- 2 days ago
CTP (S3EJulSpecial4) Holy Text, Plain Talk
Exploring more of the world of fascinating Guests, Health, Human Nature, Music / Movies, Mysterious, Politics, Social Issues, and much more
Dan Parr shares his unlikely four-year journey of creating the EUR Bible (Easy to Understand and Read), which began with a simple Facebook post of a reworded resurrection story and evolved into a complete translation of all 66 books.
• Initially reluctant about creating "another version" of the Bible
• Started with the book of Luke, then felt divinely prompted to continue with Acts, Romans, and eventually the entire Bible
• Used public domain translations as foundation, simplifying language while preserving meaning
• Addressed concerns about Bible translations and denominational divisions
• Emphasized how God works through ordinary, unqualified people
• Available on Amazon and Audible as individual books, compilations, and a Bible-in-a-year format
• Currently working on 365 devotionals specifically designed for Generation Z readers
Exploring more of the world of fascinating Guests, Health, Human Nature, Music / Movies, Mysterious, Politics, Social Issues, and much more
Dan Parr shares his unlikely four-year journey of creating the EUR Bible (Easy to Understand and Read), which began with a simple Facebook post of a reworded resurrection story and evolved into a complete translation of all 66 books.
• Initially reluctant about creating "another version" of the Bible
• Started with the book of Luke, then felt divinely prompted to continue with Acts, Romans, and eventually the entire Bible
• Used public domain translations as foundation, simplifying language while preserving meaning
• Addressed concerns about Bible translations and denominational divisions
• Emphasized how God works through ordinary, unqualified people
• Available on Amazon and Audible as individual books, compilations, and a Bible-in-a-year format
• Currently working on 365 devotionals specifically designed for Generation Z readers
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, aka CTP.
00:07I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12CTP is your no-must, no-fuss, just-me-you-and-occasional-guest-type podcast.
00:19I really appreciate you tuning in.
00:22As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show!
00:25Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Constitutionalist Politics Podcast.
00:33First, for those watching on the behind-the-scenes sneak peek video, you can see the new background.
00:40There's the rent-cent for Detroit and the Penobscot building over there.
00:46I've got to point. Whatever way.
00:49Yeah, this mirror image stuff throws me off, even as a variety guy.
00:56At any rate, you're not here for the background.
01:00Joining me today is Dan Parr, and I've got a joke.
01:05Are you any relation to John Parr?
01:07Do you know that guy, that singer, right?
01:11Did a song called Naughty Naughty?
01:13I remember that song very well.
01:15In fact, when it came out, I was popular for a minute because we shared the same last name
01:19until people found out we weren't related.
01:22Yeah, I've got that song on 45.
01:2845 RPM vinyl for you younger folks.
01:31Although, 33 and a third vinyl's starting to come back in.
01:36I don't know if 45's are coming in fashion or not again yet, but at any rate, wink, wink, nod, nod.
01:45My audience knows it's kind of an ongoing gag.
01:48I tried to cut all the ahs and the ums, and now audience is going to be confused
01:56because I had to engage AI to remove the ahs and the ums for any that sneak past me.
02:04So, they'll be saying, what did he say there?
02:07Because there would probably be a space where the ahs and ums's would have been.
02:16Now, I've got to spell it out to actually force it into the transcript and force it into the show.
02:22But I cut out the ahs and the ums's and started this segue thing of saying crutch.
02:30At any rate, you know, like moving along, right?
02:34Have you ever seen the movie Dave with Kevin Kline?
02:38Yes, I did, yeah.
02:40And we're walking, and we're walking, right?
02:44And now that I've left the audience in the desk with these references, they may not know them.
02:50I'm glad you did.
02:52Welcome to the show, Dan Parr, no relation to John Parr.
02:57Pleasure to be here, even though I'm related to nobody famous.
03:02Me neither.
03:03Well, my dad was quasi-semi-famous for a little while.
03:07Ted Leonard Jr. and the Polk Kings, they toured all over west or east of the Mississippi in their day as a polka band.
