The Bible Is Too Liberal...

or at least according to these guys.

blog.beliefnet.com...

Conservatizing the Bible

The eager young men at Conservapedia are p.o.'d that the Bible might be seen as too liberal. So they've come up with the Wiki-style Conservative Bible Project, to make sure the Lord doesn't go all wobbly on us. Excerpt: As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1] 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[2] 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" 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 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. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story 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 Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities Thus, a project has begun among members of Conservapedia to translate the Bible in accordance with these principles. The translated Bible can be found here

www.conservapedia.com...

I really....I...I am stunned. Shocked. I'm having a hard time believing this is for real. I actually had to ask a few friends to read and then tell me it wasn't a joke. I will NEVER understand religion and I sure as hell will never return to the church. I mean if this was real bible-worshipping wouldn't this kind of re-write be considered sac-relig?

reply to post by edgecrusher2199


Great thread, man. Too bad others aren't joining in. It's too true. Like everything else, people take religion (whichever one) and turn it into what they think it should be. I'm sure that's because that's what God wants us to do.

reply to post by edgecrusher2199


The bible has been written, rewritten countless times.

King James
Revised version 1
Revised version 2

Plus you get when the original parts of the bible were written

B.C.E. Old Testament
c. 2166 to c. 1876 Job
c. 1446 to c. 1406 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
c. 1406 to c. 1050 Joshua, Judges
c. 1050 to c. 931 Ruth, Samuel, Psalms, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes
c. 875 Obadiah, Joel
c. 790 Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah
c. 732 to c. 726 Nahum, Zephaniah
c. 640 Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk, Kings, Daniel, Ezekial
c. 586 to c. 538 Haggai, Zechariah
c. 458 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther
c. 444 Nehemiah, Malachi
C.E. New Testament
c. 50 I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians,
c. 53 Galatians
c. 55 Romans, I Corinthians,
c. 57 II Corinthians, James (40 - 60 A.D.)
c. 60 Mark, Luke, John, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon
c. 62 I Timothy, II Timothy, Acts, Titus,
c. 64 I Peter
c. 66 II Peter
c. 68 to 80 Hebrews
c. 90 I John, II John, III John, Jude
c. 95 Revelation
www.mediahistory.umn.edu...



Plus you have Constatine I, who also rewrote the bible.

Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus[3] (27 February c. 272[2] – 22 May 337), commonly known in English as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or (among Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians) Saint Constantine (pronounced /ˈkɒnstɛntaɪn/), was Roman emperor from 306, and the sole holder of that office from 324 until his death in 337. Best known for being the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine reversed the persecutions of his predecessor, Diocletian, and issued (with his co-emperor Licinius) the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious toleration throughout the empire.

en.wikipedia.org...

Just an FYI

reply to post by mikerussellus


Exactly. I agree with you (wouldn't matter if I didn't, what you say is fact). This is the problem with religion in general.

Originally posted by really
reply to post by mikerussellus

 

Exactly. I agree with you (wouldn't matter if I didn't, what you say is fact). This is the problem with religion in general.

True. The best we can do is interpret what man thinks god is saying. Add bias, racial, cultural hatred, and add just a wee bit of self serving and you get the bible.

Don't get me wrong though, just gotta love the message and disregard the messenger.

reply to post by mikerussellus


Depends which message you're talking about: If it's the one about compassion and forgiveness for your fellow man, I'm in agreement.

reply to post by mikerussellus


Double post.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by really]

See this is everything that is wrong with religion, to be more specific this is what gives Christianity a bad reputation. Nuts on the fringe of reality want to take people's faith and use it for their own gain. When will people see that God isn't a democrat or a republican? I hope these men will see the error of their ways and repent or they will forever burn in the lake of fire. I can't wait till Jesus comes back and sets things straight.

Originally posted by funkeemunkee84
Nuts on the fringe of reality...

Talking of which, I remember a couple of years ago I heard a story that some feminist group wanted to change all masculine references of God in the Bible to something neutral.

We will always have 'nuts on the fringe of society' trying to push their agenda.

reply to post by the siren


Thankfully I attend a church where we do not spread any political ideas or any biased opinions less they are something that the bible directly teaches us. I have heard of that movement to feminize the bible more. My personal opinion is that it's pretty messed up that there are individuals out there changing the word of God. I say of you don't like it go and find a new God that you can bend your twisted ideology to fit with. Leave our Lord and savior be less you want incur his judgement in the end.

