Jesus, of course, was a Jewish hippie who preached peace, love, forgiveness and sharing of wealth. This is a major problem for bootstraps-loving free marketeers who are partial to the death penalty and marching off to war. At least that appears to be the (often unspoken) issue for certain right-wing Bible-thumpers.
They have provided hours of fascination to the rest of us, however, with their awesome new project. I think it first surfaced in the non-fundamentalist world on FireDogLake, but the basic notion is this: the Bible needs to be re-translated to get rid of its liberal impurities. I only wish I was joking. It's an enormous project over at Conservapedia, which purports to be an information source for home-schooled fundy youngsters. Lucky youngsters!
This is a comedy goldmine, especially for folks like me who grew up in the Baptist world and actually believed all that Jesus stuff, which made us strive to be peace-and-love hippies too. Turns out, however, that people like me with our crazy biblical beliefs are in fact anti-biblical, according to Conservapedia: "A liberal (also leftist) is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons."
I guess believing "blessed are the peacemakers" makes me anti-biblical and self-centered! Who knew?
Anyhow–here are some of the guiding standards for the re-translation. The new one should address:
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
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".
When did "word," "peace" and "miracle" change meaning? I missed that. I'm still under the impression that peace means the absence of war. But then I'm a self-centered anti-biblical liberal, and clearly untrustworthy, as are Merriam (a Communist) and Webster (an Obama supporter).
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
That's the one that includes the bit about "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Clearly way too liberal. The inclusion of certain passages in the Bible is debatable–but who knew monks in 400 A.D. were a bunch of freaking Move On Democrats?!?
And my absolute favorite:
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."
If wordiness is liberal, I know a few blatherers who are really in for it. (Limbaugh? I'm talking to you. Get in line behind Beck.)
The whole thing is high entertainment, so insane I really wish it was fake. Who knows–maybe it will turn out to be. But if so, it's a really impressive and subtle fake, with whole books of translation posted.
You can peruse all that here, but in the meantime, I'm going to propose a few changes to help them out.
Sermon on the Mount: Just forget about it. Or you can keep "Blessed are the peacemakers" if you change it to "Blessed are the people who make really cool explosions."
The bit about "turn the other [cheek] to him also" becomes "Hit back with shock and awe."
The Rich Young Ruler no longer gets told "give away everything to the poor, then come back." Now he's told "Offer new mortgage instruments to your most gullible homeowners, then offer me a shot at the IPO, buddy."
"Love thy neighbor as thyself" becomes "Go home, socialist, and cry to your mother in her Che Guavara wig."
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" becomes "It is easier for a camel lover to survive a Predator drone than for a Democrat to join the party of God."
"Jesus wept" becomes "Jesus wrote rude emails to the Daily Kos."
It could go on for days.
Not to get all heavy on it, but one particular translation illustrates perfectly the breathtaking ignorance on offer here. The beginning of the Gospel of John says "In the beginning was the Word." It's been re-translated by conservatives to say "In the beginning was the Truth." What follows that translation is a bit of internal criticism about how "truth" lacks the "forgiving healing, and dynamic quality" of "Word."
Which sounds all authoritative and everything, but a little bit of actual historical context reveals just how insanely dumb this is. The Gospel of John is unique in the level of influence from the Hellenic world it brings to the story of Jesus. And in the Hellenic world of philosophy, the term "Word" means a darn sight more than "truth," or even "forgiving and healing."
The original, "Logos," means something along the lines of that which creates and animates the Universe. There's also the notion that it permeates everything, that it is the very substance of the Universe. But screw it, let's just chuck out hundreds of years of Greek thought because the Greeks weren't Republicans (and some of them were even homosex-yuls, I heard).
-sigh-
