But my nervousness turned to excitement as my students boiled with fundamentalist zeal: “If that’s what the Bible says, then why don’t our translations say what the Bible says?”“Well,” Tremper searched as he looked to the ground. Not what we want it to say, but what it really says in all its grit and occasional offensiveness. Editing the BibleBut religious people have been covering up obscene language in the Bible for years. The word God inspired is shagel, and according to Hebrew linguists, shagel is an obscene word that describes a sexual act. Paul refers to the dangerous power of words, all words, when used to dehumanize another human being.