When I was a kid, the christians were still insane, obviously, but they at least used to know a verse or two and would have been able to call this out as idolatry.
The current crop still want to nuke the middle east to end the world, but don’t even know their lore.
Christians are a bunch of dudes wearing Ramones shirts who don’t even know it’s a band.
The bible requires a 12th grade reading level to understand and at least 54% of these people are below 6th grade. They literally can’t understand it if it was read to them
Tbh, that seems like a weird oversight- someone should translate the entire bible into simple language. Like, I definitely had simply worded bible stories as a kid, but there are plenty of adults who would prefer simple, modern phrasing, and plenty of kids who want more than just the story of Jonah and the whale.
Most of them go by the King James version because its the one their church uses and also they think any other version isn’t the real Bible. Half of them haven’t really read it outside what is taught to them by the church and they dont have the critical thinking ability to understand what they are hearing and interpret/synthesize it, to understand the broader context or to understand the biases of the authors and editors. Bibles do exist which translate it into American English (simplified) but they refuse to use it.
The problem we ran into the last few times the bible was translated was who gets to do the translation. There’s already evidence of tampering here and there.
Well yeah, but there is ISO guidance for translating into simple language, and if a congregation can agree on an English translation, going from that into simple English would be a lot easier for people to double check.
Actually, I went to Catholic school. It would have been a great exercise to have us translate a biblical passage into simple English- why the hell didn’t we do that?*
I know, I know, Catholics don’t want people forming their own views on the text without the intermediary of the church… but they definitely encouraged us to do so in a bunch of other ways, because they are trying to modernize a little. Plus, we had a teacher who was a technically not out to the students but very stereotypical (in the affected way that some thoughtful teachers who want to be obviously safe for students to talk to about gender and sexual orientation are) lesbian and we definitely had remarried divorcées as teachers who were open about that m, so it’s not like we were that strict.
Uh, I don’t know how it is these days, but there definitely was a “modern French” version of the full Bible, when I was a kid. And that was an Adventist church so it’s pretty sure there is the same in the US.
I also had the whole bible as a comic book, very accessible.
Are you saying that you need something like the Simple English Bible, for normally educated US audiences?
I’m not trying to comment on that, but lots of people everywhere benefit from simple text versions of things. That’s why there’s a simple English Wikipedia and a leichte Sprache version of German government websites.
They would serve their goals better by casting a wider net. There’s also an unfortunate overlap between people who need simple language versions of texts and vulnerable people, whom churches normally like to target.
You can call this out as idolatry even if you don’t know a single verse. Surface-level knowledge of the scripture is enough, which arguably makes this even worse.
When I was a kid, the christians were still insane, obviously, but they at least used to know a verse or two and would have been able to call this out as idolatry.
The current crop still want to nuke the middle east to end the world, but don’t even know their lore.
Christians are a bunch of dudes wearing Ramones shirts who don’t even know it’s a band.
The bible requires a 12th grade reading level to understand and at least 54% of these people are below 6th grade. They literally can’t understand it if it was read to them
Tbh, that seems like a weird oversight- someone should translate the entire bible into simple language. Like, I definitely had simply worded bible stories as a kid, but there are plenty of adults who would prefer simple, modern phrasing, and plenty of kids who want more than just the story of Jonah and the whale.
Most of them go by the King James version because its the one their church uses and also they think any other version isn’t the real Bible. Half of them haven’t really read it outside what is taught to them by the church and they dont have the critical thinking ability to understand what they are hearing and interpret/synthesize it, to understand the broader context or to understand the biases of the authors and editors. Bibles do exist which translate it into American English (simplified) but they refuse to use it.
The problem we ran into the last few times the bible was translated was who gets to do the translation. There’s already evidence of tampering here and there.
Well yeah, but there is ISO guidance for translating into simple language, and if a congregation can agree on an English translation, going from that into simple English would be a lot easier for people to double check.
Actually, I went to Catholic school. It would have been a great exercise to have us translate a biblical passage into simple English- why the hell didn’t we do that?*
Seems like a good chance to trim out some of that woke new testament crap too!
/s
The New Testament’s only there for Paul to relieve Christians from mosaic law, and for revelations, if you’re nasty.
Uh, I don’t know how it is these days, but there definitely was a “modern French” version of the full Bible, when I was a kid. And that was an Adventist church so it’s pretty sure there is the same in the US. I also had the whole bible as a comic book, very accessible.
Are you saying that you need something like the Simple English Bible, for normally educated US audiences?
I’m not trying to comment on that, but lots of people everywhere benefit from simple text versions of things. That’s why there’s a simple English Wikipedia and a leichte Sprache version of German government websites.
They would serve their goals better by casting a wider net. There’s also an unfortunate overlap between people who need simple language versions of texts and vulnerable people, whom churches normally like to target.
You can call this out as idolatry even if you don’t know a single verse. Surface-level knowledge of the scripture is enough, which arguably makes this even worse.