1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture

1946: THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED CULTURE is a feature documentary that follows the story of tireless researchers who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians to a grave mistranslation of the Bible in 1946. It chronicles the discovery of never-before-seen archives at Yale University which unveil astonishing new revelations, and casts significant doubt on any biblical basis for 2SLGBTQIA+ prejudice.

Featuring commentary from prominent scholars as well as opposing pastors, including the personal stories of the film’s creators, 1946 is at once challenging, enlightening, and inspiring. While other documentaries have been successful in their attempt to treat the symptom of homophobia in the church, 1946 is working to diagnose and treat the disease—Biblical Literalism.

In 1959 a young man in Quebec, Canada, David Fearon, began corresponding with Luther A. Weigle who was on the chairman of 22 scholars that produced the new translation and produced the Revised Standard Version. David Featon believed there had been a mistranslation of 1Corintheans 6:9-10. Over the next three months the two corresponded, ending with Fearon suggesting in a reply to Weigle, that error should be seen as those who participate in homosexual vices, that are abusive and exploitative, such as rape.

In 1961, during the next round of translations edits, the team did in fact change the ‘homosexual’ to sexual perverts and that it was meant to be applied to any person, and not to a specific group, homosexuals. The vote was 7 in favour and 3 opposed.

During this time here were three different translations teams, for The Living Bible, The New American Standard Bible and The New International Version, who knew about the admission of the error to the RVS team and knew of the intention to revise this error. These three translation teams chose to use the existing RSV translation and not to honour the new correction. The Living Bible team and creator added the word homosexual to five other places as well as 1 Corinthians.

The Living Bible was based on the American Standard Version of 1901 but was not the average or common bible, it was a personal paraphrase, not a translation into English by Kenneth N. Taylor. He wanted to create an easier way for his children to understand it. In 1971 it was published by Tyndale House, a publishing house that was founded by himself.

This publication also had five more locations where the word homosexual was purposefully placed. This would lead to the clobber passages that are often used to condemn the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

It is the Living Bible that was the most popular selling bible with over 40 million copies in may editions. Tynedale publishers became, and still is, one of the top evangelical publishers in the United States and is responsible for distributing over 100 million bibles and works across the world. It is believed that Kenneth Taylor willingly and knowingly, was responsible for the contained misuse and abuse of the word ‘homosexual’.

Evangelical preachers such as Billy Graham, who use the King James Version, the New International Version and the Living Bible, Pat Roberston who was undeniably racist, bigoted, sexist and homophobic, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker, both of who has sex scandals, all of them who made fortunes on the loyalty and fear of their followers.

They were all part of the founding of a new politicized evangelical ideology that was far from a respectable and godly Christian faith and used their believes to weaponize political ideology that practices biblical literalism that still persists today, not just in the United States, but around the world.

Christian Nationalism is a twisted, bigoted and hate filled ideology that uses the persecution of a small minority of people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to distract from their own sins and vises. It is a sexist ideology that intends to control reproduction and women to maintain their preferred male privilege and does not sees their pedophile, rape and subjugation morally wrong, since the bible they use has been corrupted to maintain the inaccurate interpretation to keep a scapegoat they have made of 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

This abuse of the Christian faith has led the way to instill fear into its followers, maintained on perpetrated the division of families, lead to suicide by venerable people who have been bullied and abused and has instilled fear into the Queer community and has been the moral guide for those who have murder 2SLGBTQIA+ people.

It is not ok to use a faith to manipulate others for your own purpose. It is not ok to allow this to continue. What ever happened to respect for differences and love? The only love that is being preached is the love of sin, the love of exploitation, the love of greed and gluttony and the love of bigotry, then vs us.

To watch this movie or to learn more, visit www.1946themovie.com