03:17But at any rate, I think that's number three I said.
03:22Cue the ongoing counter.
03:26Indeed, you're here to talk about the E-U-R Bible.
03:33Easy to understand and read Bible.
03:36I love the concept.
03:38I have concerns, of course.
03:41But first, let's start with, who are you, right?
03:45Cue the who.
03:46Who are you?
03:48Where were you born?
03:49Where were you raised?
03:51How much time in prison did you spend for murder and all that good stuff?
03:56Well, no time for prison yet, I'll say that.
03:59You never know what's going to happen with Christianity.
04:02Is it a goal?
04:03A goal in life?
04:05Not a goal.
04:06Definitely not.
04:07I want to avoid any kind of harm or pain as much as possible, but we're not promised that as believers.
04:14We know that there may be a time coming when persecution happens, and that could mean prison time.
04:19I don't know if it's in my mind.
04:20We're seeing it now with a lot of persecution of Christians, even in our own country.
04:27So, Eddie, you were born where and all that stuff?
04:30Yeah, so I grew up in Northern California, a city called Petaluma, famous for two things.
04:35It's World Wrist Wrestling Championship every year, and it's Ugly Dog of the World Contest every year.
04:41So that's where I hail from.
04:44I've seen some ugly dogs in my life, and usually you see that on the news.
04:51The Ugly Dog of the Year, and usually it's some dog that looks like it's deformed.
04:58Oh, my goodness.
05:01A face only a fur baby's human mother can love, right?
05:07Exactly, exactly.
05:10So what spurred this idea?
05:12I'll get to my concerns in a while, obviously, but what spurred the idea of the EUR, easy to understand and read Bible?
05:22Yeah, I kind of went into this kicking and screaming, honestly.
05:26I did not want to do it, necessarily.
05:29I had been told by—
05:31Yeah, there's a bazillion versions of the Bible out there.
05:34Who needs another one, right?
05:35Exactly.
05:36Yes, that was my complaint to God.
05:41I had been told that people like listening to my voice when I read the Bible in church.
05:46And so I thought, well, that's very nice.
05:47I'll do something for Easter and put it up on my Facebook, you know, a little story about the resurrection.
05:53So I went to the book of Luke, found the story of the resurrection of Christ, and kind of reworded it and put it out there on Facebook.
06:00Got some good feedback from it.
06:02People seemed to enjoy it.
06:04Uh-oh.
06:05Uh-oh.
06:05I can hear some uptight sphincters clenching.
06:10Rewarded it!
06:11Blasphemer!
06:12Yeah, tell those people not to read the message, then they're going to lose it completely.
06:20So I did that with the resurrection story, and I enjoyed the process.
06:24So I thought, you know what?
06:26I wouldn't mind doing this and just putting it out on Audible and Amazon, see if anybody wants to purchase it.
06:31I'll do it for the book of Luke.
06:33And for me, that was, like, huge, right, doing the entire book of Luke.
06:36Um, but I sat down, and I thought, okay, I got to get a version I can read and not infringe on anybody's copyright or trademarks.
06:44So I had to look for stuff that was in public domain.
06:47And, of course, the King James Version is in public domain.
06:50But I took one look at that, and I thought, yeah, that's not going to happen.
06:54Old Oxford English, yeah.
06:55So I had to find another version.
06:58I came across the world.
06:59You may as well have just read Shakespeare, right?
07:02Right, exactly.
07:03Yeah, that difficult for me.
07:05I came across the World English Bible, which is a good interdenominational version that's put out there in the public domain.
07:12And for as good as it is, there's some language choices and some sentence structures that were just challenging and difficult to get through.
07:20So I thought, what I'll do is I'll start with this, a good solid base, and then I'll just reword it, change some words without changing the meaning or intent to say the same thing in perhaps a little bit more concise manner.
07:32So I worked through the book of Luke, and it was a challenge, but it was also kind of enjoyable as well because I felt like I was working with my dad on something, right?
07:42It was me and God working on this.
