Mind_Storm

This isn't going to bode well for those woman who wish to enter the PRIEST-HOOD.

I'm sure the Vatican will have something to say about this..Oh shit..I can hear the church bells ringing now..ALL THE WAY FROM ROME.

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=34832


TESTING THE FAITH

Bible for feminists - Translators rewriting passages seen as 'biased'

Posted: September 29, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

You've come a long way, Virgin Mary?

To demonstrate there's no glass ceiling in heaven, the German Evangelical Church has undertaken the ambitious project of retranslating the Bible in gender-neutral terms.

Ananova reports more than 50 translators are hard at work on a new edition of the holy book. They're rewriting passages seen to discriminate against women, using "unbiased and unjust" language.

Specifically, the term disciple is to be changed to "disciples and disciplesses."

Translators will also remove references to "Lord" and "Our Father."

The project is expected to take up to a year. Gueterslohe publishing house is expected to print 10,000 copies of the revised Scriptures.

prosequence

Hmm, sounds like they should just GO TO HELL !
It won't be the Bible.
If they don't like it to begin with, then they should choose to follow a different faith, or none at all.

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And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed...

Mael

so appearantly god's word can be changed... very interesting...

GakFace

BUT THEY WERE ALL MEN!!!!

that and I thought it was gender nuetral already.. Wanna be a disciple of christ? (I still don't see the gender bias....)

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RoboBlaster:
Welcome to the club! Not that I'm in the club. And there really isn'a a club in the first place. But if there was a club and if I was in it, I would definitely welcome you to it.

Macheath

Considering how it's been changed through the centuries, this would be a drop in the ocean.

meepa

I thought that was a joke at first. Religion just got funnier!

Lebell

Moved to Philosophy...

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Killconey

Yeah, that is pretty funny. The problem with a gender neutral Bible is that none of it happened in gender neutral time. Unless you were an Amazon living on the Island of Lesbos, women were considered secondary citizens at best and property at worst. Compared to many other religious and political writings of its day, the Bible is actually very generous when it comes to women. Its only when you compare the Bible to life now that it seems so sexist.

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Look out for numbers two and up and they'll look out for you.

Sledge

The Bible is a living document, and if they want to change it to reflect OUR era instead of ones long gone, I don't really see a problem.

I think you can preserve the meaning of the stories by changing around a few pronouns.

johnnymysto

I think the Bible should be rewritten for women, homosexuals, Mexicans, mentally retarded, the poor, the rich, Republicans, Democrats, and any other minority you can think of. Because we really aren't catering to the minorities enough.

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"I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request." - Capt. Barbossa

lurkette

This is so dumb. As a feminist, let me say that these people are doing us no favors. It's like re-writing Machiavelli to be more sensitive, or rewriting Huck Finn to be racially correct. MISSING THE POINT. If you don't like it, dismiss it, don't re-write it. Or compile the parts that fit your particular ideology. Sheesh. It's one thing to say that the Bible is a living text, and INTERPRET it differently according to the times, or to admit that it has been translated many times and some of the original meaning has been lost in the translation. It's another thing to willfully re-write it to suit your own political philosophy. Don't these people have anything better to do?

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

sexymama

Actually, the rewrite will more accurately reflect the truth. Jesus did have many woman disciples: Mary Magdaline being one. They are just not named as disciples because men wrote the bible. Also, Christianity was a sexual equalizor during that time period -- Jesus loved all people -- men and woman alike. All were welcome to serve as his followers. It was the Roman interpretation of the bible that made the changes to favor men. (See the book, "Jesus Mysteries" for more information.)

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If you can go deeply into lovemaking, the ego disappears. That is the beauty of lovemaking, that it is another source of a glimpse of god

It's not about being perfect; it's about developing some skill at managing imperfection.

CSflim

haha. Hillarious.
Oh wait it's not a joke.
My mistake, sorry.

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BentNotTwisted

These people are complete idiots. I looked up disciple in several online dictionaries (and my desk reference) and guess what? It is gender neutral in every one of them! Disciplesses?? Give me a break. Why not just say Jesus and all the disciples were women and throw in a few men on the side to keep it interesting?

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IS THAT IT ???!!!
Do you even know what 'it' is?

When the last man dies for just words that he said... We Shall Be Free

B21

HA i cant believe there actually gona do this.......it just makes no sense to me.

MSD

You're thinking of the 12 Apostles. Disciples are any of the dedicated followers of Christ. The term is already gender-neutral, as many men and women were disciples of Christ.

archer2371

Wow, I just agreed with lurkette, this has never happened before. I'm gonna go check CNN to make sure that all the major cities in the world haven't been destroyed and someone has taken his place as the Anti-Christ.

__________________
"This ain't no Ice Cream Social!"

"Hey Grif, Chupathingy...how bout that? I like it...got a ring to it."

"I have no earthly idea what it is I just saw, or what this place is, or where in the hell O'Malley is! My only choice is to blame Grif for coming up with such a flawed plan. Stupid, stupid Grif."

TIO

Revelation 22:18-19
I, John, solemnly warn everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: if any add anything to them, God will add to their punishment the plagues described in this book. And if any take anything away from the prophetic words of this book, God will take away from them their share of the fruit of the tree of life and of the Holy City, which are described in this book.

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Strewth

Kyo

gg kk thx pwned.

That article belongs in The Onion, whether it's true or not.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

jvwgtr

Actually, I believe that sexymama is on the right track.

The current versions of the Bible we all love come from a male-biased point of view. Were there female disciples? Most likely, yes, but their writings were not included.

