Coming Soon: the New International Free-Market Bible

A better title might have been - "How to be an Idiot and Make Millions." The life and times of failed morning DJs spiral into complete inanity.

The actual title of this book is "Arguing by Idiots." Glenn not only has trouble with his spelling, his comprehension of the proper preposition to use is lacking.

Come, come, sacredh! How in the *world* can Conservapedia claim this as Christ opening a small business? After all, he fed the multitudes with just a couple of fish, tightwad. And I'll bet He didn't buy even those from a local fish monger, but had one of the disciples go catch them (to save money). Further, He fed each just enough . . . which sure does sound suspiciously like "to each according to his need," now, doesn't it? Heck, if any thing, he likely angered the fish moner and the local wine merchant. (Water into wine, indeed!)

Yeah, that Christ guy sounds pretty darned commie to me. . . .

Then there's *another* problem for the Conservapedia editors, to wit, "Which *version* of the Bible shall we use? The Roman Catholic? The King James? The Greek Orthodox? The 20th-century 'modernized' 'Good News for Modern Man'" (though that is just for the New Testament)??? And yet a third problem is the question of "Do we use relatively modern English translations at all -- or do we want to fork over the mullah to get scholars of classical Greek and Latin, Hebrew, Aramic, etc. to examine to oldest known extant versions so we can *really* go for broke and examine the original documents? Can we even get to see such documents in places like the Vatican library? What about the Dead Sea scrolls?"

Now, let me put my take on this project in its proper perspective. There are many, many conservatives who are deeply Christian (relative to whatever their denomination teaches) who likely will be appalled at the very notion of injecting political philosophy from a certain era -- actually, not even an era, but a certain Presidential term of office into the Bible. And we shouldn't tar them with the same brush. It's true the conservatives in the Republican Party have been hogging much of the limelight of late (Rep. Joe Wilson~R-SC, Trent Franks~R-AZ), but, as I said, there are scads of others who are just as displeased (to put it mildly) as I am with such antics. But the other side isn't without sin (I'll use that, since we're talking about the Bible): Rep. Grayson (D-Florida), for instance.

I'd recommend the folks at Conservapedia let the spirit of Jonathan Edwards' justly famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" inform their discussion while they re-write the Word of the Lord (who clearly needed an editor), except that the sermon would likely boomerang on them.

Wonder what the title of the Conservapedia "corrective" version will be? Maybe something along the lines of "Bible for Dummies"???

By the way, I tend to vote for considerably more Republicans than I do Democrats, though number one, I did vote for President Obama (one of three Democrats for whom I voted last time around), and, number two, I'm sort of wondering if I'll keep that up if the party keeps moving further to the right, out into -- to steal shameslessly --The Swamplands. You know . . . out there where Pope Limbaugh and Cardinal Beck hold ecclesiastical court. (Or do I have their roles reversed? -- hard to tell these days.)

And to the Conservapedians: you of course have the right to your views, and to apply them to what you perceive as abominations by those with whom you disagree. I would ask you, however, not to try to present your own views as somehow the definition of "Christian Avenue, Main Street, America."

mekhongkurt, I am very troubled by the whole "water to wine" deal. Did Jesus inadvertently contribute to the deliquency of minors by not checking their ID's? Was this the first instance of "Jesus Juice" being used to ply the underaged with alcohol before trying to take advantage of them? Chidren's Services needs to investigate this matter.
.
Thanks for your post.

Darn. I forgot to make my own submission of a version of the Bible for the Conservapedians to consider: the King James. Not only is it arguably the most beautifully poetic of the English translations (and I genuinely mean that -- ask any university scholar who has stiduied the Bible as a literary text), but, incredibly enough, there are those who think the King James version is the original. (Think of "The Song of Ruth," for example, or even The Byrds' rendition of a passage from Eccelsiastes in their hit "Turn, Turn, Turn!")

