Conservative Bible Project – The Biblical Bimbo

(h/t to RaoulDuke for pointing this one out)

I’ve already mentioned Andrew Schlafly’s attempts to “Conservatise” the English Bible, and I must admit that so far it’s providing more laughs that the Lenski affair did. One has to remember that Andy – who is no linguist – isn’t going back to the source material and translating from the original Greek. Oh no – he’s simply taking the KJV and changing words so that they fit his conservative view of the world.

We’ve already had the case of the Pharisees suddenly becoming “intellectuals”, but Andy’s latest offerings are not only hysterical, but proof once again that we couldn’t make this stuff up.

First of all, we have Andy – who is clearly very uncomfortable about the fact that Jesus takes a pretty dim view of rich people – trying to downplay Jesus’ modest wardrobe. (Not to mention his earlier attempts to replace “rich” with “miserly”… although I’m still not sure how he’s going to explain away the bit about it being easier for a needle to pass a camel than for a rich person to enter heaven… we wait in anticipation!)  The original verse (Mark 6:9) says “But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.” Now, to any rational thinking person, that sounds like an instruction to dress simply – why wear 2 coats when 1 will suffice (plus the extra coat can be given to the poor).

However, once it’s been through what passes for Andy’s mind, it becomes “A comfortable but nice garment” As somebody said, it’s the Biblical equivalent of Jesus hanging out in chinos and Gucci loafers. Andy is prepared to jump through any number of hoops and distort any number of truths to convey the fact that – like Republicans – Jesus was rich, white and privileged.

But wait! There’s More!

Just a bit further down, as we’re told the story of Salome giving John the Baptist head (or something) Andy’s medication must have worn off. In Mark 6:22 he’s suddenly confronted with the word “damsel” and confusion sets in. It’s not in his list of “Best” New Conservative Words, but it’s clearly an old word and must be changed. Normally somebody would turn to their dictionary or thesaurus at this point. In fact, I’ve turned to Andy’s favourite Merriam-Webster, which tells me that “damsel” is a “young woman” or in its archaic use it’s “a young, unmarried woman of noble birth.” It comes from the Latin “domnicella”, meaning “young noblewoman.”

That seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it. If I look at the thesaurus, I’m given the options of “colleen, lady, lass, lassie, miss, virgin, woman, young girl, or young woman” Now Andrew Schlalfly – who is the beneficiary of degrees from Princeton and Harvard – looks at “damsel” and because the damsel in question does something naughty to John the Baptist, (Sorry, just realised she asks for his head, she doesn’t give him head. Silly mistake!) she can’t be a “good, conservative person”. Thus, bad things need to be said about her. This is basically how Andy’s mind works.

Still, he is rewriting the Bible here, so hopefully he’ll sit down and come up with a suitable word – maybe “harlot”. No – the best this lawyer and founder of an encyclopaedia can come up with is… “bimbo.” I can’t wait to see this new Bible in print. I can just see Pope B the Umpteenth saying mass with President Palin and pausing to have the word “bimbo” explained to him. blogsurfer.us

Once again, I turn to Merriam-Webster and my trusty thesaurus. MW tells me it’s “used as a generalized term of disapproval especially for an attractive but vacuous person” and the T offers me “babe, bimbo, chick, dame, dish, doll, doxy, female, floozy, gal, girl, honey, lady, lassie, miss, moll, skirt, sweet thing, tootsie”. I’m guessing he’s holding back “tootsie” to describe Mary Magdalene. Either way, he coundn’t be further from the mark, and the intention of the story, if he tried. If anybody else had written that, I would be screaming “Parodist!” Sadly, all I can do is shake my head in amazement at the stupidity on show.

Once again, Andy has shown that he’s quite capable of taking what sounds like an interesting project and making a complete hash of it. There’s a word for that too…. MORON!