And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers."---Matthew 21:12-13.
Unfair, unfair, I know. Churches need to pay the heating bill and put on new roofs, and the sale was held in the church hall not in the church itself. Besides, I'll bet every other member of the congregation and the minister made a joke alluding to the story of Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple. But this gives me a good lead in to directing you to a post by Kevin at Preemptive Karma.
Any adults who made the joke in front of their teenage kids were likely met with stares blanker than the usual blank stares with which teenagers signal their disapproval of their parents' attempts to be funny.
Kids just don't know their Bible and this is of concern to...English teachers.
Apparently a survey last spring found that 90% of English teachers believe that Biblical knowledge is necessary for a good education. Not sectarian knowledge, though. Rather, they point to a wide range of subjects ranging from Shakespeare's 1,300 biblical references to how the Bible shaped President Lincoln's perspective as President to the historical African-American experience and musical traditions as reasons why students need to have at least some academic grasp of what is in the Bible.
Back when I used to teach intro to lit courses, in Indiana, to mostly conservative Christian college students who swore they attended church on Sundays and had gone to Sunday school when they were kids, I ran into this problem constantly.
We'd be discussing a poem or a story or a play and the students would be missing the obvious, or the what to me was the obvious, because they did not recognize the Biblical allusion, quote, or direct reference.
It's a challenge, teaching Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur and when while discussing how Arthur was born you ask a roomful of students to see the parallels between that story and the story of David and Bathsheba and discover that no one has heard the story of David and Bathsheba.
Try teaching Steinbeck's East of Eden to students who don't know the story of Cain and Abel or Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon to students who've never read Solomon's Song of Solomon.
The only solution to this is to make the Bible another textbook on the reading list, either required or recommended and for professors to resign themselves to teaching Bible stories as part of the course when the need arises. This can be fun.
But what if students arrived at college already chaptered and versed in the Bible?
(To which some jaded academics might reply, what if they arrived already knowing how to read and write at the college level?)
From time to time, somebody somewhere makes a stab at getting the Bible introduced into the high school curriculum and teaching it to students the way they're taught other classic works of literature. After all, they read Homer, and the Book of Job is as poetic and as fundamental a story as the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Of course, for most Americans, the Book of Job, and all the other books of the Bible, aren't like Homer. They aren't a collection of myths, fairy tales, poems, and Just-so stories. They are the living basis of their religion. Asking the non-Christian kids in your class to read the stories in the Gospels as simply stories is problematic because they know that all the Christian kids around them aren't reading those stories simply as stories. And if the Christian kids in the class don't object to deconstructing the Nativity as another myth of the hero's birth, a la Joseph Campbell, some of their parents are going to raise holy hell over the assignment.
For extra credit: Compare and the contrast the births of Jesus, Hercules, Superman, and Luke Skywalker.
If having the Bible in the public school classroom doesn't raise a separataion of church and state issue on its own, plenty of people in the school district will raise it anyway.
But according to this story Kevin links to from the Christian Science Montior:
Help may be on the way. The Bible Literacy Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group in Fairfax, Va., has spent five years developing the first high school text on the Bible in 30 years. The project involved scholars and reviewers from all major Jewish and Christian traditions....
The new textbook "treats faith perspectives with respect, and ... informs and instructs, but does not promote religion," says Chuck Stetson, the Project's founder and chairman.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Others express concern: "I don't think the Constitution prohibits the use of this textbook, but I have real doubts about the wisdom of this approach," says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "At this time in America, it's better to simply talk about religious influences when they come up during the study of literature, art, and history, and not take the text of one religious tradition and treat it with special deference."
Mr. Lynn also worries that individual teachers might go beyond the text itself and "spin it in ways that may well violate the Constitution."
On the other hand:
More than 40 years ago, the United States Supreme Court said (in School District of Abingdon Twp. v. Schemp) that it was appropriate to teach about the Bible as long as it "is presented objectively as part of a secular program of education." Still, some courses given in schools have veered into sectarian territory.
"Some of the courses I've encountered around the country over 20 years would not pass muster in a court of law," says Charles Haynes of Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center. "They're closer to Sunday School than legitimate academic courses."
He sees the new textbook as important "because it's constitutional and educationally sound, and may provide a safe harbor for public schools."