I'm not joking. When I was a teenager -- i.e., the 1960's, in rural Texas -- I was in town one day (a smear at a crossroads, some "town") when I bumped into an elderly local lady, a lady of whom I was quite fond. She had her Bible with her, and I knew her church had an afternoon Bible class that day, so I asked her something about that, which led to a discussion of the Bible. She said something I felt to be perfectly ludicrous about some Biblical passage (but, then, I was raised Episcopalian in a town where my family was the *only* Episcopalian one, and Episcopalians are suspiciously Catholic-like, probably closet Papists, the lot of them). Anyway, I asked her about her take, and *that* led to a fairly lengthy chat. Once she figured out I was disagreeing with her -- not openly; that would have merited a whipping from my parents in those days and in that place -- she became incensed and announced, "Well, if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's durn sure good enough for me!" Thinking she was joking, I chuckled. Which absolutely infuriated her. I tried, unsuccessfully, to sooth the troubled waters ("troubled waters" my butt; more like a Category 5 hurricane!). And her preacher, bless his heart, tried to explain to her that Jesus didn't *speak* English, given that it didn't even exist back then, when she complained to him shortly after about "that little heathen" (and that would be me). But that just made her furious with *him,* too -- she quit the congregation over it -- and sealed my fate as being spawned from Satan's seed.

Sigh . . .

Shoot, I replied to your reply, but I went about it incorrectly; see 47. below.

I was also a teenager in the 60's. I had an aunt who was a fanatic in the purest sense of the word. She attacked me with a Bible once (a big old family Bible thumped across the back of my head) and used to make the sign of the cross with her fingers whenever she saw me. We lived in a small village and the houses were packed together. She'd yell out "You're going to BURN IN HELL!" everytime I'd walk by her porch. I'd always yell back "They don't make wings big enough to fly your fat ass up to heaven".
.
The neighbors always got a kick out of it.

Hm, the Jubilee laws . . . I completely forgot about them, and you're quite right. Of course, they'll just gloss over that as a heathen liberal insert snuck in sometime later.

As for your closing comment re: Ayn Rand, I nearly choked laughing!

mekhongkurt: What will be really interesting to see is how Christian Fundamentalists, who insist on the inerrancy of scripture, will respond to their political fellow travelers taking a swipe at the foundation of their beliefs. I've often thought that Biblical literalists were attracted to strict construction as a Constitutional philosophy because it was is was so much like their theological approach. Is the libertarian wing of conservatism getting ready to jettison the social conservatives?

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, if not public health, what have the Feds ever done for us?”

Absolutely nothing.

"Rush wept" is shorter

…from “two fools for sister sarah”…
Hannity: You praying for me?
Sarah: You betcha!
Hannity: Well then, I must be drunk enough ‘cause I find that kinda touching.
.
I'm trying NOT to envision Sarah pulling an arrow out of Rush's butt.
.
Sarah: The least you can do is take off your snow machine outfit.
Todd: Haven't got time for that. You know how many zippers are on this thing? (kisses her)
Sarah: That's why I wear a towel.

That should be "covet".
.
Thanks Amy. This is going to rack up a ton of haha's.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

There you go, sacredh!

You DO have to admit that in the looks department, Sarah is absolutely the best thing they've got going.

Yikes! Think of all the votes she could get with just a half-inch shorter hemline and about as much whacked off the front of her blouses!

For the win. Thanks.

…or…Thou shalt commit adultery.
(okay, that appeared in M*A*S*H, remember the error in the arrival of new Bibles?)
.
Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's a$$.
.
(yes, this will be fun, thanks)

Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's wife's ass.

" .. Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's wife's ass. .."

I wondered about such passages.
Why not yank the "wife" word?

Will the neocons keep sexism out of their version?
I mean, is KT - and more than half of the human population - expected to disregard such a commandment as not applicable?
Would KT break it?
Oh, I take that back.
Are we therefore going to use the godly bible to plant ungodly ideas into puritan KT's curious head - about what she is missing out?

Didn't you hear - they will change his name to Ronald; and to help the poor, Ronald is thinking of a new program of tax credits rather than going around feeding the poor and healing them. Of course - if your gross income is lower than the standard deduction and exemption, then , hmmm .... tax credit ...... !!!!