Something is wrong with this picture

and goes so far as to replace Paul's advice to, if you can't remain single and in Christ, "marry" - well they replace it with "find a partner" without reference to marriage.

THAT IS NOT THE BIBLE OF JESUS CHRIST.

That right there is why I've never liked The Message. I dislike the TNIV, as well. Check out all the inaccuracies of the TNIV at this link: http://www.genderneutralbibles.com/category.php

It's horendace!

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=8248&forum=35&post_id=&refresh=Go]Interview with Eugene Peterson[/url]

It doesn't take much to start yet another King James thread.

Guess this Bible translations debate will run till Jesus returns.

Just get a Bible and wear it out with use.

If you're not comfortable with your translation, change it. If you are, good.

Still, another thread will start hot on the heels of this one. So be it.

God bless.

well the best thing was to go and learn Greek and hebrew, but if you dont have the time a good thing is to look at the holy men and women of God from past generations, if they "made" it whit their bible version i probably will to, or what do you think? if granpa lived a holy life whit the king james version, why cant i?
im not saying all versions are bad some probably better in some places, but still.... you get my point

Same old same old.

Did someone say something?

Well ...

Thanks Krispy. I do think you have stated it well enough. By the way, have something at home I will have to link to ... It's very interesting, a bit of a different ... perspective, at least if some of the considerations can be considered. It has some very interesting things regarding those commisoned under King James to write that version.
Not in the 'conspiracy' vein, just some politcal ramifications and underpinnings ... You came to mind as I have been reading through it.

It is on a brothers site that has been here pretty infrequently at least in response that I am aware of, but it is very well written and also quite long, that ought to keep at least some of the controversy subdued :-)

Anyone read the bit on Mr. Petersen?

crsschk wrote:

Anyone read the bit on Mr. Peterson?

I read some of the Eugene Peterson stuff. It reminds me of the time as a child I was involved with burning a group of trees down. Fire department. Grounded for the entire summer. It was not a good year.

A friend and I simply wanted to burn a small pile of leaves. You know what they say about good intensions…

I’m not concerned with Mr. Petersons intensions, but I am concerned about his “Message”. It scares me. Just like two children with a book of matches and a pile of leaves does.

The potential for damage is just too great a risk for my blood. I’m sure there are mature, well seasoned Christians that may be able to “handle” this book, but the risk of it getting into the wrong hands is too great for me.

If it helps ten thousand people to finally understand a problematic passage, but puts one in harms way, or Hell…is it worth it?

As for me and my family, we will not read The Message.

Peace be with you

TJ

P.S.

My earlier post on this thread was not about The Message, but the book that took out the words man and wife and marriage.

We've gone from the KJV to "The Message" in just over 100 years? Thats backwards when you compare it with technology.

We've been sold a lie.

This is such a good observation Krispy.

The average person could go back in time and astound Aristotle, Plato, Francis Bacon, Martin Luther, or Jonathan Edwards with only a layman's knowledge of such subjects as electricity, or radio and television, or mechanical flight, or the combustion engine, or modern economics, or astonomy, or the microscope....

Yet, when hack versions of the scriptures, like the Message, are being commercially produced it's a 'message' that the average person can't grasp the language in the King James... or even the NIV. It's cycnical nonsense.

It shows the hubris of modern acedemia.

MC

The following was copied from the other similar thread that is ongoing. To give a small bit of reality here ... this former expression was written from the home and I am now at work, blessed man that I am with such a short commute!

But on the way here there was a bit of hilarity over all this ... I am perhaps just foolish enough to be optimistic that we could actually be getting somewhere with all this ... I may very well anger some with a constant appeal to honesty, it is just bearing down on ... [i]everything[/i]. But I am becoming convinced that this is both the starting and stopping point and the constant consideration in all things in this walk ...

From [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14168&forum=36]Why do most versions leave out the most important words?[/url]

Paul West wrote the following...

Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Zac Poonen. Zac often references "The Message" in his teachings, and is able, by the grace of God, to extract such wisdom that many times I am left completely staggered

uh-oh ... we are going to have trouble now.

