The Best Place to Teach the Bible
See You in Bible Class says the MSNBC/Newsweek headline on a story that informs us that the state of Georgia has decided that having a Bible class is a critical part of the public school curriculum for their state. They’re going to mandate that it be added. The story is headed by the picture of a woman praying while officials in Odessa, Texas debate a similar proposal. Then from The Lady Speaks (Oh, Here’s a surprise, we have the comment that the Bible is OK in public school, provided that it is in the mythology section of the literature class. And therein lies one of the problems with having a Bible class in public school.
Now let me provide a couple of links. The Newsweek article refers to two different groups that have prepared materials for use as Bible curriculum in public schools. One is the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, which is endorsed by numerous Christian conservatives. There is also a review of their curriculum, done by Mark A. Chancey, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. I strongly recommend reading Dr. Chancey’s review of this curriculum. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but assuming that he has read the material fairly, I would be extremely concerned about some of the content issues he raises. Moderate and liberal Christians need to be careful how they are counted in political issues. Frequently supporters of marginal positions claim the large number of people who are members of Christian churches as a reason to support their very particular Christian position, irrespective of the likelihood that all those people would support such a position.
Alternatively, the Newsweek article mentions the The Bible Literacy Project, which has apparently received some criticism from conservatives. I don’t have any outside review of their material at hand.
Personally, I oppose the use of either of these options in the public school. The Bible, as such, is a faith document. It collects a particular set of literature, known as the canon which is regarded as authoritative by a particular religious community. Not only does this canon differ for Jews and Christians, but it differs substantially amongst Christian groups. Whatever selection of literature you choose to call “The Bible,” on which to offer classes, it will be the faith literature of a particular group, and not be precisely the faith book of another group.
I understand that the courts have ruled that this type of Bible course is legal, though I would note that the material from the National Council on Bible Curriculum could well face significant problems in court. I am not arguing here that having a Bible class in public school is illegal. I’m arguing that it is a bad idea. It is not a good way to advance the appropriate activities and function of government, and it is not a good way to advance the cause of religion. That picture of a lady praying for the action of the school board that heads the Newsweek article troubles me. There was the time that we, as Christians, prayed that the government would leave us alone, and not persecute us, so that we could carry on the work of the gospel. Now we are praying that the government will use the force of law to do our job for us.
The simple fact is that any curriculum on the Bible us such will be religious in nature. It will be perceived as religious. It will function as a religious exercise. In those states that adopt a more liberal curriculum, conservative Christian parents are going to be angry when they find a more liberal approach taken in the curriculum than the one they prefer. In some more conservative areas, the class will become little more than a Bible class based on the views of the dominant group in the area.
I believe that some elements of the Bible can be introduced in public school, and not just in the mythology section of literature class. There is some material in the Bible that belongs in a class studying mythology. But there is also material that could be involved in studying general poetry, history (with proper attention to historiography), and also as an example of religious literature in a comparative sense. This allows various elements of Biblical literature to be used without the government committing itself on the boundaries of the Bible as such.
The Bible as a book of faith should be taught in church, at home, and in private religious schools. If you want the Bible as the basis of your child’s education and you want the Bible integrated into every day in the classroom, private school is your option. You can choose the school according to the curriculum it offers. On the other hand if you support the public school system, as I do, keep your public schools out of these controversies. Use the wonderful Sunday School, Wednesday night, and retreat opportunities to teach your child religion. This will be good for religion, for the quality of public education, and for religious freedom in this country.
The best way to teach the Bible in a school is pretty simple. Have one or two teachers who are schooled in Hebrew/Aramaic and Koine Greek sit down and tell students what the Bible really says. What will happen? The churches will go nuts. Suddenly, the students know God’s real name and it is not Jesus. The Trinity will be exposed as not Biblical. Immortal souls will be revealed to be a part of Greek philosophy. Eternal Hellfire will be doused as there is no evidence in the Bible to support its existence. Religious leaders will probably scream that the students are being turned into Jehovah’s Witnesses because they’ll learn that Christmas is not as scriptual as it was supposed to be. Anti-Bible fanatics don’t have to worry, mainstream religion will kill any objective Bible discussion quicker than they ever could.
I’m hoping you don’t actually think that just because someone reads Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek they will agree on what the Bible says. One can only determine “what the Bible says” with some kind of interpretational paradigm, which is another good reason not to have this done in public school.
