I’m getting ready to begin a series of posts comparing three Bible translations: CEV, NLT and The Message. I have to admit that I love all three of these versions. For the last twenty years I have basically been a NIV guy. I used the NIV student Bible and later the NIV study Bible. These are great study Bibles together with a great translation. But over the last five years or so I’ve been slowly sliding away (back-sliding?) from the NIV toward more idiomatic translations. Now some folks might find that ironic or even bizarre. A lot of people think that the NIV is way too idiomatic itself. But the more time I spend as a Bible translator the more convinced I become that a good translation can be accurate and natural. It’s the goal that I strive for when working with the Nyungwe translators. We are always on the lookout for português camoflado that is, ”camouflaged Portuguese.” It is really hard to find camouflaged ”Bible talk” because we are so accustomed to reading Biblish that we actually expect the Bible to sound funny. Well, all that to say, I admire the work that the CEV, NLT and Message translators went through to accurately communicate in natural English.
The first text I’m going to be looking at in my upcoming series is Psalm 7. The Message translation is one of the funniest things I have ever read. I won’t quote the whole thing but I’ll give you a sample:
See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again– you’ll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That’s what happens;
mischief backfires;
violence boomerangs.(from The Message, Psalm 7)
When I read this to my kids they laughed their heads off and I did too. This is a long way from the “beauty and majesty” of formal translations, but isn’t it effective in its way of showing how how ludicrous sin is?
Well, we enjoyed that so much that I just kept reading Psalm 8. And here my laughter turned to tears. I got choked up (I get so embarrassed when that happens!) reading the beautiful rendering of one of my favorite psalms:
Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown our enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.(from The Message, Psalm
I will have a lot to say in the next few weeks about reasons not to use The Message for regular Bible reading for family devotions. But there is no escaping the fact that Peterson’s translation of the Psalms is a work of art. How many times has a Scripture reading moved you to laughter and tears? Maybe part of what moved me was that my kids were being impacted powerfully by the Scriptures in a way that simply isn’t possible when using a version written in awkward English.
