Monday, October 5, 2009

Re-Retranslate Thuh Bibel Gooder

There's a project over on Conservapedia to rewrite the bible and remove all the liberal (i.e. inaccurate) terms, translations, etc.

Here are possible approaches to creating a conservative Bible translation:

* identify pro-liberal terms used in existing Bible translations, such as "government", and suggest more accurate substitutes
* identify the omission of liberal terms for vices, such as "gambling", and identify where they should be used
* identify conservative terms that are omitted from existing translations, and propose where they could improve the translation
* identify terms that have lost their original meaning, such as "word" in the beginning of the Gospel of John, and suggest replacements, such as "truth"

There are several striking advantages to a conservative approach to translating the Bible online:

* participants learn enormously from the process
* liberal bias - and lack of authenticity - become easier to recognize and address
* by translating online, this utilizes the growing online resources that improve accuracy
* supported by conservative principles, the project can be bolder in uprooting and excluding liberal distortions
* the project can adapt quickly to future threats from liberals to biblical integrity
* access is free and immediate to the growing internet audience, for their benefit
* 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


At the bottom of the page where the references are listed they have this:

The committee in charge of updating the bestselling version, the NIV, is dominated by professors and higher-educated participants who can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook. As a result, the revision and replacement of the NIV will be influenced more by political correctness and other liberal distortions than by genuine examination of the oldest manuscripts. As a result of these political influences, it becomes desirable to develop a conservative translation that can serve, at a minimum, as a bulwark against the liberal manipulation of meaning in future versions.

Note that their link to the NIV (New International Version) makes no mention of all the liberal bias.

The New International Version (NIV) of the Bible is a leading evangelical translation. More than one hundred scholars, beginning in the late 1960s, undertook the project of retranslating the Bible for the best extant (existing) originals in Hebrew and Greek texts. Their goal was that the translation be:

an Accurate, Beautiful, Clear, and Dignified translation suitable for public and private reading, teaching, preaching, memorizing, and liturgical use. The translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God's Word in written form. They agreed that faithful communication of the meaning of the original writers demands frequent modifications in sentence structure (resulting in a "thought-for-thought" translation) and constant regard for the contextual meanings of words.



Regardless, the translators of the leading evangelical translation of the bible are still "professors and higher-educated participants who can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook." Apparently lower-educated people don't have that "problem."

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