Conservative Bible Project
Conservapedia Bible Project | |
Completed: | |
Old Testament: | |
Genesis • Obadiah • Jonah • Haggai * Ruth • Malachi | |
New Testament: | |
Matthew • Mark • Luke • John • Acts • Romans • 1 Corinthians • 2 Corinthians
Galatians • Ephesians • Philippians • Colossians 1 Thessalonians • 2 Thessalonians 1 Timothy • 2 Timothy • Titus • Philemon • James • 1 Peter • 2 Peter | |
Incomplete: | |
Old Testament: | |
Exodus • Leviticus • Numbers • Deuteronomy • Joshua
Judges • 1 Samuel • 2 Samuel • 1 Kings • 2 Kings 1 Chronicles • 2 Chronicles • Ezra • Nehemiah • Esther • Job • Psalms Proverbs • Ecclesiastes • Song of Solomon • Isaiah • Jeremiah Lamentations • Ezekiel • Daniel • Hosea • Joel • Amos |
The Conservative Bible Project is a project utilizing the "best of the public" to render God's word into modern English without liberal denial and dilutions.[1] A Colbert Report interview featured this project.[2] Achievements include these 41 insights:
- the Gospel of John is very powerful in combatting anxiety with its frequent emphasis on eternal/infinite life, and yet modern academic translators downplay and dilute this most-important Gospel;
- John was probably a Samaritan, and the four Gospels were written by a Jew, a Gentile, a Greek, and this Samaritan, which proves their authenticity because they verified each other's accounts despite their intense ethnic conflicts;
- the New Testament is a terrific handbook against addiction, which afflicts everyone: the original uses the Greek root "adikia" 25 times in 24 verses yet modern translations fail to translate it as addiction;[3]
- most modern translations are entirely by linguist professors without input by those having mathematical, scientific, writing, artistic, or poetic skills, causing a more one-dimensional rendition than it should be;
- the original endings of the Gospels of Mark and John are inspiring, spectacular finales, as when women are startled at the Tomb by a powerful young man and react with ecstasy,[4] but liberal professors refuse to clean off the later-added conclusions that obscure like cheap overpaint of a masterpiece;
- there is a winsome humor throughout the Gospels which liberals -- who generally have a poor sense of humor -- fail to translate properly to capture it fully;
- political correctness causes liberal denial that the Apostles were ethnic rivals, by including Samaritans, a Greek, and a mixture of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus - their extraordinary unity amid their ethnic conflicts corroborates Jesus's divinity;[5]
- The Lord's Prayer is unjustifiably diluted by the monarchical term "kingdom" (better: "paradise") and the globalist "earth" (better: "here");
- the Gospel of Mark is a tremendous text for teaching a child how to read with the superior method of phonics, its content has simplicity and entertaining surprises without any discouragingly tedious passages, and the special translation here is freely available;
- the term "world" is overused in translations, incorrectly connoting globalism and nature rather than people, and a better translation in many contexts is "God's creation" rather than "world";
- the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, are pro-life works, but professors in control of English translations are predominantly pro-abortion and thus dilute their versions;
- Papyrus 66 is a completely original, masterpiece copy of the Gospel of John as discovered in Egypt in 1952, but professors largely ignore it because later versions with added verses were already used for all modern translations;
- the archaic word "disciple" (used 261x by ESV) is better translated as "student" today, as the meaning of the Greek term is "learner",[6] and today "student" captures and conveys that meaning the best;
- "God's paradise" should be used rather than "kingdom of God" (used 69x by KJV) and "infinite life" rather than "eternal life" (26x by KJV), in order to fully convey the immediate benefits intended by the original text;
- "Theophilus", the named recipient of 27% of the New Testament as written by Luke, is the same world "loved by God" referenced independently by John 3:16 , and all the Gospels were written for everyone contrary to liberal denial concerning intended audiences;
- the expression "harden not your hearts" (3x by KJV) is better translated for liberals today as "close not your minds," as the original Greek also means "stubbornness of mind" which is common among university-indoctrinated liberals;
- the Gospel of Mark was the fearless work of the outsider Gentile eyewitness Mark, whose mother Salome was among the first to see the empty tomb after the Resurrection; liberal denial conceals this history to discourage conversion by Gentiles to Christianity;[7]
- the Epistle to the Hebrews was by Jesus himself, probably his sermon on the road to Emmaus mentioned in Luke 24:13-35 with foreshadowing of the surprise revelation at the end of the journey,[8] and this Epistle was both misnamed and misattributed;
