SIMPLY PUT, THE BIBLE IS THE MOST influential book ever written. Not only is the Bible the best-selling book of all time, it is the best-selling book of the year every year. In a 1992 survey of English teachers to determine the top-10 required "book-length works" in high school English classes, plays by Shakespeare occupied three spots and the Bible none. And yet, let's compare the two: Beauty of language: Shakespeare, by a nose. Depth of subject matter: toss-up. Breadth of subject matter: the Bible. Numbers published, translated etc: Bible. Number of people martyred for: Bible. Number of wars attributed to: Bible. Solace and hope provided to billions: you guessed it. And Shakespeare would almost surely have agreed. According to one estimate, he alludes to Scripture some 1,300 times. As for the rest of literature, when your seventh-grader reads The Old Man and the Sea, a teacher could tick off the references to Christ's Passion--the bleeding of the old man's palms, his stumbles while carrying his mast over his shoulder, his hat cutting his head--but wouldn't the thrill of recognition have been more satisfying on their/own?
If literature doesn't interest you, you also need the Bible to make sense of the ideas and rhetoric that have helped drive U.S. history. "The shining city on the hill"? That's Puritan leader John Winthrop quoting Matthew to describe his settlement's convenantal standing with God. In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln noted sadly that both sides in the Civil War "read the same Bible" to bolster their opposing claims. When Martin Luther King Jr. talked of "Justice rolling down like waters" in his "I Have a Dream" speech, he was consciously enlisting the Old Testament prophet Amos, who first spoke those words. The Bible provided the argot--and theological underpinnings--of women's suffrage and prison-reform movements.
from TIME article 04-02-07 The Case for Teaching the Bible by David Van Biema
I remember Truman once said that reading the Bible was as good as a college education. Times have changed apparently. But I'll go see if NASA will hire me if I tell them I've read the Bible inside and out.
Actually, I favor this idea of teaching the Bible in public schools from an unbiased viewpoint (if such exists). The thinking here is that we are raising a generation of biblical illiterates. It is hard to understand the world without understanding the document that influences practically everything.
The thinking is also that the Constitution did not make the Bible illegal in school, but it made proselytizing illegal. We attempt to persuade people to live according to our beliefs, and that becomes a breech of their civil rights. Public school is meant to be neutral on religion. But it exists in the highly Christianized culture of America, so some want the Christian influence to be legal there. And which Christian influence would be taught: Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Southern Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, Lutheran, Mormon?
But the Bible can be presented objectively and surrendered to discussion. Then the next generation would not be biblical ignoramuses. I say go for it. How can people decide anything about a document they have never read? Bravo for this concept.
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2 comments:
Isn't it odd how it things like the Bible being the number one selling book of all time never get mentioned?
It's also weird that it survived all those centuries with the campaigns to snuff it out. The Bible has come close to extinction before.
And, if you add the Koran, which basically borrows from and builds on the Bible, the Bible's influence is almost totally ubiquitous. And still expanding, like yeast in bread.
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