Edit for misspellings, I'm sure I missed some anyways.

[edit on 7-10-2009 by funkeemunkee84]

It is conservapedia that is doing this. Here are some things o have seen on their web page
Faith is Unique to Christianity it has it's own section lol.
Only Athiests kill at a young age
They have more on gay bowel syndrome than they do on civil rights

I think they have some closet homosexuality going on under the facade of being anti-homo sexual. Homosexuality is at number 3 as their most popular at 3,388,451.
After reading through their material they still have the nerve to put the article examples of bias in wikipedia

So i do not think many people will take their version of the bible serriously.

Just a heads up - some addtional comments on this in another thread posted a few hours before here....

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I really....I...I am stunned. Shocked. I'm having a hard time believing this is for real. I actually had to ask a few friends to read and then tell me it wasn't a joke. I will NEVER understand religion and I sure as hell will never return to the church. I mean if this was real bible-worshipping wouldn't this kind of re-write be considered sac-relig?

not really, the bible has many translations, and this is just going to be the newest to the collection, as long as the true meaning is not changed, then in fact, its a good thing, and as for getting rid of the stuff added later by monarchy/liberal people, then it would probably an up to date translation in its purest form

Hi Mike Russellus
I don’t know where you are getting your dates from—the ones you list ref: the post Javneh canonical ‘Old’ and the post-Nicene canonical ‘New’ Testament literature are wide of the mark in many places. Can you read Greek or Hebrew/Aramaic in the original? People who can are able to see the dating of the writing styles fairly easily in terms of syntax, grammar, Weltanschauung, vocabulary, sentence length etc.

For instance, the Scroll of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah in the Masoretic Text copies (from AD 960 !) is actually written in (3 -count them!) completely DIFFERENT writing styles by THREE different WRITERS reflecting the political realities of different eras in Judaea and Ephraim-Yisro’el.

Proto-Isaiah (chapters 1-39) was written in a northern Ephraimite dialect around BCE 730-BCE 701 ; Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40-55) written in a southern Jerusalemite dialect around BCE 590-BCE 560 ; Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56-66) written with a southern Jerusalemite accent (w/some Babylonian loan-words) c. 530-510 BCE

The MAIN BODY of the book of Job (chapters 3:1 to 42:6) is written in Hebrew POETRY in a strange Akkado-Elamite dialect with some very weird ‘foreign’ loan-words in un-pointed paleo Hebrew from around BCE 700 using the name ELOAH for the name of a PRE EXILIC (pre 587 BC) clan-god, and not YHWH (Yahweh) the later post-exilic clan-god of the Israelites. The 1st two chapters and the last 8 verses of the book of Job are written in PROSE (not poetry) and introduces post Exilic characters e.g. Satan which derive from the Persian period (Zoroastrian influence), and is written in a VERY LATE almost MISHNAIC Hebrew style from around BCE 200. The two styles are as different from each other as Richard Nixon’s inaugural address is from Shakespeare's sonnets are in English-- They cannot be grouped into the same time period.

The Book of Daniel is written in TWO languages, some in proto Mishnaic Hebrew and some in late Aramaic, in a late style from around 165BC, although the story is told ‘retro-actively’ as if it were part of the Babylonian Captivity period (BCE 587 – BCE 521) of the Judaeans. In its present form (at least) it is a Macabbean document, not dated as you say to 640 BCE; the syntax, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, world view, theology, political Weltanschauung and sentence lengths etc. are all from a much later period than the Exile of 587BCE.

Ecclesiastes (Heb. Qoheleth, ‘the Preacheress’ grammatically a feminine participle !) is written in a late proto-Mishnaic Hebrew style from around BCE 200. It is retro-actively positioned to come from the mouth of a ‘king in Jerusalem’ e.g. Solomon, but is pseudipigraphical and is MUCH later than the time of Solomon…

The Torah was re-edited under the auspices of Ezra the Scribe in c. BCE 420 and has at least (6- count em!) different writing styles Chapter1 and the very opening of chapter 5 was written by someone who had the same accent as the book of the prophet Hezekiel (c. BCE 560)---long after the time of ‘Moses’ and the book of “Deuteronomy” uses the same scribal language as Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah (c. BCE 580), again, long after the purported time of ‘Moses’. So your dates for Genesis, Exodus, Leveticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are all specious.