Re-writing the Bible for the sake of some PC bullshit is pretty stupid, but you should try to at least open your mind to the concept that there were women on an equal footing with the male disciples with which we're already familiar.

matthew330

I just sent this to one of my friends, who is very involved in the christian church. He said this sort of stuff has been done before. He said he actually saw a bible written in "jive" before.

numist

I thought the title of the thread said "Translators seen as biased".. to which I was going to respond: no shit!

however... seeing that isnt really the title...

I dont see why its not ok as it is... why dont we rewrite the constitution while we're at it, that has the same kind of language. Theres a lot of documents like that. Usually the view is if you dont like it - go home.

And disciplesses? wtf?

Another reason why I'm not christian: I liked the book, but the people that read it weird me out...

MSD

I's like to point out, once again, that the word disciple is gender-neutral, and the 12 apostles are the males that you're all thinking of. A disciple is any follower of Christ. Disciples were close followers, but not the 12 who sat with him at the Last Supper (although Da Vinci's painting of the event may depict a female at the table, most often thought to be Mary Magdalene.)

Midnight_Son

every "christian" faith in the world has re-written the book to fit their own needs, why should this example shock anyone?

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SWM, tattooed, seeks meaningful tits and beer. Enjoys biker mags, pornography, and Sunday morning walks to the liquor store. Winners of erotic hot dog eating contests given priority.

raeanna74

This was started a couple years ago. I remember hearing about it already. I'm not surprised. I heard that the word for God in the original language was gender neutral even then. The translators couldn't have possibly said that God was a woman in the time that they translated the Bible. I doubt I'll bother reading it though. Makes really no difference to me what gender God is. It the other parts of the religion that I grew up with that bother me.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

GakFace

Yes, yes I was.. sorry about that. As they were what came to mind instantly.. But what I said after that I think was more civil and thought out. Sorry if I pissed anyone off with that first comment.

__________________
RoboBlaster:
Welcome to the club! Not that I'm in the club. And there really isn'a a club in the first place. But if there was a club and if I was in it, I would definitely welcome you to it.

chavos

So don't re-write revelations. John couldn't have possibly intended to put a curse on anyone who edited the bible, given that it did not exist when john wrote... Just one of my pet peeves about the use that verse....

MSD

I wasn't pissed off, I just thought that it really needed clarification, as it's one of the most common misconceptions/mistakes I hear on the subject.

Brandy85

I think the point is... The bible has been REWRITTEN SO MANY TIMES, we can't truely tell what is fact and fiction... I don't like thought of men writting things because most male writters today do no give enough info or tell "tall tales"....But once again I am not going to base my belief on book that only a few gospels to be read where there about over 30 of them.. So we can't truely know what the bible is about if it isn't all there... My opinion thoes.

aKula

The word disciple probably not gender neutral in German. I say probably because I'm not sure of the exact word you'd use in German.

I agree it is a stupid thing to do.

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"I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble." -Klaus Kinski as Don Lope de Aguirre

CSflim

Woah. This is an old thread. It is still no less funny.

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flstf

If there really is a Christian God I imagine she/he/it is getting a good laugh at all of this.

filtherton

The funny thing about the catholic church is that the pope has the power to "interpret" the will of god as he sees fit. If the pope decides that it is "the will of god" to rewrite the bible in gender neutral terms then, by golly, it is the WILL OF GOD. Whereas other forms of christianity the laypeople often bear the responsibility of "interpreting" the will of god.

All of the translations of the bible that we use today were subject to selective editing. Why is this any different?

Charlatan

The bible has been edited and revised any number of times throughout history.

This isn't really all that different.

People need to realize there is no definitive version. Language is flexible and it will continue to be flexed by those who use it.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

CSflim

I propose a new updated "bible for assholes", which removes all the goody-goody preachy stuff about loving thy neighbour.

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filtherton

You should write it. You could probably get pat robertson to sell it for you; I'm you could make tons of money selling it to the evangelicals.

CSflim

6. Thou shalst not kill. Unless, you know, they really deserve it or something.

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SirLance

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Golf has holes, therefore it is holy...

Honor thy father and thy mother. Unless they are liberal democrats.

Thou shall not commit adultery. Blowjobs and anal penetration don't count as adultery.

Thou shall not steal. Liberate, OK, but never steal.

Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, unless he's a pinko commie bastard.

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DEMOCRACY is where your vote counts, FEUDALISM is where your count votes.

asaris

Was the Bible edited? Sure, of course. In fact, my mom was one of the editors. But I suspect you're looking for more than a copy editor. The idea that the Bible was constantly edited and re-edited in a way that changed the core meaning simply has no evidence behind it. Whenever we find an earlier source for scripture, whether old or new testament, it by and large confirms what we think scripture says.

Brandy's point is ridiculous. Beyond the issue of how the other 'gospels' hang with the NT as a whole, there's the simple fact that most, if not all, of these other gospels were written much later than the gospels which were accepted by the early church. Accepting them to be better sources for what happened in that first third of the first millenium is not mere religious hypocrisy, it's good history.

Is the word for "God" gender neutral? As Akula points out, Greek, like German, has grammatical gender. In Greek, I'm fairly certain, the word used to refer to God as a whole is masculine. I'm almost positive that the word(s) referring to God the Father is masculine. And we all know that Christ was male. However, spirit in Greek is feminine. So what is God? Well, the grammatical gender of the nouns just isn't going to help us much here (any more than the fact that "girl" is neuter in German isn't going to convince me that German girls aren't feminine.) So is God masculine or feminine/male or female? I suspect that, if anything, God is masculine. But I suspect more strongly that God is beyond these categories.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

filtherton

Who are we? Last i heard there were over 1500 different denominations of christianity in the world. What the scripture "says" depends at least as much on who you ask to interpret it as it does on what is written on the page.