As Religion Dispatches put it:
Is Schlafly a profoundly cynical politician, attempting to manipulate religion in a way that would put Machiavelli and Karl Rove to shame? Or does he truly believe that the Bible has been tainted by “liberalism” for over a thousand years?
Farah, to his credit, points out the silliness of Schlafly selectively editing the text to fit with his own preconceptions of what Jesus "must have meant," or just trying to avoid things that make him feel not-quite-fuzzy inside (apparently wine is out, grape juice in. I guess the Last Supper consisted of Welch's and graham crackers. Incidentally, on a list of things to be squicked out by, I'd say crucifixion is way, way, further up there than Bible people drinking wine. Just saying.)
It's a good thing we have intellectually-honest Joe in our corner. Just watch as he takes Schlafly down:
Basically, those "conservatives" participating in this idea weren't really upset when liberals messed with the Holy Scriptures. They were upset only with how they messed with them.
I'm almost too embarrassed to write about this kind of trivialization and politicization of the Scriptures, but something needs to be said.
Either the Bible is the Word of God, or it's not.
If it is, how dare anyone rewrite it?
If it's not, why bother?
This is soooo close to having an honest discussionI practically can't stand it. Good thing Joe comes in for the save with the next line.
Personally, I am very comfortable with the King James Bible.
Yeah, nothing says "Don't mess with the Word of God" like smushing two separate canons (in two different languages) together, half-assedly translating the whole thing into English several thousand years after the fact and poking and prodding the wording and grammar to make it fit in with a belief system that didn't even exist when the books were written. It's called integrity, people, look it up!
I know how scrupulous the translators were. I know they spent hours in prayer over their work. I know they used the best resources available to them.
Really? The best resources, you say? And yet they couldn't be bothered to, say, ask a Jew for some clarification on the difference between almah and bethulah? Wait, were Jews still banned from England at this point? Someone help me out.
I know they didn't assume that the "oldest" manuscripts available were always the most accurate. I know they took into consideration that heretics were busy editing Scripture – probably as early as the first century.
Yeah, and since those heretics had corrupted everything by messing with those "earlier" manuscripts, they were practically forced to arbitrarily pick the ones they liked best and act as if they were the only authorized texts! In fact, if you think about it, the whole thing was probably planned by God, that's just the sort of wacky thing he'd do. Just like when he hides fake fossils to test our faith with evolution.
Enough of this foolishness!
Hear, hear.
Rewriting the Bible to fit man's ideas is always a bad idea – no matter who the man is or what his beliefs.
Now, would that apply to say, King James?
It's also a profoundly dangerous practice spiritually.
Got that, everybody but 5,000 year old Jews? Cut it out!
There's certainly nothing "conservative" about rewriting the Bible. The "conservative" thing to do would be to preserve, or conserve, the Scriptures as they were originally written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
To the Genizah!
A plague on the houses of anyone and everyone who would tamper so frivolously with God's Word.
Very good, Mr. Farah. Now, would that be frogs or boils for you tonight?
Edit: And it gets worse. Isn't it cute how Joe is railing against any that would deviate from the holy of holy KJV? Well then, why exactly was he pimping the Geneva Bible a scant two and a half years ago?
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