The ‘canonical’ New Testament is even more problematical : the mangled texts that have come down to us are in 5446 Greek MSS no two of which are alike, though some fall into ‘families’ e.g. Byzantine, or Western Text types etc. The gospel material is later than the Pauline material, but it echoes early Aramaic oral traditions at times that go back to the times of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (BCE 12 to 36CE).

The Apocalypse of Yohanon the Levite (aka the Book of Revelation) was written in very bad Greek (like the gospel of ‘Mark’, whoever he was) and should be dated to c. 69CE during the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome; later dating to c. 96CE is not backed by serious modern scholars any more although the text may have been ‘added to’ or ‘subtracted from’ during Domitian’s reign from an earlier version of the material.

II Corinthians was evidently sewn / partched together from at least (4) different early Pauline-like letters, all of which may have come from different periods (these can be variously dated between AD 51 to AD 61); II Thessalonians is a Pauline forgery parts of which may actually be dated earlier than 50 BC…

Just a little food for thought…taking an ancient Hebrew-Aramaic class would help, as would a class in Koine Greek, in identifying different writing styles, which betray the time in which they were written (at least in the form we have them now !)

Those who think The Bible is "too liberal" might be more interested in this particular text.

Sorry to bring this up again after so long, but I just realised something about this project. One of their points as a reason to "fix" the bible is:

Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story

This somewhat surprised me. I had heard before that this story was an addition to the text, but I had no idea that the belief was so widespread that even christians accepted it! What's even more interesting is that the story is STILL being taught. What is the general consensus on this?

Hi Bab--

The Floater (story) of the Woman Caught in Adultery is found in various places in the 4th Greek Canonical Gospel, aka 'John' --whoever he was-- (and it even ocurred once placed in a MS copy of the 3rd Greek Canonical Gospel, 'Luke' , whoever he was) but is written in different style of Koine Greek (syntax, vocabulary, sentence length, Weltanschauung &tc.) , so the 'consensus' of modern biblical scholarship today is that ALTHOUGH this ADULTERY STORY-FLOATER is NOT part of the earliest versions of the 4th canonical Greek Gospel, but clearly a later TEXTUAL addition nevertheless ..that fact DOES NOT PRECLUDE the possibility that this cute little story itself might go back to a much earlier ('primitive') ORAL stream of gopel pericope like material that was finally written down and inserted into the Greek Texts at various places at various times by various people/scribes (i.e. later appearances of text traditions do not necessarily mean 'made up' or 'spurious').

Scholars like to take 'NT gospel' pericopes (i.e. discrete stories in the Gospels modelled on II Kings chapters 1 through 8, the socalled Galilean Elishaq narratives, all which have a BEGINNING-MIDDLE-END i.e. set up, continuation build and climax -- usually a miracle !) on their OWN merits rather than nit-pick about X-MS places the story HERE while Y-MS places the story THERE.

The Pericope in question has a nice intro, middle and climax, and shows Aramaic story telling at its best. Was it originally part of the 4th gospel we read today? No. But it might have been part of a LOST gospel, and even from the same group of persons in Alexandria who produced the canonical 4th gospel in Greek...or from (gasp !) a living eye witness to the event !

Who knows how many versions of the canonical and non canonical Greek or other language Gospels there were between AD 70 and AD 320?

Who knows who cut out what, and added what to what tradition, whether oral or written when dealing with Gospel material, which lends itself to alteration over time via hand copies or copies of copies of copies of copies of copies that we read today.

The gospel material differed from town to town (read the biting epistles of Saul of Tarsus / aka Paul at a comparatively early stage screaming about the validity of HIS gospel, and he never even met 'Iesous' in the flesh, only in dreams and visions, like my cook !!) and they might have circulated simultaneously in several different versions in different cities that had differing needs (e.g. Secret Mark and 'Mark' might both have been 'hand' copied side by side for all we know)...

Scholars are open to looking at the evidence such a we have it and drawing conclusions. Most like the Woman Caught in Adultery Story in terms of content and pithy expression, but hardly any reputable scholar today would regard it as the work of the author(s) of the 4th gospel whoever he/she/they were.

What we really needed back then were digital video cameras - but then again, there's always photoshop &tc. to make people see what was not originally there....

Oh, Plus ca change !!

[edit on 3-12-2009 by Sigismundus]