In the introduction to The Message Bible we read, "The Message was paraphrased over a period of ten years, straight from the Bible's original languages (Greek and Hebrew). The idea of The Message isn't to water down the Bible, making it easier to digest. The idea is to make it readable - to put those ancient words that their users spoke and wrote every day into words that you speak and write everyday."
I guess I felt the need to write that because I enjoy quoting The Message Bible. It is truly readable. I like to use it occasionally at our Wednesday Night Group meetings. It is there that we have been looking at John chapters 13-17 and having completed that moved on to Isaiah.
In John 16:8-11, the Message Bible reads, "When he comes, he'll expose the error of the godless world's view of sin, righteousness, and judgment: He'll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world is brought to trial and convicted."
In Isaiah 1:26, the Message Bible reads, "God's right ways will put Zion right again. God's right actions will restore her penitents."
The phrases "out of their sight and control" and "God's right actions will restore her penitents" jumped out at me like a cat pouncing on an unsuspecting mouse. They are added in the Message Bible translation to aid in understanding the verses. However, they speak to me in my understanding of God and His work.
In Genesis 3:22-24 (ESV) we read, "Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life."
Because of sin man would have to die. God didn't want man to live forever in his fallen state. He had a plan, a plan to redeem man. It was totally His idea. The work of redemption happened outside of man.
Isaiah 53: 10-12 says, "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors."
God's plan was to send His Son to be the suffering servant, to "bear their iniquities". Again God even provides the sacrifice, just as He provided a lamb for Abraham before he was about to offer up his son Isaac. (Genesis 22)
We are justified by faith (Romans 4). Romans 3:27 asks, "Then what becomes of our boasting?" There is no boasting! There can't be! We had nothing to do with it!
Romans 5:6-11 says "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation., "
Can you see why those words, "out of their sight and control" and "God's right actions will restore her penitents" jumped out at me? Salvation, redemption was God's idea. It was His plan. It was done out of our sight and control. It was God's right actions that restored us. That just blows me away. God bless y'all real good.
7 comments:
Great post Denny,
That was a helpful view, it's all about GRACE. Thanks!
Wow, great post! That was encouraging for me to read. I shall continue to ponder it further.
I'm not familiar with this
Bible translation, my first
thought is how many more
translations do we need?
But I followed everything
you said, when the truth is
upheld it comes through LOUD
and CLEAR! Good message, I
plan on sending it to a friend
of mine who needs a better
understanding on the relationship
between God and man.
Thanks Ken. I hope your friend is blessed by it. Just so everyone knows, most of the time I like to use the English Standard Version. Sometimes I will use the Revised Standard Version. The ESV and the RSV are similar. I also will reference the New Living Translation and the Message.
Denny: Thank you for all of your posts. And for your diligence in writing them. I, too, occasionally refer to The Message - usually more out of curiosity than with an expectation that it will be helpful. Occasionally it surprises me...pleasantly.
One caveat - the Message is certainly more readable; however, what Peterson adds "to bring out the true meaning" is almost always just his interpretation. It is an interpretation and often does not reflect what the original text actually says. We're all entitled to our interpretation, I suppose. But we must be careful to recognize the huge literary license that Peterson has used to produce this interpretive paraphrase.
Dave Shive
It is my desire to be faithful to the Scriptures. It comes from sitting under great Bible teachers of which you are one. Your caveat is an example of the need for "iron to sharpen iron". Thank-you.
Some good thoughts here KH.
Just a quick note about translations. Many so called translations aren't. Or at the very least it needs to be made clear that there are different philosophies of translation. Many believe that the very words of scripture are inspired and that a translation needs to attempt to emphasize the original meaning of the words as a priority, and secondarily attempt to make it readable for the intended audience. NKJV, ESV and RSV and even NAS are generally in this camp.
On the other hand why is the NIV, and Message so different? The NIV uses a translation philosophy called dynamic equivalence. In other words, or to be simplistic, the concepts are what are inspired and thus it is the goal to translate the ideas of the original texts, not the individual words.
So both call themselves translations. And both say they work from the original manuscripts and texts. But because of their underlying presuppositions of how the work of translation should be done and because of their presupposition of what actually is inspired you end up with different Bibles. Both have their place but it is important to know the difference.
So keep this in mind when you compare NIV, and The Message as well as (to a lesser extent) the NLT. This is more important for Bible Study when you look at the words and study them and compare passages. Those words that you see in the NIV, The Message and such may not really be there in the original Greek (more importantly) and Hebrew (less impactful because of the nature of the language).
Post a Comment