Powerful new terms
I’d recently told you about the NIV 2010, which promises to remedy the “obsolete English” of the ’80s.
Now Conservapedia, a popular website begun by a homeschool-cooperative teacher who claims encyclopedias are “too liberal”, has announced a project to retranslate or paraphrase the Bible according to “conservative principles”.
Among the changes they propose to Holy Writ are these:
If the project does become a retranslation, it must be a “thought-for-thought translation” the better to remove “liberal bias”.
The version must use “powerful new conservative terms” to replace existing “defective language”. For example, to prevent anyone from using the Bible to promote “socialism”, the words “friend”, “laborer”, and “fellow-laborer” should be replaced with “the conservative term ‘volunteer’ “; “shrewd” should be replaced with “resourceful”; and “words such as ‘word’, ‘peace’, and ‘miracle’ ” should be replaced with unspecified substitutes.
“Logic” must be applied to the version “with its full force and effect”, by emphasizing the vice of sins (they mention gambling twice) and the “very real existence of the Devil and Hell”.
The version must “fully express Free Market parables”, highlighting the “numerous economic parables” in the Bible and explicating “their full Free Market meaning”.
It must “exclude liberal-interpolated passages” such as “the adulteress story” and Luke’s account of Jesus’s last words. “These quotations are favorites of liberals [but] should not appear in a Conservative Bible, because in point of fact Jesus never said [such things] at all.”
It must “prefer conciseness over typical liberal wordiness.”
Exoristos
Porter Doran
Iannes
Epiktetos
Anonymous
Luke’s account of Jesus’s last words: “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
I take it that it’s “repentance and forgiveness of sins” that they take issue with? Is it possible to disagree with that and still be a Christian in any meaningful sense at all? I’m not a Christian myself, I just thought that that bit was sort of the point.
I meant his “last words” in the sense of the pronouncements he made before dying, especially: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I’m sorry to have been ambiguous.
Oh, right, Jesus gets to have two sets of last words.
Wow, these guys are not the brightest bulbs in the lighthouse. I’m looking at some of their “highlighted articles” and finding few paragraphs in coherent, standard English. The punctuation is likewise awful.
And the rambling — heavens! — one paragraph of three in the “Jesus Christ” article so far has descended burblingly into anti-Semitism.
Their Conservative Bible project laments the “seventh-grade reading level” of the New International Version — well, I would mark Conservapedia’s writing level at a much lower grade-level — at least if small children were this malicious.
Here is a gem: The article-writer is trying to explain how Jesus Christ became Jesus’s “first and last name”:
“The change from a title to a name is much more authentic and understandable in Aramaic language than in English. … in Aramaic the connecting bridge is the vocative ‘O Christ’ (O, Anointed One)! ‘O Christ’ and ‘The Christ’ is the same … .”
This is hysterically funny! Is he really suggesting a progression of “Jesus the Christ”, “Jesus O Christ”, “Jesus O’Christ”, “Jesus Christ”?
Yeah, peace…we can’t be having any of that now. It would cause irreparable harm to the military-industrial complex…
Also, I think I’m going to scream and break something if I hear one more person try to attach american capitalism to the Bible. Sure, it works on a macro scale but thats only because its based on one of the few universal principles: people are greedy and self-centered. This “logic” they speak of should also be interesting to see……
I’ve just found one of their notes saying that, since liberals have contorted “the word ‘peace’ into something anti-war”, they propose always to paraphrase it “peace of mind”.
I wonder if these people are in league with those masterminds who figured out that when Scripture talks about Lucifer descending, in the original language it sounds something like Barack Obama. Funny how many people have been “proven” to be the Anti-Christ…it’s been pinned on most anyone Christians happen to dislike.
I’m noticing that in the paraphrase so far, their contributers are not really acting up to Mr. Schlafly’s garish ideals in the Project outline. Perhaps their nerve failed them when in fact the knife was poised over the bowels of Scripture. Of course, there is still a great deal of outre sacrilege, and of course they may change the contents for the worse at any time since the project is just begun.
Instead, what is standing out most to me in the paraphrase is incredible sloppiness and ignorance. They are making a real hash of things and ought to be sadly embarrassed. I suppose this is what “four verses an hour” gets you — or perhaps it is a symptom of the minds that always are In The Right and therefore never get exercise.
Here is a trivial example: First, I’ll give their source:
“And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.”
And then I’ll give the paraphrase:
“He used many parables like this one to preach God’s word in a way that they could understand. But He never used parables when speaking to His own men. He explained everything to His own students.”
Now, “as they were able to hear it” can’t mean “in a way they could understand”. Removing “and when they were alone” is bemusing. There is a bit of conflating the antecedents of “them”. Jesus’s words become God’s — but this won’t pause most readers, perhaps. The volunteer “men” reeks of Axe. And I do deplore the sentence fragmentation.
But worst of all is the clause that they’ve made say opposite the original: “But without a parable spake he not …” becomes “But he never used parables …”
These are mistakes a third-grader would be reprimanded for. And the paraphrase is rife with them.