Surely most of my readers are aware already of Conservapedia‘s recently announced “Conservative Bible Project,” which aims to remove what they regard as “liberal bias” from existing Bible translations in English. They intend to do this by “retranslating” (or, better, rewriting) the King James Version to clearly reflect, among other things, a free market understanding of the parables and a consistent use of words current in American conservative discourse—all of this, of course, carried out without regard to the original languages of Scripture or sound exegesis, but purely on the basis of ideological concerns.
Since this project is hosted in a wiki site, anyone and everyone is able to contribute to it who is willing to do so. Needless to say, no one is more conservative or loves the Bible more than the great Stephen Colbert, which is why he encouraged his minions just a few moments ago to turn to the “Conservative Bible Project” en masse and make him a biblical character. (I will add the video just as soon as it becomes available.) Of course, The Voice of Stefan does not encourage wiki vandalism, but I am intrigued to see what the results will be. But if Colbert’s proposal has also piqued your interest, you’ll have to wait to see the results: the response has been so enormous that Conservapedia has temporarily crashed.
UPDATE: Conservapedia appears to be back up and running again. And as promised earlier, here’s the video:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Bouncing into Graceland 
Wait…has he stolen a page out of Norelli’s book?!?!
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Nancy: No, no, no… You see the difference is that Mr. Colbert wants to be written into the Bible, whereas I was discovered in an ancient prophecy that was already in the Bible. Huge difference! :-P
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Way funnier than the “project” is Google’s little statements inserted under their tool bar…”This page is in Greek. translate it using Google Toolbar?” Why don’t they just post the “Greek” and then employ the Google Toolbar? Why study the original languages when we have Google?
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Sigh….Nick we are ALL listed in the Bible…haven’t you read The Bible Code? Maybe Google will start using that with their translation app…
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Actually, Nick’s narcissistic project differs from Conservapedia’s in that he is using the original languages of Scripture to accomplish his rewrite!
As for Google and learning Greek, I think we’re in the position of the young man from Malawi who was on The Daily Show last night, William Kamkwamba, who built a windmill from scratch using scraps available to him and with no more technical knowledge than having come across a picture of one. After being shown the Google results for “windmill,” he said, “Where was this Google all this time?” ;-)
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Esteban: Narcissistic? Who? Me me me? Never! ;-)
And let it be known that I didn’t not rewrite anything. Archeology has once again uncovered material to aid us all in our understanding of the the Scriptures. This is something we should all be willingly embracing. ;-)
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Nick has evolved into something different from that which he was originally prophesied as.
Jeff
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Jeff: You mean to tell me that you believe in evolution?!! For shame! :-P
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That’s the micro-macro-evolution.
Jeff
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When I still resided in Reformed land they had a Bible study on the parables of Jesus that met in people’s homes and we were studying the story of the rich young ruler using some evangelical study guide. The questions in the guide were rather shallow but I didn’t find anything offensive about them. But one of the other guys there who also happened to be a deacon accused the author of the study guide of being a communist and actually started talking about how when you are in business you have to regard everyone else as your enemy and that the only thing a Christian should do different in business is not work on Sunday. I didn’t know what to say but it’s really amazing how people who are somewhat confessionally conservative confuse that with so-called conservative talk radio and its support of free market capitalism. I’ve seen it in Lutheranland as well and try to avoid such conversations. I’ve become a bit of a distributist and to many that just sounds too much like communism.
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Oh, Charles, you pinko! I knew you were bad seed the day I met you. ;-) I too have often been baffled by the conceptual confusion you cite, particularly because in spite of my radically conservative theological positions, I have always tended to rather more liberal political ones. But beyond that, I’m always truly astonished when someone (not least of all myself) refuses to let the Gospel transform their views, but rather is willing to distort the Gospel to fit them.
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