- liberals hide disparaging references to Greek and Hebrew slang for "homosexuals" in Deuteronomy 23:18, Philippians 3:2, Psalms 22:20, and Revelation 22:15 by mistranslating it as "dogs";[9]
- "the Son of Man" is a liberal distortion to downplay the divinity of Jesus; it should be translated into "The Son, as Man";
- modern insights of science and mathematics help improve the precision of the translation of some enigmatic Bible verses, such as Genesis 19:11 - see "struck with blindness";
- a few verses were inserted into the Bible as vandalism, and they are easily identified by how liberals over-quote them, such as the Adulteress Story and Luke 23:34 (purporting that God forgives unrepentant people "for they do not know what they are doing”[10]);
- liberals have been erasing references to Hell in translating the Bible. See Disappearing Hell;
- Paul's principled writings and positions were similar to that of movement conservatives, and Paul relied on the Gospel of Mark in a speech Paul gave in AD 48;[11]
- Paul's observation that the "wages of sin is death" at Romans 6:23 is one of the finest statements against addiction anywhere;
- the modern purging of references in the New Testament to "corn" -- a miraculous crop of unknown origin and superior to wheat -- which is used 14 times by the King James Version yet not once by the modern ESV;[12]
- liberal bias is uncovered by doing an online word analysis of different versions, such as the underuse of "life" (only 189 times in NKJV) in translations of the New Testament, while "infinite" is never used in the entire ESV;
- the disparaging phrases translated as an archaic, imprecise "cast lots" should instead be translated as "gambling", to more precisely convey the meaning and help overcome the addiction;
- the nasty-sounding, almost racist use of the term "dogs" to refer to a different ethnic group is a mistranslation that instead should be "puppies", and interpreted as colonial paternalism rather than the racist manner, as only a few versions do for Matthew 15:26 and Mark 7:27 ;
- two out of the four Gospels were almost certainly written by Gentiles (Mark and Luke), and there is some speculation that John the Apostle was also a Gentile;
- the ordering of the Gospels is based on a historical misunderstanding about the writing of the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Mark would be a stronger, simpler first Gospel;
- modern translations flag likely vandalism to the text only when verses are not in the oldest discovered texts, while there are additional powerful ways to identify non-authentic verses like Hebrews 13:22-25 and Mark 14:49;
- the translations of faith at Hebrews 1:11 are diluted, as it is not merely confidence or assurance, but reality (see defining faith);
- liberals push for implausibly late dates of creation of the Gospels based on nonsensical reasons, such as falsely pretending that the date of the Gospel of Mark is connected with the destruction of the Second Temple;
- the term "little children" is archaic and overused in modern translations when the reference is to adults, as repeatedly done in 1 John and Galatians 4:19 ;
- liberal denial -- that Mark was an eyewitness of Jesus -- caused Mark's demotion to #2 in ordering the Gospels, which has hindered evangelism;
- the Apostles and the public did not know why John the Baptist was executed until Mark explained it in the Gospel of Mark, see Gospel Mysteries;
- translation committees are biased by their secret deliberations without public input, without insights from anyone having a STEM background, and without the perspective of Amish and other independent perspectives;
- the Gospel of John is incredibly powerful and life-changing, and even more so when occasional liberal "asides" that were later inserted into it are recognized as not part of the original;[13]
- the innovative, mind-bending, and powerful use of the logic of infinity in the Gospels, which liberal translators today downplay or hide;[14] and
- O’Sullivan’s First Law: any endeavor that is not actually conservative will inevitably be distorted and ruined by liberals, including Bible translation by college professors.
Isaac Newton, who was merely an average student, worked on translating the Bible and that gave him the inspiration and insight for inventing calculus, developing mechanics, and discovering gravity. Going beyond reading the Bible to translating it also enables the eradication of liberal distortions that have crept in, such as pro-abortion bias against references to the unborn child. Just as Shakespeare's works are losing interest in the West due to its increasingly archaic language, liberal language in Western Bible translations loses people. Conservative insights, as part of the lingua franca, enlighten translation.
Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations, among three forms of imprecision:
- lack of precision in the original language, which lacked terms such as modern "infinity" to describe new concepts introduced by Christ[15]
- lack of precision in modern language
- translation bias, mainly of the liberal kind, in converting the original language to the modern one.
