Eugene Peterson discusses his influences as a writer, as well as how and why he created the Message translation. This was at a Writer’s Symposium by the Sea in California. He relates his experience translating and interpreting the Bible into the Message version. From 2007. Peterson talks about how the Bible is about storytelling, and discusses the influences on him, from Walker Percy to Wendell Berry to James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Peterson tells a great story about being a new pastor and trying to understand his congregation, and how he used James Joyce’s Ulysses to help him. He realized on page 338 in Ulysses—Leopold Bloom—was his congregation; he sat in his pews every Sunday. “He had tens of worshippers.”