Rodent Regatta

Fights about religion have been some of the most brutal fights throughout history. Sometimes those fights were about matters of right and wrong. Other times they were about power, position and prestige.

Every major denomination and religion in the world today is fighting about something. If we’re not feuding along political lines, we’re feuding over ”the role of women.” If not that, we’re fighting about public symbols of religious belief.

Gary Petersen has found three of the links to ”scholarly” criticisms of The Message Bible. Stacked behind my desk are 17 different Bibles. I refer to each and every one of them from time to time in my studies. The Message is there along with the others.

I’m anxious to hear what Gary has to say about The Message and the articles that are critical of it. I’ve come to the conclusion that The Message won’t replace my New American Standard Bible for every day reading and study, but I’ll refer to The Message often as I do the Today’s English Version (Good News) and many other translations and paraphrases.

Eugene Peterson did not set out to distort, confuse or undermine the original meaning of the Bible. His ministry through many decades proves that. People can parse his words and probably should. However, if those same people will take their little charts and expand them to 10 or 12 translations, they’ll discover just how much room for interpretation exists.

As an example, get 15 Greek scholars in a room, give them some ancient Greek literature and you’ll often get 17 translations of the same passages. What were the motives of each of the 15 scholars as they translated? Were they trying to skew, deceive and obscure the real meaning? I think not.