But even further, what makes you think that the Bible teachers chosen will fit the criteria you suggest?
Who’s the anti-Bible fanatic? I’m a Bible teacher who fulfills your requirement–I read Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. I just don’t think the public school is the place to settle this.
What the Bible says is what is written there, not what other people think is written there. A person’s interpretation of the Bible can be whatever he or she wants it to be.
There are plenty of people who are schooled in those languages. After all, Koine was the language spoken at the height of the Roman empire. The Greek Scriptures are not the only documents written in it. Aramaic is also a very ancient language. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would enjoy teaching an objective class.
As for who the anti-Bible fanatic is: Don’t take things personal. We both know they exist and they’re the ones screaming all over the net right now.
And people with the appropriate skills disagree on what that is.
But the naivete of stating that “the Bible” (as a whole) says what’s written there is truly astonishing. What’s written where? Which part of the Bible? The Bible as a whole doesn’t say anything specific. Individual writers do. The sense of a general message is a product of interpretation.
And who determines what is “objective?” A whole bunch of individuals with subjective views? The simple fact is that the people with the required skills–reading Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek as you stated–do not agree on what the text “objectively says.
What you’re trying to do is replace one set of subjective views with your particular subjective view.
I’m not particularly taking things personally, any more so than they are. I am saying this class should not be offered in public schools. You describe such people as “anti-Bible fanatics.” All things considered, I think I will take your remark as referring to me. But don’t worry. I’m not offended as I am not concerned with your opinion of me.
I am concerned with making my opposition to this type of class as clear as possible. Now this is personal: Your statements are perfect examples of the reason why I oppose such a class. You actually think that there could be a class that just taught “what the Bible says.” “The Bible” is not a single entity. Its definition varies amongst religious groups. The Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles differ among Christians. There is a much more obvious difference between the Jewish Bible and all Christian Bibles.
Even if one accepts the same canon, the viewpoints of the various writers are not identical. Even something as supposedly simple as teaching what Jesus said becomes complex when you start comparing the four gospels.
To summarize, your idea of “just teaching what the Bible says” would be laughable, if it were not such a perfect example of the very reason such a course should not be prescirbed by the state, any state.
JLW,
“The Trinity will be exposed as not Biblical. ”
Are you delusional? Are you arguing that no scholar who could read Aramaic/Greek/Hebrew has ever supported, as biblical, the view of the trinity as described in the ecumenical councils?
That would seem to be what your certainty implies.
For once you and I agree. I can find scholars competent in Biblical languages to support just about anything, and those who believe the trinity is Biblical are quite numerous.
Are you arguing that no scholar who could read Aramaic/Greek/Hebrew has ever supported, as biblical, the view of the trinity as described in the ecumenical councils?
—-
Not at all. People can believe all they want to. But anyone who has read the Bible cover to cover can tell you that nowhere in the Greek or Hebrew Scriptures is a Trinity ever mentioned.
Unfortunately, that matters little to you people. The actual text of the Bible according to you, is inconsequential. In fact, you, speaking to Heddle here, probably use the Bible the least in your classes. After all, you say the Bible as a whole says nothing specific. I can assume, then, that your class as a whole teaches nothing specific, and your students probably learn as much.
Georgia probably could not do much better. As an avid student of the Bible and Bible based literature, I can tell you that the Bible indeed is a very unique and dynamic book that should be read by every student in the USA regardless of their creed. I’ve firmly believe that since I first read it cover to cover in eighth grade. I didn’t have a vision or a revelation or some born-again experience, but I did find a window into another world. If I looked hard enough, used maps, encyclopedias Vine’s dictionary of Bible words, I understood more about the “why”s and “wherefore”s of many beliefs, Biblical and non-Biblical.
It truly pains me that despite the efforts of myself and others to encourage Bible reading, most people in the USA have little or no knowlege of what the book contains. Georgia wants to try and change that. I say, give it a shot and see what happens. But let’s not beat them down because they are actually trying.
Which is, of course, completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. You suggested that you could somehow find “objective” scholars to teach these classes. You suggested these would be people who could read Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. But when I point out that there are plenty of scholars who fulfill that requirement, but don’t agree with you, you dismiss them.
Thus it’s clear that what you want is not “objective” scholars, which don’t really exist anyhow, but scholars who agree with you. You not only want to force Bible teaching, but you want that teaching to conform to your particular views.