At least one teacher who's tried out the new textbook is thrilled:
"Students love the material - it's beautiful," says Joan Spence, a language-arts teacher in Battle Ground, Wash. "It is formatted like other textbooks, and puts them in the English-class mindset. They don't have the temptation to wander off into a Sunday School frame of mind."
Ms. Spence taught a Bible literature course for two years before having access to the textbook, and says she appreciates its "wealth of connections to art, poetry, music - the artists who have created out of inspiration from the Bible."
Once upon a time, and it wasn't all that long ago, a couple of generations at most, such a textbook, and such a subject, wouldn't have been necessary, and not because public schools were allowed to mention God and children began the day with a prayer.
The Bible, the King James Version, was the most popular book of literature. If families had a book in their home, that was the book, and they taught their children, and themselves, to read from it. Of course they read it religiously. But they also read it to entertain themselves. If they had two books, the other was very likely a collected works of Shakespeare or an anthology of poetry. The Bible got tangled up with the poetry and the drama and it's no wonder it was a source of inspiration, reference, allusion, and imagery for so many poets and writers who had no use for its religion.
Times change, people change, literature and popular culture change. But it's always struck me as strange that in such a Bible-thumping, God-bothering country as this one, so many of us never learn who Ahab was, the original Ahab, who did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings before him, until we first sit down with a copy of Moby Dick or hear the story of Absolam, Amnon, and Tamar until we read Faulkner.
Ecellent point. Although I do not spend much time in churches these days, I do find that the time I spent studying the Bible as a child in parochial school has indeed helped me in various other studies. I have had this discussion many times with a well-read friend who has no working knowledge of the Bible. She had to ask whether the flood came in the Old or New Testement. She also had no idea that the name of one of Lyle Lovitt's CD's was a play on words from the books of the Bible... "Joshua Judges Ruth". Those were instances that did indeed make me wonder if one doesn't at least need a superficial working knowledge of the Bible...it's stories, lessons, etc. I also wonder if my kids won't be in the same boat as my friend since they are not getting the same education I did. Hopefully they won't amass the same baggage I did, but they also won't have the same working knowledge... It does seem to me that there should be a way to include the stories of the Bible (sans the dogma)into a literature class.
Posted by: Jennifer | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 11:54 AM
I plead guilty to often not knowing the source of familiar phrases. I often misattribute them to Bill S. when it should be the Bible. However, in these days of Google, I lean toward looking them up to be sure I've sourced things correctly, so I discover my error.
When I first read that marquee I said "You can't sell the Treasurer! That's illegal!" It's hell being a literalist.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 02:28 PM
Hi Lance,
I just couldn't miss out on this. But as an alum of the same High School as you... In 10th grade at the same public school we actually studied the King James Bible as literature. I do remember the parents having to sign a permission slip. And a couple of interesting discussions resulting but we all did have a better idea of the allusions to Biblical Works.
Posted by: Shem | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 02:34 PM
Here's another good reason for Bible-thumping Americans not to object to reading the Bible in school: THEY haven't read it yet.
Bill Moyers often cites a survey (forgive my sloppy scholarship, but I can't remember who sponsored the survey -- you can look it up, though -- I'm too tired) whose results show that more than 40% of Americans believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is from the Bible. It's from Ben Franklin, and he apparently spoke it with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
I'm not really criticizing people who haven't read the Bible, though. I was raised Catholic and went to parochial school. Unlike Jennifer, though, we didn't read the Bible. I didn't think we were allowed to read it. It was read TO us, in carefully selected, out-of-context segments depending on the time of year in the Church calendar. And then the priest told us what we had just heard.
When I was in high school, the English department decided that we would study the Bible "as literature." Everyone got a permission slip to take home to their parents. Supposedly if any parents objected, for any reason, to reading the Bible (either because they didn't want their kids viewing it "as literature" or because it was "the Bible"), that kid would be excused from class. I don't remember the English class emptying out. In fact, I don't remember anyone, save those who normally skipped the class or who were sick, failing to show up.
Anyway, that unit in English was the first time I became aware of the fact that the Gospels actually tell a story in narrative form, complete with transitions, and that the Book of Job is a dialectic.
Incidentally, another tid bit from the survey: 60% of Americans still believe (I say still because this seems to be a prevailing believe throughout history) that the world will end in their lifetimes, that it will end in something called "the rapture," and that, of course, they will be part of that.
They never read the passage from the Bible in which Jesus says, "You know not the day nor the hour."
