Is the Message a legitimate translation

[newburydave]

I seem to have inadvertently started a discussion, about Eugene Peterson's Message translation of the Bible, over at the Anomalous Sandbox.

I quoted a comment of Peterson's to the effect that the verb in Matt. 7:24 is the Greek verb from which we get the English word "poetry" and "poet". Peterson went on to say that each Christian should build Jesus' words into ourselves as a lifes poem, beautiful and artistic, to reveal Jesus in our living.

Several of our Sandbox members wanted to discuss the Message translation with me. Since I want to keep the Sandbox as a forum for peer-to-peer critiquing of Sf writing I've moved the discussion over here to a more appropriate forum for such discussions.

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For the record; I have come to believe that the Message is a very good and useful translation. It was translated to make the Bible accessible to Peterson's inner city congregants, many of whom were severely under educated.

Since I also pastored inner city rescue mission type churches I know the type of people he was working with and therefore appreciate what he has done. I have recently started using the Message for my main Bible.

I expect some of my fellow Sandbox members to be joining me here but any Anomalien is welcome to participate. I know there is quite a bit of wisdom and depth in the Anomaly.


SGD
dave

[birdnerd]

I'm afraid I have no use for The Message. I've seen a side-by-side comparison of The Message and 2 translations, and The Message in various key passages reduces what Christ did to just being a nice and helpful sort of guy, reduces the hazardous-ness of Satan or removes him altogether, adds or removes promises and admonitions, and reduces the sinfulness of certain "politically correct" sins.

Furthermore, Mr. Peterson is involved in a somewhat nebulous, constantly mutating movement that used to be called the Emergent Church, but now goes by several other names. The Emergent Church has been bringing New Age, Wiccan, and Buddhist practices into the church for quite some time. Just slapping the name of Christ on a pagan practice doesn't make it safe. The Message contains some New Age-ness that is contrary to the Bible.

Unfortunately, the article my friend sent me that showed these things so clearly has suffered link rot in the last few years. I couldn't find it again. Here are a couple others that are less thorough and less obvious, but they do hit some of the points.

www.crossroad.to/Bible_studies/Message.html
www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/themessage.htm?zoom_highlight=The+Message

The movement to bring paganism into the Church is more dangerous than people realize. I'll illustrate. More reliable (to me anyway) than those articles -- even the really good one I can't find anymore -- is my personal experience.

I was once married. The man I married was a devoted Christian man who knew his Bible well. He was into apologetics and exegesis at a time when I didn't even know what those words meant. About a month before we married, he started getting into some of what the Emergent Church teaches. From there it was tarot cards and horoscopes and within three months of our marriage, he no longer considered himself Christian and forbid me to attend church or read my Bible. He got into pornography and starting reading up on Solitary Wiccan Practitioners so he could "do it right." He became abusive. With extreme grief, I left out of self-preservation. The last thing he told me about religion was that he believed in God the same way he believed in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

"That's just one case." Nope. There's more.

I had a collection of friends. 4 of the 5 were Christian. They started getting into the Emergent Church teachings on contemplative spirituality because one thought he was actually getting divine revelations. Then they started getting into the occult. It was like watching a video of the same slow motion, fatal car wreck I'd seen my husband go through. I tried to warn them that this stuff was unsafe. Their answers were, "Things don't have power over me unless I let them have power over me" and "Don't worry. I'm not the same man your husband was. I know where my bread's buttered" and "Actually, I'm finding there's not much difference between Wicca and Christianity." They went further and further into the occult until now they're into tarot cards, spirit summonings, and other things that carried a death penalty in Biblical times.

Then I saw the pastoral leadership and much of the congregation of 2 churches in 2 denominations go the same way after starting to rely on The Message for a vernacular translation. One was a medium-sized church. One was a huge church. Both are now eyeball-deep in practices the Bible explicitly forbids.

With that much empirical evidence, I can only reach one conclusion.

The Message is a paraphrase, not a translation, and as a paraphrase, it may do some things well, but there are dangers in it. Big ones. A half a truth is a whole lie, and poison is usually a little poison with a lot of inert substance. There are good modern English translations in the modern vernacular, and there are better ways to reach the uneducated. Most of the population of the planet has been uneducated since Bible times, anyway. Paul, the apostle, didn't feel the need to rewrite Scriptures, and he had a very effective ministry among the educated and uneducated.