Experts in ancient languages help reduce the first type of error above, which is a vanishing source of error as scholarship advances understanding. English language linguists are helpful in reducing the second type of error, which also decreases due to an increasing vocabulary. But the third—and largest—source of translation error requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate.[16]
There is no other fully conservative translation of the Bible that satisfies the following ten guidelines:[17]
- Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias. For example, the Living Bible translation has liberal evolutionary bias;[18] the widely used NIV translation has a pro-abortion bias.[19]
- Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these).
- Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity;[20] the NIV is written at only the 7th-grade level.[21]
- Utilize Terms that better capture original intent: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;[22] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle". Use powerful mathematical concepts such as "infinite" to convey true meaning, as the number of angels mentioned in Hebrews 12:22.
- Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction[23] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[24] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
- Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
- Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
- Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
- Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
- Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities.
Thus, a project began among editors at Conservapedia to translate the Bible in accordance with these principles. The translated Bible can be found here.
Benefits include:
- mastery of the Bible, which is priceless
- mastery of the English language, which is valuable
- thorough understanding of the differences in Bible translations, particularly the historically important King James Version
- benefiting from activity that no public school would ever allow; a Conservative Bible could become a text for public school courses
- political issues can become a pathway to evangelizing liberals
- liberals will oppose this effort, but they will have to read the Bible to criticize this, and that will open their minds
- this project has a unifying effect on various Christian denominations and serves as an important counterweight to liberal efforts to divide conservative candidates based on religion
Contents
Helpful Approaches
Here are helpful approaches to creating a conservative Bible translation:
- identify faulty pro-liberal terms used in existing Bible translations, such as "government", and suggest more accurate substitutes
- identify the omission of liberal terms for vices, such as "gambling", and identify where they should be used
- identify conservative terms that are omitted from existing translations, and propose where they could improve the translation
- identify terms that have lost their original meaning, such as "word" in the beginning of the Gospel of John, and suggest replacements, such as "truth"
Building on the King James Version
In the United States and much of the world, the immensely popular and respected King James Version (KJV) is freely available and in the public domain. It could be used as the baseline for developing a conservative translation without requiring a license or any fees. Many consider the Conservative Bible Project, as well as any other Bible translation projects, to be heretical and in opposition to Matthew 5:18, which was fulfilled in the King James Bible. Though based on younger manuscripts, the KJB is based on the near consensus of 5,700 preserved by Christians, while modern versions are based on three manuscripts kept by monks (two if you consider the Sinaiticus a fake), which came from Alexandria Egypt, where heretics thought they could "correct" the Bible. All three of the Alexandrian manuscripts contain the Apocrypha.
There are 66 books in the KJV, comprised of 1,189 chapters, 31,102 verses, and 788,280 words.[25] The project began with a translation of the New Testament, which is only 27 books, 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, and less than 200,000 words.
Retranslation at a rate of 20 verses a day would complete the entire New Testament in about a year. With 5 good retranslators, that would be an average of only 4 verses a day per translator. At a faster rate of 20 verses per day by 5 good translators, the entire New Testament could be retranslated in less than 3 months.
First Example - Liberal-Promoted Falsehood
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts of the Gospel According to Luke lack this verse fragment set forth at the start of Luke 23:34:[26]
- Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Is this a corruption of the original, perhaps promoted by liberals without regard to its authenticity? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing.[27] This quotation is a favorite of liberals, although it does not appear in the earliest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke. It should not appear in a conservative Bible, because in point of fact Jesus might never have said it at all.
Second Example - Dishonestly Shrewd
At Luke 16:8, the NIV describes an enigmatic parable in which the "master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly." But is "shrewdly", which has connotations of dishonesty, the best term here? Being dishonestly shrewd is not an admirable trait.
The better conservative term, which became available only in 1851, is "resourceful". The manager was praised for being "resourceful", which is very different from dishonesty. Yet not even the ESV, which was published in 2001, contains a single use of the term "resourceful" in its entire translation of the Bible.
Advantages to a Conservative Bible Online
There are several striking advantages to a conservative approach to translating the Bible online:
- participants learn enormously from the process
- liberal bias - and lack of authenticity - become easier to recognize and address
- by translating online, this utilizes the growing online resources that improve accuracy
- supported by conservative principles, the project can be bolder in uprooting and excluding liberal distortions
- the project can adapt quickly to future threats from liberals to biblical integrity
- access is free and immediate to the growing internet audience, for their benefit
- the ensuing debate would flesh out—and stop—the infiltration of churches by liberals/atheists pretending to be Christian, much as a vote by legislators exposes the liberals
- this would bring the Bible to a new audience of political types, for their benefit; Bible courses in college Politics Departments would be welcome
- this would debunk the pervasive and hurtful myth that Jesus would be a political liberal today
- an unbiased and truthful Bible is of immeasurable value to society
Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books
Starting in July 2017, additional Old Testament books regarded as canonical in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions will be added to the CBP's translation efforts. This will be of benefit to conservative-minded individuals who belong to those traditions, as well as others since Protestant reformers have regarded these books as "good to read," even if these Reformers did not consider them canonical due in part to their absence from the Hebrew Bible.