Brother! Thank God! We are truly getting somewhere here ... Perhaps we need this drawing of swords to cut ourselves truly to the heart of the matter. Hear our brothers [i][b]words[/b][/i]! This is all the commotion and our either sheer honestly or lack. [i]This[/i] is the point! Most of us are at bottom either something of 'defenders' or 'lovers' or 'prefer-s' to coin a phrase of the KJV but to constantly ... lie, or twist or be just dishonest and pragmatic is .... [i]foolishness[/i]! This diabolical set of notions, 'edifices' I would prefer to call them as they are that, these strongholds, fortress' of thought that cannot accept any contrary consideration ... This great fear that to capitulate to honesty is to cause the whole structure to come crashing down (perhaps in some cases it [i]needs[/i] to). It is just so far from the point and [i]just not so[/i]! Honesty is a support not a detriment! Look and listen to our long tenured pastor, teacher, expositor and more than all that a [i]heart[/i], a man with a [i]singing theology[/i], our 'own' Philologos, Ron Bailey. 40 plus years! 40! How many here dwarfed by that longevity? And I am not going to pull out quote in isolation but appeal to ... everything he has to bring to our attention on this matter and it goes way back, back to the inception of this tremendous fellowship. Search it out for ones self. My point is that, like Paul is exerting here, our faces ought to be in the dust for some of the very things we allow and disallow. This notorious idea of fragmenting everything into camps and positions and ... 'Holy musts' ... Let me exude some things at random...
On the way home from work was listening to a Pastor turned radio talk show ... commentator. His show is not all that different than what we do here. And my heart went out to him in great expression because of one thing that this generation of Christians having been so conditioned by the world and it's [i]ways[/i] must have; An explanation and preparatory caveat; Time after time and even within the same paragraph he had to keep repeating;

"[i]That is not to say ...[/i]"
"[i]That is not to say ...[/i]"
"[i]That is not to say ...[/i]"

And I thought, isn't this the very truth of where we are? Isn't this my own ... way often of expression? Having to clarify and quantify everything? "[i]That is not to say ...[/i]"

We have become far to suspicious of our own Brethren in many ways, pre-judge mental, this 'climbing into each others head' and explaining everything when we cannot even first dislodge the anchor of pride and bitterness and [i]presumption[/i] that has in effect smashed our brains in ... planks and specks are one thing but we can act like zombies practicing surgical lobotomy's on each other. We will far too easily take the smallest part and disassociate the whole man, the whole of other consideration, not unlike we do with the scriptures,

2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

And here it comes, the "not to say" part. The same things brought forth by Krispy, Stever, others are not to be cast aside as worthless, non-issues ... Problems with these translations? Certainly! There is just as much trouble with the ... 'detractors' as with the defenders. My 'position' is the same across the board. "Calvinists" ... Such notions! We might as well be "Tozer-ites" or "Ravenhill-ists" have stated this before but if either of those two were alive to hear this sort of nonsense they would surely give us a sever tongue lashing. John Calvin himself I would imagine not sparring many things with what he ... expressed now taken to such absurd conclusions ... Ah, 'not to say' there isn't much that is still laying in that pool of 'perhaps' yet held in abeyance. [i]Totally depraved[/i]? I don't know that I need Jeremiah or Isaiah to tell me so and then go and try to live up to it. Being exposed, walking out this door into this world gone blind from seeing and deaf from hearing is enough to be caught up in, falling down again and again, face in the dust repentance for the possibilities that exist, the sins [i]committed[/i] ... depraved? [i]Totally[/i]? Well ... yes! But, am I not responsible? Yes! Sorry, I am pulling things from different articles and the thoughts are randomly percolating.