I wouldn't have The Message in my house any more than I would have a deck of tarot cards or a copy of The Solitary Wiccan Practitioner. I've seen the husband I love dearly and 5 friends I care about as well as 2 churches to which I belonged fall off the narrow Way and land in a ditch. I'm not sure I can watch that slow-motion, fatal car wreck again.

I've been posting information from a lecture I gave on the Emergent Church on my blog at ckoepp.xanga.com under the heading "Road Hazards." I'll post a new bit every week until the whole thing's up.

[morganlbusse]

I've never read the Message, but if you're looking for an accurate translation that reads like today's way of speaking, try out the New Living Translation.

[newburydave]

My heart mourns with you Birdnerd. I'll keep you in my prayers.

Your experience with this emergent church sounds like a replay of something out of my own past.

About a dozen of us, including my finance and I, were saved out of the heathen, university counter culture in Boston, during the first six months of 1971. This happened through the witness of a woman university professor and the ministry of a conservative church north of Boston. Several of these conversions were miraculous. These young people became our closest friends and real family; we traveled a perilous road of glory together.

By the middle of 1972 only three of us were left, still following the Christ of the Bible. In early 1972 the woman, who had led us to Christ, seduced us away from the church where we'd found God. She ultimately started a cult, centered around herself, which was much like this emergent church that you describe. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.

She led some of her disciples into horrible tragedy. My wife and I read about it in the newspapers several years later and realized that but for God's incredible grace to us our little family would have been the victims in the story.

So I know some of the loss you've faced my sister. After reading your experience I understand the depth of your feelings. I know that even after 40 years, some of my memories still sting and I still grieve.

May the one who is the Balm of Gilead minister healing to your heart and fill your life in Him with the overflowing sweetness of His love and presence.

Remember, there He will wipe away every tear. That's my/our hope.

SGD
dave

PS. We've found out in recent years that some of those we thought were lost, 40 years ago, have returned to the fold of Christ and today are serving God.

[birdnerd]

Hi Dave,

Thanks.

I take some comfort in the notion that if they were saved to start with, they're just building with wood, hay, and stubble. They'll lose their rewards but that's it. The one who wasn't Christian, him I'm more concerned about.

Perhaps some day, they'll find their way back to the Narrow Road. When my husband and then my friends started going off the path, I followed them a short way then God pulled me back. The same grace might be extended to them.

It's not over until we meet our end or that trumpet sounds.

[newburydave]

I have always felt a little funny about that verse "being saved but losing our rewards." I can't put my finger on why, but I have a sense that our translations don't really do justice to what the Spirit was trying to say through Paul.

Besides, the only reward that I value is to be with Jesus for all eternity and enjoy Him without any limitation.

But that's me, and all my friends will tell you that at best I'm a bit odd. More to the point I've learned over the years that whom God has taken hold of in a saving way he is very loath to let loose of again.

I'm not an unconditional grace preacher, but I am a believer in the awesomely sovereign Grace of God to plow up fields of bitter roots and pull down mountainous strongholds of iniquity; and make the sacrifice of his Son on Calvary avail in even the most hopeless cases. So that Jesus will receive the rewards of His sufferings.

The end of that thought, from II Cor 10:4-5, is that He will bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. (KJV)

Now I've pondered that many times. It works in us, in that he renews our minds day by day to be more and more like him.

I've also come to believe that it works for others, who are ignorant or, as in this case out of the way, to somehow make their minds and hearts turn once again to the Truth as it is Manifest in Jesus, the divine Logos. Providence, a quickening of remembrance, the wooing of the Holy Spirit, the direct speaking of the voice of God to the conscience; I don't know all the ins and outs of how it works, I just know that it does. I've seen it too many times.

There was a demon possessed man who came to our little mission seeking help when his son stated attending. At one time he had been a believer, but he had sold himself to a lust demon. (his own testimony)

That was one of the most frightening periods in my ministry, I would counsel with the man and the demon would rise up to meet me when we got too close to the issues that kept the man bound, time and again. I remember praying with him, feeling like I was in a bubble of God's protection, while rage as tangible as Hellfire roiled and rained down around me.

My faith wasn't strong enough to cast the demon out myself, but apparently my efforts were enough to bind the demon sufficiently to give this man enough freedom to find a ministry where he did find full deliverance into a pure life.

I don't understand the theology of all that. Some people I've known have condemned me as faithless. All I know is that what I lived through and experienced during those six months. I stared into the fires of hell in the eyes of a man, while I sought to bring him to freedom in Jesus. Thank God, my Sovereign Lord, stepped in and worked salvation where everyone else had said it was hopeless. (The entire city knew him and kept their distance.)