07:43I'd get frustrated, say, how do I word this?
07:46What am I supposed to do here?
07:47Inevitably, he would lead me to another version of the Bible or a commentary or something else that would help me to get an understanding of what was being said and what I needed to communicate.
07:59So I finished the book of Luke, put it up on Audible and Amazon, and I thought, okay, good, glad that's done.
08:06It was enjoyable, but I'm happy to be through it.
08:08And then the Holy Spirit, after not too long, seemed to kind of prompt me, you know, Acts is really the book of Luke part two.
08:16You really need to tell more of the story than just leaving them hanging at the book of Luke.
08:20So I thought, okay, I'll do the book of Acts.
08:23And so I sat down, worked on it for a good while, did the book of Acts, got done with it, thought, whew, glad that's done.
08:31It wasn't too much longer before I got a prompting in my spirit.
08:35The book of Romans is really good, a lot of good theology in Romans.
08:39And so I did the book of Romans.
08:41And long story short, I finished the entire New Testament.
08:46And the whole time I'm doing this, Joseph, I'm thinking, God, we don't need another version of the Bible.
08:51There's a hundred translations out there.
08:53Why do we need one more?
08:54It's just not necessary.
08:55And I would complain and kind of say that in my mind, but yet still being obedient to the work I felt called to and doing it.
09:02And I think one time God just kind of got a little tired of me complaining.
09:06And he seemed to speak gently to my spirit.
09:09Why don't you let me decide what's necessary and what's not?
09:13And I thought, okay, all right, I'll do it.
09:16The rub, of course, is the rewording and the intent.
09:23I trust your intent is good, but people are going to have suspicions.
09:28And I will be skeptical and suspicious, and we should be.
09:34I'm skeptical and suspicious of King James.
09:39What was his real motivation?
09:41His own, don't look at what's going on in my royal castle.
09:48Look what I'm going to give you.
09:51And how much translation, transversions, and rewordings to something else is in that even compared to all the others.
10:02Unless if we read original Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, we can't personally read it and translate it verbatim ourselves.
10:17So we rely on others, and indeed others, humans.
10:22It's why we have so many versions of the Bible.
10:25Jesus didn't say, go forth and create a billion denominations in my name.
10:33No, he didn't say that.
10:34He didn't tell us to do that.
10:36We frail, flawed, messed up humans did that.
10:42And for a while, Catholics and Protestants, literally.
10:47I have a book I'm currently calling Project Carpe Diem, hopefully, knock on wood, right?
10:56My sixth international book.
10:58And I go into that in the book, too.
11:01Jesus didn't say to do that.
11:02We did that.
11:03Literally, Protestants and Catholics in England were literally maiming, killing, murdering, slaughtering,
11:13you know, screaming, and yelling, and calling each other all kinds of names in and out of the book
11:20that even weren't invented at the time over minor scriptural doctrine differences.
11:28Jesus didn't do that.
11:30God didn't do that.
11:31We did that.
11:33Yeah, absolutely.
11:35You know, it never ceases to amaze me that Jesus trusted us with the task of bringing his message to the world.
11:41If I was Jesus, I would have thought, what do I need to do?
11:45I need to sit down and write all this out for them so that they will have a clear understanding.
11:50They're going to screw it up.
11:52He did not do that, though.
11:54And we did.
11:56We screwed it up.
11:57Yes.
11:58That's why this is the Christitutionalist show, not the Catholicitutionalists or the Baptistitutionalists
12:05or the Methoditutionalists or the Presbyterianitutionalists, all the Bible in full context
12:14of trying to focus on the things we can agree on rather than going to war at each other
12:20because Satan wins when we do that with each other rather than Christ winning, yes?
12:27Absolutely.
12:27He came to steal, kill, and destroy, right?
12:30And if he can destroy, then he wins.
12:32When we come together in unity, there is power, right, in that.
12:35And it's a force that can't be stopped because we've got Jesus on our side and we're working with one another.
12:41So anything he can do to disrupt that plan, of course, he wants to do.
