Comments on: This New Testament won’t fit in my shirt pocket

By: Shirley

Shirley — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:36:53 +0000

I believe Marc is right about the Message being a paraphrase and I agree I would not use it as my main Bible. Have you ever checked out BibleGateway.com? You can find the reference you want in your choice of many translations. I have used it a few times.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:57:34 +0000

Agreed. Actually, it was always my understanding that the Message was a paraphrase (based on the original languages) rather than a translation. But these days people refer to it like any other translation. Was my original understanding mistaken?

By: Phil L

Phil L — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:27:48 +0000

Marc: Good point about the inevitability of interpretation. However I think theological bias is somewhat less likely when the work is overseen by a committee of 50 scholars representing different denominational backgrounds than if it’s the work of one man. I’m not trying to trash Eugene Peterson’s The Message, but I wouldn’t use it as my only bible.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:13:45 +0000

It’s worth noting that interpretation is unavoidable when translating—there are no purely objective/neutral translations that I’m aware of. A little bit of every translator’s theological position goes into the process and that happens even in a group translating setting, although in that context it would probably be less pointed. It’s simply par for the course when one considers that most Greek and Hebrew words, if the lexicons are any indication, have all sorts of nuance and variations in meaning. Choices have to be made while translating and an individual’s biases have an influence on those choices. (And our own biases influence which translations we prefer or consider more accurate.)

As an example, we all refer to “evangelical” and “more liberal” and “more conservative” translations.

This is probably a good reason to use a parallel Bible as Phil does—it would offer you a taste of a variety of possible translations.

By: Phil L

Phil L — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:20:08 +0000

Shirley: Janet has the New Living Translation, and it is very readable. I’ve read through The Message NT before, but it is one man’s translation, so the original Greek has been “interpreted” quite alot with his theological positions. I think both the “dynamic equivalence” approach and the “formal equivalence” have their places.

By: Shirley

Shirley — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:43:06 +0000

I should get a parallel. I have a lot of translations but all seperate so it’s a pile of books if you get into comparing.

Last year I did my “read through the bible in a year” with the Message. It makes for easy reading and I enjoyed it but I miss the seperate verses for general study. If you want verse 7 it might be in a section labeled 5-9 so you guess where 7 starts.

I would like to get the New Living as well, but I always go back to my old NIV study bible.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:30:14 +0000

Well done, Phil!

I bought a pocket ESV last year. In most places it appears to be more or less identical to the NRSV. Believe it or not, even though it is a newer translation, I find the ESV a little more awkward reading than the NRSV, but it’s not bad.

Of course, there is often very little difference between translations of the same type. It sometimes seems like the NKJV and NIV are very similar as well.

In terms of reading, the International Bible Society is publishing a Bible this month which omits all verse numbers, chapter numbers, chapter/section headings as well as the columns. I guess the idea is to remove as much of the additional material which colours/modifies a person’s reading/interpretation of the text. I’ll be checking that one out, I think. It’s TNIV.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:20:39 +0000

Marc, That’s my goal. I’m finding that reading the same paragraph in eight translations forces me to slow down and think about the meaning. I started on John with my mom’s old parallel NT, and proceeded through the first half of Acts. Now that I have this new “parallel eight” NT I’m nearing the end of Acts. I find that I’m taking a couple of days to read a chapter, so it may take awhile to hit Revelation. Or I may decide that I like one of the translations so much that I’ll run out and buy it and put the parallel NT on the shelf.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:14:47 +0000

Wow. You mean to say you read all 4/8 translations at once as you read through the NT?