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| The Message: Remix 2017 |
Now that Eugene Peterson has advocated gay marriage – not
just as a legal right, but as something that the body of Christ ought to bless
– he should be regarded as one who has fallen away from the faith handed down
to the saints. I believe that this is
how each and every one of Christ’s commissioned apostles would respond,
prayerfully hoping and praying for him to repent. [Update - July 13, 4:15 pm: Peterson has retracted his earlier endorsement of gay marriage as a church rite. Prayers answered, and quickly!]
With that in mind, I implore my fellow preachers, and anyone who has been treating Peterson’s “translation of tone,” The Message, as if it is a Bible
translation, to stop using The Message
in any ministry-context that would give people the impression that it is a
Bible. In February of 2015, I demonstrated that The Message is too inaccurate to qualify
as a Bible translation. Using Matthew 10
as a sample-passage, I showed that it is badly contaminated with additions, deletions, and alterations of
various kinds which render it useless as a representation of the
message conveyed by the original text of the Bible.
Why should Peterson’s affirmation that he would officiate at a same-sex marriage if he were asked to
do so mean that
Christians should not use The Message? Perhaps for the same reason that when the
author of How To Safely Drive a Car
drives his car headlong into a wall at 100 miles an hour, it raises doubts about the wisdom of using
his book to teach students how to drive.
Common sense ought to suggest that when someone openly defies the
teachings of Scripture, his presentation of the meaning of Scripture might not be trustworthy.
But let’s not commit the genetic fallacy, right? [Update, July 13, 4:15 pm: whatever position Peterson holds - and earlier today, he affirmed that he subscribes to a Biblical view of marriage, one man to one woman - the flaws in The Message are still there.] A close look at the contents of The Message reveals plenty of reasons to avoid using it. Let’s examine specifically part of The Message that seems to have been adulterated
because of the view which Peterson just now affirmed:
First Corinthians 6.
For the
first several verses of this chapter, Peterson’s paraphrase conveys the gist of the meaning of
the original text; it is embellished but not obscured – until verse 6. Where the text should mention that one
brother take another brother to court (ἀδελφὸς μετὰ ἀδελφου), Peterson’s
rendering loses the gender, stating only that “you are taking each other to
court.” But this is minor compared to what follows: Peterson
inserted a full sentence into end of verse 6:
“How can they render justice if they don’t believe in the God of
justice?”
In First Corinthians 6:6, the Greek text is ἀλλα ἀδελφὸς
μετὰ ἀδελφου κρίνεται, καί τουτο ἐπὶ ἀπίστων – but brother takes brother to judgment, and that before unbelievers. This is adequately represented in The Message by the first part of verse
6: “And here you are taking each other
to court before people who don’t even believe in God!” The rest of verse 6 in The Message – “How can they render justice if they don’t believe in
the God of justice?” – has no foundation in the Greek text. It comes from Eugene Peterson, not from
Paul.
Perhaps one could overlook that in a “translation of tone,” regarding
the insertion as completely unauthorized but rather benign. Let’s move along to verses 9-10. First, here are these two verses from the English Standard Version:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit
the kingdom of God kingdom
of God
Here is how the Christian Standard Bible renders the passage:
Here is how the Christian Standard Bible renders the passage:
And here’s verses 9-10 as they appear in the New International Version (2011
revision):
“Or do you not know that
wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom
of God kingdom
of God
You may notice that all three of these versions have
something in common between the reference to adulterers and the reference to
thieves, where the Greek text reads οὕτε ἀρσενοκοιται:
ESV : nor men who practice homosexuality
NIV: nor men who have sex with men.
Yet in The Message
this is what we find:
“Don’t you
realize that this is not the way to live?
Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his
kingdom. Those who use and abuse each
other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t
qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.”
A more
blatant case of watering down the meaning of Scripture would be hard to
find. Peterson butchered the text of
First Corinthians 6:9-10 by removing Paul’s specific references to idolaters,
adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards,
slanderers, and swindlers, with generalizations – and, as if this was not
enough, he added something brand new – “use and abuse the earth and everything
in it” (which has no foundation in the Greek text). Peterson thus erased Paul’s warning against
committing homosexual acts (and other acts), and put words in Paul’s mouth as if Paul wrote
something here against littering and pollution.
Both of these things are irresponsible – and some of those who have approved or
recommended such butchery, committed under the cover of paraphrase, were also
irresponsible. (Looking at you, Darrell
Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary. You too, Michael Card and Max Lucado.)
Via this swindle of words, Peterson not only obscured the inspired
apostle’s condemnation of fornication, adultery, sodomy, thievery, and so
forth, but he also obscured the next verse’s statement that salvation is freely
offered for those who repent of those acts.
A real Bible would inform its readers in First Corinthians 6:11 that
among the Christians at Corinth, there were some individuals who had committed
the specific acts that Paul warns against in verses 9-10 – and that they had
been forgiven of those sins, as the New American Standard Bible puts it: “Such were some of you; but you were washed,
but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
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The Message is Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.
Quotations from the ESV have been taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Quotations from the NIV have been taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