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 03:17 PM
I was raised as a Lutheran and we definitely read the Bible, discussed it, memorized it, etc. I always assumed everybody who went to a parochial school did the same. My husband was raised as a Catholic and said that reading was indeed NOT allowed. He, too, said something similar to the above comment about it being read to him and then being told what it meant. He always figured the nuns and priests didn't want people reading it because then they might make their own assumptions and thus gain some control in the matter.
Posted by: Jennifer | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 04:22 PM
Jennifer,
This is exactly the reason. And it isn't even an ulterior reason. Back in the Middle Ages, when almost all of the rabble was illiterate (and the scripture was in Greek or Latin anyway), monasteries were the keeper of the keys to the ark. The Catholic church decided that it was best to spoonfeed the word of God to the people.
At that time, there was a lot of mysticism in church rituals, and mystery too. The transubstantiaton of the eucharist took place behind a rood screen, sort of a huge trellis between the altar and the pews that allowed people to sort of see, but not really.
Pope John XXXIII fixed a lot of that in the Vatican Council, but not all of it obviously.
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 05:39 PM
And, mac, the priest didn't face the congregation until Vatican II, either. Neither did we altar boys.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 06:08 PM
Pardon my Catholic ignorance, but if I recall, a Catholic couldn't even pray directly to God, isn't that right? I guess the priest was acting as the rood screen between the parishoner and God.
Posted by: Jennifer | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 06:21 PM
Jennifer, I don't think that's quite accurate, but I'll defer to mac. I know I spent a lot of time after confession saying a lot of Our Fathers and Hail Marys to somebody. ;)
Posted by: Linkmeister | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 07:25 PM
I think what I was recalling was the Catholic practice of praying to saints or to Mary in addition to God. Rememeber, I was raised as a Lutheran and Lutherans were all about separating from certain Catholic practices. It was pointed out to me that you do indeed pray directly to God hence the Our Father.
Okay, here's one I can't remember since confirmation was quite a long time ago... Catholics tend to end the Our Father rather abruptly, but the Lutheran Our Father has a couple of lines tagged on the end... does anyone remember why?
I have to say, I am glad I never had to go to confession, not that confession was never needed...
Posted by: Jennifer | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 08:11 PM
Man, I have GOT to write my Megillat Vashti comic book story. Looks like there's a market out there more than ripe for decent Bible stories...
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 08:19 PM
Lance,
Thanks for the linkage and for the comment at PK.
Your observations about the relative Biblical ignorance by students who attend church regularly is a very telling sign of the times. One that Carla and I have discussed, privately, many times.
Carla was raised in a devoutly conservative Baptist tradition while I was raised in a devoutly conservative Seventh Day Adventist tradition. Adventists spring out of the exact same American Protestant tradition, having had an ex-Baptist minister among it's founders. In fact the first Adventists worshipped on Sunday until a chance meeting with some Seventh Day Baptists irrevocably changed their theological perspective. But, somewhere along the line the traditions veered in very different directions. Carla was taught to never ever question, much less challenge, anything that their minister said. Whereas I was taught to think and examine. Never once did my parents even hint that sincere questions were out of line in any way.
Obviously, an environment where questions are not tolerated isn't exactly conducive to learning.
That said... I must confess that my own knowledge of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was relatively shallow until well into my adult years. But, even as a young student I knew the story of Cain and Abel, having heard it many times growing up. I may have been unsure exactly who Ahab was, but I knew exactly who Jezebel was. Song of Solomen, of course, wasn't widely talked about. But, I suspect that had everything to do with the embarassing reference to breasts like twin Gazelles and all... It was, after all, a socially conservative upbringing. Absolom I knew about, but not the other two men you list. David and Bathsheba was also very familiar to me too.
That having been said... I will note that my Old Testament knowledge had as much or more to do with my parents than it did anything I learned in church or in the parochial SDA schools I attended. My dad used to read to us boys when we were kids. Our family worship for several years when I was in grade school consisted of him reading OT stories out of a Living translation of the Bible, which is infinitely more readable than King James. I remember it being an hour of riviting stories from the Joshua thru 2 Chronicles portion of the OT and we routinely begged him to read one more chapter when he announced that family worship was done for the evening. The family prayer and all that was stuff that I didn't care much about. But, the stories were fascinating to listen to.