It is not 'warm fuzzies' or a lack of them. It is facing facts and the lack of them. Facts of our condition and our pretense. Facts that scream from the conscience and the Holy Spirit. [i]Honesty[/i]. I am flatly convinced this is our tremendous problem, many of us just despise it for it's sheer cost, it's antithesis, 'shame of face belongs to us' recalling Daniels words, words that have been reverberating for some time. How could [i]this[/i] man, Daniel for all that he was as a man, upright and true, valiant and holding fort to not sin against God ... How could he make such a statement, including himself as [i]we[/i]? [i][b]Every time[/b][/i] a mere human creature was assaulted or 'blessed' however you may want to see it by a vision, an opening into heavenly beings ... this sheer exposure of God's glory in whatever fashion, an angel, Jesus Himself in full spiritual expression, the unmasking and stripping away of all falsity, the transfiguration, Johns visions, Daniels, Moses ... Right on through ... "[i]Woe is me[/i]"

"I am ... undone"
"I fell on my face as dead"
"I am ... unclean"
"Depart from me Lord ..."

With all this as our backdrop we go off the rails ...? Have no [i]other[/i] considerations?

Let me come back to the subject matter. Actually, it just dawned on me that the 2 threads are bleeding into each other here, the one regarding the Message and this one here, from the other thread;

A-Hem -- The mega-church leadership uses this piece of trash to base their appeal for you finding your "purpose in life" ala their programs for it..

Piece of trash? Ah so simple, so dismissive ... It is a [i]paraphrase[/i]. The whole point of bringing up Mr. Petersen was to give his own take on things (Other thread), that he doesn't even use it ... sigh ... What might be said about some of musings here ... Trash? The other link put in here, if I am still in the right place was to bring up ... dare I say it? The King, James ... with an agenda? Quite a bit in there about altering some choice words 'Elders" for instance to levy some controlling aspects. Consider it for ones self.

I just think we are often going too far and not far enough in the right sense, piercing into our very hearts.

Here is some warm and fuzzy words of paraphrase from Mr. Petersen;
Romans 1, an excerpt:

18-23 But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

24-25 So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!

26-27 Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either—women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

28-32 Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

([i]will double this post over to the other thread as well,[/i])

Paul, you are dead on! Bless you brother for this.

Thanks Mike.

Honestly my own take on books like the "Message" is not that they are evil...just unnecessary. Actually I was introduced to it through the VOM/DC Talk books "Jesus Freaks." I then picked up a copy at the chuch I was attending.

My problem with it as I was reading it, was that, instead of it making things 'simpler' for me...it was making them suspect for me. I found I always had this nagging suspiscion that it wasn't reliable in itself and I was always double checking with a real bible.

For me the whole point of a bible is to trust in it. I think when we qualify a fuzzy and individualistic translation as a "paraphrase" we might be engaging in some slight of hand. We may paraphrase in our casual discussion but to formalize a "paraphrase" into a book seems harsh on the scriptures.

Now if I came across someone reading the Message, given today's culture, I would probably be more encouraged then discouraged. My only interest would be to see them graduate from the Message into a real bible.

I suppose this is my difficultly with products like the Message, or biblezeens. I don't think they cause more people to read the bible...people who are drawn to the scriptures and who would have read a bible are now reading the Message...perhaps in this light it's actually a buffer between the reader and the real thing.

Isn't this all too common these days? We have 'lite' versions of everything. For years we accepted pablum Christian products such as music, bad movies, and bumper stickers because we were told it was reaching people, but now we see our culture is less'reached' then ever before. Indeed, even within the church people don't seem to be reached quite enough.

I don't think it can be stressed enough in regards to scripture...the more we try to 'break it down' for the natural man, the more we simply break it. There is a point where a soul must become hungry for the real thing. Slick packaging, fashion photography, and informal language create demand in the marketplace but the soul that truly hears the scriptures is not a finicky consumer...but a hungry beggar.

Case in point: America, the land of the choosy faithful. On our shelves we have more and more versions of "Bible Lite". My guess is that we'll keep seeing the bible xeroxed and licensed under trendy names, illustrated with Precious Moment cartoons with big sad eyes, butterflies, and puppy dogs, and covered in blue jean denim with zippers and snaps. My only question is if this is how we must consumerize the bible, aren't we bascially avoiding the reality that people really don't want to read it in the first place? I know Mr. Peterson meant well when he concieved of the idea and I'm sure the next fellow will mean well when he creates his own take on the bible. Yet I can't help but conclude that it's more of the same activity without accomplishment that's been present in the Church for a few decades.

