關於愛，我是個小學生。

Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993.

Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002.

The publisher of this version (NavPress) informs us that Eugene Peterson started out to become a scholar, but after earning a master's degree in Hebrew he changed his plans and entered the ministry, as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). There he served for some years before he retired to write. Peterson says that he began to create this version during a series of lessons on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. He observed that his congregation was bored with the Biblical text as they knew it, and so, in order to stimulate them, he wrote a paraphrase of the Epistle, in which he tried to make it extraordinarily vivid and interesting to them. Later, he published this paraphrase as part of a devotional book, and it was noticed by an editor at NavPress. This editor persuaded Peterson to put the entire New Testament in the same kind of language. 

Peterson did most of the work on the New Testament during 1991, at which time he was "writer in residence" at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. The New Testament was published in 1993, and became a best-seller. Peterson was persuaded to do the Old Testament, and, over a nine year period, he gradually completed the entire Bible. A volume containing "The Old Testament Wisdom Books" was published in 1998, followed by "The Old Testament Prophets" in 2000, the "Pentateuch" in 2001, the "Books of History" in 2002, and an edition of the complete Bible in 2002.

In evaluating this version, the author's purpose and audience must be kept in mind. Unfortunately, the publisher has advertised it as a "translation from the original languages" that "accurately communicates the original Hebrew and Greek" and brings out "the subtleties and nuances of the Hebrew and Greek languages," being the work of a respected "exegetical scholar," etc., all of which gives an entirely false impression of the work. Instead, what we have here is a free paraphrase of the text, often very eccentric, with many unlikely renderings, lengthy insertions and omissions, and other problems; but to criticize this work for its many inaccuracies would be to miss the whole purpose of its author. Peterson's purpose in this is to present something new and provocative at every turn, something vivid and unusual, in order to stir up the dull minds of people who have become bored with their familiar Bibles.

His method is comparable to that of a preacher in the pulpit, who dwells on one thing for a while and then rushes over another, alternatingly serious and jocular, doing whatever he can to maintain the attention of his audience. The version incorporates a number of interesting but peculiar interpretations that can only be described as homiletic:

Such 'homiletic' elements of the version are sprinkled here and there on a translation which is for the most part extremely colloquial. Long and formal-sounding sentences in the original are often simply replaced with punchy phrases: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you" is replaced with a jovial "Enjoy the best of Jesus!" Many renderings can only be described as facetious: John 1:14 "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" becomes "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." The language is spiced up with slangy and amusing idioms: 2 Corinthians 4:17 "These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times." In Acts 13:6 "crooked as a corkscrew" is used instead of the simple adjective "false."

Often the version portrays things in a more colorful way than the original, and it sometimes takes on a cartoonish quality. For example, in James 4:7 instead of "resist the Devil and he will flee from you" we have "Yell a loud NO to the Devil and watch him scamper." This is intended to make us chuckle. In Acts 12:16 according to "The Message" the disciples were not only "amazed" when they saw Peter, they "went wild," which suggests an amusing scene of commotion that is not indicated in the original text. (At least they didn't go bananas!)

A psychologizing tendency is evident in several places. In Luke 2:34-35 Simeon prophesies that Christ will be "spoken against" or opposed, and that by this opposition "the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed." Peterson analyzes these thoughts, and says that Christ will be a "misunderstood" figure, whose rejection will "force honesty" upon the opposers. Yet the Bible's own "psychology"—as reflected in its use of the word "psyche" (soul)—is muted in the version. For example, in Acts 14:22 instead of "strengthening the souls of the disciples" Peterson gives a bodily metaphor: "putting muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples." In John 12:27 he eliminates Jesus' reference to his own soul. Instead of "Now is my soul troubled" we read "Right now I am storm-tossed." In a similar manner he avoids using the word "spirit" ("pneuma"), as in John 13:21, where the Greek says that Jesus was "troubled in his spirit ("pneuma")" but Peterson says "visibly upset." In Luke 23:46 he writes "Father, I place my life in your hands" instead of "into your hands I commit my spirit." When Stephen is martyred in Acts 7:59 Peterson makes him cry "Master Jesus, take my life" instead of "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The avoidance of the words "soul" and "spirit" in the version appears to be deliberate and systematic. The same thing is done with the Hebrew word "ruach" "spirit" in the Old Testament. In Psalm 51:10 where it says "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit ("ruach") within me" Peterson gives a very fanciful rendering—"God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life." Here Peterson plays with a concept suggested by the word "bara" "create" in the verse (same word as in Genesis 1:1), and his rendering may be appreciated as an interesting homiletic development, but it cannot be taken seriously as a translation of the Hebrew.

Sometimes Peterson obscures the main point of a passage by distracting attention from it with a homiletic flourish, as in Romans 9:27-28. Here the apostle Paul is dealing with the question of why the Church has so few Jews in it, and so he quotes Isaiah's prophecy concerning the relatively small "remnanta" that will remain after God has dealt with them in judgment.

