This is really off-topic for GM\/BM, but I just can’t resist
\nmocking the astonishing stupidity of the Conservapedia folks.<\/p>\n
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Andy Schafly and his pals are
\nworking on a “new translation” of the bible. They say that they need to do this
\nin order to remove liberal bias, which is “the single biggest distortion in modern
\nBible translations”. You see, “translation bias in converting the original language
\nto the modern one” is the largest source of what they call translation errors, and it
\n“requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate”.<\/p>\n
Plenty of people have mocked the foolishness of this. So many, in fact, that
\nI can’t decide which one to link to! But what’s been left out of all of the mockings
\nthat I’ve seen so far is one incredibly important point.<\/p>\n
What the “Conservative Bible Project” is doing is not<\/em> translating <\/p>\n You might think that I’m just exaggerating, since I’m a flaky liberal What are they doing? They’re taking the King James Version of the bible. Then A few examples, to get the unreality of this across:<\/p>\n It’s astonishingly brazen on so many levels. But the one that kills me is that This is really off-topic for GM\/BM, but I just can’t resist mocking the astonishing stupidity of the Conservapedia folks. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Andy Schafly and his pals are working on a “new translation” of the bible. They say that they need to do this in order to remove liberal bias, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chatter","category-fundamentalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-d3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe bible. It is rewriting<\/em> the bible to make it say what they want it to
\nsay, without regard for what it actually says. These people, who insist
\nthat every word of their holy texts must be taken as absolute literal truth
\nwithout interpretation — are rewriting<\/em> their bibles to make it say
\nwhat they want it to say.<\/p>\n
\nreconstructionist jew. But I’m really not. If you look at their explanation of
\nwhat they’re doing, it’s not<\/em> translating. Translating is going to
\nthe original text, which is written in some language X, and trying to
\nconvert it to language Y without loss of meaning. They don’t even
\npretend<\/em> that they’re going back to the original sources. They’re
\ntaking existing<\/em> translations of the original text into english,
\nand then re-writing them whenever they don’t like what they say. They describe
\nlooking back to at the original text as a last resort “exception” (their word!)
\nto their “translation” process.<\/p>\n
\nthey’re going to go through it, and whenever they find something that they don’t like,
\nbecause it doesn’t match their conservative principles, they’re just going to change it.
\nNot because analyzing the original text shows that there was a translation error. They
\ndon’t even pretend<\/em> to care about that. They’re just combing through it and
\nchanging anything that, from their perspective, must<\/em> be wrong because it looks
\ntoo liberal.<\/p>\n\n
\ntranslations, such as “government”, and suggest more accurate substitutes”.
\nSo any verse in the bible that mentions “government” is, automatically,
\nincorrect, because the word “government” is pro-liberal. There’s no discussion
\nof whether “government” is an accurate translation of the original greek or
\nhebrew; it must<\/em> be wrong, because according to their supposedly
\n“conservative” philosophy, government is always bad, and so any passage in the
\nthe text which says anything that might be remotely positive about government
\nis, necessarily, wrong.<\/li>\n
\ntestament: “Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they
\nare doing.””. That, they say, must<\/em> be removed from the bible.
\nBecause, you see, that quote only appears in one book of the new testament,
\nand it’s just obviously<\/em> wrong. Why is it obviously wrong? If you want to contribute to the Conservative Bible Project, you’re not allowed to ask that question.
\nIt just is<\/em> wrong, because they don’t like it.<\/li>\n
\nword “Pharisees”. “Pharisees” is a very specific term; it means a specific
\ngroup of people. It’s not a generic term for “bad people”, or “liberal
\npeople”, or anything like that. They were a group that was distinguished by,
\namong other things, believing in (gasp!) the literal<\/em> interpretation
\nof the book of Exodus. They were also the grouping that included most of the
\nhigh priests of the second temple. The conservapedia folks have been
\nsuggesting replacing “Pharisee” with “self-selected elite”, “intellectual”, or
\n(cutting to the chase) “liberals”. As a “translation”, that’s absolute
\ngarbage. It completely ignores the meaning of the original text, in order to
\ncreate the appearance that their political beliefs have some sort of divine
\nsupport, even though the original text can’t support that interpretation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
\nthere is no way that you can call what they’re doing a “translation”. They’re not
\ntranslating. They can’t read, write, speak, or comprehend the languages that they
\nclaim to be “translating”. They’re not even looking at<\/em> the original texts that
\nthey say they’re translating. So why, on earth, are people referring to this as
\na conservative translation<\/em>? It doesn’t even deserve the miniscule amount
\nof credibility that comes from using the word!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"