Update, 2005: Eugene Peterson on spirituality. Now I have a newfound respect for him, more than enough to overshadow my annoyance at “The Message.”

Eugene Peterson’s The Message gets gentle treatment from Bible scholars, mainly because it isn’t presented as a Bible translation. It had better not. I’m not a very big fan of The Message‘s use of “dumbed-down” Scriptural paraphrasing; to me it smacks a bit too much of going beyond what is written.

Of course, that’s most likely just me being a theological snob. I do acknowledge that there are people who are helped along in their understanding of Scripture by paraphrased texts such as this. I am not one of those people.