{"id":483,"date":"2008-02-02T06:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-02T06:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/02\/which-bible-part-8-the-message.html"},"modified":"2008-02-02T06:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-02T06:34:00","slug":"which-bible-part-8-the-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/02\/which-bible-part-8-the-message.html","title":{"rendered":"Which Bible? Part 8 (The Message)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>This is the last full entry<\/span> on the survey of translations from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pocket-Guide-Bible-Little-About\/dp\/0976817543\/ref=pd_sim_b_2\/002-3527413-5532005\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pocket Guide to the Bible<\/span><\/a>. If you missed the earlier installments, here they are up to this point:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-do-you-read.html\">King James Version<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-do-you-read.html\">Revised Standard Version<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-do-you-read.html\"> Jerusalem Bible<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-part-4-new-american-bible.html\">New American Bible<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-part-5-living-bible.html\">The Living Bible<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-part-5-living-bible.html\">New International Version<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonboyett.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/which-bible-part-7-new-king-james.html\">New King James Version<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>Now, on to one of the most controversial versions of the Bible, a paraphrase-in-the-vernacular that people either love with a passion or hate with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold\"><br \/>The Message<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Complete version first published in:<\/span> 2002, by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navpress.com\/\">NavPress<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Translation style:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bible_version_debate#Paraphrase\">Paraphrase<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Quick description: <\/span>A contemporary paraphrase from the original languages by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eugene_H._Peterson\">Eugene H. Peterson<\/a>, a prolific pastor, scholar, and author with impeccable credentials in the evangelical world. It\u2019s originally written to recapture the informal \u201cstreet language\u201d of the New Testament, resulting in a rhythm and flavor completely different from any other Bible translation.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Why you should read it:<\/span> It\u2019s in common, readable English but doesn\u2019t sound at all like a children\u2019s Bible. Plus, you get occasional fun idiomatic expressions like this: \u201cThey traded the glory of God\u2026for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand\u201d (Romans 1:23).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Not so fast:<\/span> Some think <span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Message<\/span> is an appalling distortion of God\u2019s Word, riddled with deletions, alterations, and additions to the original text. Then again, most of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wayoflife.org\/fbns\/eugenepeterson-the-message.html\">these same naysayers<\/a> also believe the NIV to be personally endorsed by Satan.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Example:  <\/span><br \/>\u201cNo      carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of      things that fly or walk or swim.\u201d (Exodus 20:4)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis      is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.      And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him,      anyone can have a whole and lasting life.\u201d (John 3:16)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the last full entry on the survey of translations from Pocket Guide to the Bible. If you missed the earlier installments, here they are up to this point: King James Version Revised Standard Version Jerusalem Bible New American Bible The Living Bible New International Version New King James Version Now, on to one&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pocket-guide-to-the-bible","category-shameless-self-promotion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Which Bible? Part 8 (The Message) - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2008\/02\/which-bible-part-8-the-message.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Which Bible? Part 8 (The Message) - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the last full entry on the survey of translations from Pocket Guide to the Bible. 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His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}