Posted by: Kevin | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 10:47 PM
My mother made me read "Illustrated Bible Stories for Children" so I can have some idea about what on Earth is in that book. She fed me Shakepseare for the same reason. I never really wanted to read the real Bible so I never did. Yet I did much better on that survey than many Americans who call themselves Christian.
Sometimes I think that the "socially religious" people understand the Bible better than the fundies. Does that have something to do with children's rebellion against the parents?
Posted by: coturnix | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 11:10 PM
...and funny, but I have linked to the very same Kevin's post earlier today.
Posted by: coturnix | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 11:10 PM
Jennifer and Link,
I don't pretend to be an expert on all things Vatican, but this is an odd misunderstanding so many protestants seem to have heard about Catholics praying TO saints.
Catholics pray to God. period. Catholics also pray to God THROUGH the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the Son of God. Catholics may also -- but they don't have to -- pray to God through saints, some of whom are believed to have pretty powerful influence (e.g, St. Anthony as the patron saint of lost items -- btw, I can't demonstrate any of my experiences with him scientifically, but many a lost key has been found after soliciting his help. For really HOPELESSLY lost items or causes, pray to St. Jude).
But no one prays TO a saint. Something to think about: Does St. Peter also pray to St. Anthony when he misplaces the keys to the gates of heaven, or does he just walk over and see him?...
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 11:38 PM
mac,
The Bible in the middle ages was indeed kept "locked" but that was not to keep it from the faithful. It was kept locked because they were so fiancially expensive and vulnerable to theft. Since the officially recognized translation of the Bible was the Vulgate the Catholic Church frowned on people not reading the Vulgate. That was passed down to school children as a fear of "reading" the bible. After Vatican II affirmed that all translations based on the original texts then the reading of the Bible became more common. At my Catholic school, during the early seventies, we were reading the bible as early as third and fourth grade. Much to the dismay of the good Sister who had to deal with our fourth grade about a passage we found in Revelations. ;-)
P.S. St. Peter wouldn't pray or go over to Anthony since as any good Pope he would send a Papal Delegate. And a close reading of the gospels would show that to person to be St. Andrew, his younger brother. (typical )
Posted by: Shem | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 12:31 AM
When I was in public school as a kid, they read us Bible stories, but mostly they were from the Gospels and whether or not the same was done in other schools I don't know. But I do know that even in my generation, and the generations before me, there were and are plenty of people who were completely unfamiliar with the contents of most of the Bible, and that includes those people who run around quoting the Bible when they censure the rest of us. (I quote Jesus to missionaries and theys say things like, "Where did he say that? - because they've never read the damn thing through.)
I happen to have had a better education in the book than most people, perhaps because I just liked to read and spent two years in a school that had a remarkably tiny library, so there wasn't much to read. But my god that book is full of weird stuff. If it hadn't been The Bible, I sincerely doubt the adults around me would have let any kid anywhere near it. Sex, violence, and a god who often seems quite mad.
I can't remember now whether it was Fallwell or Robertson who talked about building the Tower of Babel as if it was something God wanted people to do, and they should try to do again, but it's kind of typical - they take for granted that the only Bibilical passages you know are the ones they repeat to you, and thus you don't know the context and they can say anything they want. Just like, as long as I can remember, I've heard people refer to the story of Onan as a condemnation of masturbation rather than what it's actually about. I don't believe there was ever a time when a whole generation really knew the Bible, and I don't think we're going to see one any time soon, either.
Posted by: Avedon | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 10:22 AM
As a writer, I can testify that the bible is a rich source of imagery, metaphor and analogy. Why, the first scene I ever wrote had as an analogy the money changers at the temple scene. And you can bet I mined it for all it was worth.
Where would we be without the gospels?
Posted by: KathyF | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 12:04 PM
I wonder if you compared the "sins" of the current administration vs. their good deeds, which catagory would have more comparisons with Biblical stories. I am guessing the former. I know it has been mentioned before, but it does indeed seem like we are due for a deluge of frogs or locusts.
Posted by: Jennifer | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 12:27 PM
I am glad that you specifically mentioned the King James version, an incomparably beautiful work of literature. The American Standard version, or whatever you usually encounter in a Protestant church these days, is a poor substitute indeed, even if the translation is supposedly more accurate. I can still remember when, as a teenager, I opened a new Bible edition and found the opening line of the 23rd Psalm rendered as:
"Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need!"
Yes, that abominable exclamation point was in there, too. It was like trading in Mozart for a kazoo quartet.