I must admit that I could be accused of hypocrasy on this whole perspective. Afterall, commercial packaging is how I make a living! Yet I think this is why I am so skeptical of all these things. Like I said, I'm sure Mr Peterson meant well, but I know why companies make appealing products...to generate revenue. (An amazing discovery on my part!)

I just wish the scriptures would be preserved from all this business.

I hope the way I stated all this doesn't seem antagonistic. I guess I just wish we didn't have to deal with all of this white noise and commercial static in the 'Christian marketplace". Can't we clever thinkers and tinkerers just keep our grubby fingers off the scriptures? :roll: I would hope that the bible is just one product that doesn't need upgraded and focus group tested.

Maybe I'm just getting old! :knockedout:

MC

Why, if you are encouraged?

I was thinking if I came across a stranger out in the world who was reading the Message, and not knowing the state of their soul, I would be relatively encouraged. For instance there is a copy of the Message in the coffee shop in our office building---I'm glad to see that it is there considering what other books could be there.

Still, this is a relative encouragement considering the state of our society today.

On the other hand if I learned that my Pastor used the Message as his study tool I would be totally discouraged. In fact, I would find it hard to believe any mature saint would make a regular habit of reading it although I could be wrong.

I think we like the Message because we hope the unsaved and perhaps new Christians are reading it...that is to say we hope other people are benifitting from it.

Is this an accurate perception?

MC

and I was always double checking with a real bible.

Bingo!

Am gleaning here, short on time once again ... But I think that is a thought well worth developing. Looking forward to reading the remainder here ...

So Ormly, you doubt the ability of the Holy Spirit to draw from "The Message" for purposes of His own?

For what it's worth, I don't believe the whole of "The Message" is a piece of trash. In many places Mr. Peterson nails the correct interpretation in a very lucid, straightforward way. Ravenhil was known to quote from the J.B. Phillips paraphrase, and Poonen quotes from both the NLT and Message. These two saints have extrapolated such extraordinary wisdom and revelation from sources other than the KJV that frankly it leaves one scratching the head and wondering: "Is the Holy Spirit as partial as [i]we[/i] are concerning this issue?"

Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? I always frequent other translations when trying to get a deeper gist of a phrase, and personally, I thank God for the Phillips translation, Young's, the NIV, the NLT, the NASB. Brethren, I feel as though we are truly at an advantage at this stage in history. We have all these resources [i]plus[/i] the Holy Ghost! I account it all to God's grace, and have made it a habit to look down upon no brother or sister who is utilizing other sources and translations to get a deeper, more personal grasp of the Word of God. It was said that R.A. Torrey owned copies of all the modern translations of his day, and read through them all, a new translation each year. This very thought repels most of us staunch KJVers, but Torrey was a very wise man, endued with great Bible knowledge, theologically rock solid and the first choice of D.L. Moody to oversee his ministry.

I propose many of these modern translations to be to our advantage, and if our hearts are right with God, the Holy Spirit can use even the "trashy" Message to convey a gemstone of truth in wholly unique way that the dated KJV verbiage would otherwise obfuscate and leave us reaching for Matthew Henry and/or Jamieson, Fausset and Brown.

Brother Paul

... you doubt the ability of the Holy Spirit to draw from "The Message" for purposes of His own?

I don't think this is the only issue. Who can set limits for the Holy Spirit? We have heard testimonies of the Lord using many things for purposes of his own.

Some of you may have heard the story about the fisherman in England who became a Christian and began witnessing on the piers in his hometown. (did Moody tell this?) As the account goes, the fisherman was not all that educated but he had a great zeal to testify of Jesus. He would tell people that Jesus was like an "oyster Man", because He dives down to the debts to find pearls of great value to take up. Well people were getting saved from listening to this this man's passion and interesting theology! By and by a pastor heard him preaching, and marveling at the fisherman's story he asked" Where ever did you get the idea to portray Christ as an "oysterman?" The fisherman replied, "Well I read right 'ere in me bible!" He pointed to Luke 19:22..."Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow."!

