Message

Eugene Peterson explains why he paraphrased the Scriptures and came up with "The Message."
 
"I wanted to convey by means of American syntax and diction that everything in the Bible is livable, that the most important question is not 'What does it say?' but 'What does it mean and how can I live it?' I wanted to gather a company of people together who read personally, not impersonally, who learned to read the Bible in order to live their true selves, not just get information that they could use to raise their standard of living. I wanted to counter the consumer attitude that uses the Bible as a way to gather religious data by which we can be our own gods. I wanted to recover that original tone, that prophetic and Gospel 'voice' that stabs us awake to a beauty and hope that connects us with our real lives."
 
(Eugene Peterson's book, "Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading" (Eerdmans, 2006).
 
[TBC: Peterson fails to realize that the Bible is "acultural," which means that the Lord inspired the writers to produce a book which would speak to every culture. To "convey by means of American syntax and diction," Peterson has at best limited the meaning of the Bible, and at worst, greatly obscured it.]