12:46And we know how it ends.
12:48Exactly.
12:49We know how it ends.
12:50We know we win.
12:51But in the meantime, again, we keep screwing things up down here.
12:58And I immediately thought that, like, I love Lee Greenwood and the song God Bless the USA.
13:06Great song.
13:07Love him.
13:08Love that song.
13:10But when Trump helped him brand the God Bless the USA Bible, I've got an article on Before
13:17It's News about it, immediately skeptical.
13:21Whoa, whoa, whoa.
13:24It's really just a rebranding of a King James version with a different cover on it
13:31and our founding documents in the beginning and the end and stuff.
13:35So I've lightened up on my criticism of it.
13:41But in a way, I think you can understand my concern for that,
13:46just as I am concerned about your EUR Bible.
13:50Yeah.
13:51And really, I was probably the most concerned, right?
13:54I told God, I'm not a Bible scholar.
13:57I haven't been to seminary.
13:58I am not a PhD in this.
14:00And sure, I've taken a couple of seminary classes,
14:02but I feel in no way qualified to do this task.
14:06And he seemed to remind me that, yeah, the first guys that I called weren't very qualified either.
14:11Yeah, you could say that again.
14:16Well, as the saying goes, God has a way of using us frail, flawed, and imperfect people
14:24to sometimes accomplish some tasks.
14:28And in the meantime, our free will sometimes gets in the way and we screw things up.
14:33But if we're indeed a vessel of his peace and then follow the instructions we're supposed to be,
14:41rather than that little devil on the shoulder that might pop up from time to time, right?
14:47Don't listen to him or her or it or whatever.
14:51Right? Yeah, I think you and I are on this.
14:56And again, like I said in the green room before I hit record,
15:00all I knew about you was your name and that you did the EUR Bible.
15:06And that's all I wanted to know.
15:08I don't script my shows.
15:10I don't want to know a lot about the guests.
15:12I bring you on and whatever rabbit holes open, we go down.
15:17Love it.
15:18Yep.
15:18Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
15:23God just always seems to get his way in the end, right?
15:27I went kicking and screaming into this.
15:28Hadn't had any intention of making a new version of the Bible.
15:31If you would have told me five years ago,
15:33hey, you're going to create a new version of the Bible,
15:35I would have thought, you are insane.
15:36There's no way I'm doing that.
15:38But here, four years of labor later, and we're done.
15:42Yeah, I'm on my sixth international book.
15:45And two of them are related to the show.
15:50I felt called to do this.
15:52I don't need this hassle.
15:54I don't need these headaches.
15:56I don't need the stress it causes me keeping me up some nights.
16:01But here I am because I do feel called that I'm supposed to be here doing this,
16:07talking with people like you.
16:10And the other thing is why I don't script and I don't like to know much about the guests.
16:14I'm a lazy human.
16:18I freely admit it.
16:20I don't want to do five hours of research on who the heck is this Dan Parr guy
16:26so I learn everything about him and can formulate a bunch of questions.
16:30No!
16:31Wing it by the seat of my pants.
16:34Let the Holy Spirit lead.
16:35The wind blows wherever it wants.
16:37You don't know where it's coming.
16:38You don't know where it's going to go.
16:39You just follow it.
16:40Amen.
16:41Absolutely.
16:42Absolutely.
16:43Do you have other projects going on or are you thinking of doing a podcast
16:52or are you doing more audible readings?
16:57So right now my focus is really just getting the word out about this new version.
17:01I spent four years creating it and I've not done really any advertising for it.
17:05I've just come on a few podcasts and talk to people about it
17:08and we'll see what God does for that.
17:10But I do have a heart for Gen Z and I have a son who's Gen Z and I see the things that they're facing
17:16and I've been working slowly on a devotional walking through a dad's words to Gen Z
17:24walking through the Bible in a year with 365 devotionals.
17:28Now, when I started it, 365 didn't seem like it was going to be a lot to do.
17:32So as I started going through it now, well into it, 365 is a lot.
17:38So it's taken me a while to do that.