As the story goes the impressed pastor graciously explained the real reading and meaning of that passage to the fisherman.

Now the moral of that account is that we do not need perfect theology or years of bible training to be effective right now for the Lord...and yet in our sentimental age we should still remember to desire precision and integrity in our studies.

Maybe as a reaction against dead textualism and lifeless fundamentalism many are now saying precise scriptural integrity doesn't matter a much as meaning well and being sincere. I sadly understand this sentiment very well.

A little of this may be a fine balance to the seemingly endless disputes we often see over molecular doctrinal precision... as long as we do not lose the point that the Message is still an inferior representation of the book it has descended from. (I don't think Peterson would ultimately disagree.) This is not to say it is worthless at all...only to say that it is not on par with better versions.

Inferiority of translation is no small or unimportant distinction. If we were discussing the translation of any other literary author such as Jules Verne or Goethe, we would hardly accept an informal street-language version of their works.

Yet when it comes to the Bible, we can become so desirous and liberal (so purpose driven?) for it's message to be heard that we welcome the veritable explosion of new english language 'translations' we've been seeing. (Not to mention the vulgar pop culture merchandising of the scriptures.)

Still the question is 'can the Lord use the Message?' No doubt He can and does! In fact, perhaps this is the closing message of the Message: the Lord uses imperfect vessels to achieve His perfect will and this is a source of great comfort to all of us!

MC

Hi MC,

Had shelved a great deal of response last night, the other post and this one bleeding into each other... A couple of snips from your early thoughts;

I was thinking if I came across a stranger out in the world who was reading the Message, and not knowing the state of their soul, I would be relatively encouraged.

All of a sudden I am reminded of;

Act 8:30 And Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?

For me the whole point of a bible is to trust in it. I think when we qualify a fuzzy and individualistic translation as a "paraphrase" we might be engaging in some slight of hand. We may paraphrase in our casual discussion but to formalize a "paraphrase" into a book seems harsh on the scriptures.

Good point.

I don't think it can be stressed enough in regards to scripture...the more we try to 'break it down' for the natural man, the more we simply break it. There is a point where a soul must become hungry for the real thing. Slick packaging, fashion photography, and informal language create demand in the marketplace but the soul that truly hears the scriptures is not a finicky consumer...but a hungry beggar.

Case in point: America, the land of the choosy faithful. On our shelves we have more and more versions of "Bible Lite". My guess is that we'll keep seeing the bible xeroxed and licensed under trendy names, illustrated with Precious Moment cartoons with big sad eyes, butterflies, and puppy dogs, and covered in blue jean denim with zippers and snaps. My only question is if this is how we must consumerize the bible, aren't we bascially avoiding the reality that people really don't want to read it in the first place? I know Mr. Peterson meant well when he conceived of the idea and I'm sure the next fellow will mean well when he creates his own take on the bible. Yet I can't help but conclude that it's more of the same activity without accomplishment that's been present in the Church for a few decades.

Actually could just have clipped this whole thing, very well stated. The irony in all this for me is I do not even like this 'version' at all. To bring out a selection is just by way of example and perhaps more to just keep berating the same point of what is being exposed and expressed and too often ... pushed aside. In one sense a great deal of this whole controversy has nothing to do with bible versions at all even if they are the subject, it is something underneath it all that I am trying to draw attention to. Surely I would expect some emotional response by way of defending and contending for the truth ... but, there you have it, is this often what is really taking place? It is the leveraging and actually [i]compromise[/i] not of the scriptures per se but the same treatment being missed by what the scriptures [i]mean[/i]. An allowance of compromise because the [i]cause[/i] merits it, pretty sure that is a definition of pragmatism. The large problem is the compromise is of heart truths not necessarily 'word' truths. Hope that makes the right sense I am trying to give it. It is just very puzzling the amount of falsehood allowed defending ... the truth!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Had gone on rambling at that point...

