Drinkers and Thinkers

[vovat]

One online project I've heard quite a bit about recently is the Conservative Bible Project, sponsored by the ever-bizarre Conservapedia. I've mentioned this site before, but it's basically billed as a conservative alternative to Wikipedia, which the creator deemed too secretly liberally biased, so he thought the best solution would be an online encyclopedia that ADMITS to being biased. The creator, Andrew Schlafly, is the son of notorious anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly. That someone would have impregnated her is frightening enough, but that he's one of six is even scarier. Conservapedia is apparently now identifying itself as "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia," which brings to mind the stereotype of the sleaziest merchants putting "Honest" in front of their names. And now Honest Andy's Online Encyclopedia and Used Car Parts has started a new translation of the Bible, as the old ones were all too liberal for their tastes. In other words, they call themselves pro-Christian, but when Christianity as it stands doesn't support their own biases, they see the problem being in the Bible rather than themselves. Not that the Bible DOESN'T have a lot of problems, but I guess it's more sensible to just change the whole thing instead of, like, letting people decide for themselves which parts are good and which are bad.

One of the Conservative Bible Project's decisions was to edit out some of the mentions of wine, replacing them with grape juice. Never mind that non-fermented grape juice as we know it today didn't exist until the nineteenth century. I think the only way that people in Jesus' time could have had it was to drink it directly from the grape. But this is not uncommon among churches today, many of whom have somehow decided that alcohol consumption is something God doesn't approve of, even though Jesus turned water into wine, and gave the disciples wine that symbolized his own blood. The argument against drinking certainly has some merit, and as someone who's neither a Christian nor much of a drinker, I'm certainly not arguing this to benefit myself. Hey, I'm opposed to smoking, but I'm not going to pretend the Bible even addressed that. I remember the fringe Christian radio station owner Harold Camping insisting that smoking is a sin because it's "self-murder." As much as I dislike smoking, I'd say that's going a little too far.


Some of the earlier edits to the Conservative Bible, many of which have apparently since been retracted, made Jesus a particular enemy to liberals and "intellectual types". Never mind that Jesus himself, who always had a snappy comeback to the Pharisees' criticisms, could presumably be considered an intellectual as well. It kind of seems to me that the anti-intellectual trend among some Christians originally stemmed from Jesus' favor for the downtrodden. To be a good Christian, you didn't HAVE to be a Biblical scholar. That presumably evolved over time, at least for some, as "we don't want any smart people." Church leadership wanting to TELL people what to believe instead of letting people decide for themselves was also a contributing factor, I would imagine. The impression I get about Jesus himself is not that he was anti-intellectual, but that he was opposed to people claiming to be intellectual when they were basically just holding on to dogma. Maybe I'm inserting some of my own bias there, but that's okay. I'm not planning on rewriting the entire Bible myself to better reflect my own values. Just reading the entire thing took long enough.

Comments

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Regarding your last statement, as that's the one I feel most ready to comment upon, a reading about Jesus being anti-dogmatics came up recently at church (well, within the last couple months). At least, that's how the priest interpreted the reading and I tend to believe he was on the right track. But, then again, my family goes to Catholic church, so who really believes a Catholic priest anyway? Foolish Irish, Italians, Polish, and Mexicans--believing in a denomination that existed for hundreds of years before Protestantism! I know you can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes here.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

While I have plenty of problems with, well, every denomination, I do think it's ridiculous how the Protestants couldn't split from the Catholic Church without demonizing it. Then again, I guess they were just doing what the Christians in the Middle Ages did to the Jews.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I saw that Conservative Bible thing before, and all I can think is HOW can he take himself seriously? Just reading HIS OWN description of the project feels like reading something satirical. That he actually DOESN'T see everything wrong with it is horrifying!

Say there, Andy, what's the Bible say about hubris? Or did you edit that part out, too?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for Andy to reveal himself as a master satirist. Next April First, be sure to check Conservapedia. {g}

[eagledna.livejournal.com]

I remember reading that one of the Conservative Bible Project's goals is to remove all the socialist terminology from the Bible. Apparently (and I'm not even making this up), any use of the word "comrade" was the same as Jesus wearing a T-Shirt of Lenin and Marx frenching, having a hammer and sickle instead of arms, and constantly speaking of a "public option."

I think King James was from New England, so I suppose that explains their main gripe. It's odd how sometimes radical movements can do a better job looking like satire than satirists could ever manage.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I wonder what they think of the blatant promotion of communism in the early Christian community, as mentioned in Acts.

[(Anonymous)]

WHAT THE GEZORNENBLAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING???

I find the notion of fighting over translations of one's own basic religious texts bizarre. If one wants to get the message clearly, unambiguously, and undistorted, the only way to do it is to learn the original languages and read the texts themselves. Relying on a translation, no matter how good, is relying on someone else to tell you what the original text says. As a Jew who has followed the proper, standard practice of learning Hebrew and reading the Hebrew Bible in the original—and finding all the translations markedly inferior to the original—I find it baffling that Christians do not normally either learn Hebrew and Greek themselves nor teach Hebrew and Greek to their children.

Also: I looked at their translation of Genesis 1 and it comes off more as a paraphrase than a real translation, giving it an annoying macho spin not present in the original Hebrew. Maybe YHWH, despite being the most powerful being in existence, isn't aggressive enough for them…

Aaron
http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/

[vovat.livejournal.com]

If one wants to get the message clearly, unambiguously, and undistorted, the only way to do it is to learn the original languages and read the texts themselves. Relying on a translation, no matter how good, is relying on someone else to tell you what the original text says.

True, although I guess there's still the question as to how close the surviving Hebrew and Greek versions are to the really early ones.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

The project is problematic right from the start with their insistence on basing the "conservative" Bible on the King James Version, which their own entry on the KJV admits has its flaws. Why? Because it's public domain. So are old texts of fairy tales.
If we are truly to have a "trustworthy" translation, even with the stated political-right bias, the only honest way to do it is with original texts. Contrary to these people's beliefs, Jesus, Paul, etc. did not speak in Elizabethan (Jamesian?) English. Jesus and Pals spoke Aramaic and Jesus (being called a Rabbi) probably spoke a lot of Hebrew as well -- their adventures were first written in Greek. Then there's the Old Testament, written in old Hebrew dialects that scholars in Synagogues no doubt still argue over. But hey, a bunch of English gentlemen (who probably had NO agenda at all nor were influenced to write anything in a certain way by a man who could order their execution at any moment) definitely got it right and we, completely fluent and understanding of the dialect Shakespeare wrote in, can safely write a "correct" translation. Yeahright.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The King James Only movement is pretty absurd, especially when you consider that a lot of the people who subscribe to it aren't even Episcopalian. I think it's yet another case of people thinking that what THEY grew up with should be the official standard.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

That's the impression I get from my growing up in the South among evangelicals. "It was good enough for my mother, it's good enough for me" to quote the hymn "Old Time Religion" was quite taken to heart. Add to that the generations-old rural aversion to "city folk" and/or "Yankees" and thus also their new-fangled translations -- why would they want to mess with something that works, unless they're up to no good. To say that the Bible their grandparents believed in is flawed is to them like sending those ancestors to Hell for being misled. They don't dare accept it.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

P.S. Found you via someone posting this to Facebook. Good WTFs get around, I guess.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I suppose they do! Thanks for the comments.