Category Archives: Bible versions

Bible translations

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I’m not particularly thrilled with any of the English translations these days. That may just be a sign of getting old and crotchety.

What are you currently using? What are you considering using? Are there any that you just can’t stand?

I still like the early NIV, but Zondervan needs to sell more of the new ones, so they won’t let you buy the old ones any more. Which means you can’t cite them in books… as I learned with Church Inside Out.

I’m using the ESV for writing. And don’t like it much.

What suggestions do you have?

Remember that “The Message” isn’t Scripture

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There are a number of things that I find disturbing about The Message, though much of that concern goes away if people will acknowledge it’s not a presentation of Scripture but a commentated retelling of Scripture.

Here are some problems I see:

Peterson made the choice to use “Master” when the New Testament calls Jesus “Lord.” But then he also chose to replace “Lord” with the word “God” in Old Testament references. By doing so, he lost the amazing point that Paul and others make when they show that Old Testament passages which were applied to God are now applied to Jesus! Look at Romans 10, where Paul uses a passage about “calling on the name of the Lord” as proof that we are to call on Jesus to be saved. That point gets lost in The Message:
Romans 10:9–13 (ESV)

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””
Romans 10:9–13 (The Message)
Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

(The quote about calling on the name of the Lord is to be connected to confessing Jesus as Lord. You can’t really connect “Help God” with “Jesus is my Master.”)

The Message frequently de-emphasizes the activities of demonic powers.
Ephesians 2:1–3 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Ephesians 2:1–3 (The Message)
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.

1 Timothy 4:1 (ESV)

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
1 Timothy 4:1 (The Message)
The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars.

(The Romans 8:38 quote from the previous post about The Message is another good example)

In my studies on nationalism, patriotism, and citizenship, I’ve often pointed out that the Bible never says “Be a good citizen.” That’s very far from the New Testament concept of Christians as strangers and aliens.
Of course, I was going by what the Bible says, not what The Message says:

Romans 13:1 (The Message)
Be a good citizen.
Romans 13:1 (ESV)
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

(The only time Paul talks about being a good citizen is in Philippians 1:27, and that’s about being a good citizen of the Kingdom)

Obviously I could go on and on. There are concerns about what Peterson has done with biblical passages that criticize homosexuality, about the introduction of mystical terms from other religions, about the insertion or deletion of this concept or that concept. There are strange anachronisms that can create confusion (note Andrew’s comment from the other day, for example). There are many times when we have to look at Peterson’s words and say, “Where in the world did that come from?”

My main point is this: when you read The Message, you are not reading God’s message. You are reading Eugene Peterson’s message about God’s message.

It’s the difference between listening to me read Scripture and listening to me talk about Scripture. As long as you can tell the difference, there’s no problem.

As long as we don’t pretend that The Message is Scripture, there’s no problem.

“The Message” isn’t always a translation

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There’s some debate about whether Eugene Peterson’s The Message is a translation or a paraphrase. I’d argue that it’s both, in some ways.

That is, Peterson translated from the Greek without consulting English translations, according to him. That’s a translation. Yet it seems to me that he then took that translation and “riffed on it,” producing a paraphrase of his own work!

Look at Paul’s question to the Ephesians in Acts 19:2. Here’s how the NIV translates it:

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

I’m no Greek expert, but looking at the GNT, the question seems to consist of 5 words which basically state what is above. Now look what Peterson did with the question:

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?”

See what I mean? The first sentence is the translation. The next two… have no basis in the Greek text. They aren’t translation. At best they are paraphrase. Essentially they are Peterson’s commentary on the translation.

How is the reader to know that? How is the reader supposed to know when Peterson is merely injecting things into the text?

Look at Romans 8:38-39. In “translating” this verse, Peterson writes:

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: (Tim: underline mine)

As a reminder, here’s how the NIV does it:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In another post, I’ll note how Peterson avoids discussion of spiritual powers; that’s a definite problem. What I’ve underlined shows a major theological point that Peterson has inserted into this passage… with no textual basis. Depending on what Peterson means in what he has authored here, I very well may agree with him. However… that’s not Romans 8. That’s not translation.

Again… how is the reader supposed to know?

So what do we do with The Message?

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I’ve been taking a closer look at The Message after some awkward moments in Bible class the last few Sundays. In each case, someone read from The Message, and what was read led the class away from what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount (our subject material).

I’ve been looking more closely and like less and less of what I see. The Message is a version of the Bible produced by Christian author Eugene Peterson. Peterson is a masterful author that I’ve enjoyed for years. The Message is his attempt to produce a Bible in the “street language” (his term) of the late 20th century.

Colloquial speech Bibles have been around for a long time. J.B. Phillips’ New Testament is a joy to read; I love gaining new insights into biblical passages from reading Phillips’ interpretation. Take Romans 8:19 for example:

The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the songs of God coming into their own.

Yet, I think we need some awareness when reading such texts. Clarence Jordan, who wrote the intriguing Cotton Patch Version, stated:

obviously the ‘cotton patch’ version must not be used as a historical text. The Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible are excellent for this purpose.

I personally wish Peterson had put a similar warning somewhere in The Message. I’ll spend some time next week looking at some of the things that trouble me about this version of the Bible. But I’d like to hear your thoughts and experiences. How do you see The Message?

Farewell NIV

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The NIV is going away. How weird is that? That is, the 1984 version is going away, the version that has dominated the Protestant landscape for several decades. The 2011 version is supplanting it.

I did my formative Bible study on the NIV (admittedly starting with an earlier version than the 1984 one). It’s the main version I used while getting my degrees in college.

Whereas the 1984 version made cosmetic changes to the earlier versions (so much so that I can’t think of any except for John 1:18), the 2011 makes widespread major changes, some for better, some for worse. (The official word from the publisher: “In this update, about 95% of the text remains exactly the same as the 1984 NIV that it replaces, based on the number of word changes.”)

What jolted me to the reality of the transition was this announcement from Accordance Bible Software:

At the publisher’s request, we are required to stop selling the NIV 1984 edition and the TNIV after January 16, 2012. That means there is just over a week left to purchase these Bibles if you would like them. This also applies to the bundles that include them.
We understand that many of our customers are interested in these versions, so please be sure to act now if you want to be able to use these Bibles in Accordance. After Monday, January 16, 2012, we will no longer be able to sell the NIV84 and TNIV.
We will also be required to stop supporting backups (Easy Install) for these Bibles after one year, so be sure to backup these files so that you will always have access to them.

Version replacement is common. Most KJV readers don’t use the 1611 version. It just caught me by surprise, I guess.