Somewhere on this befuddled planet there is an entity called the 'Conservative Bible Project' whom have taken upon themselves the laudable task of cleansing the Bible of its liberal tendencies. Their reference text for this task will be the King James Bible, no doubt because it is bursting with juicy 'fear of God' phrases that start 'thou shalt not...', and there is plenty of smiting of Hittites, that once thus smitten, remain sullenly smote.
Of course the King James Bible still needs a lot of work to rid it of pinko liberal discourse. Early 17th century Britain was notoriously liberal - almost offensively so when seen through the eyes of a modern American conservative. In fact, these conservatives are true descendants of the Mayflower pilgrims, who made the trip to Massachusetts to escape the political correctness of the English Puritans, and get back to some proper witch burning.
Furthermore, conservatives, quite rightly, have no truck with these post-modernists who call for 'temporal relativism'; that is: the practice of viewing acts by persons in former times in the context of the cultural norms prevailing in those times. This device has been used, for instance, to explain why Thomas Jefferson kept 200 slaves at Monticello. The reason modern American conservatives do not need to concern themselves with such time-shifting and culture shock is that their values are no different from the Biblical peoples of yore. When they look upon the stoning, moral hypocrisy and domestic violence of the bit players of the Biblical legend - the benighted peoples who resided in the Bronze Age Fertile Crescent - they see a golden age.
It is strange then, that they are not reaching a little further back in the texts, and translating the Greek, Latin or Hebrew. Perhaps they are 'interpreting' rather than actually translating. In which case, I guess their Bible will be just as flawed as any other 'interpretation'. Hopefully, as well as cutting out all that tiresome 'Jesus' stuff about the first going last and turning the other cheek, they will trim the liberal bias out of this passage from the First book of Kings:
And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour by the word of Jehovah, 'Smite me, I pray thee;' and the man refuseth to smite him, and he saith to him, 'Because that thou hast not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah, lo, thou art going from me, and the lion hath smitten thee;' and he goeth from him, and the lion findeth him, and smiteth him. (1 Kings 20:35-36)
Clearly this verse could be beefed up to make it more likely to scare children into unquestioning obedience. Perhaps the lion should hold the suspect under arbitrary executive powers, and then torture him, in order to extract a confession? It's the only way to keep America safe.
This is my favourite quote from the project:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.
Because heaven forfend that Christians start getting notions about 'social justice'! Where could they have got that idea? What possible misconception have these 'Liberal Christians' been peddling?
Of course the Christian message has nothing to do with social justice. The Bible's true meaning is simple: do what you're told, live in fear, never question male authority, participate in genocide if your Deity tells you to, and never, ever share a shekel with anyone (the Good Samaritan story was a liberal addition, hereby excised). And vote Republican Goddammit. Or else the Lion will get you.
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