Thursday, December 3, 2009

Conservative Bible

Really people? C'mon! New politically conservative version of the bible being written...

I seriously cannot understand the utter idiocy of some people. Not only does the religious right try to read conservative politics into texts that are 2,000 years old and older, but they are now trying to actually write these biases into the text...this is just as bad as when liberal scholars have tried to rewrite the bible in gender-neutral terms (i.e. God as the "Father-Mother" in places where "father" appeared before).

"Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it's professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible," said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project's online home.
Experts who have devoted their careers to unraveling the ancient texts of the Scriptures, many in long-extinct languages, are predictably skeptical about a project by amateur translators.
"This is not making scripture understandable to people today, it's reworking scripture to support a particular political or social agenda," said Timothy Paul Jones, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who calls himself a theological conservative.


Religious publishers already provide an alphabet soup of Bible translations for a range of theological outlooks, from the King James Version (KJV) to the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and beyond. The most widely used traditional translations were overseen by scholars who are considered the best minds in conservative Christianity.
"The phrase 'theological conservative' does not mean that someone is politically conservative," said Schlafly, who lives in Far Hills, N.J.


This liberal slanting, Schlafly argues, ranges from changing gendered language — Jesus calling his disciples to be "fishers of people" rather than "fishers of men" — to more subtle choices, like the 2001 English Standard Version of the Bible, which uses "comrade" and "laborer" more often than the conservative-friendly "volunteer."

Ridiculous.

1 comment:

Satyavati devi dasi said...

It's not enough to be theologically conservative, you have to be politically conservative too....

...yet another way to divide and fragment the religious.

So much for seperation of church and state, right? Will altar calls in the future include statements on one's political beliefs? Will just believing on Jesus no longer be enough to get to heaven... you have to be registered to the correct party as well?

It's so very, very sad.