by Bill Fix
Although published two years ago, I read an article just a few days ago from The Babylon Bee and was surprised at how believable this satirical piece was. Entitled “New WikiBible Lets Anyone Edit the Scriptures” (published June 7, 2019), this piece seemed so accurate I actually checked online to see if a WikiBible site was live. Surprise—it isn’t. But read this one for yourself:
Utilizing Wikipedia’s tried-and-true method of letting anyone in the world edit its content, so you know it’s reliable, a new WikiBible will let anyone edit the inspired Scriptures.
The online Bible can be edited on the fly by anyone on the planet, with no login required. The creators of the new WikiBible hope that it will encourage people to just edit out verses that offend them or condemn their lifestyle. Verses that don’t fit neatly into your theology can be deleted in a flash.
“Don’t like a verse? Just edit it,” one of the creators of the new Bible, Bob Bell, said in a video announcing the new internet Bible. “Want to inject some values from your modern culture into the text? Have at it. We are no longer restricting by the suffocating, oppressive rigidity of believing what God said. Now we can make Him say what we want Him to say.”
Charismatic believers from around the world are also excited about this, as they can add their personal revelations from God about what they’re supposed to eat for lunch today or their gibberish languages right into the text.
“The Bible is so much better when it’s created by popular consensus, rather than divine inspiration.”
Unfortunately for the exciting new Bible project, at least one person found every verse in the Bible offensive for one reason or another, and the entire copy of God’s Word was deleted within the first few hours of the site’s launch. It’s been replaced with phrases like “You can do it,” “Believe in yourself,” and “The magic was inside you all along.”
While the article above is fictitious, plenty of people today do the exact same thing, whether they admit it or not. Many have determined that the Bible is one or more of the following: an old book of fairy tales; some outdated, misogynistic effort to oppress women and minorities; a book of inspirational messages not to be taken literally, a “love letter” to mankind, or a mere guidebook that we should amend as civilization continues to advance. Thomas Jefferson even famously used a razor and scissors to cut out sections regarding Jesus’ miracles and resurrection to rewrite a Bible that dealt with only philosophy and morals. Denominations edit the Bible by adding creeds and or adopting new policies at conventions. The Catholic belief that the pope is infallible when speaking ex Cathedra on matters of faith and morals and that his pronouncements are binding on all Catholics is just another way of editing the Scriptures.
“If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18-19).