17:40When you said the Gen Z thing, I call it today's Twitter attention span.
17:46It's like, okay, so you're going to do the Bible one tweet at a time.
17:50How long would that take, right?
17:56Yeah, right.
17:56But literally, they're literally tweet-sized scriptures that you could do in a row in an order
18:04and no one would need to, being a former IT guy, somebody should do that.
18:10And there are various religious bots that seem to tweet random scriptures and whatnot
18:18rather than do a formal structured thing.
18:22So now you're saying a daily devotional.
18:25I'm envisioning a calendar, a word-a-day type calendar, a scripture-a-day type calendar.
18:33You know, that might be my next project.
18:36That's not a bad thought, right?
18:37A calendar to come out.
18:39But yeah, we'll see where God leads.
18:42Right now, I feel called to do this and get the word out.
18:45And as I have time, I'll work on that.
18:48You know, if it's something he wants me to do, I am certain he has his way of getting
18:52his point across and I'll do it.
18:54But slowly but surely, it's coming forth.
18:57So now, obviously, I'd normally wait till the end.
19:01But at the same token, if I could keep a show short, I will.
19:05Again, today's Twitter attention span.
19:08The shorter the show, the more likely more people will actually listen to it or tune into
19:14BitChute, Brighteon, Dailymotion in France, Rumble, or YouTube to see the behind-the-scenes
19:21video.
19:22Some shows, you know, there's more visuals and they need to see the video rather than listen.
19:28And I take it this will be one that will be fine heard on any of the 25-plus audio platforms
19:35this show has carried.
19:37But now that I rambled like that, I lost track of where I was going to go with that.
19:42But oh, no.
19:42So yeah, and on Amazon, where is, where can it be found?
19:48I may as well ask, do you have a website?
19:52Yeah, primarily I'm on Audible and Amazon.
19:54So if they go and search Dan Parr or EUR Bible, if they put that in Audible or Amazon, everything
20:00I've done should pop up for them right there.
20:03Okay.
20:04So do you have official author page on Amazon.com?
20:09Because it is a book.
20:10Are you selling the EUR actually through Amazon?
20:15Yes.
20:16Yeah, absolutely.
20:17And, you know, as I did this, Joseph, I did the book of Luke first, right?
20:22So I released it single, as a single.
20:25And then I did Acts, and I released it as a single.
20:27And then I compiled them and put them together.
20:28So if somebody just wants to get a sample, they don't want to listen to the whole Bible.
20:32If they want to do a deep dive Bible study on, like, you know, the book of Hebrews, they
20:36can buy just the book of Hebrews and listen to that.
20:38So it's available as a compilation, as the entire Bible, as a chronological version is
20:44out there.
20:44There's also a Bible in a year that's out there.
20:47And the regular Bible, Genesis to Revelation, all 66 books available for them as well.
20:53Yeah.
20:53You're a typical rock star today, right?
20:57Put out a couple singles to get interest before you drop the actual full album.
21:02There you go.
21:02I wish I was that smart to think of that.
21:05It just kind of happened that way.
21:08Now, so you don't have easy to understand and read Bible.org or EUR.org or anything like
21:17that yet?
21:18That's probably a good idea.
21:20And I should do that.
21:21I'm just not that tech savvy and haven't done it.
21:23I, a former IT guy, I highly recommend Wix, W-I-X.com.
21:31Okay.
21:31Easy, you know, WYSIWYG.
21:34You log in, of course, you pay.
21:37And you can then use a template and it will help you build the website because it doesn't
21:45sound like you need anything overly complex or complicated just so that you can have the
21:53domain.
21:54And you may just want to go with EUR.org or EUR.info, like one of my books, Terror Strikes
22:02coming soon to a city near you, is through Wix to build the website, terrorstrikes.info.
22:09So you could do EUR.info.
22:13You better register that quick before this airs though so somebody doesn't steal it on
22:18you.
22:18Good idea.
22:21So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy nowadays, right?
22:25We're so many years into technology.
