A new online project seeks to purge liberal views from the scriptures

[Union Yes]

Source: AP

CHARLESTON, West Virginia - The Gospel of Luke records that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus showed his boundless mercy by praying for his killers this way: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Not so fast, say contributors to the Conservative Bible Project.

The project, an online effort to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities, claims Jesus' quote is a disputed addition abetted by liberal biblical scholars, even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible.


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34270487/ns/us_news-faith/?GT1=43001

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I expect to see a war of bible literalists vs these bible revisionists.

Wait, almost all literalists are conservative fundies so I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.

This is clearly man playing god.

Man playing god is the reason I left all religion.

[atreides1]

1. In other words

They are denying the word of God! Bad fundies, no eternity in paradise for you!!:D

[elehhhhna]

30. Better delete that radical Jesus guy.

[FSogol]

2. Haw-haw. The jokes on them. Jesus was a liberal. n/t

[Wizard777]

15. It's far worse than that. He was a Liberal Pacifist.

:rofl:

[Plucketeer]

18. AMEN ! To that!

:rofl:

[SCantiGOP]

24. actually, he was a communist

When he assembled the apostles to follow him he told them to go and get all of their possessions. He then told them to put them in a pile, take only what they needed and give the rest to the poor. That sure sounds like Marx's "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs."

[ZombieHorde]

3. "My imaginary friend is not a liberal." versus "Your imaginary friend is a liberal."

Bizarre arguments on both sides.

"This is clearly man playing god."

I just see people arguing the politics of other people's imaginary friends.

Religions fucks a lot of shit up, but it is also pretty entertaining sometimes.

[zeemike]

27. It is not about an imaginary friend but what that friend said.

So then if it is all imaginary then someone made up those words and so that someone is liberal or not.

[ZombieHorde]

35. I believe the Holy Bible had multiple authors. Multiple authors = multiple political views. nt

[notadmblnd]

4. There goes the first four books of the New Testament.

What's left? The shit Paul/Saul writes.

[AllTooEasy]

12. What was wrong with Paul?

Not arguing with you, just want your viewpoint.

[notadmblnd]

17. I think he was sexist and hated women

I don't believe for a minute that Jesus struck him blind in the desert and gave him authority over mankind by speaking for God. I'm not a religious person, however, I grew up with religion. Jesus said he is the way, the truth and the light and that no man can get to god from anyone else but him. Paul was responsible for creating the Christian religion (church). Jesus was a Jew and I don't believe that he would have ever been anything other than a Jew.

I think Paul/Saul was an opportunist and a false prophet who is responsible for one of the most oppressive religions even invented by man.

[mitchum]

29. Once a Zealot always a zealot

[TrogL]

33. I'll answer that

I've got the guy downstream ignored so he can answer on his own.

Let's see.

Basically preaching a whole lot of stuff that Jesus never said, never intended and took the church in a completely different direction, mostly based upon his sexism, homophobia and general authoritarianism.

[JoeyT]

36. Pretty much.

Paul, Leviticus, Ezekiel, Exodus, and Judges is going to make for an awfully thin book.

[mopinko]

5. pretty old news

i am sure the story itself fits lbn guidelines, but this was reported here at least a month ago, maybe more.

[RKP5637]

6. Religious pukes have been mostly playing god since day one. They set themselves

up on pedestals of power so they can inflict their views on others. Religion IMO is all about politics, power and control. Control freaks love to lead flocks! Same here, "Man playing god is the reason I left all religion."

[Ozymanithrax]

7. IF there were a hell, I am sure there would be a special place near the fire...

for people who change the bible for political purposes.

I am not surprise.

[proudohioan]

9. I second that....

:thumbsup:

[mn9driver]

8. From the Codex Sinaiticus; Luke 23:34

"34 But Jesus said: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And dividing his clothing among them, they cast lots."

Since the Codex was handwritten in vernacular (koine) Greek at the beginning of the 4th century, it seems unlikely that any "secular liberal" viewpoints had found their way into it at that point. You can see the actual quire with this verse on it here:
Link

These people are very sick, but I have no intention of allowing their sickness to deprive me of my faith.

[marshall]

23. I wish the article indicated how they propose "retranslating" that passage

I can see the argument later in the article about the use of "comrade" or "volunteer". Words do change meaning or at least connotation over the years, and comrade has connotations today that it didn't have a couple of hundred years ago. But I don't see any words in the "father forgive them" passage that I see a vast shift in meaning or a connotation that would draw images perhaps not meant by the writer (or at least the Jacobean translator in relation to the King James Bible). The only feasible argument would be that the concept of forgiveness has changed in 400 years. I wouldn't agree with that argument, but it's the only possible argument I could see here.

[Posteritatis]

10. Conservapedia's hilarious. (nt)

[onehandle]

11. MSNBC is slow. This was in most news and discussed at length at DU weeks ago. nt

[AllTooEasy]

14. Blessed are the peacemakers...nahhh f#@k 'em

...from the gospel according to Limbaugh.

I guess liberals erased Jesus' rants on homosexuals, Jews, Black, and women's rights as well.

