, above).
3) While some may find it reads easier than, say, the NASB or the KJV, it does not seem to make any advances in readability over many existing translations and paraphrases, which stick more closely to the meaning of the original, and which maintain a modicum of dignity (e.g., the NIV, the New Living Translation, the Philip's Translation [paraphrase], etc.)
4) I don't know Eugene Peterson (the writer of The Message), nor his motives, but it was hard for me to look at his product without getting the profound impression that it, like so many other new versions of the Bible, was just another commercial venture intended to sell to the ever-restless Bible-reading public, who change favorite translations so frequently that they never become sufficiently familiar with the wording of any. It simply filled an imaginary gap in the literature, not a real gap.
5) I would recommend any other paraphrase I have ever seen before I would recommend The Message. When I meet someone who uses it as their main Bible, I cringe inside, knowing the degree of biblical illiteracy that this choice exhibits, and which it is guaranteed to perpetuate.
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Reason: In Jesus,
Steve
