May the mumbling commence!
Now Noah was different. Let’s see that difference in the story of his
life. Read from Peterson’s The Message:
This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his
community. Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there
was violence everywhere. God took one
look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting – life itself
corrupt to the core.
God said to Noah, “It’s all over. It’s the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I’m making a
clean sweep.
Build yourself a ship from teakwood. Make rooms in it. Coat it with pitch inside and out. Make it 450 feet long, seventy-five feet
wide, and forty-five feet high. Build a
roof for it and put a window eighteen inches from the top; put a door on
the ship; and make three decks, lower, middle, and upper.
I’m going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive
under Heaven. Total destruction.
But I’m going to establish a covenant with you: You’ll board the ship, and your sons, you wife
and your sons’ wives will come on board with you. You are also to take two of each living
creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with
you: two of every species of bird, mammal and reptile – two of everything so as to preserve their
lives along with yours. Also get all the
food you’ll need and store it up for you and them.”
Noah did everything that God commanded him
to do. (Genesis 6:9-22)
Now read the same passage from the
NIV translation:
This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man,
blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with
God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and
Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt
in God's
sight and was full of violence. God saw
how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted
their ways. So God said to Noah,
"I am going
to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.
I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms
in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet
wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for
it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in
the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth
to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in
it. Everything on earth will perish.
But I
will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark – you and your
sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living
creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of
every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to
be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
Noah did everything just as God
commanded him.
The bottom line is the same. Noah is different because he listened to the
Lord and did everything that God commanded him to do. The NIV underscores this more emphatically
with the “just as” phrasing that missing from Peterson’s work.
Peterson again circumvents some
words and tries to be more concise – especially in the sentence fragment of
total destruction and in the introduction of foreign concepts (to the writers
of Genesis) of bird and mammal and reptile categories. These are unnecessary shortcuts, in my
opinion.
Peterson also tries to redefine the
churchy language of righteous and blameless people. Too many people only see these as a holier
than though and judgmental type of stance.
Though I’m not convinced the first half does justice to the concepts, I
do like the second half. Integrity is an
important word to pursue in all our lives.
It will make us different than the world around us.
The only other issue I will pick
has to do with the difference between the window in the ark as Peterson puts it
and the unfinished strip of ark that the NIV presents to us. It’s an issue of translation. Either is potentially right.
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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