Here's a newer article from a couple of days ago. My thought is that since Mr Schlafly (yes, Phyllis' son) has himself a non profit, he needs to come up with something for it to do. ;D
New Conservative Bible will eliminate 'liberal' text
If Andy Schlafly has his way, there will be no socialists or snake handlers in the Bible. No woman caught in adultery. And, definitely, no Stephen Colbert.
Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, wants to save the Scriptures from liberals with his latest venture, the Conservative Bible Project. He says translations like the New International Version have added socialist ideals to the Good Book. But his rewrite of the Bible has drawn criticism from biblical scholars, liberals and conservatives.
Schlafly, the son of national political activist Phyllis Schlafly, says a conservative Bible should be masculine, for example, using the words mankind and man rather than more inclusive language. It also should shun terms like laborer or comrade. It also should put a free market spin on the sayings of Jesus.
Take Mark 10:25, where the King James Version says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Liberals have used that passage to attack the wealthy, Schlafly said. The Conservative Bible substitutes "a man who cares only for money" for rich man.
"I don't think Jesus is saying, 'Let's all be lazy so we can get to heaven.' That's not the message. And, if you translate the word rich as simply rich, some people are going to get the message that 'I am going to be lazy so I can get to heaven easier,' " said Schlafly, who graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science and from Harvard Law School as an attorney, according to his Web site.
Scholar scoffs at idea
Doug Moo, chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation, which worked on the New International Version, thinks the Conservative Bible Project is misguided. Moo, who teaches New Testament at Wheaton College, a conservative school in Illinois, says translators must set aside their biases. He's skeptical about the Conservative Bible Project.
"Silly is probably as kind as I could be about it," he said. "Any serious people working on Bible translation know that you have to leave as much ideology at the door as possible to do a good job."
Schlafly disagrees. He believes the New International Version, which Moo worked on, used inclusive language for liberal reasons. Christian publishing giant Zondervan recently announced plans to drop the translation in 2011 after it failed to meet sales expectations. The company will replace it with a new edition of the New International Version.
"That thing was so liberal, it was driven out of the marketplace," Schlafly said.
Work done online The Conservative Bible Project isn't the first version of the Bible shaped by ideology.
Martin Luther wanted to dump the book of James because it contradicted his theology of salvation by grace alone, not works.
Thomas Jefferson cut all supernatural references from his version of the New Testament. More recently, a group of scholars called the Jesus Seminar voted on which words of Jesus they thought were authentic and which they thought were not.
But Schlafly's project is probably the first attempt to use social media while translating. The translation, based on the King James Version, is posted at Conservapedia.com. Editors log on and then tweak the text, which is then reviewed by other editors, including Schlafly. Once the project is complete, it will appear online first and then be considered for print.
Saboteurs strikeThe open-source editing approach has had a few kinks. When news of the project reached The Colbert Report, fans of the cable comedy show began inserting the talk show host into Schlafly's Bible. That led to verses like, "In the beginning, Stephen Colbert created the heaven and the earth." Those statements have since been edited out.
Schlafly also removed an edit suggesting that liberals conspired to have Jesus killed, by substituting the word liberal for the word Pharisee.
"The possibility that Pharisees, which is a term that's not familiar to most of us, could be better translated as liberal is intriguing," Schlafly said. "But we haven't gone with that yet."
Passages removedThe most radical change in the Conservative Bible might be dumping two passages of familiar Scripture.
One is the long ending of Mark's Gospel, which includes verses about snake handling and the story of the woman caught in adultery. Neither is found in most of the oldest Greek manuscripts used to translate the Bible. Schlafly says that adultery story, in which Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," should be cut because it portrays Jesus as being soft on sin.
"It's a liberal addition, put in by people who wanted to undermine the reality of hell and judgment," he said.
The story of the woman caught in adultery, known as the "Pericope Adulterae" and found in John 7:53-8:1, has troubled scholars for some time. Most Greek manuscripts have the story but not the oldest manuscripts. St. Jerome included it in his Greek New Testament, which was used as the basis for the King James Version of the Bible. Modern translators put a footnote or bracket around the story, pointing out the questions about its origins. But none removed the text.
Jennifer Knust, who teaches New Testament at Boston University, has been studying the origins of the adultery story for years. She says the story was accepted universally until the 1800s, when liberal scholars began to question its authenticity.
"It was the liberals who wanted to take the story out and the conservatives who wanted to keep the story," she said.
Removing the adultery story probably will turn off conservatives who might be interested in Schlafly's work.
The Rev. Maury Davis, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Madison, was skeptical about the project. "It doesn't sound very conservative to me," he said. "If you're going to toss out the woman caught in adultery, you might as well get rid of the prodigal son or any story where Jesus is merciful. I'm not interested in that."
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