Recently Conservapedia has begun re-paraphrasing the Bible to make it more conservative. Now, they’re awfully busy and they’re mostly working on the New Testament right now, because that’s the bit with all the Jesus. So I thought I would pitch in on a famous part of the Old Testament: specifically, Daniel 6, the famous “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” story.
Because this is Conservapedia, I will only charge them $500 for the use of this retranslation. I am sure they would not respect my work otherwise.
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1 It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom,
2 with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The liberal satraps, who were all unionized, were made accountable to them so that cheats and frauds might not profit off the government and the backs of hard-working people.
3 Daniel understood so well that the welfare state would bring all to ruin that his guidance was invaluable, and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.
4 At this, the liberals, who were jealous of Daniel’s skill, tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he paid all taxes due of him by law, although of course he did not pay more than was necessary and made sure to use all exceptions due him so that the government would not unduly profit.
5 Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against Daniel, unless we use the power of the state to crush his Christian faith.”
6 So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “O King Darius, you’re awesome!”
7 “We all want to pray to you, and to carved idols of you. So we think you should make it a law that nobody should pray to anybody but you or a carved idol of you. And if they do, throw them in the lion’s den.”
8 “And put it in writing. That makes it all legal.”
9 So King Darius put the decree in writing, and made it all legal.
10 But when Daniel heard of this law, he quietly said to himself “this is an enroachment of the State upon my civil liberties, which cannot be borne.” So he prayed to God anyway.
11 Then the liberals went as a group and found Daniel praying.
12 So they went to the king and said “hey, remember how you passed that law saying that anybody praying to anybody other than you would get thrown to the lions?” And the king said “yeah.”
13 Then the liberals said to the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day. To God. Not to you.”
14 When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed, because Daniel was the most effective counsellor he had, and Daniel’s policies had greatly stimulated his economy. He asked, “well, maybe he’s praying to me AND to God? That would work out all right, yes?”
15 And the liberals replied, “You put it in writing, remember?”
16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “I don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one.” And Daniel said “God and the free market will rescue me.”
17 Daniel was sealed into the den with the lions, with the aid of teamsters, who had contacts with the liberal elite and would always benefit so long as they were in power.
18 Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. And he could not sleep.
19 At the first light of dawn, the king got up and drove to the lions’ den, putting his foot down against the gas pedal to go as fast as possible.
20 When he came near the den, he called to Daniel, “Daniel, has your God – or the free market – been able to rescue you from the lions?”
21 Daniel answered, “I’m fine, O king!”
22 “God sent forth an angel, and the angel gave the lions the power of economic responsibility. I convinced the lions that eating me would represent a progressive tax, since they would be redistributing my body amongst themselves, and I am much richer than they. I also pointed out that being thrown into this pit was a form of repressive regulation, and in the spirit of laissez-faire economics, thus did they refuse to eat me.”
23 The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God and in the free market.
24 At the king’s command, the liberal union members who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lions’ den, along with their wives and children and friends and Whoopi Goldberg and all the other liberals.
25 And before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones, for the lions realized that these individuals were parasites, draining the market of vital resources.
26 Then the king said, “I shall make it law that all men shall worship God!” And Daniel agreed and embraced the king, for the nation had in fact always been a Christian one from its very inception.
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23 users responded in this post
Oh MGK, you rascal. Bravo!
That’s one thing I never understood about this story: if the king liked Daniel so much that he was willing to kill all the advisors who were against him, why didn’t he do that FIRST instead of trying to kill Daniel at their behest?
…Or am I not supposed to think about that?
Where is the part about 2nd amendment rights?
And will we be renaming the entire chapter of Exodus to “Going Galt”?
NOT CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH!
At first, the king was all, like, “Gee if I pass a law, I suppose even I – the King – am honor bound to enforce it. Otherwise, I’ll look like a flaming hypocrite.”
But then God came down and spoke to the King and told him to clear brush on his ranch for forty days and forty nights. And when he returned to his Kingdom, he discovered that “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator”, and he was anointed the Decider by angels on high, and it was decreed that – having won a plurality of the vote of judges appointed by his father – elections have consequences and he can do whatever the hell he damn well pleases.
