The Message translation: like a bad movie you just have to finish watching...

I'm drawing close to the end of the Message translation of the Holy Bible, and now I'm firmly convinced that Eugene Peterson really had no idea what he was doing in this translation. I've just finished the letters to Timothy, and in addition to some of the sillier translations of familar passages, now, apparently, there are no gender restrictions to church leadership (per ch. 5, "Don't promote people to church leadership too hastily." Now it's people in leadership?) It just feels like this is the translation written for a United Methodist congregation, that just missed the mark of providing a literal translation of the holy text. I found this online, too, that offers a good identification of questionable areas of the translation, and is worth checking out for anyone considering picking up this tranlation.

It's sad to make this comparison, but the Message translation/distortion of the Scriptures is like a bad movie, that you just have to see to the end to justify the purchase cost ($10 at Lifeway. And on a related note, I'm becoming convinced of something that Pastor Baucham once said, that "Christian" bookstores like Lifeway need to put signs on their doors that say "the views expressed inside are not necessarily that of Christ and the Bible" (or words to that effect.)

On the surface, the idea behind the Message is a good one: roll the text out in a more easy to consume format for contemporary readers. But at the cost of compromising the integrity of the original MESSAGE, the Message misses the mark. I wonder if I can make a return to Lifeway, on grounds of Scriptural errancy in the translation?

More thoughts on the Message

I've finished the Old Testament translation of the Message, and now I'm into Matthew's gospel, and while some of the translation has been engaging through the Old Testament text, once we get into the gospels, the narrative seems to get a bit strange. Having recently studied Matt. 7 at church, I'm pretty sure that the translator is taking some liberties with some of the text, as if he's writing what he THINKS the text is stating, but which it actually isn't. Still, I'm going to see it through even though I would NOT recommend this translation to others.

Also, if anyone else, like me, transferred the Message MP3's from the disks to MP3 player and did not want to hear the frothy and mostly irrelevant mini-sermons between each book, here's the easy way to get rid of these fast from a CMD prompt...

The Message Bible on MP3 and unnecessary intermission segments

I've listened to several books of the Bible in the Message translation on MP3, and aside from some silly translations in the Psalms it's not bad. It does have me hungry, though, to hear the Word again but in a more mature translation, such as the NKJV or NASB.

One thing completely unnecessary, though, are these sappy intermission segments between books read (and written by?) Carol Nix. There's nothing to glean from these whatsoever, and as I've been transferring the books of the Message translation, I've been deleting these. Ironically, they are by Carol Nix, and I've been nixing these from my MP3 player...

How to read the Bible easily in a year

One of my resolutions for the year was to read the entirety of the Bible this year, and I just recently finished it. This is how.

1) Find a cheap MP3 player. You don't need to get a top of the line iPod thing, but you can easily pick up a half-decent MP3 player at Walmart for around $30. I've got an old Coby MP3 player that I've been using for a long, long time (I've had to purchase more memory, as one of my cards died recently, but memory isn't expensive.) The player will likely have a couple of gig built into it. I think the ESV required about 4 GIG, so I only loaded up about half of it, and then once finished, deleted it and loaded the second half.

2) Pick up a copy of the Bible on ESV. You can get a relatively inexpensive copy of this from Christian Book Distributors for about $11.

3) Start doing dishes and cleanup and laundry at night, and put on the MP3 and headset and listen away. I've found that, while doing chores, my brain just recycles nonsense, news, politics, or old television theme songs if I don't feed it with something, so having a steady stream of the Word has been a wonderful blessing. There is such a richness to listening to the Bible, and since chores take up part of every day, why not multi-task and include the Word with it?

This system has worked for me, and I was able to finish the entirety of the ESV from Jan-June, and now I'm listening to the Message tranlation on MP3 (it's a little cheesy at times, but the translation actually did an excellent job with how it described the reign of Josiah and his destruction of the false gods from the land.)

MP3 player + the Bible + chores = a good way to multi-task and grow in the Word.

The Message - Initial Thoughts

I generally listen to portions of the Bible daily on my older-than-time Coby MP3 player, and currently I have a copy of the Message translation that I've been hearing. My initial thoughts are that, as far as translations go, it tends to be childish and a little silly, yet by "toning down" some of the language it does make books like Leviticus a little more easy going. However, after listening to some of the Psalms yesterday, I can't help but notice that some of these translations tend to be a little off the wall. For instance:

Psalm 1: "You don't hang out at sin saloon" (?)

Psalm 37: "A banana peel lands them on their face" (??)

Psalm 53: "Treating people like a fast food meal over which they're too busy to pray"

It seems like Eugene Peterson is going just a little easy with some of these interpretations and maybe taking a little too much liberty. But all the same, I'm going to listen to the entire translation before I make my final verdict (I'm actually curious to see how "modern-sounding" he can be with a book like II Chronicles... :)