Today, when I read the Psalms section in my NIV translation of the Bible In a Year, I read it 4 times. I had absolutely no idea what the poem was talking about. I should go ahead and admit that I am poetically challenged. You know, when your children come home from 1st grade and ask for help on those dotted line papers rhyming snow and grow with blow and show in a ‘meaningful poem’? My two boys had to go back to Mrs. Peek’s with crap. I have a really hard time with meter, stanzas, alliteration, but most especially similes and metaphors. Why can’t you just say what you mean?
In today’s Psalm, I could not tell who was talking and what they were talking about. It seemed all over the map. What should I do?
Here’s what I did.
I ran to my bookshelf and pulled down the Good News Bible.
The Good News Bible is not a direct translation. But it was published in 1976 with the intention “to state clearly and accurately the meaning of the original texts in words and forms that are widely accepted by people who use English as a means of communication. It does not follow the traditional vocabulary and style found in the historic English Bible versions.”
I am assuming that you are like me and that there will come a time when you just don’t understand what the heck the scripture is saying. When that happens, go get another translation. Pull down the Living Bible or The Message. Read the scripture and see if the change in words, change in centuries, change in style helps.
Now, I can hear all the Bible snobs out there shaking their heads over, gasp!, using The Message to study The Bible. But the truth is, what we are undertaking is the long haul. We are ‘simmering in The Word’. If you get frustrated, you won’t simmer, you will jump straight out of the pan and go back to reading your sports page or your romance novels.
If you have another suggestion for those of us who are hopeless at poems or clueless at prophesy or whatever, leave a post with your favorite solution. You never know. Someone could be on the edge of the pan right now.
Just in case you are, here is the Good News translation of Psalm 4:
An Evening Prayer for Help
Answer me when I pray,
O God, my defender!
When I was in trouble, you helped me.
Be kind to me now and hear my prayer.
How long will you people insult me?
How long will you love what is worthless and go after what is false?
Remember that the Lord has chosen the righteous for his own, and he hears me when I call to him
Tremble with fear and stop sinning; think deeply about this,
When you lie in silence on your beds.
Offer the right sacrifices to the Lord, and put your trust in him.
There are many who pray: “Give us more blessings, O Lord, Look on us with kindness!”
But the joy that you have given me
Is more than they will ever have
With all their grain and wine.
When I lie down, I go to sleep in peace;
You alone, O Lord, keep me perfectly safe.
Here is a website that lets you put in the passage and choose from zillions of translations which to look at. Go check out The Message’s take on Psalm 4.
http://www.biblegateway.com/
I like that site a lot. Always helps me to have different translations when I am stuck! Oh and I like that Wisdom is a She in Proverbs.
ReplyDeleteLisa, it doesn't sound like Wisdom was very attractive, now does it? I mean, She was yelling and waving around but nobody seemed to notice.
ReplyDeleteI go back and forth between the NIV and The Message versions. It helps me get a 21th century feel for the words.
ReplyDeleteMy wife started read the verses to me this morning on the way to work ( we were carpooling in Nissan Leaf). Her South Carolina accent simply destroyed most of the names from the Genesis passage that I laughed out loud. She skipped to Matthew verses about half way through. I went back and tried to read them myself and I realized that Kim was actually doing a pretty good job. I know that the names are important as an historical record but felt like I was just slogging through them.
I love the description in Matthew of how the disciples just dropped what they were doing without a word and followed Jesus. I can't seem to manage that even now and I know who Jesus is. Makes me wonder if Jesus asked others and they just said " Sorry but I have a mortgage and kids who want to go to college" or the first century equivalent of that. Look what they missed.
Raising your voice is never attractive, but some times it is necessary to grab your audience's attention. I'm thinking of Jesus in the temple tossing over the money changers table.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I thought was interesting was that in todays Gensis reading God advocartes eating fish and meet but before the flood it seemed as if man was only supposed to eat vegetables and what grows in the ground. Just thought it was interesting to see that progression.
ReplyDeleteAJ, I am reading a very interesting book on my Kindle called Scripture, Culture and Agriculture by Ellen Davis. I got it because I heard a podcast with her and Wendell Berry with Krista Tippett of On Being. At the very least, you should listen to the podcast. Very illuminating.
ReplyDeletehttp://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/poetry-of-creatures/lists.shtml
Can I share this book with you since I already bought it on my Kindle? You know I still wander through the tech world.