Posted by: Campaspe | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 01:35 PM
"It was like trading in Mozart for a kazoo quartet."
Now there's an image. What would Schroeder say? ;)
Jennifer, the Catholics don't (or didn't) use the "for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" phrase at the end of the Our Father.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 01:56 PM
I read most of the Old Testament at age 16, in a beautiful modern translation from either Cambridge or Oxford University that I'd gotten out of a public library in Lake Tahoe. The reason for "most" and not "all" is that I finally found myself seriously revolted by the narratives, which are essentially one ugly revenge tale after another under the eye of a pretty, vengeful God. Under any kind of close inspection, the Judeo-Christian tradition is nothing to be proud of.
Posted by: sfmike | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 02:23 PM
That should be "petty, vengeful God" above, though I rather like "pretty, vengeful" as a typo.
Posted by: sfmike | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 02:25 PM
As Kevin mentioned, I was brought up in a strict, conservative Baptist enviornment. Perhaps Baptists are outside the norm of other mainstream Christian sects, but every Sunday and Wednesday were spent learning stories and parables from the Bible. These memories are some of my earliest.
I can remember sitting in my Civics class in high school, talking about the structure of Rome in Biblical times..with most all of my classmates having reasonable knowledge of the topic. Of course I grew up in a very small, conservative, Eastern Oregon town. Most everyone attended some sort of Christian church. I also remember my high school English teacher talking to us about East of Eden..all of us riveted to the analogies of Genesis.
Heh. Maybe I got a better public school education than I thought.
Posted by: carla | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 03:23 PM
Phew, Campaspe, that is some bad literature there! I've never come across the American Standard Bible. I always thought that was the brand for a toilet.
No one around me really worried about the Bible. I'm an Episcopalian.
Posted by: Pepper | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 05:45 PM
Our Host: Really, Luke's birth (villainous flesh & blood father, mother who dies in childbirth) is mythic, but not really a strong version of the hero's birth. Now, ANAKIN'S birth -- born to an unwed woman, in a desert town, found by three travelers from abroad -- is an interesting comparison topic.
Elayne Riggs: Frankly, I think Megillat Esther would work remarkably as a shoujo manga, and have started preliminary work on a version as such (we have character designs!).
Posted by: BSD | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 06:37 PM
Where to start? Maybe by saying School District of Abingdon Twp. v. Shemp was rigged. Ask Moe.
Sorry, but this is all too much. I was raised Catholic, did time in parochial school, don't believe any of it, and wouldn't raise my kids in any religion.
But the Bible (esp. the King James version) is a cornerstone of Western lit. Whether you want it to be or not, it simply is. I honestly think any well read person should know the usual stories and understand the attendant allusions.
The problem surfaces when you dare point out these quaint verses are mythological (or benignly treat them as such) - same as the Greek and Roman myths, Native American stories, and related materials - and the hardcore aren't satisfied with that.
Despite the fact that public ed has to please a lot of people and cover a lot of bases, religious conservatives aren't happy with how "their" material is represented unless it's done their way (i.e. proselytizing). When others don't want to do that, well, then they're "unwilling" to welcome the Bible into classrooms.
Posted by: Kevin Wolf | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 07:23 PM
I once had a series of conversations with a minister friend, whom I respected a lot and who I think had a refreshingly straightforward interpretation of the Bible, from beginning to end.
He held that as we now have the Bible in its entirety, it's not correct to read only verses, chapters, or even individual books and draw conclusions. The Bible is the story of humanity's fall from grace, AND our working our way back toward God, getting to know the divine nature all over again.
It isn't until you get all the way through to the Book of Revelations, my friend said, that you can say you've, as Milton said, "justified God's ways to man."
We can imagine that to an essentially pre-literate, early-history collection of slaves and reluctant followers of Moses, there might be the tendency to believe that the nature of the universe, and therefore of its creator, is unpredictable and irrational. They then believe they are chosen by God, and so it's fairly easy to understand that they might interpret every bad thing that happened to be God's vote either FOR what they were doing, or AGAINST what they were doing.
But that's the very primative, unfamiliar interpretation of what's happening by a culture that has NO IDEA what's happening, my friend said, and it's influenced by being so close to the original fall (my friend interpreted Genesis fairly literally, but whatever the moment in creation's evolution that humanity became more earthly and less divine, would be "the fall").
