The Message - thoughts?

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Chris_LaRock said:
Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

I personally like the KJV’s “The LORD is my shepard, I shall not want.” more than the DRB’s, " The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing."
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I prefer Psalm 23 in the KJV better than in ANY other translation. Many of my family members and friends have the KJV translation of Psalm 23 on their funeral cards; both the Catholics and Protestants pick the KJV translation.
 
Verita said:
It isn’t really a “translation”, it’s a “paraphrase”.
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In common biblical parlance, a “translation” is from the original languages, and a “paraphrase” is a rephrasing from an already-existing translation. That’s why “The Living Bible” is called a paraphrase, and “The New Living Translation” is called a translation. Dictionary quotes earlier in this thread and arguments about meanings seem to fail to take this fact into account.
The bottom line is that Peterson doesn’t create an objective or scholarly work.
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I don’t think he intended to, for better or for worse.
He basically interprets the Bible to mean what he wants it to mean.
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True to his Protestant roots, except it’s all the more insidious when he does so and then calls his interpretation “The Bible.”
Having compared simple verses from the Message with their counterpart in the NIV I was shocked and disgusted at the difference.
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And the NIV is no shining star in the biblical world either. It’s well known to have much by way of Protestant interpretation embedded in the translation.
The Message doesn’t say what the Bible says, it says what Eugene Peterson think the Bible means. In short, it’s an abomination that mutilates the words of the authors.
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I’m with you on that, but I feel the same way about the NIV, in large part. The only Protestant translation I’m remotely comfortable with is the ESV or the NASB.

Jeremy
 
jemfinch said:
The only Protestant translation I’m remotely comfortable with is the ESV or the NASB.
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I like both of those a lot. The ESV is easier to read than the NASB, but both are accurate and for the most part not biased toward an individual or denomination’s opinion.
 
I am entering my declining years, and the time I have left is precious to me, so I don’t waste it on non-Catholic bible translations, commentaries and studies. time is too short to waste on anything except the fullness of truth. There is simply no occasion, except possibly in an apologetics discussion, or in instructing students on the differences in translations, for a Catholic ever to resort to non-Catholic translations of the Bible.
 
jemfinch said:
I’m with you on that, but I feel the same way about the NIV, in large part. The only Protestant translation I’m remotely comfortable with is the ESV or the NASB.

Jeremy
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I’m of that opinion about the NIV now too. But at the time I was a protestant. The point is that the Message is an abomination by even the NIV’s standards. I hated it long before I ever thought about Catholicism.

Now I prefer to read the Douay Rheims or the New Jerusalem Bible.
🙂
It is in the spirit of this “soiled ordinariness” that Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 (NIV: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”) to “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”
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That just makes me shudder. How could anyone feel the right to take such liberties? Poor Peterson. He will be held accountable. 😦
 
lak611 said:
I don’t have either one of those. How do they render John 8:58?
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58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am![a]”**
****Footnotes:**

  1. *]John 8:58 Or before Abraham was even born, I have always been alive; Greek reads before Abraham was, I am. See Exod 3:14.
    This is the New Living Translation
 
Pug said:
58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am![a]”**
****Footnotes:**

  1. *]John 8:58 Or before Abraham was even born, I have always been alive; Greek reads before Abraham was, I am. See Exod 3:14.
    This is the New Living Translation
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  1. The text of the NLT is not too bad, but the footnote is awful.:eek:
 
"Jesus answered, ‘The truth is, I existed before Abraham was even born.’ "

This is similar to the New World’s rendering. It’s done to rob Jesus of His diety.

Exo 3:14 God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you.

Joh 8:58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM.
 
Chris_LaRock said:
"Jesus answered, ‘The truth is, I existed before Abraham was even born.’ "

This is similar to the New World’s rendering. It’s done to rob Jesus of His diety.

Exo 3:14 God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you.

Joh 8:58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM.
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I agree. I AM is the English translation of the Name. A translation must state “I AM” in order to accurately convey the meaning of the verse (Jesus is God).
 