[FarLeftFist]

13. Jesusisaliberal.org

[WCGreen]

16. Most Fundies already ignore the New Testament...

They are all about Old Testament fire and damnation. Sure they sprinkle a little Jesus in there for good measure but then it's straight to Revelations and the end times...

[KansDem]

19. Old version: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

New version: "TAX CUTS NOW, DAMMIT!!!"

[Jamastiene]

21. Old version: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

New version: "WE MUST GO KILL THE TERRUHISTS!!! TERRA TERRA TERRA! KILL THEM ALLLLLLLLL!"

[RKP5637]

34. LOL

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Jamastiene]

20. Well, they have already done it in reality.

Why not go ahead and remove those pesky "nice" parts of the Bible to match their practices?

Too bad someone doesn't start a Liberal Bible Project. All they would have to do is round up all those pesky "nice" parts that get taken out and make up a religion based on peace and love and compassion...I wonder what they would call that religion.

[RedEarth]

22. Thanks for posting...first time I've seen this reported

I'm going to show this to some liberal minister(UCC and DOC)friends...

[harun]

25. Changing "laborer" to "volunteer"

"Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it's professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible,"

So they are going to get a bunch of right wing idiots without education to do it?

I don't think that will turn out the way they want it to, LOL.

[CBHagman]

26. Should have known there would be Schlafly involved.

As if we weren't all sufficiently annoyed by the mother in decades past, now the son has taken up the fight! :eyes:

[Tsar_Bomba]

28. I hope they are successful.

The right can have all the religion they want. I don't need it to justify my beliefs. In the end it will be their undoing.

[Turbineguy]

31. Supply Side Jesus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8xU-gKK17A

[Peace Patriot]

32. If ever there was a miracle, it is this: That the totally socialist, even communist,

and totally pacifist and egalitarian and anti-establishment stories of the New Testament have survived for two thousand years, in the keeping of the worst bastards ever to form a religion.

Their few successes in 'Bowdlerizing' the New Testament--that rot about "thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church" (--if there is anything Jesus DIDN'T say, it's THAT), and largely expurgating Mary Magdalen, and burning and banning the earliest gospels, with their even wilder, even more open-minded Christianity--most of which editings occurred in the 5th Century AD--the essential message of love and peace is still incontrovertible and pervasive in the 'synoptic' (official) texts, and is probably why the official Church kept it well hidden--as a rare "voodoo" book, written in Latin, which almost no one could understand, and which most people had no access to--until around the 15th century (when books and translations began to be available). Once people began reading what Jesus actually said, the corrupt, wealthy patriarchy of the Roman Church was a big trouble. "Give all you have to the poor, and come, follow me" wasn't their idea of 'christianity' at all--and their complete reversal of Jesus' revolutionary message, a message that is evident everywhere in the New Testament--by their accumulation of property, their use of violence, their favoritism to the wealthy and powerful, their enforcement of a rigid class structure against the poor, and their creation of a fetishistic, monolithic religion, including centuries of brainwashing and mind-control--were the causes of the Protestant Reformation.

Although Protestant religions developed a couple of branches of anti-Jesus oppressors, it is, on the whole a more flexible version of Christianity--much more open-minded (based, as it is, on individual conscience and a relationship with the Divine that is unmediated by "authority") and was the medium upon which our own Founders' ideas of individual liberty and equality were fostered. Some historians stress "the Protestant ethic," Puritanism and all that, but I think they miss something more fundamental, which was the rejection of the Roman Catholic Church as any kind of authority on the meaning of the New Testament and on what God wants. God became once again (as it was among the earliest Christians) a matter of individual inspiration by which people could attain love and inner peace. (Read "Jefferson's Bible," a project of Thomas Jefferson himself, in which he expurgates any authoritarian elements that had been interpolated into the New Testament, and assembles the main thrust of these documents: its liberating message.)

As I say, it's a miracle that Jesus' teachings survived. I think probably the truest version of Jesus' religion circa 400 AD is to be found in the Pelagians--condemned as "heretics" by the monolithic institution builders of the era--but much, much closer to Jesus' actual views. Pelagius did not believe in "Original Sin." He believed in the complete free will of human beings to choose right or wrong. He was anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritarian. All people were capable of choosing the good, whether they were "baptized" or not. Their choice of the good was not dependent on their obeisance to authorities in Rome as intermediaries of God's grace. People have the inherent ability to choose the good, with Jesus as the best example of what the good is.

The Pelagian monks in England, for instance, were part Christian, part Pagan, reverenced local Pagan customs, and lived in poverty with the people. Their strongest characteristic was tolerance. Many were credited with miracles, and were probably scientists of the Druid tradition ("wizards"). But they were eventually overrun by the "baptism by the sword" armies that Rome sent out across Europe to exterminate such ideas, and impose a uniform, top-down ideology that all must agree to and obey, which was extremely hostile to Nature worship. England, Wales and Ireland were the last holdouts of Pelagianism, and with their virtual extinction, the "Dark Ages" ensued--a period of vast ignorance, intolerance and oppression that lasted a thousand years.

Pelagius himself, though he preached in Rome, is generally described as British, and may have been Irish. Some Pelagian monks survived in rugged seaside and island outposts in Ireland, a country that Pagan Rome never entered and that 'Christian' Rome never really conquered, if you want my opinion.