See also
- Nestle-Aland 26th edition Greek Bible (the source for all modern translations except the NKJV)
- Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon and Woodhouse's English-Greek Dictionary
- Bible Translations
- Bible Translation Issues
- Bible Retranslation Project
- Word Analysis of Bible
- Inspiration of Holy Scripture: An Eastern Christian and Jewish Perspective
- Best of the public
- Jesus through the Fabric of our Lives - the continual need for contextualization and re-translation for the original's meaning.
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References
- ↑ A superb source that has the Hebrew and Greek text with clickable links to English translations is the Interlinear Bible. Another terrific source is the Blueletter Bible, where anyone can click on "SHOW STRONG'S" at the top right to obtain the Greek, and then edit a book in the chart here (upper right). A third resource, which has the original Greek, is the Greek Bible.
- ↑ The Colbert Report Videos: Andy Schlafly, ColbertNation.com, December 08, 2009.
- ↑ See addiction etymology.
- ↑ See Mark ending and the first half of Mark 16:8 .
- ↑ What ethnicity was John the Apostle?
- ↑ https://biblehub.com/greek/3101.htm
- ↑ Salome, mentioned by Mark 16:1 , was likely Mark's Aramaic mother who made Mark an eyewitness who initiated the Gospels.
- ↑ Hebrews 13:2 augurs Jesus's revelation at the end, by advising to be hospitable to strangers as they may be unrecognized angels: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (ESV)
- ↑ "Dogs" as pets is represented by a completely different Greek word: κυνάριον (kunarion) [1].
- ↑ NIV translation.
- ↑ Paul quoted Mark's quotation of John the Baptist at Acts 13:25 (quoting Mark 1:7 ). This confirms that the Gospel of Mark was written and circulated quite early, contrary to liberal denial.
- ↑ Modern English translators of the Bible are academic professors misled by evolutionists who insist that corn never existed in the wild or outside of America prior to Christopher Columbus, and thus they purged all references to "corn", but modern molecular analysis has virtually disproven that implausible, atheistic theory.
- ↑ See Undiluted Gospel of John.
- ↑ As an illustration from the Old Testament, in 1599 the Geneva Bible correctly translated Psalms 147:5 as the "infinite" wisdom of God, but most modern English translations fail to use "infinite" there.
- ↑ [https://conservapedia.com/Infinity#Mistranslated_as_.22unsearchable.22 Infinite is mistranslated as "unsearchable" in many Bible translations.
- ↑ The committee in charge of updating the bestselling version, the NIV, is dominated by professors and higher-educated participants who can be expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook. As a result, the revision and replacement of the NIV will be influenced more by political correctness and other liberal distortions than by genuine examination of the oldest manuscripts. As a result of these political influences, it becomes desirable to develop a conservative translation that can serve, at a minimum, as a bulwark against the liberal manipulation of meaning in future versions.
- ↑ Additional less important guidelines include (1) adherence to a concise and dignifying style, such as the use of "who" rather than "that" when referring to people and also use glorifying language for the remarkable achievements and (2) recognizing that Christianity introduced powerful new concepts that even the Greek and Hebrew were inadequate to express, but modern conservative language can express well.
- ↑ Evolution's Influence on Modern Bible Translations (Historically, most of the ardent advocates of evolution have been atheists or agnostics)
- ↑ See Feminist Bible
- ↑ English translations fail to use the word "illogical" where appropriate, and under-utilize the term "mind".
- ↑ The NIV has supplanted the KJV in popularity.
- ↑ For example, in 1611 the conservative concept of "accountability" had not yet developed, and the King James Version does not use "accountable to God" in translating Romans 3:19; good modern translations do.
- ↑ See Bible on Addiction.
- ↑ For example, the English Standard Version (2001) does not use the word "gamble" anywhere in translating numerous references to the concept in the Bible.
- ↑ http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html
- ↑ Quoted here from the NIV.
- ↑ It can be counter-argued, though, that although the persecutors knew what actions they were taking and why they believed them to be proper, they may have not realized the ramifications of such, such as their role in fulfilling Biblical prophecy.