The New Bible

[chris the cynic]

When I learned about this I was probably one of the last people to hear about it. Now that it's in the blogs I'm getting the impression that I was actually one of the first people to hear about it because everyone is talking about it as if they've never heard of it.

Anyway, the folks over at Conservapedia have decided that the Bible has a liberal* bias. Thus they have decided that the only thing to do is to rewrite the Bible. Which they are in the process of doing. The results so far are here.

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."

So "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," is out. As is comrade. And word. And, apparently, miracle.

Anyway, there's a new Bible on the way with more capitalism and less ... good stuff.

Also, the word "laborer" is socialist. honest, just look at what they say:

Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.

For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times.

*United States political definitions of conservative and liberal.

[bobby 55]

Yikes! The way they spoke in the first century and earlier is a whole lot different then we speak today. Making a version to suit the twenty-first century sort of makes the earlier writings seem redundant. That in turn makes the need for a new version unnecessary. Now I'm consigned to their very real hell.

[Moonbo]

Jeesh Chris, not to beat a dead horse about selective moral outrage, but don't forget to get equally morally outraged about the effort a little while back to make a 'liberal' translation of the Bible including erasing any references to premarital sex being bad and changing every "Heavenly Father" to "Heavenly Parent".

Again, this isn't a one-side only phenom.

[bobby 55]

Both sides are as wacky as each other imo. I'm agnostic so neither offends me religiously speaking. I can acknowledge a bit of political correctness but they do go over the top on some issues.

[justanotherfan]

They can rewrite the bible. They're essentially writing their own then. That's fine. Good for them. It's how the first one was made, and it certainly needs some editing. There is a popular American version of Christianity that is not reflected in the actual bible. The bible already contradicts itself, and they're removing the contradictions in a way that fits their "interpretation" (their preconceptions and desires).

I believe that Christians would find this incredibly offensive, however. "You can't strike out the things you don't like" etc.

[Jaedar]

Conservapedia; because the truth has a liberal bias.

I believe that Christians would find this incredibly offensive, however. "You can't strike out the things you don't like" etc.

If you can't strike out the things you don't like, all christians should kill all disobedient children. It is in the good damn bible. Although admittedly it doesn't say kill; it says stone to death.

Point: The bible sucks, and you shan't trust any of it, regardless of your religion.

[DDL]

Jeesh Chris, not to beat a dead horse about selective moral outrage, but don't forget to get equally morally outraged about the effort a little while back to make a 'liberal' translation of the Bible including erasing any references to premarital sex being bad and changing every "Heavenly Father" to "Heavenly Parent".

Again, this isn't a one-side only phenom.

While this is very true, I find most crazy far right conservatism to be far more restrictive, imposing and generally cockworthy than most crazy far left liberalism.

Essentially, liberal attitudes are far more permissive, whereas conservative attitudes are far more "THOU SHALT NOT <INSERT THING HERE> ON PAIN OF HELLFIRE" (actually, "inserting things here" probably IS on the hellfire list ). Obviously there are logical fallacies with this statement (liberals are far more likely to say "thou shalt not be a rabid racist bigot", for example), but I'm sure you get what I mean.

I thus view a liberal bible as an insane idea, but I view a conservative bible as an insane DANGEROUS idea.


And yes, I'm entirely willing to admit that liberal attitudes much more closely reflect my own, but I'd like to think that even without that bias, I'd still consider this sort of conservatism to be far closer to the 'dangerous' zone of the "fucking nutcase spectrum".

[that guy]

so it's the word of God, but god needs to get his shit straight?

[chris the cynic]

Jeesh Chris, not to beat a dead horse about selective moral outrage, but don't forget to get equally morally outraged about the effort a little while back to make a 'liberal' translation of the Bible including erasing any references to premarital sex being bad and changing every "Heavenly Father" to "Heavenly Parent".

Again, this isn't a one-side only phenom.

I had not heard about that.

Link?

[Added]

Conservapedia; because the truth has a liberal bias.

I believe that Christians would find this incredibly offensive, however. "You can't strike out the things you don't like" etc.

If you can't strike out the things you don't like, all christians should kill all disobedient children. It is in the good damn bible. Although admittedly it doesn't say kill; it says stone to death.

Point: The bible sucks, and you shan't trust any of it, regardless of your religion.

In Christianity you can't strike out the things you don't like, but some of them are overridden. For example, adulteress story (which these people plan to remove) is basically the end to stoning.

In Judaism it is my understand that what the Bible literally says is, at most, one fourth of what you're supposed to go on. If one fourth of something says kill children you can probably find ways out in the other three quarters.

Here is how the Jewish take on it has been explained to me most recently:
Basically, Jews think that there are four levels of meaning to the Tanakh. The first level is Peshat, the plain text meaning. The second level is Remez, the allegoric meaning behind the plain text meaning. The third level is Derash, the comparative meaning, the meaning you get when you compare different portions of the Tanakh together especially if the portions are similar in a nature. Finally, there is Sod, the mystical meaning of the text. To properly understand the Tanakh, you need to understand it on all four levels.

[Moonbo]

http://www.bible-researcher.com/gan.html

[DDL]

Hahahahah good ol' Rowan Williams.

Though to be honest, the 'OMG LEFTIST' bible reads (to me) about as pointlessly restrictive and outdated as the 'normal' bible, so I'd argue it still has a way to go.

On a general scale I'd go with

MADNESS NEOCON BIBLE---KJV BIBLE---OMG LIBERAL BIBLE-------------------------------------*----DUDES! JUST BE AWESOME TO EACH OTHER *air guitar*

with the star indicating my general outlook position. Waay more open-minded than jesus, but less awesome than bill & ted.

[Moonbo]

Sounds very Libertarian of you .

[chris the cynic]

On the one hand, that's definitely wrong. On the other hand, it admits that it is a radical retelling in giant letters on the cover, where the Conservative Bible Project aims to rewrite the bible and pass it off as a more accurate translation.

Throwing out what you don't like and changing what remains so it can only be interpreted in your preferred fashion to further your political goals is wrong regardless, but it seems to me that doing so with the aim of convincing people this is how it always was is worse.

Even if children were raised only ever reading Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures they will at least be reminded that this is new and radically different than the original every time they look at the cover. The aim of the Conservative Bible Project is to create a new Bible that readers will think is merely an uncorrupted version of the original Bible. The goal is to change things without admitting they are changing things.

The goal is, "We've always been at war with Eastasia." So in that respect I'd consider the Conservative Bible Project worse than something that says it is new and different on the cover.

Of course if you can find an example where parts liberals don't like are dropped and the rest is subjected to an intentionally liberal paraphrase which is trying to pass itself off as nothing more than a more accurate translation of the original then I would agree that that is just as bad as the Conservative Bible Project.

[Moonbo]

If you insist on their unequivalency I guess that's your opinion.

[chris the cynic]

You don't see a difference between "A Radical Retelling" and "This is how it always was. It is the correct original telling. Anyone who has ever said it is different is either lying, misled, or using a form of English incapable of communicating truth"?

I can't see how anyone could think that the two are remotely equivalent. One says, "This is different," the other says, "This is the same." Please explain to me how you can see those as equivalent because apparently there is a hole in my brain where your way of looking at things should be.

[Added:] It occurs to me that, given the ambiguity of text, the above might not be as clear as it could be. I'm not putting forth any argument. I seriously do not understand how you believe what you believe. I want to understand. So if you could explain I would appreciate it.