22:28Some people use WordPress.
22:31To me, that's overly complicated and complex.
22:35And an average, heck, you said you have Gen Zers in the family.
22:42They could probably put you up a Wix site in a half a day.
22:46Probably.
22:48No problem.
22:49I take a couple pictures of you, screenshots of this and that and the other thing, and
22:55bam, it'll be there.
22:56It's pretty simple nowadays.
22:58So, at any rate, I think I'm up to five of those now.
23:05Indeed, we've kind of played that through.
23:10What else have you got going on, or should we just go ahead and wrap it up short and
23:16sweet?
23:17I wish I had more to tell you, but primarily just doing all 66 books of the Bible has
23:22kept my plate full for a good while.
23:24So, after four years of working on it, I'm just now out there telling people about it,
23:33that it exists for them to sample and listen if they'd like.
23:36Yes.
23:37Well, okay.
23:38So, thank you, Dan Parr, for coming on the Christitutionalist Politics Podcast.
23:44I'm glad I came across you just for behind-the-scenes people's knowledge on Podmatch.
23:52It's one of the many services that podcasters, and I invented the term podcasters, like you.
24:02Well, a podcastee would be like the listener, but podcasters and guests can come together
24:08through.
24:09And I'm sure glad Podmatch happened to match us as a good fit between show and guest.
24:17And I really think it was.
24:19It was very enjoyable talking to you.
24:21My pleasure, Joseph.
24:22Thanks so much for allowing me to come and tell people about it.
24:25Take care.
24:26God bless.
24:27God bless.
24:27Thank you for having tuned in for Christitutionalist Politics Show.
24:33If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror Strikes,
24:40coming soon to a city near you.
24:43Available anywhere books are sold.
24:45If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you.
24:51And let me remind, over time, the fancy high production items will come.
24:56But for now, for starters, it's just you as a very appreciated listener by me.
25:04All subjects, no flow, just straight to Key Discussion Points, a show that looks at a variety
25:11of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian U.S. constitutionalist lens.
25:18So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
25:21Take care.
25:22God bless.
25:23Like, and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast, and share episodes.
25:31We need your help.
25:32God bless.
25:33Good night.
25:34We're here.
25:35Have a great day.
25:36We're here.
25:37We'll see you next time.
25:38We'll see you next time.
25:39Bye.
25:40Bye.
25:41Bye.
25:42Bye.
25:43Bye.
25:44Bye.
25:45Bye.
25:48Bye.
25:50Bye.
25:52Bye.
25:54Bye.
25:55Bye.
25:56Bye.
25:58Bye.
25:59Bye.
26:00Bye.
26:01In the heart of Yandert, he rose from the ashes
26:12With a voice like thunder, that no one can clash with
26:26Born in the summer of 62
26:30A warrior's spirit, strong and true
26:34With a pen as his sword and ideas ablaze
26:38In the battle for truth, he's setting the stage
26:42Joseph Eleanor, hear the call of the brave
26:48Fighting for liberty, our rights to save
26:53From the shadows of doubt, he's riding away
26:58With honor and integrity, he'll never sway
27:02In the realm of fiction, he weaves his art
27:14A political thriller that tears you apart
27:18Terror strikes echo, a warning to heed
27:21In a world of chaos, he grants deceit
27:25Cancer came knocking, but he stood tall
27:29A survivor's spirit, and ready to fall
27:33Joseph Eleanor, hear the call of the brave
27:37Fighting for liberty, our rights to save
27:43From the shadows of doubt, he's flying away
27:49With honor and integrity, he'll never sway
27:53Oh, the bad casserole and his voice rings clear
27:57In a symphony of truth, we gather near
28:01Defending the constitution, he leads the crowd
28:05In the name of freedom, he stands tall
28:07In the name of freedom, he stands tall
28:09So raise up your voice, let this anthem ignite
28:27For Joseph Eleanor, let's stand and unite
28:29For Joseph Eleanor, let's stand and unite
28:39For Joseph Eleanor, let this anthem
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