Not long ago, I reported on the new NIV being worked on, and about how it will replace the TNIV, which many considered somewhat controversial because of it’s “political correctness”.
Well, it appears that the people over at Conservapedia are going to ensure all political correctness disappears from a new translation of the Bible in their “Conservative Bible Project”. According to their website, 10 guiding principles will be used, to include not emasculating passages, not dumbing the Bible down and utilizing “powerful conservative terms”.
OK, whatever. However, that is not what caught my attention. It should be noted that one of their guiding principles is to “accept the logic of hell” “as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.” Of course, this means the reinforcement of the false belief in an eternally burning hell.
They also plan on eliminating “false” liberal verses such as Lk 23:34.
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts of the Gospel According to Luke lack this verse fragment set forth at the start of Luke 23:34:[7]
- Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Is this a corruption of the original, perhaps promoted by liberals without regard to its authenticity? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals, although it does not appear in the earliest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke. It should not appear in a conservative Bible, because in point of fact Jesus might never had said it at all.
I guess that forgiveness just might not fit with their particular brand of conservatism.
Jesus did not get involved with politics of his day. This just seems to be yet another example of people mixing their worldly politics in with their religion.
"Powerful conservative terms"?! Is the phrase "death tax" going to appear in it somewhere?
@Richard: Well, I was thinking perhaps "death panel" might be one.
Found an interesting article this weekend, with more details on this project:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1918/the_conservative_bible_project%3A_looking_for_conservative_diamonds_in_a_liberal_dung-hill#
Calling a dancing girl a "bimbo"? Yeah, that's a powerful conservative term. Straight outta Sean Hannity or Neal Boortz (who's really libertarian).
I like the term "Grand Theft Jesus". That pretty much describes the state of affairs amongst "Christian Conservatives" or whatever they call themselves these days.