The Conservative Bible Project

Wingnut ideologues just keep bringin’ the crazy.

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1]

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[2]
4.Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[3] 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”;[4] 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

Right wing dementia marches on apace. Some of this has a grain of sense to it, as ideological madness always does. For instance, the dumb attempts to feminize Scripture are pernicious and need to stop. But seriously: the story of the woman taken in adultery is “liberal”? Free market as Sacred tradition? Liberal wordiness?

It gets better. Some approaches for improving the Bible include:

identify pro-liberal terms used in existing Bible translations, such as “government”, and suggest more accurate substitutes

identify the omission of liberal terms for vices, such as “gambling”, and identify where they should be used

identify conservative terms that are omitted from existing translations, and propose where they could improve the translation

identify terms that have lost their original meaning, such as “word” in the beginning of the Gospel of John, and suggest replacements, such as “truth”

And there is this delectable insanity pointing to the horrors of “liberal” Bibles that need to be fixed (and return, of course, to God’s Anointed Translation, the King James version):

First Example – Liberal Falsehood
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:[6]

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.

Second Example – Dishonestly Shrewd
At Luke 16:8, the NIV describes an enigmatic parable in which the “master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” But is “shrewdly”, which has connotations of dishonesty, the best term here? Being dishonestly shrewd is not an admirable trait.

The better conservative term, which became available only in 1851, is “resourceful”. The manager was praised for being “resourceful”, which is very different from dishonesty. Yet not even the ESV, which was published in 2001, contains a single use of the term “resourceful” in its entire translation of the Bible.

Third Example – Socialism
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.

Have I mentioned how much I appreciate the Catholic Church’s large and bovine imperturbability and slowness to be moved by stupid cultural frenzies, fevers and fashions?