I guess I was just too stupid to quit and throw him out the way some other churches had. Jesus still goes far, far out of His way to seek the wandering ones and the backslider who has forsaken Him. This man is living proof of that; not to mention that I myself am living proof of this as well.

To God alone be all the Glory, Keep on believing and wait patiently for the Salvation of our God. Eternity will reveal a glory greater than we can imagine.

SGD
dave

[rjj7]

I'm going to go out on a limb here.

Thesis:
Not only is The Message not a legitimate translation, no Bible that is not translated word for word is a legitimate translation.

Disclaimer:
1- God can work through anything he chooses. I have no doubt that many non-word for word Bibles have been used to save people. But God also used Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery to do good. So while I concede this point, I do not see it as any sort of evidence that the plethora of thought-for-thought translations in the world is a good thing.

2- I am not going to judge you for using a non-word for word translation. That's not my business and is not my job. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and while I will present my point of view in the hope that it will help everyone to a better understanding of Christ and the Bible, I will not use what Bible translation someone uses as a metric for judging their faith or standing in Christ.


Explanation and Support of Thesis:

Terminology:
There are two, and only two principles for Bible translation. Word for word is the practice of translating the precise words of the original wherever it is possible. Thought for thought is the practice of writing the meaning of the words in whatever language the translator is using.

Introduction:
The very idea of thought-for-thought (thought) translation is flawed in the following manner:

1- The goal of thought translation is to translate the ideas. But how are ideas expressed? With words. By changing the words, you are tampering with the ideas.

Example:
"Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper ~ Psalm 1:3 (KJV)"
"In all that they do, they prosper ~ Psalm 1:3 (NLT)"

The top is from a word-for-word translation (word), while the bottom is from a thought translation. Are they the same? No, they are not. The first asserts that whatsoever he doeth shall prosper, whereas the second asserts that they (i.e., the individuals) prosper. It is quite possible for an action to prosper independently of the person that did it. For example, The Lord of the Rings has certainly prospered, changing culture and the world in significant ways (for good or evil is up to you to decide). On the other hand, did it bring great prosperity to J.R.R. Tolkien? Not really. He ended up selling the movie rights in order to get enough money to pay taxes, and never made the fortune he deserved.

We therefore see that tampering with words does indeed change ideas, and sometimes in very subtle ways. The only way to be 100% sure that we are accurately conveying the idea is to accurately convey the words.

2- The Bible is a complex book, and what one man interprets the meaning of a passage to mean may not be the same as what another man interprets the passage to mean.

Example:
"Thou has beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me" ~ Psalm 139:5 (KJV)

"You are all around me on every side; you protect me with your power" (GNB)

"You both precede and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head" (NLT)

At the top, we have a word translation that the two bottom are trying to convey the idea of. The GNB seems to regard this verse as a statement of God protecting us and shielding us from harm. Whereas the NLT seems to regard it more in light of God walking with us and bestowing blessings upon us. The one portrays God as a God of might and power. The other portrays God as a God of love and blessings. Both are legitimate interpretations of the original in the sense that the original could mean that, but notice that they exclude each other. With the KJV, the reader could take the meaning to be either. With the other two, the meaning has been specified in a manner that it wasn't originally, excluding alternate meanings.

Which is another danger of thought translation. Alternate 'thoughts' that were possible in the original words may become excluded.

For this reason, I think of Thought translations similarly to how I think of Bible commentaries. They can be very helpful, insightful, and enlightening, but I do not think of them as being the inspired Word of God (notice that it is the inspired Word of God, not the inspired Thoughts from God)

3- By setting ourselves up as judge of what the Bible means, we are usurping God's position

The core idea behind Thought translations is that we, fallible man, are accurate judges of what God 'meant' to say. To my mind, this is extraordinarily presumptuous. Some people seem to think that what is important in Bible translation is how we would say it. But the fact remains that we did not write the Bible. God did not choose us, he chose others, and he gave them the words to use. We may do our best to translate those words into modern English ones, but to do more than that, to try to write it how we would have written it is to put ourselves in he position of the Bible's author. A position that we do not occupy.


These are just three of the arguments in favor of Word translations over Thought translations. For a much better, deeper examination of the topic, I point you to The Word of God in English, by Leland Ryken. It is an excellent book with much better research, argumentation, and support than I could ever hope to achieve.

www.amazon.com/Word-God-English-Excellence-Translation/dp/1581344643

[fluke]

I'm not going to comment on the Message because I haven't spent much time in it. Mainly because I prefer more literal translations for study and devotion. Everything I translate is much closer to word-for-word than dynamic equivalence.

