Purpose Driven – Body Parts

I’m not quite sure what to make of this Conservative Bible Project getting so much buzz around the blogosphere. The project sounds so outlandish that I half expect to hear that Stephen Colbert is heading the thing. 

The project, in a nutshell, is this: the folks behind the Conservapedia are convinced that liberalism—not just content to run the media, the entertainment industry and most of our most beloved theme parks—has wormed its way into our Bibles, as well. Most of our Bible translations are apparently enough to make even normally sober Christians sing Joan Baez songs, and they aim to put a stop to it by crafting their own translation. And they’re going back to the original source documents to do it: That’s right, they’re dispensing with those hard-to-understand Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts and using the King James Version of the Bible.

In this new version, gone will be the story of the adulterous woman found in John chapters 7 and 8 (the one where Jesus says, “let he without sin cast the first stone”). Gone will be the passage where Jesus, on the cross, asks God to forgive his persecutors, “for they know not what they do.” Gone will be pro-liberal terms like, say, the word “government.” Instead, readers will be treated to “powerful conservative terms” (as they develop, according to Conservapedia) and “free market parables.”

When Time’s Amy Sullivan wrote about the effort in the Swampland blog, one of her readers quipped, “Do you think the part where Jesus handed out food to all the people listening to his sermon is now going to be referred to as Jesus starting up a small business and was thankful for the low tax rates?”

“Liberals will oppose this effort,” the Conservapedia guys acknowledge, “but they will have to read the Bible to criticize this, and that will open their minds.” Except, of course, for the fact they’ll likely be reading a liberal translation of the Bible, which will surely inculcate them further into the liberal fold. Or am I missing something here?

Personally, I think one of the Bible’s greatest charms is the fact that, at some point, it makes almost everyone who reads it a little uncomfortable. It’s a challenging book — and it should be. As a result, some readers wrestle mightily with the Bible’s meaning. Many cherry-pick parts that have the most meaning for them. A few, as Thomas Jefferson was rumored to have done, literally cut out the parts of the Bible they disagree with.

Rarely do folks go to the trouble of crafting their own translation, though. What do you think? Is it needed? Is this something you’d be inclined to read?