Religion in the Digital Age

Some of you may have already heard about Conservapedia’s ‘Conservative Bible Project‘ (CBP). American “Conservatives” (who, like conservatives in Australia, are often the most radical) have begun a wiki project to rewrite the Bible free from “liberal distortion”. Their problem with current translations is as follows.

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
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)
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
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent; Defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words that 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”; 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 Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, 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.”

I won’t draw attention to such hilarities as their intention to “Express Free Market Parables” or “Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness”, but instead point out at least one inconsistency they already suffer. Their second guideline is for a bible that is “Not Emasculated”, but consider the parallel ‘translations’ of the creation of Adam in Gen. 2.7 from the KJV and the CBP:

KJV: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

CBP: Then the LORD God formed a human being out of the dry powdered soil on the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And so man became a living person.

Emasculation!

They’re taking quite a while with their ‘translation’; I wonder how their pace stacks up against the LOLcat Bible.

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