I had a much longer post written up, but have decided to cut it short. It sounds like you are basing most of your argument on Ryken. However, I see from the reviews that Ryken admits he is not a translator and not trained in translation. They say he is a fine English lit man, but not a translator. That alone gives me pause if he is going to write a book over translation theory and seek to correct it. At no time in seminary was I taught the rules that Ryken says guide translation today.

Frank Luke

[newburydave]

rj and fluke

I have several Greek friends and a number of others friends who read the Bible in Greek. I've studied the issues of translation of Philosophical works and Biblical translation for over 40 years.

According to my findings in my own research and the testimony of my Greek friends there is no such thing as a "word for word" translation from Greek to English. It's impossible to make one since Greek is a "geometric language" (one of my Greek friend's exact words) and English is a linear language.

I was once a member of the KJV only school of thought and then a direct literal word-for-word man. The Lord chased me out of both of those opinions. I have come to see that the word-for-word method is not really translation. When I preached in my store front street mission I found myself having to translate the KJV into street English.

Translation transmits the sense of the original into the target language so that the modern reader receives the same concepts and thoughts that the original audience received from the original manuscript. Language is a shifting convention which grows out of a specific cultural context. If one tries to translate "words" without respect to the cultural context of the source people and the cultural context of the target people you get gibberish which is what the KJV and NIV were to my congregations.

Two examples that come to mind from contemporary history are the ill fated advertising campaigns by GM a while back. "Body by Fischer" when translated word for word into Flemish for the Belgian market means the same to the Flemish speaker as the English phrase "Corpse by Fischer."

The other example is the unfortunate name of the venerable Chevy Nova in Spanish. We hear Nova and think of an exploding star; but to a Latin a car named "It does not go" will never sell .

These are simplistic to be sure, but one of my Greek friends get's very exercised when I talk about Biblical translation. He completed his College training before he emigrated and as a Quality Assurance consultant, who works cross culturally, he's very sensitive to translation issues. He told me that all the English translations he's read are grossly flawed and do not accurately convey the full meaning of the Greek into English. He knows both Koine and modern Greek. At the time of this discussion I was still stuck on the word-for-word parity "translation" schemes. Those are the translations that I asked him about.

Due to all of this I've come to suspect that many of the pernicious heresies that afflict the church in the English speaking world are the result of "artifacts" of poor translation due to the fetish for word-for-word renderings. When I finally started reading the NLT, some of the heresies I'd wrestled against as a pastor for 20 some years were totally wiped away by the more modern rendering (thought for thought) in that translation. The Message has only enhanced that effect.

Since I have been studying the Message for over a year now I find it hard to see how anyone could use that translation to support the Occult practices and heretical notions that some report to be in the Emergent church movement. I believe it is the same old story playing out again in our generation. Wicked leaders, like the Ephesian elders that Paul warned about in Acts, drawing biblically illiterate people away from Christ to follow themselves.

The dynamic is people who don't read their Bibles and thus don't really know what's in it; seduced by ego-maniacal leaders who handle the Word deceitfully to enslave their followers. That's the story of heresy throughout the history of the church.

Since we of the Reformed faith tradition hold the Bible to be the final authority on Faith, Morals, Doctrine and Practice of the Christian disciple this is a key matter.

Bottom line: I fear that the word-for-word method is a contributing factor to the problem, in that it is an attempt to substitute mere human scholarship for the superintendence of the Holy Spirit. He seeks to work understanding of the Living Word through the interaction of God's truth with the living spirit and intellect of real men and women. As with all attempts to exalt human work and intellect above the working of the Spirit it breeds confusion and danger into the situation. But such is the history of mankind since the fall.

As the prophet said "The Letter kills, the Spirit alone gives life." Seek the leadership of the Spirit and the constant Fullness of the Spirit (as a sail before the wind).

A good discussion, thinking clears the cobwebs of habit from our minds.

Write on My beloved siblings

SGD
dave

[waldenwriter]

I used to work at a Christian bookstore, so I was expected to know about the word-for-word vs. thought-for-thought/"dynamic equivalent" thing with Bible versions. Like you say, Dave, both have their merits. As for The Message, I always heard that it was a "paraphrase," an idea which I think was meant to diminish its importance to an extent. I personally haven't read it much myself, but I do like the wording of it (and I'm happy that they finally have a version of it with verse numbers).