The reason for the citation is clear in the literal translation, but in Peterson's paraphrase it is strangely opaque. He fastens on the word "number" and he produces a little meditation on the contrast between numbering and naming by importing the concept "he calls us by name" into the passage. In the process of making his interesting homiletic point he neglects the main point of the passage. This sort of thing often happens in the pulpit, where it is quite forgiveable to expound "the right doctrine from the wrong text"—but it is another matter when homiletic excursions supplant the text itself.

There is a tendency in the version to transpose things into a modern context. In Matthew 10:29 Christ's question, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny" becomes "What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right?" Arguably the "loose change" here is actually more accurate than "a penny" as a translation of "assarion", but the "pet canary" is completely anachronistic. An item from the experience of the modern American consumer is substituted for the "two sparrows" of the text. Even the Holy Spirit seems to be transformed into a more familiar character in this version, when Peterson gives the word "Friend" as a translation of "paraclete" (John 14:16).

The reader who mistakes this cavalier treatment of the text for a reliable translation is in danger of being misled at many points. This danger is well illustrated by the following paragraph from a review of "The Message" which recently appeared on a religious homosexual website: What about the passages against homosexuals, you might ask? Well, although we found his translation of Romans 1:26-27 a bit off, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 have been liberated from their sexual bias and are translated in ways that are much more inclusive and truer to their original intent. The text of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 reads as follows:  "Don't you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use d abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom" The text of 1 Timothy 1:9-10 reads as follows: "It's obvious, isn't it, that the law code isn't primarily for people who live responsibly, but for the irresponsible, who defy all authority, riding roughshod over God, life, sex, truth, whatever!" We at Spirit & Flesh say, nicely done!

But these passages really do condemn homosexuality, as may be seen in any reasonably accurate translation:

It would be unfair to suggest that Peterson has omitted the references to homosexuals because he "disagreed" with the indictment against them — he omitted many other things in these verses also. Are these omissions due simply to an attempt to make the passages more concise? It seems that something more is afoot, because in the midst of his severe abridgement of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 he adds, "use and abuse the earth and everything in it," which corresponds to nothing in the Greek text. Apparently Peterson has interpreted the passage as a merely conventional list of sins, in which the sins mentioned are of no particular importance, and so he passes over them, and he takes the liberty of inserting a new "sin" (earth abuse)  which he imagines is more relevant to the reader.

The treatment of 1 Peter 3:1-7 is interesting. This passage is rather offensive to modern ears when translated accurately, but Peterson's paraphrase solves the problem:

We notice how Peterson's instruction to wives here differs somewhat from Peter's instructions. Peterson strips away any suggestion that the women are to "subject" themselves to their husbands, although obviously this is the main point of the passage, as written by Peter. Instead of "respecting," "submitting to," or "obeying" their husbands, the wives are to be "responsive to their needs," and "taking care" of them, like mothers. Turning to the men, Peterson puts the idea of wifely submission out of bounds by telling them, "you're equals." He explains that the woman is a "weaker vessel" only in a sociological sense — the women "lack some of your advantages." Here it seems that Peterson has simply replaced the teaching of the passage with its opposite.

On what theory of translation does he suppose he can do all this? We note that in his introduction he makes some statements that hint at a philosophy of translation which theorists have called "contextualization", in which contemporary ideas and ways of thinking are substituted for the concepts of the original text: "The goal is ... to convert the tone, the rhythm, the events, "the ideas", into the way we actually "think and speak" (emphasis added), and he describes his work as "looking for an English way to "make the biblical text relevant" to the conditions of the people." This is the traditional function of a preacher, of course — the contemporization of the message. But it is not the proper function of a translator. Regarding his treatment of 1 Peter 3, it may be that Peterson felt that the passage was only meant to encourage women to conform to social expectations of the time, and so the 'meaning for today' would involve some corresponding affirmation of current morals.

Peterson's homiletic method of handling of the text should have been more clearly explained in the introduction, and in the advertising of the version. But it seems that Peterson himself has little awareness of how the message of the Bible has been transformed in his paraphrase. In one article that appeared in a publishing industry trade magazine, it was reported that: What Peterson says he has never done in any of "The Message" titles is to explain what needs clarification because of cultural and language barriers. If the text is obscure, he says, "I keep it obscure. If it's ambiguous, I keep it ambiguous. It has never been my intent to put my take on someone else's ancient writings."

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the examples given above show. Putting his own "take" on the Bible is precisely what he has done throughout "The Message". But on the other hand, in the same article he admits that he does "take considerable liberties" with the text. He says that when pastors have told him they have used it in preaching he warns them that "they miss the connection with the past with this translation." He indicates that it is for "first-time readers," and that these readers should quickly "get weaned from it."