Following the narrative all the way through the Gospels, and hearing Jesus explain to us that so much of what we thought about God and God's law was just plain wrong, we get an evolving image of the divine. Jesus sets us straight about the fact that God is not a petty, vengeful codger of a judge, doling out endorsements or punishments willy nilly, but a parent, who's searching for signs of our wanting to come home, and rooting for that.
As for reading onward to the book of Revelations, don't even get me started on that. It is NOT a prophecy, and it is NOT literal. Heck, it's not even a story.
Anyway, it's interesting that even in a modern, supposedly Christian country, so many people still see the sour grapes of God's "wrath" in so many events that have nothing to do with God -- other than that they are evidences of the laws of physics.
I heard a piece on NPR just after the middle Asian tsunami about how people were "strugglng" to understand why "God would do such a thing," and coming up with the conclusion that it was his punishment --
(hey, here's a wrinkle in that article -- if we believe that heaven is a much better exisitence than ours here on earth, why would death, by any means, be God's punishment; wouldn't it be his reward -- a "get out of jail free" card?)
Just today I read an article about similar "struggling" following the hurricanes.
Ah, well...I think too much, and no one's going to read this anyway.
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 09:05 PM
Here is the solution to all the problems highlighted on this thread:
Cliff Notes for Christians
Posted by: coturnix | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 09:58 PM
You're another victim of the Baltimore catechism.
Posted by: Roxanne | Sunday, October 02, 2005 at 10:41 PM
mac-
I read it and it's nice to know other people think too much as well.
It seems that in this day and age, people are going back to the fearful intepretations of the Old Testment and are forgetting about the grace that is talked of in the New.
Posted by: Jennifer | Monday, October 03, 2005 at 08:23 AM
Glad to see so many respond. I wrote about the survey in a post called Did Ben Franklin Write Scripture?" Keep up the good work.
Posted by: The Pew Potato | Tuesday, October 04, 2005 at 02:25 PM
A delicious subject!
[I started this last weekend, but attentions went to hell and back, for good reasons. Sorry for the delay.]
My childhood household was divided, in my mind, in three parts - my literal-minded Mom, from a fundie family who knew scripture very thoroughly, and, perhaps osmotically, valued the cadences of the King James Version; my agnostic Dad, who loved the words but probably more the ethical and moral puzzles in the Text (he used to debate them, with my Grandad); and teachers and friends at public school whose perceptions and readings (from a variety of traditions) seeped into my reading of everything else.
Still, it was refreshing to read Daniel and a couple of the Synoptic Gospels absolutely straight my first year in college - maybe not absolutely straight, either (we were reading Nietzsche, Plato and Kierkegaard, too) - but we were being intent and careful about what was on the page. That's going to rankle someone, in the smallest group, and from whatever tradition, and it did.
When I started to read to and to tutor friends' kids, this subject came up in conversation with their parents. How can your kids understand the references in this story or book without knowledge of the religious sources? You don't have to be a believer to recognize how the sacred and profane interpenetrate (or, if you are a believer, how ignoring the legacies of pagan philosophy can put you at a disadvantage). If I were a parent - again, faith-and-tradition neutral, for the sake of argument - I would still want to have scanned the Bible for stories and passages that touched nerves over many centuries - for better and worse, depending on my view of the world. I would also want, perhaps a bit later, to compare translations - King James against, for example, the wonderful Fox translations of the Pentateuch.
One of the most delightful evenings I've ever spent spun out of a question I asked a yeshiva-educated friend about a footnote in Exodus to an opinion of the Sages. He leaned back in luxury and said, "This gives me as much pleasure as you talking about writers!" - and then we went into the exegesis - who was old, who was new in the commentaries, where the problem was, etc.. I don't think anyone who hasn't seen a page of commentary in Hebrew - the subject text in a center block, the commentary, with references to earlier commentaries, surroundng it - can understand the beauty of that conversation, but they should go take a look. It's my principal argument with my fundie forefathers and mothers - any tradition worth its salt is active and encourages inquiry. Nonbelievers, likewise, need to know what they don't believe in order to develop coherent arguments against it, and in that process they may, from my point of view, also absorb the 3rd, 4th, and 5th-hand references that inform things they read everyday. I suspect that a lot of athiests know a lot more Bible than their casual Christian counterparts.
Posted by: grishaxxx | Saturday, October 08, 2005 at 04:33 AM