Conservatives Aim to De-Liberalize the Bible

Those rascals at Conservapedia have started the Conservative Bible Project. The project aims to remove "liberal bias" from the Bible.

The project cites the following reasons for a liberal bias:

• lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity
• lack of precision in modern language
• translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

The project believes that the last of the three causes the most "bias," and therefore wants to retranslate the King James Version (KJV).

The project also notes that there is no bible in existence that satisfies the following ten guidelines: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 modern emasculation of Christianity
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 as they develop; 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."
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 Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, 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."

Interestingly, none other than BeliefNet took this group to task.

[...] the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology. [...]

You really need to read the whole Conservapedia entry to grasp how crazy this is. It's like what you'd get if you crossed the Jesus Seminar with the College Republican chapter at a rural institution of Bible learnin'.