I have been reading about a group called Conservapedia who are trying to write a Bible without liberal bias. I can't find out if this is a hoax. Does anyone know if this is true?
Putting Conservapedia into Google yields a home page that seems to be an attempt to have something to rival "wikipedia" and the perceived biases seen there for various articles and topics. I didn't see anything about "writing a new Bible".
Whoa. I could have an absolute field day here with this one -- thanks for the find, Rob!
Here are my two favorite things from my cursory glance at Matt's second link:
Quote:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.
Quote:
The ensuing debate would flesh out -- and stop -- the infiltration of churches by liberals pretending to be Christian, much as a vote by legislators exposes the liberals.
This would bring the Bible to a new audience of political types, for their benefit; Bible courses in college Politics Departments would be welcome.
This would debunk the pervasive and hurtful myth that Jesus would be a political liberal today
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I don't want to conflate fundamentalists with conservatives but a lot of fundamentalists are conservatives. If you are a fundamentalist, I don't see how you could mess with the inspired word of God. That's why I wonder if this is a hoax.
I don't want to conflate fundamentalists with conservatives but a lot of fundamentalists are conservatives. If you are a fundamentalist, I don't see how you could mess with the inspired word of God. That's why I wonder if this is a hoax.
No, this is very serious*, and brought to you by this child-molester looking fella:
* To them. To everyone that's not a brain-washed jerkass, it's Hilarious with a capital H
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Aha - they aren't trying to "write a Bible without liberal bias", it is a program for a new translation. Pretty dumb premise to start from if you ask me, but good for them.
Because in the end Jesus would be a white, gun toting, Fox News watching, Southern Baptist if he were alive today. You all know its true now they just have to write a book and tell all of you non-christian liberals.
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The "true" conservative gender policy is that masculine pronouns ought to be used ONLY where the Hebrew or Greek demand it. Which is no where near so often as modern translations.
res misogyny: Again there is some in the bible, but none so vicious and pervasive as in subsequent Jewish and Christian theology and other writings. And the gospels are without it. But then who says that Christendom has anything to do with the gospels?
This guy goes beyond conservative or even fundamentalist. No fundamentalist I know would want to mess with the King James Version. (Although fundamentalists tend to get really annoyed if someone points out that the original KJV Bible included the Apocrypha.)
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The "true" conservative gender policy is that masculine pronouns ought to be used ONLY where the Hebrew or Greek demand it. Which is no where near so often as modern translations.
Granted I only had a few semesters of biblical Hebrew as an undergraduate, and no koine Greek (to the chagrin of my Hebrew classmates who had both!), but I can't remember many (any?) translation(s) we did from the Hebrew that did not have gender-specific pronouns or references to a character of defined gender. I don't remember much in the way of mixed-gender plural suffixes, either. Could be wrong though, it's been a few years, although I've been meaning to re-learn it.
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Ok, this one has WAY too many angles, including the exceedingly loose and general way we use the term "conservative." One obvious point is that the mere idea of a bible written in English or other easily understood language is FAR from conservative. Bibles that everyone can read have been amongst the most radical and subversive forces in our history over the last few hundred years.
Issues regarding biblical translations are mighty thorny, even from a secular perspective focused simply on getting it "right." That said, as an agnostic, I am strongly inclined to the King James Version, for the reason that it is the one that so many of our great artists, authors, statesmen and divines likely used. Reading it puts you in touch with a lot of our heritage. I find biblical revisionism distasteful.
I think a lot could be said about this whole business of whether Jesus (as depicted in this or that part of the New Testament) would fall on the liberal or conservative side of our current political spectrum. This could be the subject of a very interesting debate, if it was to take between highly learned people whose heart and sole were in it.
Unfortunately, this is not the level at which the debate usually occurs.
As regarding which current U.S. party Jesus would campaign for the debate is over. Neither!
Quote:
On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!"
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As regarding which current U.S. party Jesus would campaign for the debate is over. Neither!
A point that seems lost on Christian political activists across the political spectrum. As much as conservatives get lambasted on here for raising their politics high on the cross, the old mainline denominations do it just as badly on the left. Fairly recently, I left the United Methodist Church in part because it became little more than a mouthpiece for Democratic causes (universal healthcare, ban of gun sales, hike on tobacco taxes) with a couple maybe-kinda-sorta applicable Bible verses tacked on the end. That pisses me off just as much as the flag-waving patriotism I've seen at other churches.
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"My baby's soft and sweet, somewhere between a flower and a gun" - fiction family
kmw - I was taken to task by a scholar friend on the issue of pronouns and gender, unfortunately did not save the letter. I may try to find some information for you. Another component of this, of course, is that strictly from an apologetics point of view is that is some language X where gender neutral pronouns were always used, using Hebrew, Greek, or English male pronouns which may be inclusive (in the minds of some people) would of course generally be avoided by missionaries regardless of their theological disposition. I somehow think it is a cultural thing, and not God's.
I am generally in favor of leaving old texts alone (as in singing God rest ye merry Gentlemen), but also in favor in being inclusive.
One obvious point is that the mere idea of a bible written in English or other easily understood language is FAR from conservative. Bibles that everyone can read have been amongst the most radical and subversive forces in our history over the last few hundred years.
I don't think it's obvious enough, and thus well worth pointing out. The whole reason an orthodoxy emerged, with its often authoritarian and misogynistic leanings, is because very few people could read the texts, leaving an elite corps of church leaders to use Christian teachings for purposes that Jesus himself would've struggled to understand.
From what I've been reading lately, it seems that the central problem in the early centuries of Christianity was creating a faith system out of teachings that were largely apocalyptic. Jesus and John the Baptist seemed to believe the world was going to end in their lifetimes, and wanted to purify the Jewish faithful so they were ready for it.
