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Conservatizing the Bible

danarhea

danarhea

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You really need to read the whole Conservapedia entry to grasp how crazy this is. It's like what you'd get if you crossed the Jesus Seminar with the College Republican chapter at a rural institution of Bible learnin'.
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That's right. Some folks at Conservapedia are working on a new translation of the Bible. Problem here is that they are applying political ideology to this translation, and that is a huge problem. You cannot mix religion and politics without watering down the word of God. And, as stated in the Bible itself:

Revelations chapter 22 said:
18For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
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The Bible does NOT teach free market principles, nor ideology, whether it is Liberalism or Conservatism. The Bible teaches God's love for man. Those political hacks who are looking to alter the meanings contained in the Bible, believing that they know more than the early church councils that canonized scripture, are treading on very dangerous ground, and IMHO, putting their very souls at risk.

Article is here.
 
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Sigh... This is mind blowing.

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."
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Only the Old Testament books (and the Book of Mormon, and the Quran) are "conservative", and there are many exceptions. The New Testament (and the Baha'i stuff) is downright socialist!

They should abandon misquoted / mistranslated 2000-year-old gibberish and read some Objectivist epistemology instead...
 
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I truly cannot even bother with Conservapedia anymore. I think I got a six-month block without explanation that wasn't lifted even when the blocking admin was de-sysopped and blocked himself. Then I edited the Hugo Chavez article and said that there was a greater basis needed for claiming that he was a "dictator," and was warned not to revert admins' edits. The site is simply too massive and clogged with bias to clean up, though I remain amazed that they consider it "equivalent" to the "liberal bias" of Wikipedia.
 
The bible gives me the horn
 
Stupidity rules on the right and here they are actually attempting to increase that stupidity.
 
Religion is subjective. Why object?
 
Alex Libman said:
Religion is subjective. Why object?
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Interpreting religions is subjective yes, religious texts are not. What these freaks are attempting to do is change the meaning of the good book to fit their twisted world view.
 
PeteEU said:
Interpreting religions is subjective yes, religious texts are not. What these freaks are attempting to do is change the meaning of the good book to fit their twisted world view.
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Wait... The Bible is not subjective? :doh
 
EgoffTib said:
Wait... The Bible is not subjective? :doh
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It's only subjective to those who feel it doesn't apply to them. :2razz:


*sigh* The Bible is not a political tool and I am disgusted that any party would use it as such.
 
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Schlafly and everything he does is comedy gold. I can't see anybody beyond the Conservapedia audience taking this remotely serious.

Back when Richard Lenski observed evolution in a lab Schlafly and crew wrote an open letter to Lenski on the matter. Lenski actually responded and what resulted was an absolutely hilarious exchange between some guy with a political agenda and an actual expert. I'd recommend taking a look.

A bit of background
The Lenski-conservapedia exchange
 
danarhea said:
Problem here is that they are applying political ideology to this translation, and that is a huge problem. You cannot mix religion and politics without watering down the word of God. And, as stated in the Bible itself:
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This problem is not exclusive to our era. They have done this very thing thruout the history of the bible. I suspect that if we could read the original we would be suprised at how meanings have been changed threw the years from the original context. This also does not take into consideration all the other ways in which the bible has been manipulated to fit the needs of the church.
 
They're replacing one bias with another, arguing that their bias is closer to the original text. (Dead sea scrolls?)

Even translating between Russian and English -- two modern European languages -- I find many shades of nuance that can be open to interpretation. When translating from a dead dialect of an ancient language that had a much greater tendency for complex metaphors and was often written without punctuation, vowels, or even spaces... :roll: ...conservapedians' guesstimate is as reasonable as anyone else's.

I do hope they finish the project and put out an audio book. The bible is one of those texts I like to listen to every 5-10 or so years, but I only have time to listen to audio books while exercising. I like to listen to right-brained stuff like history and mythology while hiking or rowing a boat - don't ask me why. :lol:
 
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EgoffTib said:
Wait... The Bible is not subjective? :doh
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Its a fairytale if you ask me.

My point is the bible has been translated by experts for centuries and it has remained pretty much the same since forever. But now these nutjobs see fit to change those translations because they deem them too "socialist" or something insane.. just pure lunacy.
 
obvious Child said:
Have you read their 'science' articles and I use that term exceptionally loosely?


Conservatipedia is more accurately "Idiots are Us"
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I thought that site was a parody.
 
Well I'll be. There are two different sites. The wiki one was the one I was refering to.

The wiki is an excellent piece of evidence that the capacity to write in no way shows intelligence.

"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." -- Qui-gon Jinn

Likewise, the ability to write does not make you intelligent
 
What is the difference between this and other versions that have been made to cater to specific groups, like the women's bible, children's bible, gay and lesbian bible, etc?

(Serious question, not facetious)
 
filfilksq said:
What is the difference between this and other versions that have been made to cater to specific groups, like the women's bible, children's bible, gay and lesbian bible, etc?

(Serious question, not facetious)
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What are the women's, children's, gay bibles? I'd like to see an example or two.
 
filfilksq said:
What is the difference between this and other versions that have been made to cater to specific groups, like the women's bible, children's bible, gay and lesbian bible, etc?

(Serious question, not facetious)
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That a text considered sacred to some is being butchered by the ignorant and selfish.
 
God is pretty right wing yet jesus is a bit of a hippy.
 
Without the endorsement of a major church, this edition will not take off. It does shed some obvious light on the fact that religious scripture is and always has been politically influenced, though.
 
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