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The One Year Bible The Message
1232 pages, Paperback
Published October 8, 2024
22 people are currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Eugene H. Peterson
432 books1,006 followersEugene H. Peterson was a pastor, scholar, author, and poet. For many years he was James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. He had written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language a contemporary translation of the Bible. After retiring from full-time teaching, Eugene and his wife Jan lived in the Big Sky Country of rural Montana. He died in October 2018.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 17, 2025
I went ahead and finished the rest of the readings for the year a little early. While The Message is not my favorite translation of the Bible, it has its place and I'm glad I spent the last year reading it. The Message is valuable as a plain-language translation, perfect for those who are new to reading the Bible but also for those who want a fresh take on favorite passages.
December 16, 2025
With this review I am not rating the Bible as a whole as I have already done so in a past review. Instead this review is on the presentation of this edition of the Bible.
What originally attracted me to this copy of the Bible was the cover with the ram in the wilderness. Only secondly did I take a look to see what version it was and having never read the Message Bible it is definitely a new read for me.
First of all, this particular version is meant to be read in portions throughout the year, so the reader will find a helpful Ways To Use at the start, which provides the reader with alternative reading plans if they wish to keep on using the book or needing a plan that is more supple.
Prior this the book has an alphabetical listing of Bible books along with the page number on which the book starts as well as the month when you should be in that book.
After both of these are the bIntroduction and a section that provides recognition to the book's translator and his friends. The former explains why people have problems with reading the Bible while the second starts off as an About the Translator before continuing to list those who helped to review this translation.
Since it is meant to be an easier read, The Message is provided in very simple English if you overlook certain names. As such it does make it user-friendly.
But as mentioned in the translation section, it is a rendering of the original Bible. Small details like the sub-headers of the Psalms have been changed and only provided the barest recognition. If they were willing to make that change, what other details have they deemed irrelevant to their reader?
To keep the flow of the chapter, verses have also been combined together to make a more storybook-like format, which means if this was a scholarly read it would be much harder to find a single verse for those.
And finally, the part that has me straight annoyed to no end is the modernization. Concepts, expressions and technology are included that they have no idea about and it is vague enough where it isn't a replacement of historical events but still enough to make the usage poke out like a sore thumb.
As if that isn't enough, the book also references non-Middle Eastern animals, which it does by replacing them over local species this introducing the coyote for the jackal, the rattlesnake and the bison, which none of these were.
As a result, there is no way I would recommend this version to future Bible readers given to its inaccuracy, modern embellishments, and the fact its publishing have taken away from its accurate presentation.
What originally attracted me to this copy of the Bible was the cover with the ram in the wilderness. Only secondly did I take a look to see what version it was and having never read the Message Bible it is definitely a new read for me.
First of all, this particular version is meant to be read in portions throughout the year, so the reader will find a helpful Ways To Use at the start, which provides the reader with alternative reading plans if they wish to keep on using the book or needing a plan that is more supple.
Prior this the book has an alphabetical listing of Bible books along with the page number on which the book starts as well as the month when you should be in that book.
After both of these are the bIntroduction and a section that provides recognition to the book's translator and his friends. The former explains why people have problems with reading the Bible while the second starts off as an About the Translator before continuing to list those who helped to review this translation.
Since it is meant to be an easier read, The Message is provided in very simple English if you overlook certain names. As such it does make it user-friendly.
But as mentioned in the translation section, it is a rendering of the original Bible. Small details like the sub-headers of the Psalms have been changed and only provided the barest recognition. If they were willing to make that change, what other details have they deemed irrelevant to their reader?
To keep the flow of the chapter, verses have also been combined together to make a more storybook-like format, which means if this was a scholarly read it would be much harder to find a single verse for those.
And finally, the part that has me straight annoyed to no end is the modernization. Concepts, expressions and technology are included that they have no idea about and it is vague enough where it isn't a replacement of historical events but still enough to make the usage poke out like a sore thumb.
As if that isn't enough, the book also references non-Middle Eastern animals, which it does by replacing them over local species this introducing the coyote for the jackal, the rattlesnake and the bison, which none of these were.
As a result, there is no way I would recommend this version to future Bible readers given to its inaccuracy, modern embellishments, and the fact its publishing have taken away from its accurate presentation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews