Is the Bible a Threat to National Security?

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http://www.alternet.org/belief/156039/is_the_bible_a_threat_to_national_security/

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For years, the government has employed the risk of "national security" excuse to infringe on a wide range of freedoms — like the right to pass through an airport security checkpoint unmolested, or read library books without Big Brother peeking over your shoulder.

Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein is trying to prove that there is more than one way to put the country at risk, and he's found it in a heretofore unlikely place: the Bible.

Well, the Holman Bible. To be more exact, a version of the Bible that, for reasons still undetermined, was authorized with the trademarked official insignia of the U.S. Armed Forces emblazoned on the front cover. There is The Soldier's Bible with the Army's seal, The Marine's Bible with the Marine Corps seal, The Sailor's Bible and The Airman's Bible, both with their respective insignia. The books have been sold for nearly six years throughout Christian bookstores, commissaries and PXs on U.S. military installations — and are still available on Christianbook.com, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.



It's not the King James Version that the Gideons leave behind in hotel rooms drawers. The Holman Bible was commissioned and published by LifeWay Christian Resources, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Baptist denomination in the world, in 2003.



In a 1999 press release announcing the edition's progress, Broadman & Holman Publishers called the new version "a fresh, precise translation of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek of the Old and New Testaments." LifeWay President James T. Draper Jr. weighed in, saying there was a "serious need for a 21st-century Bible translation in American English that combines accuracy and readability," adding, "the Holman Christian Standard Bible is an accurate, literal rendering with a smoothness and readability that invites memorization, reading aloud and dedicated study."

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. Hmm? I don't get it based on the excerpt n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Heh, unless they use the correct Aramaic word "Elah" for God. n/t

[Scootaloo]

3. Is the Bible a threat?

No more than any given issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man" is.

Is the sloppy thinking and encroachment by organized religion into our military a problem? That'd be a yes.

[eqfan592]

4. I would suggest everybody read the article to get to the meat of the issue.

The AAFES told Fox News Radio it has 961 copies of the Bible left on shelves at 83 facilities. Weinstein doesn't know how many are out there but contends that until each and every one is gone, "they're still aiding and abetting the cause of al- Qaeda."

Why? Because it is a national security issue if America is perceived as waging a religious war against the Muslim world. One can't help but get that impression reading the added material in these Holman Bibles, suggesting that that God has blessed the American warrior for his existential struggle of good versus evil.

It was a very interesting read to say the least, and disturbing as well.

[daaron]

5. Yes, and -->

not just for the reason Mikey argues here regarding the fundamentalist Holman Bibles.

The biggest threat to national security to come from the Bible is found in the final book of the New Testament. That sickening atrocity known as the Book of Revelations and the unholy self-fulfilling prophecy it has spawned from its diseased loins. (Insert blood flowing like a river from the tree of life, here.)