Minor Thoughts from me to you

Oddly enough, I learned about the following endeavor from the latest Steve Grant column - who mainly writes about trends in comic books.

So: On the online Conservapedia you can now find a webpage dedicated to the new Conservative Bible Project, which seeks to remedy the fact that no current edition of the Bible exists on which a Republican president may swear and mean it.

The Project lists ten guidelines according to which it intends to re-interpret God's Holy Word, which must simply be reproduced in their entirety:

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

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]. [Note: I never really understood why something being written simply makes it dumber.]

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".

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. [Actually, I quite like this suggestion. Will they make it clear that the ancient Hebrews rolled dice to determine the will of God?]

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. [Sickos.]

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning. [I didn't make this one up. Go check the page. It's really there. I hope this project works out; I can't wait to see what they do with the God-given, quite socialist rules of ancient Israel in regard to private debt, alms, etc. Not to mention the early church having everything in common...]

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story. [As an example, they cite Luke 23:34 - which was indeed apparently inserted later into the gospel. But blamin' this on liberalism is just laughable.]

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. [But will the translators be able to recognize it when they see it?]

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." [The ridiculousness of this particular charge should be self-evident. Writing styles break down across ideological lines, with taut writing being conservative. Amazing.]

Their webpage also includes suggestions as to how they might approach the job of interpreting on a practical level ("identify pro-liberal terms used in existing Bible translations, such as 'government', and suggest more accurate substitutes").

At present it looks like the Project has either translated or is in the process of translating all of the New Testament, but has expectedly barely gotten anywhere with the Tanakh.

The deep irony here is that the men and women involved in this project are part of a tradition which they will deny exists to their very graves: even the earliest manuscripts are chock-full of verses which bear obvious signs of having been ever-so-slightly tampered with in order to buttress a particular ideology.