When politics and religion begin to mix, political ideology always proceed and corrupt religious doctrine. Jesus makes a strong distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs God. The greatest mistake that the Evangelical Christians has made in twenty years was to put their hope in the politicians. They don't care about the advancement of the Kingdom of God, only their political power and interest. There is time for Christian to stop spending must amount of time on political campaign and argument, but the proclamation of the Gospel and the sounds doctrine teaching. The Gospel and the Holy Spirit can change people's hearts, not only by sending Christian senators to legislate and keep moral laws, which without moral people, it won't work. I urge these conservative people to give more time and attention to the word of God rather than Washington. Therefore, I think that this translation is unnecessary and wasteful.

I think it might also depend on who you call a brother. Is it just fellow Conservative Christians, or is it other Christians as well. I have no doubt that conservatives are very communal and helpful with their fellow members. My doubts is that they are not very helpful with people outside of their like-minded group. And Jesus warned against that in Matthew 5. I agree that it should be voluntary and not mandatory though.

Wow. Um…their version would definitely be shorter. I mean, once you take out the over 300 instances where the bible gives explicit instructions, general observations and nudges in the direction to take care of the poor, you get a shorter book. Too bad it would no longer be The Bible.

If I can take the stance that abortion is wrong from two scriptures then I am logically obligated to so much more take to heart something God spoke about THAT much. What it comes down to is whether or not, as a Christian, you want to have the heart of God or the heart of man. The heart of man allows you to focus on yourself and your own self interest as if you were the center of the universe. The heart of God - as revealed to us through the Holy Scriptures - is that we take care of others as if they were ourselves. Faith without works is dead and the bible repeatedly tells us what those works are to be.

The 1611 King James Version is full of political leanings itself. Jesus did NOT use the KJV.

I mean, gee, which book of the New Testament do you think Jesus taught out of the most?

Really? Try the Old Testament - which is FULL of commands to take care of those less fortunate than you.

Oh, and I’m saying all of that from the perspective of someone who - in the 4 years I’ve been allowed to vote - have voted Republican more than Democrat. Neither party meets my standards and if there was a morally conservative/fiscally liberal party I’d most likely be a member of it.

Actually, I was not using the example of adding "unwarranted" to pride as the worst example of the dangers of their ideological bent, rather I was being both ironic (implying their wanting to rewrite scripture to fit their worldview was prideful and sinful) and also using it self-reflectively tool and seeing how I can do the same thing with my worldview. We all have fallen short and need humility. We are all guilty of unwarranted pride.
They actually want to take out while passages from Luke and John that disagree with their worldview.

It is probably a moot point. There are too many organizations trying to influence lawmakers in our country to completely strip away all religious freedoms. It won't matter what bible verions you have or like because the day is coming where it will be banned if we do not wake up and stay focused on what is going on. We are living in an age where we must begin fighting to protect our religious liberty.

Did you hear about how the people responsible for the NIV are thinking of revising it to remove all gender references. In other words, all the pronouns will be gender neutral. That should be interesting.

It's about context, Jeff. In the context of the conservative Bible website, and in the context of how the Bible treats the word "pride" and in the context of Conservative ideology, it is not an unwarranted concern or interpretation.

It would be different if they just changed the word itself, especially if pride really does have a different modern usage (although even the positive modern usage has the effect of making us feel we are "better than"). Certainly, as our conversation would indicate, the phrase "unwarranted pride" is very controversial and many different meanings can be read into it, thus adding unnecessary ambiguity to an otherwise clear passage of scripture.

For example, the word pride can also be translated as "haughtiness". "Arrogance" might also be a suitable synonym. And that doesn't change the original or add words to the text. Why not use that word instead of pride? Had they done that, then this whole conversation would not be happening, would you agree?

And no, you can't remove liberal bias without adding your own. If this were a liberal group trying to create a liberal Bible in the same way, I highly doubt that you would say they are free of bias.

First lets be clear the site does not say;
"they want to change the Bible to promote free-market philosophy" as you have written above.
What it does say is:
"Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning"

With that being said I agree with your assessment of their handling of "forgive then, for they know not what they do"

Every bible you own inserts words. It is unavoidable. There are many words that just don't translate or in this case the meanings of a word changes. I'm guessing that every time I've taught a bible class on pride/humility that I've had to deal with the confusion of the current common usage of the word pride. In today's language pride is used both as a negative and a positive word. Letting the reader know that the negative use of the word is used is not nefarious. A seminary trained minister like Ernesto knows this fully.

The motives mentioned on the site is to remove liberal bias, not to add their own. I look at the list and do not find issue with it.

Jeff, there are many other things the group is doing with the Bible that Ernesto does not mention. In fact, I'm wondering why he zoomed in on "unwarranted" when their Guideline #7 explicitly says they want to change the Bible to promote free-market philosophy, and when they consider the quote "forgive them for they know not what they do" to be evidence of legal biased that must be changed. You really do need to go to their website--it's not about one word.

Well, heck, I'm not giving into this, and I *USED* to consider myself a conservative. I might well still be, but if these folks are, I ain't! They've hijacked the definition.

Really, I have learned that following Jesus is not an ideology. And THAT is what I want to do. So here on out I am keeping my independence, and giving no party, politics or clique my loyalty.