And that is why, to this day, the land of Judea remains whole and untouched, having never suffered for lack of skilled and wise guidance from a line of autocrats dating straight back to the dawn of time, 6000 years ago.
Continuing series please? And I’m hoping next up is the parts from Judges where a woman leads the Israelites.
Well, it adheres to Rule the Third:
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
But not so much Rule the Tenth:
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”
Prankster & Zifnab: The book of Esther explains that under Persian law, an edict of the king could not be undone/repealed/annulled with a simple counter-command. Presumably this was to prevent the king/s from issuing too many edicts without thinking through their consequences first.
In the story of Esther, the command to permit the slaughter of the Jews in Persia was not rescinded, but a counter-command allowing the Jews to fight back was issued.
In Daniel, the king was apparently unaware that Daniel’s faith would preclude him from worshiping an idol; he knew Daniel was Jewish but apparently Daniel didn’t make a big deal of his faith in public to avoid more problems like this.
MKG: I gotta say, I admire the sheer ballsiness of these guys. If you (rhetorical) have gotta commit soul-damning blasphemy, this is the way to do it; none of that wimpy carving 666 on your forehead, getting devil girls tattooed on your arms, or flashing horn signs for these conservatives.
And I post that as a socially conservative Christian.
These guys are going to be SO surprised when they get to Hell.
Or “Why I Should Write the Bible, by MGK” Part One. I look forward to the bits where Dr Strange parts the Red Sea or when Deadpool replaced the water-into-wine with grape kool-aid…
Conservapedia: Jonestown or Waco? You be the judge.
24 At the king’s command, the liberal union members who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in…
Hang on, they accused him of praying to God. Which he was doing. Nothing false there.
They had a legitimate case under the law of the time. The fact that they were a bunch of sandal-wearing pinko liberals doesn’t change that.
See, Will, where you went wrong there was applying logic. That has a clear lieberal bias and is not longer used in this Brave New World of Conservapedia.
Wait a minute, so they are basically rewriting books? Yeah, there is no way this could wrong.
I especially like that they’ve decided on the KJV as a base for their translation. It’s fairly widely acknowledged that, while it is one of the most poetic translations out there, it’s also one of the least accurate. Conservapedia also seems to have fairly lax standards for citations.
So nice to see people who don’t get that Christianity used to be a religion of the downtrodden that gained popularity with the hope that their lives may suck now, but heaven awaits those of piety and patience.
The thing that really blows my mind is that they’re casually admitting that the bible isn’t the inerrant word of God, but rather something that’s been subject to revision over the years. Revision…by LIBERALS!!!!
Seriously, this is going to piss off a LOT of moderate and even conservative Christians, people who otherwise might have been on their side politically. I really think the hardcore conservatives crossed the line a while back, and they’re going to have a tough time winning back the respect and sympathy of 85% of the American people.
I can’t wait to see the full list of segments they want to remove. It’ll be so handy to have a complete Biblical reading list for my future kids.
What’s going to happen to all the dirty stuff in the Song Of Solomon?
Conservatizing the Bible?
That would make an excellent thing to speculate about if it wasn’t apparently being done. Oy.
I see what you did there.
buzz: Took the words right outta my mouth. I suppose it doesn’t serve to underestimate human stupidity.
And of course the King James was commissioned by a dirty queer, so of course it must be cleaned up.
Lawnmower Boy said:
Conservapedia: Jonestown or Waco? You be the judge.
From my own observations (and those of the jokesters at RationalWiki), I’d say “North Korea”. They’ve got a Maximum Leader whose word is NOT the Word of God, it’s MUCH more important than that. They’ve got a gang of fanatical enforcers squashing all deviance. They’ve got a bizarre political philosophy that’s slowly strangling the life out of the place, and they they’ve got a populace who can’t even see the bars of the cage they’re in.
It’s a perfect microcosm of authoritarian beliefs taken to their logical conclusion, without the usual body-count.