Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Message Study Bible?!

It has been said that Eugene Peterson's The Message is a paraphrase, and thus it has no say in the discussion over translational methodology. Well, somebody should inform the guys over at NavPress then. Introducing ... The Message Study Bible which is described as a "best-selling contemporary translation" of the Bible, not a paraphrase.

I content that The Message, and others like them, are the logical consequent of the Dynamic-Equivalence methodology. Since only the meaning is important, D-E proponents can only object to the Message by disputing that the meaning has actually been properly translated and conveyed. But upon what basis are we to prefer their interpretation of the meaning over the interpretation of Eugene Peterson's? Peterson after all is not a mere layman and had taught at Regent College! Are we going to stay at the level of word games?

Only when we repudiate this flawed philosophy and realize that meanings are not Platonic forms which exist apart from words (and is derived from them) can we properly repudiate the Message as a distortion of the Scriptures. Words and forms are important, even though we do not translate them woodenly. If we disregard them as accidental to the meaning, as the D-E translational methodology does, we have severed the link between language and meaning, and end up with neither.

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2 comments:

  1. Jesse Albrecht20/8/19 11:44

    Hi Daniel,

    You might find this article to be interesting:

    https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/2018/10/critical-exposure-of-message-version.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Daniel C8/3/22 09:55

    Hi Jesse,

    thanks

    ReplyDelete

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