It is fascinating to study the Bible no less than the Mahabharata, the Zhuang Zi, etc. If they were serious about it, they could pick a handful [definitely more than a couple, to avoid accusations of bias] of the most important works and work them into an introductory course of a semester or two.
I agree with the rest of your post, but no, it shouldn’t always be stressed that religion has killed the most people in history because it simply isn’t true. This notion has been repeated so often, most of us assume it’s true, but the facts don’t support it. Add together the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the 9/11 attacks, and whatever religious violence you can think of, and you won’t get anywhere close to the death toll of mass violence that was inarguably secular. World War I and World War II alone, both inarguably secular in nature, killed 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 people, and they’re only two of a very long list of secular wars.
Then there’s the difficulty of determining wars fought for purely religious reasons. The Crusades, for instance, don’t qualify: the First Crusade was not really fought to take the Holy Land for Christianity, as is commonly taught, but to defend the Byzantine Empire. And the Crusaders were not under command of Pope Urban II but of Alexios, the Byzantine emperor. (Here’s an excellent article on that.) Religion has certainly been used as a cover for wars that were, as most wars are, about territory and power–no argument there. But even then, it was often used as a manipulative cover for the actual cause, and the dead from those conflicts still don’t surpass the dead from purely secular wars
You can add up violence that was not military and was solely caused by religious beliefs, and you’ll still fall short.
My dad went to high school in Baltimore in the 1930s. They started each day with a Jewish teacher reading a selection from the King James Version to (mostly) Catholic engineering students. I don’t think it did any damage, but that’s not the benchmark we should be striving for.
I would love to see a “Bible as literature” course, with the stipulations that there could be no proselytizing and it has to be an elective. I’d be okay with the KJV for this purpose, despite not being a protestant. It is the most referenced book in English literature, and it vaguely concerns me that a generation of kids doesn’t know what “trading your birthright for a mess of pottage” means. But I don’t seriously believe that the promoters of this bill have anything even close to this planned.
Actually, that would be a wonderful! Teaching the bible should lead to debate with the students.
Intelligent, reasoned, honest debate, that is.
But in Kentucky, it ain’t gonna happen.
Boy, the educator part of me would love for there to be a curriculum that teaches literacy in things like the Bible – although I’d also want there to be literacy in Shakespeare, basic Western Civ (and at least some non-western Civ), basic Civics, household skills, and memorizing the multiplication tables*. Not to mention a bunch of others things.
The practical side of me knows that a law like this is a disaster waiting to happen.
*My wife Pepper Mill is a substitute teacher, so we know what the kids are and aren’t getting in class. The Multiplication Table is simply the latest thing they don’t teach, apparently.
My wife teaches comparative religion at the 6th and 7th grade level as part of the history syllabus. It includes Judaism and Christianity, but also a smattering of other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. I remember doing similar classes in high school. It was a part of a unit on ‘World Literature’ or ‘World Culture’ or something like that. Some people had to give class presentations on Hebrew and Christian stuff. I got the Bhagavad Gita.
Long story short, I’ve never heard of a kid throwing a hissy fit about it. Even the kids we knew were from hyper-conservative religious families. By the time you’re old enough to learn about it, most kids (A) have the maturity to understand that learning what someone else believes isn’t the end of the world and (B) know that the easiest way to get through the school day is to shut the fuck up.
In communities where this is offered, it is likely this would be the same as another recent school with Bible classes. It would become a de facto requirement to avoid bullying to take these classes.
There is no pedagogical reason to teach the Bible over other books, and I think offering only the Bible should fall afoul of the establishment clause, even if it is an elective.
I say this as a Christian, who was part of his school Bible club (led by students), and who showed up at “See You at the Poll” and the National Day of Prayer every year.
It’s just something for Trump to pander to the Evangelicals.
I went to high school in crazy Berkeley, California, and had a few sections of a required English class deal with the Bible as literature. It was a very good section, and the teacher was outstanding, and quite a bit of that sticks with me to this day.
So I have no doubt that the class CAN be done well, and that it does have significant educational value; but I suspect that shitty teachers will just take it as a cue to spread their own religious beliefs.
Which brings me to a frequent conundrum: should I object to something that if done well is of great benefit, but if done in mediocrity would be offensive? I’m not sure I know the answer to that.
As a non-religious parent, I felt that my child was missing out in the sense that he didn’t know any of the stories from the Bible and wouldn’t get the references. So, for a period, our storytime was me reading from the Old Testament. The stories of creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, etc. There wasn’t a question that these weren’t literally true, but they do form a foundation of thought that perseveres.
Whether this act is an effort to provide a history of the Bible, or is just trying to push religion on kids is anyone’s guess. I’m leaning toward the latter, because that’s just how the religious right rolls.
I’d say that “The influence of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament on law, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values, and culture” is a real, non-religious reason why there’s legitimate educational value in giving kids a basic familiarity with the Bible. Lack of Biblical literacy means there are a whole lot of allusions and references throughout our culture that they’re not going to catch. Similarly for classical mythology, which I got a unit on in at least a couple of different years when I was in school.
My first take on the Kentucky Act was that it proposed teaching the history of the Bible. I imagined using texts by Collins, Finkelstein and Poll. But, then I reread the purpose:
“Teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and
narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and
culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy;”
Biblical influence on contemporary society, mores and public policy? I once had a collection of vintage pamphlets (sold them on ebay) that proclaimed “Prohibition is Against Gods Law”. Similar material exists to support everything from Blue Laws to Slavery. The argument against the ERA is primarily Biblical.
Does the Bible direct our mores or is our interpretation of it simply a rationalization of contemporary society?
So, what can be presented to elementary students in order to meet the purpose of the Kentucky Act that is not State religion.
When I was in high school in New York AP English, and perhaps other English classes, had a Bible as literature section. It was totally inoffensive. It was beneficial to me since I was working in the English book room my senior year, and decided to read the introduction to the Bible they used. There I found out who really wrote the Bible, and that my Hebrew School teachers lied to me about Moses writing it, and promptly became an atheist.
But you don’t need the damn state legislature mandating this study.
It does make me curious what else state legislators mandate be taught.
All these bills are being pushed by Project Blitz, which comes from the Congressional Prayer Caucus.
Is the Bible insufficiently taught in church in Kentucky?
In a school setting the students are liable to learn something other than the sanitized version taught on Sunday. I had a friend from Germany that said the bible was taught in quite a few of their English Lit classrooms, and they were were more unbelievers than believers by the time they got through. As Isaac Asmiov once said: Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
I’d say quite a few teachers could make this a worthwhile class, while others may be in districts where the slightest bit of going off script could cause an uproar. I doubt it’s going to do for them what they think.
Considering who is promoting these efforts, both on the national and local level, I would say that the teachers most likely to make these impartial worthwhile classes will be the teachers least likely to get hired for the job in the first place.
Probably, yes, it is preached, not taught.
However I think that students who *don’t *go to church can benefit from learning about the Bible as literature.
At the expense of what other subject?
It’s an elective, much like ceramics, basket weaving, and what not.
The bible is indeed the root of much of our current literature and culture.