Perhaps in a reaction against dead textualism and lifeless fundamentalism many are now saying it doesn't matter as long as you mean well and are sincere. I can understand this sentiment very well.

This is perhaps just fine as long as we do not lose the point that the Message is still an inferior representation of the book it has descended from. (I don't think Peterson would ultimately disagree.) This is not to say it is worthless at all...only to say that it is not on par with better versions.

May be repeating myself here but could almost wish it was just ... produced as something other than a 'bible' as difficult as that sounds, in that sense it is, something [i]other[/i] than a proper version of course. Again, even Mr. Petersen himself said he doesn't read it, preferring the Greek and Hebrew texts. The passage I posted earlier wasn't even the one I was looking for, an elderly saint, a very dear woman I have some acquaintance with gave it to me some time back and recall coming across a section that .... sounded more extreme than in the KJV even. But, left it laying around the last day or so and ... it's difficult to read, I don't like it at all, I don't like the NIV very much either. Here, on SI and with the tremendously helpful www.e-sword.net (and do not some of us owe just a tremendous debt of gratitude for this!) it is wonderful to be able to compare and contrast between versions and even the search function ... Trying to find a particular verse, a word sticks in the thoughts and you can try it in the ASV, ISV, RV etc. etc. and almost always find the verse you are looking for ... Oh indeed we are [i]blessed[/i]. Like Tozer though, keep coming back to the trusty old version.

Inferiority of translation is no small or unimportant distinction. If we were discussing the translation of any other literary author such as Jules Verne or Goethe, we would hardly accept an informal street-language version of their works.

Yet when it comes to the Bible, we have grown so sentimental and liberal over it's message that we hardly blush at the veritable explosion of new english language 'translations' we've been seeing. (Not to mention the vulgar pop culture merchandising of the scriptures.)

Agree wholeheartedly. Just flatly disagree with some of the tactics and ways of disagreement.... we have already been through all this, won't be starting it all back up again.

c52 wrote:
So Ormly, you doubt the ability of the Holy Spirit to draw from "The Message" for purposes of His own?

Saw a documentary once that showed how to get a glass of drinkable water by urinating in a hole, putting a glass in the middle, covering with plastic, and putting a stone on the plastic directly over the glass. It worked by the suns heat condensing the water from the urine, leaving the salt behind, and the dripping into the glass as the condensation cools.

The sad thing is, some people seem to prefer this to drinking the bottled water in the frdige next to the hole.

Ormly wrote:
I find that to be so also, but why do suppose this to be aside from them saying that the KJV is just too difficult to understand, even after they receive understanding from someone. Is it laziness or personal spiritual bent? I sometimes think both. I also believe it can be pride also inasmuch as they want to be persuaded along a certain line..

Interestingly, I had a friend who was a reader of the Message, an I pointed out to him the whole "thou/thou-you/ye" thing (thanks to Ron Bailey). One day he pisked one up, after often stating that he couldn't understand the old language, and realised that it was easier to follow that the Message. The fact of the matter is, the KJV has a smaller voculary, and there a few words that need to be learned.

Linn, I put it down to superstition, and our modernistic outlook. Ie, "If it's newer, it must be better."

No, not the name of a church. What is a "bubble-gum" church? What translation of "The Bible" do they use there? Are they (the members) "born-again" bubble-gummers? I am just curious...

Interestingly, I had a friend who was a reader of the Message, an I pointed out to him the whole "thou/thou-you/ye" thing (thanks to Ron Bailey). One day he pisked one up, after often stating that he couldn't understand the old language, and realised that it was easier to follow that the Message. The fact of the matter is, the KJV has a smaller voculary, and there a few words that need to be learned.

Linn, I put it down to superstition, and our modernistic outlook. Ie, "If it's newer, it must be better."

i posted this quote from A W Tozer in another thread, i think it fits here to

"While it is important that the translations be accurate and faithful, yet better versions do not make better men."