Taking conservative liberties

Illustration by Cameron Thorp

Every so often ideologues decide the Bible has to be brought into conformity to some purportedly higher truth. In 1997 some translators wanted to "mute the patriarchalism" of the text by introducing gender-neutral language. Now the Conservative Book Project (CBP) wants to update the King James Version for conservative purposes: The project is part of Conservapedia, an online encyclopedia meant to compete with Wikipedia, and Andy Schlafly (son of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly) is leading the charge.

Retranslations of Bible books already published online show the goals of the project. For example, Philemon 1:3 in the KJV reads, "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." This is not a translation in any dispute; the English Standard Version has the same words. But the CBP wants to replace "peace" with "peace of mind," because "'Peace' today means anti-war." It's fine to have an exegetical note suggesting that Paul was writing about peace of mind, but it's wrong to confuse commentary and translation.

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