Bible To Be Crowd-Sourced For A More "Conservative" Translation

The Conservapedia Conservative Bible Project  is a public initiative to get the Bible records straight. Its founders consider the Bible in its current translation to be way too liberal. So, an initiative was launched to rid the Bible of all the "Liberal bias" it has accumulated over the centuries, using a crowd-sourcing tool in the form of a Wikipedia-like website where conservative values would be upheld. Everyone interested is invited to contribute their expertise to make the project happen.

But, what is it exactly that the Conservative Bible Project participants do not like about the King James version of the Bible? They claim that the Bible as we know it is using way too many "unisex" terms, dumbs down complex concepts to the reading level, downplays the existence of Hell, does not express free market parables, contains later-inserted "liberal" passages that never happened, and is downright too wordy.

So, here are the fruits of the group effort to "fix" the Bible so far. I took a random sampling, just to see the difference. For example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the changes made are mostly stylistic in nature. Such, where it said "received" in King James version, the proposed conservative translation says "accepted." Where it said "the world knew him not," it now says "the world did not recognize him." I also noted that not all of the proposed translations were made "less wordy" as was expected -- mainly because most first-person narrative was re-written in third-person.

To me, there did not seem to be much of a difference in meaning between the old version and the new proposed "conservative" version. It does goes deeper at times with an argument over the use of the word "volunteer" versus "comrade," which Conservatives feel is more socialist. It this point, it remains to be seen if this really takes off and the changes will go beyond grammar and style.

One thing that baffles me about this project is that fundamentally it is very un-conservative. Being a crowd-sourcing initiative, it is the ultimate way to democratize an effort to tackle a problem. Everyone in the community will have a chance to contribute and edit. Another feature of the Conservapedia that surprised me was the analysis column next to the columns with the old and the new proposed translations. Anyone making or editing an entry can leave comments explaining why they thought a change was necessary.

So, it seems the idea is not so much to diss the Liberals, but to get people talking about the Bible again. The website reads, "Liberals will oppose this effort, but they will have to read the Bible to criticize this, and that will open their minds." One of the benefits of the project that Conservapedia lists is the "mastery of the Bible," which they call "priceless."