Ezekiel and The Message

Eugene Peterson's The Message offers a fresh reading of Scripture that is intended not for study, but for hearing Scripture in a way intended to be comparable to those originally hearing it.*  In many ways he has done a marvelous job of this.  He is a remarkable scholar and author (one of my favorites) and I am often delighted by his perspective on things. 

However, recently I received a newsletter that quoted from Ezekiel and I was struck by the alteration to the Hebrew text.  The most recurring statement...indeed THE theme of Ezekiel...is the revelation of YHWH as YHWH (Israel's God).  This is signified in every translation I've seen (with the strangely lacking use ANYWHERE in the Amplified version) and well conveys the intent of the message to and through Ezekiel for Israel (Judah) and the nations. 

The Message, instead, states that they (Israel, nations) will "know that I am God."  While the referent is still the God of Israel whose intent is to reveal that indeed He is God...this falls short of conveying the original hearing which emphasized the Name (with all its connections to the revelation and covenant with Abraham and Israel at Sinai).  I was sorely disappointed by this reading, because it seems to me to diminish the very center of Ezekiel's theology.

* It was NOT intended for preaching or study, which sadly it has been used for by far too many a preacher.  It is important we understand original intent...including that of a translation.

Saints or Holy Ones?

Over Thanksgiving (the U.S. one for my Canadian friends) this last weekend one of the conversations I had with family (my family on both sides is filled with pastors) was about the change made in the NIV(2011) concerning the non-use of "saints".  The conversation entailed whether the change was necessary and why they would make such a break from other Protestant translations (ESV, NASU, NET, NIV[1984], the KJV-family, NRS) that use "saints" in the NT in such a place as Ephesians 1:1 for translating the Greek ἁγίοις. 

While I have enjoyed the "shock-factor" as a preacher of having folks in church turn to one another in recognition of being "saints"...in my personal translations I've inevitably translated ἁγίοις as something more like "holy ones" or some such term.  In part because of the connotations that it bears for many folks about people long since dead who had a mystical connection to God and supernatural abilities that no one else can expect to have as a 'normal' follower of Jesus. 

The NIV(2011) rendering of Ephesians 1:1 has "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:" (bold added for emphasis).  Interestingly enough the Catholic translations have purposely avoided the very connotations inherent in their theological system by translating it as "holy ones" (NAB) and "holy people" (NJB).  The NCV, NLT, TNIV opted for "holy people" so it seems only natural that the NIV(2011) would follow this translational trend.  I find it preferable and think the choice bears less weight for people who are reading it and don't differentiate the language of "saints" in Catholic dogma from "saints" as represented by the New Testament usage of ἁγίοις.  To be sure, those two definitions are worlds apart (as even the Catholic renderings testify).

I'd be interested to know what others think about this trend in the most recent translations and what your own translational choice of the matter is?