That left Peter and Paul to perpetuate a movement that its spiritual founders didn't consider in any way perpetual -- if you think the world is going to end within a generation, you don't worry about establishing institutions.
So the entire process of compiling Christian texts and creating Christian rituals and leadership structures was always a step beyond the mission of Jesus and John the Baptist. It was always a political process, and I don't say that to demean it. I'm agnostic, like Rich, but I don't have a problem with organized religion.
By political, I mean that humans had to make it up on the fly. Because so few people could read the texts, that meant small groups of men with the normal range of human motivations were making decisions that would eventually affect billions of people in places they didn't know existed.
A point that seems lost on Christian political activists across the political spectrum. As much as conservatives get lambasted on here for raising their politics high on the cross, the old mainline denominations do it just as badly on the left. Fairly recently, I left the United Methodist Church in part because it became little more than a mouthpiece for Democratic causes (universal healthcare, ban of gun sales, hike on tobacco taxes) with a couple maybe-kinda-sorta applicable Bible verses tacked on the end. That pisses me off just as much as the flag-waving patriotism I've seen at other churches.
Yeah. It does appear that many mainline Protestant denominations find the whole idea of sin, and the need for redemption, uncongenial and too literal and simplistic. They remind me of much of currently popular Country Music. They have taken much of the pain, and sin, out of both Christianity and Country Music (developments that are likely related in some way). A Christianity based on an "Im ok, your ok" ethos is no Christianity I recognize, and is pretty weak sauce.
They haven't taken the sin out, they've just redefined it to be the things they hate.
Not really. Like Rich said, the mainline denominations have largely swept aside the theological concept of sin, and evil. Basically defined, to sin (verb) is to commit an act (sin of commission) or fail to commit an act (sin of omission) and in doing so, breaking God's law. Murder and adultery being examples of the former, indifference to the plights of the lonely and needy being an example of the latter, in that we are commanded to care for the maligned.
The mainline denominations frame their actions in a cheery "Let's make the world a better place!" context, not in a "We must do this because God commands us to do so." That annoys me as much as the bright-eyed teenagers trying to get me to sign petitions outside the grocery store. While I was in the Methodist church I very rarely heard the word 'sin' uttered, and even then it was tentative and with little self-confidence from the pastor. That was my experience even in a slightly evangelical (and definitely more politically conservative) congregation in Virginia.
I've been lucky in the time I've been in San Diego, though, as I attend a Lutheran church here that pretty much eschews all politics as well as self-improvement Christianity. It helps that it has a well-educated congregation, including a lot of grad students, and a pastor with a strong knowledge of theology and church history.
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"If it felt good, you didn't push hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell." - Dean Karnazes' track coach, Ultramarathon Man
"My baby's soft and sweet, somewhere between a flower and a gun" - fiction family
I think a number of people speaking almost 'ex cathedra' would do well to read some recent church studies. It tends to be a lot more complicated than the generalizations posted.
If you're talking about the loons that have inspired this project, then no, they haven't gotten rid of sin. They've relabeled sin to be things they hate, like Democrats, affordable health care, and homosexuals.
I don't know what the mainstream denominations have done, and I'm assuming they aren't behind this kind of fundie nonsense either.
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It tends to be a lot more complicated than the generalizations posted.
I don't doubt it. Limitations imposed by the form of this kind of forum, as well as, at least in my case, limitations in knowledge base, conspire to make it so. I have read some fairly recent theology and semi-popular, semi-scholarly work on Christianity and the Bible. But I have no claim to much familiarity with it.
Nonetheless, I think the generalizations have a lot of validity to them. And while I don't doubt that the scholarship within the churches tries hard to marry the present outlook with the tradition, the message that goes out is largely as we have presented it. IMO, the mainline Churches have gone from being uncomfortable with the act of being judgmental, to being uncomfortable with the concept of a Judgment itself.
If you were to sum what traditional Christianity has said about the human condition down to its essence, IMO, it would be that "I am NOT ok, and neither are you." We need to strive against the flaws in our makeup to the very best of our abilities, and we need help.
This is not the message that I hear coming from the mainline Churches today. Km's phrase of "self improvement Christianity" is brutal, but pretty accurate, IMO. There is little to keep a believer up at night, worrying about the state of his soul.
If you're talking about the loons that have inspired this project, then no, they haven't gotten rid of sin. They've relabeled sin to be things they hate, like Democrats, affordable health care, and homosexuals.
I don't know what the mainstream denominations have done, and I'm assuming they aren't behind this kind of fundie nonsense either.
Ah, I thought your previous post was in response to Rich's post that the mainline denoms have disposed of sin as a concept.
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"If it felt good, you didn't push hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell." - Dean Karnazes' track coach, Ultramarathon Man
"My baby's soft and sweet, somewhere between a flower and a gun" - fiction family
Actually I have never talked to any knowledgeable person in a main line denomination, nor the outlier groups such as Unitarian-Universalist or Quakers who were not aware of and concerned about the categories of sin, not only in its personal manifestation but also in the corporate and cosmic categories.
More interestingly, I have not found nor heard of any studies that connect a person's personal behavior with their beliefs, religious affiliations, or lack thereof. I suspect that it may have as much to do with genetics as anything.
Robin, I'm assuming the people you communicate with most were other clergy or scholars? Rich and I are talking about the message that gets pushed out to the congregation, which, in my time in the mainline, deemphasized or disregarded sin.
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"If it felt good, you didn't push hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell." - Dean Karnazes' track coach, Ultramarathon Man
"My baby's soft and sweet, somewhere between a flower and a gun" - fiction family
Conservative Bible
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