The Conservative Bible would exclude what it calls the "later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic", like the adulteress story, in which Jesus saves an adulteress from an angry mob, with the words, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone".

The problem? "Liberals cite this passage to oppose the death penalty", and that's wrong apparently because the Mosaic laws "clearly state death as a punishment for sin".

Apparently, conservatives would have stoned the adulteress.

And, of course, the Conservative Bible would express "Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning".

Or, as American comedian Stephen Colbert quipped recently: "The Bible says Jesus fed the poor. It should say he fed the rich and let the loaves and fishes trickle down."

According to the earnest people at Conservapedia, the Bible is full of "socialistic terminology", which "improperly encourages the 'social justice' movement among Christians".

Improperly? Well, there goes the basis for centuries of Catholic teaching on social justice and the idea of the common good.

Throughout the ages, the Bible has been used by the misguided, the insane and the downright evil to justify all manner of injustice - including slavery, misogyny, war and racism.

That it should also be enlisted to prop up a right-wing economic agenda that flies in the face of Jesus' teachings on poverty and wealth shouldn't come as any great surprise.

Some commentators have labelled the project hubristic. It's certainly that, but I think Conservapedia has done us a service. By trying to rewrite the Bible in their own image, its creators have highlighted exactly what the Bible is not.

In his 2005 book, God's Politics, Jim Wallis writes that "when the poor are defended on moral or religious grounds, it is certainly not 'class warfare', as the rich often charge, but rather a direct response to the overwhelming focus on the poor in the Scriptures, which claim they are regularly neglected, exploited and oppressed by wealthy elites, political rulers and indifferent affluent populations".

Wallis says it's precisely because religion takes the problem of evil so seriously that we "must always be suspicious of too much concentrated power - politically and economically - either in totalitarian regimes or in huge multinational corporations that now have more wealth and power than many governments".

"It is indeed our theology of evil that makes us strong proponents of both political and economic democracy - not because people are so good, but because they often are not and need clear safeguards and strong systems of checks and balances to avoid the dangerous accumulation of power and wealth."

As last year's financial meltdown showed, this is as true now as when the Bible was first written.

By Tapu Misa | Email Tapu