The King James bible and more recent
translations are veritable primers of progressive agitprop, according to
the founder of "conservapedia".
by Richard Schiffman
Liberal bias in the media pales in comparison to what you’ll find in
your standard-issue bibles, according to conservapedia.com, a kind of
Wikipedia for the religious right. The King James bible, not to mention
more recent translations like the New International Version (NIV), are
veritable primers of progressive agitprop, complains Andy Schlafly, the
founder of conservapedia.com. (His mother, Phyllis, is an activist best
known for her opposition to feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment.)
But not to worry. Andy Schlafly’s coven is on the case, and they have
invited you to pitch in. Well, maybe not you, exactly, but the "best of
the public,” whose assistance is solicited in proposing new wording for
left-leaning bible verses.
Don’t know Aramaic, Hebrew or ancient Greek? Not a problem. What they
are looking for is not exactly egghead scholarship, but a knack for
using words they've read in the Wall Street Journal. They have a list of
promising candidates on their website—words like capitalism, work
ethic, death penalty, anticompetitive, elitism, productivity, privatize,
pro-life—all of which are conspicuously missing from those
socialist-inspired bibles we’ve been reading lately.
In the several years since their translation project was inaugurated,
all of the new testament and several books of the Old have been
thoroughly revised. But lots still remains to be done. If you've got a
soft spot for Leviticus, the Book of Amos, Lamentations or Numbers, they
are all still available for rewrite, so get cracking!
To give a sense of how to go about your own re-translation, here are some examples of changes the editors have already made.
Take that story where the mob surrounds a woman accused of adultery and
gets ready to stone her, but Jesus intervenes and says, “He who is
without sin, let him cast the first stone" (John 7:53-8:11). It might
have been a later addition that wasn’t in the original gospels,
according to some deluded-thinking, or rather wingnut-leaning scholars. So
the editors have excised this bleeding-heart favorite from the good book, and they've also removed jesus’ words on the cross, "Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
“The simple fact is that some of the persecutors of jesus did know what
they were doing,” Schlafly points out, proving that, “jesus might never
had said it at all.”
Another thing jesus might never have said at all is, “Blessed are the
meek.” Change that one to, “Blessed are the dog-fearing,” the
translation’s editors advise, which is far less touchy-feely than the
King James version.