As for the rest of your message, I find it amusing when people who have trouble reading modern English try to tell me how to interpret an ancient document.
JLW,
This concern that suddenly if the “masses/bourgeois” folk had access to “what was actually written” in scripture would cause massive problems is sort of not exactly new. Examine Erasmus and Luther’s career a little and you’ll see what happened then when their new translations caused exactly that worry, but … that was then and this is a new historical time. Free availability of varied translations of the Bible has been out Pandora’s little box once already and a lot of time has passed. You can’t seriously be thinking it would happen all over again.
Or perhaps you insist it would all be different if suddenly we could somehow populate the schools with post-modern scholars trained in a few ancient languages and instructed to teach from the same text.
There is already a cafeteria attitude toward Church-going by very many, I fail to see how, at worst, you’re vision wouldn’t amount more to a denominational shuffle.
Henry,
For myself I’d feel better if the State got it’s grubby hands of any and all curriculum issues entirely. What the State needs (and might pay for with tax dollars) are students who are good at learning. OCLB (or whatever metric/testing criteria) should test the “learning” aptitude and not mastery of particular skills and knowledge sets. Of course, if you let each school set it’s own particular curriculum/methodology you’d have to let parents have the freedom to select which school they send their kids to … which also is a good thing I’d think as well. In that way, if a particular school wanted to teach Aramaic and debate Torah in the same we wouldn’t/shoudn’t care as long as those kids learned to learn to the best of their ability.
Henry, I agree with your position concerning keeping the Bible out of schools, but had a question for you on one of your responses above, namely, “just because someone reads Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek [doesn’t mean] they will agree on what the Bible says.” Are you referring to the disagreements about translating to English (or any language), or about disagreements on what the Bible means? I’m familiar with some translation issues, like the meaning of ‘earth’ with Noah’s Ark and whether the flood was global or local, but are the disputes in translation of such a degree that it would significantly affect the text? I think I get what JLW is getting at as far as trying to present the Bible as a straight read-through and thereby not favor any particular interpretation and I just took your comment to mean even that is not feasible because there isn’t agreement on the words that are in the Bible.
I actually did study the Bible in High School. It was a public High School in Pennsylvania in the 70s, and it was included as one section in a text book surveying western literature. The chapter was called “The Bible as Literature”.
The segment lasted about a week, but I honestly can’t remember which part of the Bible was discussed. What I remember clearly about it was stopping at the piano department in the mall on the way home from school one day. The mall was very very dead, and I sat and played heart and soul on one of the Pianos. The salesman from the store happened to flip through my text book and got a little .. offended is too strong a word .. but he was clearly not pleased that the BIble had been lumped in with Chaucer, Don Quixote, and Jonathon Swift, and was being treated as “literature” rather than as a sacred text. I didn’t linger, he was making me uncomfortable.
I’m not a theist. I myself have no objection now (and had none then) to the segment in the English book. Biblical allusions are very common in great literature and it is nice to know what the heck they are talking about. But obviously the man in the piano store was unhappy about it.
My point here is that there is not going to be any way to teach the Bible to everyone that will not offend =someone=. In my opion, religion, and “what the Bible really says” is a subject best taught in church, and in religious study groups. I think Georgia is making a mistake.
On the other hand, had they taught Aramaic, I would certainly have taken it. Not for the biblical implications, but because it would be the most exotic language available, with a cool alphabet. (I took Russian for that reason, heh).
Dear Friend in Christ,
Greaetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!
I have been going through the studies at your web site, and I am deeply inspired with all of the teachings and studies thereon like Bible studies and other teaching materials on our Web site. This is such a wonderful studies you have arranged for all the nations, in the long run of your service for the nations of the all the world.
I am from Islamic Republic of Pakistan where it is difficult to have Radio and TV channel for preaching purposes. They would not allow us to do that here; the Satan has real strong hold over everything. I often say that we are living in the land of the enemy.
Friend, I humbly request you to expand your outreach your program in Urdu and Punjabi language. Urdu is the language spoken and understood by more than one sixth of the total population of the world. Urdu is spoken in Pakistan , India, Nepal, Afghanistan and also in Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran and others.
I would ask you to pray and share it among the brethren. I would offer my services for being translator, recorder and distribution/sales. I pray that your consideration will have His mark over your decision.
May God bless you abundantly! May His perfect will be done!
Grace and Peace be with you, all brethrens.
Yours brother in Christ,
Asim
Pakistan