The Conservative Bible Project
Did you know that the Bible had a liberal bias? The brainiacs at Conservapedia want to do something about that. (If you’ve never heard of Conservapedia, it’s Andrew Schlafly’s answer to Wikipedia, which has a liberal bias according to him.) They are starting the Conservative Bible Project where they will re-translate the King James Version of the Bible into modern conservative English.
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[2]
1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”;[5] using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”
Who knew words were liberal? I guess they’ll remove all references to loving your neighbor and healing the sick and add the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about tax cuts for the rich. Jesus was depicted as kind of a hippie in the Bible, so I hope the new conservative edition will take care of that problem.
Tags: Bible, Republican Crazy
Looks like a double post. Oh well, I did write my first!
Anyway, a naughty chemist has produced a shroud that looks just like the Shroud of Turin.
I’m pretty much a skeptic about everything but I think we’ve known the Shroud of Turin was a fake when they did the carbon dating in the 1970s. The Shroud dated to the late 13th-early 14th century, coincidentally (I’m sure) when it was first reported.
Interesting article. If I remember correctly, the believers blamed the carbon date on contamination from a fire (or fires), also where it got the scorch marks.
However, I can’t shake the feeling that you posted this just to use the phrase “naughty chemist”. 😉
I’m not sure where you got that idea, Scott. 😈
This one kills me:
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
So why not just revert to the King James Version? It is a lovely translation and certainly not dumbed down for anybody. But then, this does have to make sense to people who think that the government is rounding them up for FEMA camps.
I wonder why they are working off of the KJV of the Bible. It’s still a translation. It’s a translation of a translation. If you’re going to translate you should really start with the original material but I guess there’s not too many people who read a combination of Greek, Latin, Aramaic and whatever other languages it’s in.
The Bible gets rewritten throughout history, always to support some political/economic slant or another. There’s nothing new here, except that it might make people think seriously about the sanctity of religious documents. Ya know, the “God’s Word” an all that.
Who knew that “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” has always been mistranslated? The correct translation is “Thou Shalt Not Tax The Rich.”
Actually I think it’s “Thou Shalt Not Be Caught Committing Adultery.”
We are forgetting that way back in the dark ages, the only people who could actually read the Bible were either nobility, monarchs, and priests. The common serf was uneducated and just believed what he was told.
Also, could someone help out this Jewish kid – what is NIV?
The common serf was uneducated and just believed what he was told.
They had FOX back then?
MJ, I had to look it up but NIV stands for the New International Version. This is the 1978 version of the Bible.
And the favorite version of the evangelical types.
UI – Thanks. I guess I’ll stick with the original version (the one Lewis Black talks about – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g).
what ever happened to the infallible word of God?! I’m a relatively unreligious Jew, and IM offended by this. Nothing is sacred to these swine. They don’t like the president, they call him non christian, then they change the meaning of christian…. just to make sure “liberals” don’t do something “moral”…. they have this sick horribly inhumane view of the world…. soon helping the poor is going to be a sin.
They will remain religious zealots, just constantly changing their religion so they always have an enemy. Always have someone to want to kill in the name of God.
These fanatical Conservative “Christian” Americans are the real threat to American advancement, progress and freedom, and if that fact is not made crystal clear by these events, I shudder to think what action taken by them will finally convince everyone we are facing a very dangerous trend. More killings of doctors? More killings of cops? Assassination attempts on politicians? how long till someone wearing a Jesus fish shirt and a Palin for prez pin suicide bombs an ACORN building….. and Glenn and the rest make them into a martyr?
I find it curious as well, a. So, if the Bible conflicts with your ideology the solution is to change the Bible. That says a lot to me.
@ap “These fanatical Conservative “Christian” Americans are the real threat to American advancement, progress and freedom,”
Hence the term, “American Taliban” … and their religious schools are pretty much the same as fanatical madrasahs.
The original Bible is in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, a semitic language that once supplanted Hebrew in Israel, was a lingua franca in much of the Middle East, and that Jesus spoke. None of it is in Latin.
Translation is a tricky business regardless of what the text is. The translator’s golden rule is “translate sense, not words.” Is there anyone out there advocating an ACCURATE translation rather than one that has ANY sort of bias?
This problem exists in the Buddhist community as well, where we have different translations of various texts from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese etc. One school might prefer a certain translation over another, though “conservative” and “liberal,” thank God (or the Void? the All-Being?) don’t usually come into play!