I have a copy of the Jehovah’s witness “kingdom interlinear”. It’s interesting to go through and see how times ‘ego eimi’ is translated accurately as ‘I am’ in every place - except for John 8:58.:rolleyes:

The original Living bible inserts the name Jehovah throughout the OT. The revision (NLT) doesn’t mention Jehovah even once.
 
The same happened with the American Standard Version when it was revised as the New American Standard Bible. The ASV had Jehovah inserted everywhere in the OT where ‘the LORD’ appears in the King James, but the revision didn’t.
 
In my humble opinion, The Message is a good translation to read. Like Good News. When studying, it is obviously not a good translation. Some folks are such KJV fans that they will not read other translations and believe them to be inferior, when in point of fact biblical scholarship has advanced greatly since 1611, and so other translations are very accurate, more so than KJV.
Some other folks are so set on using their own translation that The Message meets with disapproval simply because it is not a word for word rendering of the original Greek. Having looked into The Message and Eugene Peterson, I have heard The Message quoted on several national radio and tv ministries, by pastors who are very very biblical indeed.
It is not a dumbing-down of the Bible, it is written in the same everyday language as the original Greek text, which itself was not formal. People think that a text must be formal if it talks about God. Jesus did not speak in a formal way. He told down-home parables about mustard seeds and wheat, not the latest theological dogma out of the OT, so if speaking naturally was good enough for Jesus while He was on this Earth, then a plain ol text of what happened with his ministry is good enough for us. Not for study purposes, but certainly for reading.
The idea is to make Bible reading easier for those who would not crack open a Bible the way some translations read, in such a formal way. I had a friend recently who was diagnosed with cancer. A friend said to read the book of Job. She had a great deal of difficulty understanding it and was quite despondent. I told her, look, there is a plain English translation, not superior to others but plain nevertheless, I will order it from amazon for you and you can delve into Job THAT way and now she has read Job and understands it. So if understanding the text of the OT and NT is the goal, then The Message fills that niche very nicely. If you look for more serious and more accurate word for word, then The Message is not good for that.
Now, it should go without saying, that all this is just my humble opinion, and I mean humble, so to write and dispute this or that is all to no avail, as I am voicing opinions only, which are not really subject to scrutiny, thankfully, as they do not pretend to be authoritative 🙂 An opinion is never authoritative.
 
Just a note that since this thread was written, a Catholic/Ecumenical edition of The Message (including the deuterocanonical books) has been published. Learn more at TheMessageCatholic.com.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
**“As a preacher, teacher, and writer, I am always looking for resources that put flesh and bones on the timeless wisdom of the Word of God. The Message does that and more. Sometimes lyrical and sometimes leaving a smile on the face, this paraphrase of the Bible into contemporary English will give you cause to pause, ponder, and pray.”

-Fr. Albert Haase, OFM,
co-host, “Spirit and Life” on Relevant Radio

“The Message is so startlingly new, it often makes me laugh out loud and nod my head with its frank and practical approach. I think the prophet Jeremiah would say: “That’s what I meant!” And I feel sure Saint Paul talked just like this.”
  • Alice Camille,
    Award-Winning Columnist on the Scriptures,
    U.S. Catholic Magazine
I am truly excited that this edition is now available for Catholics. The people at ACTA have maintained throughout that this is not meant to replace your favorite Catholic translation, but rather to be an aid to understanding and discovery. I think it succeeds in this quite well. The content and format of this edition is conducive to reading the Bible in large chunks. The Message remains popular in Protestant circles, and I know of a number of Catholics who take great comfort in reading from it. So, I am glad that there is finally a complete Catholic edition available for them and for all who are interested in seeing a rendering of the Bible in a fresh, unique way.
 
I have the old Living Bible paraphrase as well as the Good News translation and both are okay for reading sometimes but not so much for study . They tend to go with the Protestant interpretation in most places and most (except the GN CE) lack the Deuterocanonical books. These two things drop them way down in my liking compared to either the NABRE or the RSV CE 2nd, (which is my favorite)

I also have a couple of copies of the Confraternity translation which I like very much and would use over TM or TLB. The Message is not much different than the Living Bible…
 
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