I remember the explanation one of my supervisors at the bookstore used with customers - the verse about how the temple curtain tore in two when Jesus died. He'd say that a more modern way of saying this would be "The curtain of the Temple was torn in two," but that the KJV said it as "The veil of the temple was rent in twain." Same concept, different wording.

I can't claim to know koine Greek - or Ancient Hebrew, for that matter, since the Message is available for the OT also - but I imagine the translation would be very difficult. Even Modern Hebrew is hard to learn; I tried a while ago. For instance, Modern Hebrew has different verb endings depending on the gender and number of the subject, AND they don't have a "to be" verb.

I own 5 Bibles myself - an old NIV Bible I've had for so long the cover fell off and I had to tape it back on again, a KJV Bible a girl in my home Bible study group gave me as a gift, a paperback ESV Bible, a hardback ESV Study Bible, and a paperback
"Manga Bible" (which features color manga renderings of parts of the Bible along with the full text of the NLT). I find merit in all of them. I can get along all right with the KJV (though it does have some funny renderings, like Martha saying about Lazarus, "But, my Lord, by now he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days") but I also like the more modern words of the NIV and the NLT because I feel like the words jump out at me more when I can actually understand the words.

The ESV (English Standard Version) is the best compromise I've personally found between word-for-word and thought-for-thought. It's classified as a word-for-word translation, but it has more modern wording than other word-for-word translations like the KJV or
NASB. This gives it a slightly poetic feel that I kinda like.

The "Manga Bible" is interesting; I got it for Christmas last year from my parents. The manga parts only cover major stories like Creation, Moses, David, and the life of Jesus, but they're extremely well-drawn and provide a good interpretation of the stories they do cover (and at the end of each story they give the Biblical references for the story so you can read the story in the included full NLT Bible text). They even use the Hebrew names for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus - Miryam, Yosef, and Yeshuah - in the manga part about Jesus's life, which I thought was pretty cool.

So, um, that's my 2 cents.

[fluke]

David,

I'll agree with that. I think what he might mean by linear vs. geometric might partly have to do with the fact the in English, word order determines meaning in a large number of cases. "Man bites dog" is very different from "dog bites man." Exact same words, but different meaning. Greek does not rely on word order nearly as much. There are rules and times when it matters, but you can tell which is subject and which is object by the word endings (subjects have a different ending than objects) no matter the order.

Also the debate between 4 fold ministry and 5 fold goes away in the Greek. The Greek syntax clearly goes to 4 fold.

I've spent much more time in Hebrew, and it has its own rules. There are countless idioms which do not render word-for-word into English in an immediately understandable way. Since we want English and not English vocabulary with Hebrew syntax, we don't render them word for word. For example, the Hebrew way to tell a persons age is "son of X years." Another example comes in Gen 11:1, which literally says, "And was all the earth language one and words ones." Yeah, ones is plural. There are reasons for that in the text (it describes a plural noun, therefore it must match in number).

The job of a translator is to make it so that the readers don't have to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic to read the Bible. That can't be done going strictly word for word.

One of the best things I did in seminary was a special studies course where I translated the Hebrew and Greek Septuagint of OT passages. This debate is not new as there are portions of the Septuagint that go word-for-word (some even so far as just slapping Greek vocabulary on Hebrew syntax) and others that are extremely dynamic equivalent.

Walden,

I actually find Biblical Hebrew much easier than Modern Hebrew. It has a much smaller vocabulary, for one. Biblical Hebrew has a "to be" verb, but it is the most irregular verb in the language. Verbs do have different endings (and prefixes) depending on the number and gender of the subject. Biblical Hebrew for the most part avoids helping verbs. Each verb can go through many conjugations that render its meaning into English. For example, "slaughter" in Hebrew is just an intensive form of "kill," and "murder" is "caused the death of." Also, if you put the word for learn into a different stem it becomes "cause to learn," which we render "teach."

Many people have trouble learning Hebrew by rote. However, my first professor taught us a technique he called "balancing the books." Once we learned that, many of the "problem" transformations settled into patterns. "Oh look, they've added a suffix so the vowel in the first syllable has to become short."

Yes, I love Hebrew and the OT, and am glad to be called to teach it. My prayer is that I fulfill that calling.

Frank

[newburydave]

A Presbyterian minister friend of mine once told me that the Bible has been translated into thousands of languages around the world. In every language it brings forth the same fruit, Faith, Redemption and changed lives in Christ. We may debate the "goodness" of a particular translation but in reality that is the bottom line. God uses His word to redeem souls where ever it is made available.