I think they are just spinning and censoring the King James Version along right wing political lines, verse by verse.

Guess what conservativeds have alway igored Jeus's instructions. Now they are making it formal.

Is Sporty Gordie Robertson a part of the translation team?

great question

"But you and the Ernesto immediately make a judgment."

What is my judgment based on? Is it based on my left-leaning tendencies? Actually, it is based on my faith as a Christian and my understanding of the Gospels, which, by the way, were not introduced to me by Left-leaning people, but by staunch Conservatives. That is why I have a real concern over the phrase "unwarranted pride." It does not line up with the Gospel message, and you have failed to show me how it does or why it shouldn't be of concern to Christians. Even more concerning is whether or not the original Greek justifies such an addition. It's very serious to be adding words to Scripture without a justification in the original text, would you agree?

And as JustTryinMyBest argues below, when the group itself admits to a Conservative agenda, it is fair to assume the translation they ascribe to comes out of that agenda. They in fact own up to it themselves in their own website! So how can Ernesto be accused of ascribing motive to these translators when they themselves admit to having the exact motive he "accuses" them of?

Have you followed the links?

To play devil's advocate about pride in one's children (which I admit I find no problem in, but I also don't think this type of pride justifies adding "unwarranted" to the text--unless it is further qualified with some sort of statement clarifying exactly what constitutes warranted pride. Without any qualification, it just opens the door for people to justify their pride):

Although that form of pride seems fine--perhaps it isn't the correct response, or the correct word for the feeling. The reality is every gift is from God, so perhaps the more accurate response is thankfulness and praising of God for the child's accomplishments. This response subtracts pride from the equation and acknowledges that all good things come from Him, and that nothing we do warrants true pride because nothing we have comes from us.

I see it's Andrew Schlafly, Phyliis Schlafly's son.

Could be, but does that justify adding a word to the text, especially when the new phrase is ultimately very subjective? And again, given Conservative ideology, it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that this is not the meaning.

I think you're right about not taking the "Conservative Bible" too seriously. Just took a closer look at the site and read its example of the "socialist bias" of English translations of the Bible-

"Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.

For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times."

Where to start??? Improperly encouraging social justice? Wasn't Jesus the greatest defender of the poor and downtrodden in history? That's what social justice is about- helping the poor. Take that out and you distort the gospel at best. At worst, you defile or nullify it.

Comrade means friend, companion, associate. Only recently has it been associated with "socialism." Furthermore, socialism, and conservatism for that matter, as political movements or ideologies obviously did not exist in biblical times.

And the use of the word labor? Again, labor, if one is speaking of the the verb, meaning work or toil- only recently demonized by certain people with an agenda- usually referring to labor as a noun- as in a "work force" or "labor union."

And the use of the word "fellow" as in "fellow worker,"? This is the point at which I decided to laugh and not take the Conservative Bible Project seriously, as you suggest. At once deriding what they call "liberal" translations as too "wordy" and at the same time criticizing a certain version (NIV) for being oversimplified and written at a 7th grade level. Laughable and illogical.

It is completely fair to ascribe motive to a writer when they have given ample evidence of motive. Go to the homepage of the Conservative Bible Project and examine their self-stated Ten Guidelines. Going in, they admit that their translation will "satisfies the following ten guidelines." Why not simply advocate pursuing the most scholastically accurate translation, wherever that takes it?
The "Ten Guidelines" are often self-contradictory, which indicates a desire to conform to a pre-determined outcome, rather than any sort of careful or critical thinking. I.e.:
#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" Reading level has nothing to do with the intellectual force or logic, rather, it has to do with actually making the intellectual force or logic readily apparent to a person of the stated reading level.
But then:
#4 "Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word 'comrade' three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as 'word', 'peace', and 'miracle'. " Aside from the questionability of using "new" words - what happened to the worry about "dumbing down"?
Or,
#5 "Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census" -- once again, aren't you "dumbing down" if you assume your readers don't know what "casting lots" or "enroll" mean?
Or,
#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." " -- Isn't "wordiness" one of the metrics of "reading level"? And as far as the claim of "liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio" -- Hemmingway (fought with the "lefties" in the Spanish Civil War) was the leading modern proponent of a lean, clean writing style. While no one ever told William F. Buckley that he didn't use enough words...
Or, they are simply completely out of left field, as in:
#7 "Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning" -- OK, maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the parables were about man's relationship to God and to his fellow man, not an economics textbook by Milton Freedman.
And then, there's the situational use of Biblical scholarship -- misused to argue for the excision of parts they don't like (#8), while demonstrating woeful lack of knowledge of Biblical scholarship - #9 cites "the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels" -- scholars (including those cited in #8) believe that neither the writer "Mark" nor "John" were actual "eyewitnesses" to the life of Jesus.
How are we to believe that this is anything but being driven by a preconcieved agenda?

FWIW, the standard conservative read on Acts 2 that you mentioned is that the communitarian behavior described was completely voluntary. In imitation of this, many conservatives are *very* communal and helpful with fellow conservatives at their churches.

IMHO, the conservative reading is not necessarily incorrect in this case, although I do believe that charity should extend beyond the church itself.