Hermeneutical Principle Number five: Dynamic Equivalent Translation. Dynamic equivalent translations, are translations that use a modern incident and keep the message. In other words, these translations are an accommodation for today's generation. Let me give you an example. Eugene Peterson, in his dynamic equivalent translation entitled, The Message New Testament translates the Mustard seed parable in this way. How could we picture the Kingdom of God? What kind of story can we use? It's like a pine nut, when it lands on the ground it's quite small as seeds go. Yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree, with thick branches, eagle's nest in it. Of course, the words pine nut and pine tree are not in the original Greek text of Mark 4:31. Petersen's Message New Testament is intended for a modern North American audience, because most Canadians and Americans have never seen a Mustard seed, but most have seen a pine nut and a pine tree. As a consequence, Peterson's dynamic equivalent translation is more relevant and makes more sense to our generation. Eugene Peterson explains his translation approach on the title page of the message New Testament. He writes, "The message is a contemporary rendering of the Bible from the original languages, crafted to present its tone, rhythm, events and ideas in everyday language. In this way, he keeps the Bible's messages of faith and delivers them using modern ideas in everyday language. With regards to Genesis 1-11, we can ask the following question? Can the message of Genesis 1 be translated in a dynamic equivalent way with an incident employing the modern science of origin's? Here's a standard translation of Genesis 1:1-5, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now, the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light. God saw the light was good and he separated the light from darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. Please turn to Page 74 to see if we can translate these first five verses in a dynamic equivalent fashion. Here is Genesis 1:1-5, cast within a modern science. Over billions of years, God created the heavens, the earth and the living organisms through evolution. Now the world did not exist before the creation of space, time and matter, and the Spirit of God was ready to hover over the evolutionary process. And God said, "Let there be an explosion," and there was an explosion. God saw it was good. He separated the explosion from nothingness. God called the explosion "The Big Bang." This was the first cosmological epoch. In the light of this dynamic equivalent translation of the first five verses of the Bible, the message incident principle can be updated. Instead of an ancient science, we can use an incidental modern science. In particular, the evolution of the heavens, the earth, and the living organisms. And this modern evolutionary science acts like a vessel to deliver the Bible's inherent messages of faith, that God is the creator of the entire world and that the creation is good. Therefore, the central spiritual truth that we should draw from Genesis 1 is that God created and not how God created. The Bible is a book of religious truths. It is not a book of scientific facts. End of episode.