I remember an interview I heard many years ago on the radio. The head of the International Bible Society was asked at the end of the interview, "what is the best translation of the Bible into English?"

He answered, "The one that you read."

The truth of His word, made part of us, always creates and builds up in us the "Faith which expresses itself through Christlike Love", which is the only thing that Jesus and God the father regard as lovely and valuable in us.

Loving lavishly is the only way we can convince the unbelieving world that we are real and reveal the true character of our Savior and Lord. The translation(s) that build me up in that is/are, IMHO, the best one(s) for me to read.

Love as Jesus did beloved; that was his only new commandment to us.

Write on beloved siblings

SGD
dave

[morganlbusse]

Well said Dave!

[yoda47]

For the various reasons mentioned in this thread by various people, that's why I like to have a number of different translations, and read from all of them when doing Bible study.

One of the new ones I really like is the NET Bible (www.bible.org) The thing I like about that one is that it has about 60,000 translators notes that help give more insight into what the original languages say for someone like me who doesn't know Greek or Hebrew.

[ignominius]

Hi, I'm new here, so I hope you don't mind me throwing my oar in and muddying the waters a bit?

There are three points that have been raised that I think are important.

1) The use of the King James or AV bible as a baseline for comparison
2) word-for-word translations and paraphrased translations
3) Purpose and intent of the authors of the various translations

Point 1). I have made many investigations into the veracity and accuracy of the various source documents - Textus Receptus, Codex Alexandria etc. There are nominal differences between them, on the whole the message and intent in all of them remain the same. However, there are some difficulties with the codex Alexandria and the other codex's used in more 'modern' translations in that some meanings are subtly altered. However, as I'm no expert, just an amateur armchair bible detective, I am not in a position to claim one version over the other.
The King James bible is a very accurate representation of the original Greek, but because of the language used it can no longer be a baseline for comparison with other English translations. Many words used in the KJV have changed their meaning, in some cases have the opposite meaning. Also there are passages in the origianl KJV which were inadvertently placed into the text by the translators who were using Erasmus's translations of the Textus Receptus. In these translations Erasmus made notes and it's some of these notes (usually his amplification of a verse) that were added by the translators.

So, the truth is that the King James was an excellent baseline reference for English speakers, but unfortunately times and language have changed and the King James is hard going for most modern people. The New King James makes an excellent replacement.

As for word-for-word translations being impossible, that is unfortunately a myth that even the Muslims use when the Koran is being criticised. They'll say 'well you have to read it in the original Arabic'. Well, that doesn't wash, no language is untranslatable. The issue that arises with any word for word translation is that, as has been pointed out Greek has a wide variety of words which under English would be combined under one word. Such as worship. There are three distinct types of worship word used in Greek, one is reserved for worship of God only, another is for general worshp and so on. Yet these are all translated into English as worship. Nothing wrong in that, but the shades of meaning are lost.

2) Word for Word translations are the best for study and for delving into the deeper mysteries of the 'Word'. Paraphrase translations are better for general reading of the bible, of the stories contained. It's better for entertainment (in a biblical sense) than for education. I guess what I'm trying to say is that both have a place in the arsenal of God-fearing Christians.
If a paraphrased translation is used to bring people to the Lord, then they should be encouraged to read a 'proper' version whether it's NKJ, NIV or whatever word-for-word version is accepted by that persons church.

3) Purpose and intent of the authors. I think that this is very important in choosing a bible for study and one for general reading. The intent of the author of the Message is to make the biblical message more accessible and comprehensible to those people who don't have the educational background to deal with the 'thees' and 'thous' of the KJV. It will help many find the truth. The other translations, the word-for-word are designed to be as accurate as possible within the confines of modern English (so , sorry the KJV loses out here - see (1) ). Study of the word, when delving into the more subtle meanings requires understanding of the language used - in this case English. I think that modern English is comprehensible to everybody, but King James English is not.

One last point, the Message may not be entirely accurate, that is not it's purpose. It's purpose is to make it easier to get the full concept of God's Word to the people. In and of it's self it is harmless and is quite useful. Those churches that have descended into paganism, new-agism or whatever 'ism', have done so because the shepherd of the flock has guided them in that direction, not the book. The fault lies with people not with God's word, no matter how poor the translation.

Sorry for the long post. For peoples interest, I use the New King James bible for study and the New Living Translation for reading. I also use a Greek Interlinear Bible - I'm teaching myself Koine Greek, and I've also studied Biblical Hebrew.