A Politically Motivated Bible Translation

Recently on Crosswalk.com I learned of a new online Bible translation which claims to set God's Word free from liberal scholarly bias, but after looking at it reminds me of the dangers of twisting the Word to fit a predetermined political or otherwise subjective worldview.

Conservapedia, an online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia but with a conservative American political bent, is currently working on a new Bible translation called the Conservative Bible Project. It claims that liberal bias has infiltrated and distorted most Bible translations through three errors:

1. a lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ,
2. a lack of precision in modern language, and
3. a translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one. "But the third -- and largest -- source of translation error", it says, "requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate."

Conservapedia writes that as of 2009 there is not a "fully conservative translation of the Bible" that meets ten guidelines. Among them:

1. Excluding later-inserted "liberal passages" that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story in John 8:1-11;
2. 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);
3. expressing free market parables; that is, explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning; and
4. 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."

It claims that socialist terminology permeates English Bible translations, thus lending support to left-leaning "social justice" movements in the church. In the English Standard Version (ESV) the word "volunteer", deemed conservative, is mentioned only once, but these other words branded as socialistic are more liberally used (no pun intended): "comrade" (3x), "laborer(s)" (13x), "labored" (15x), and "fellow" as in "fellow worker" (55x).

It also suggests the following quote from Luke 23:34, where Jesus prayed "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," which does not appear in some ancient manuscripts, is an after-the-fact liberal corruption: "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 but should not appear in a conservative Bible."

And how will this new Conservative Bible be translated? Online, as an open wiki project, with each verse from the public-domain King James Version posted online, a suggested conservative correction, and side notes. Conservapedia writes that it can be done quickly with the right amount of volunteer translators: Retranslation at rate of 20 verses a day would complete the entire New Testament in about a year. "With 5 good retranslators, that would be an average of only 4 verses a day per translator. At a faster rate of 20 verses per day by 5 good translators, the entire New Testament could be retranslated in less than 3 months."

And what's the result? Well, the translation is ongoing. I've been going through the Conservative Bible online, and while the folks at Conservapedia have a right to do a new Bible translation, looking at what is being proposed and changed, I think they're all a bunch of nuts.

Here are some verses taken from their translation, located at http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible:

1. The prophet Jeremiah's name is changed to Jeremy in Matthew 2:17-18.
2. The Holy Spirit (Ghost in KJV) is changed to Divine Guide in Matthew 1:18, 1:20.
3. Matthew 3:7 is translated thus: "When John saw how many Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized by him, he said to them, "You jerks! Who has warned you to flee from the divine sentence that's coming to you?"
4. Mark 10:33 -- "Listen carefully: we will arrive in Jerusalem, where the Son of man shall be betrayed and handed over to the Elites, who shall condemn Him to death for execution by the Gentiles."
5. Mark 14:3-5 -- "At that time, he was in Bethany at Simon the leper's house, having a meal. A woman came in with an expensive white crystal container of valerian oil, which she opened and poured over his head. Some of the onlookers were shocked, saying 'Why did she waste that nice oil like that? We could have sold that for more than three dollars and charitably donated the money to the poor!' They kept whispering about what a bad thing she had done."

As I see it, they are creating a wooden translation that does away with the poetry that makes the KJV such a revered English translation, as evidenced in Matthew 3:7. The wobbly translation of the expensive perfume as "valerian oil" is one thing, but to value it as "three dollars" is an ridiculously bad reworking when the NKJV, NIV and NLT more correctly define the original Greek as "three hundred denarii", the equivalent of a day's wage. The NLT precisely paraphrases it as "a small fortune". Worse yet, it seems they doing exactly the very thing they accuse theologically liberal Bible scholars of, deliberately injecting a conservative American bias such as renaming the scribes and Pharisees "the Elites", which is a current conservative-activist buzzword.

Conservapedia was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of Eagle Forum founder and longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. While God is very clear in calling homosexuality sinful behavior, giving great value to life still in the womb, and that faith in Christ His Son is the way to salvation--all of which are rightfully considered "conservative" values, He needs no help from conservative activists in the United States with no biblical translation or theological background.

The Bible in and of itself, regardless of translation, has been used to support liberal, conservative, socialist and anarchist ideologies. Because of the stated goals of the Conservative Bible Project, it bothers me that Mr. Schalfly and his associates are rewriting and revising it to fit their specific political worldview--a practice no different than "The Woman's Bible", a feminist translation created in the 1890's by Elizabeth Cady Stanton or the New World Translation by the Jehovah's Witnesses. It also smacks of twisting holy writ out of its context so a predetermined heretical template can be forced upon it, as done by Harold Camping of Family Radio, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, or the late Herbert W. Armstrong of the Worldwide Church of God, not to mention numerous Word of Faith prosperity teachers like Benny Hinn, Joel Olsteen, Joyce Meier and Todd Bentley.

In conclusion, I would not trust this ongoing translation to other conservatives, Christian or not. The fact that it is an open wiki project makes it lamentable. I'm sticking to my modern translations.