If you’re teaching a comparative religions course and want to discuss the beliefs of near eastern religious groups, accurate translation of the texts concerning those groups is of paramount importance, and the KJV would be just about the worst possible choice.
If, however, you’re teaching a course on “a central document of Western civilization with a vast influence on its literature, art, culture and politics,” the KJV is unquestionably the one to study.
While it has numerous mistranslations, many of those mistranslations have entered into literature as idioms which a more accurate translation would miss (my brain is crapping out, but I can find some later if someone wants).
Moreover, in linguistic terms, the KJV was influential. Hemingway’s famous cadence is a direct descendant from the OT KJV; an OT in more modern English might miss that.
This isn’t a bad idea. But for a school to justify the purchase of an entire set of textbooks I think this would have to amount to a class that is exclusively dedicated to the bible, or at least primarily dedicated to the study of the bible (otherwise the textbook wouldn’t be covered to a large degree and I couldn’t see the cost of the textbook being justified.)
Then the problem comes in when other religious groups start to say it is prejudicial that the school has a bible class but not a class covering the central literature behind Islam, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or et al.
And obviously most public High Schools don’t have the resources to have a class for each major religion.
Back in the '60s when I was teaching English to 9th graders there was a section about oral literature in the school system’s standard English textbook. It included sections from the Bible (as well as Greek and IIRC some Scandinavian mythology). I made it very clear as we started the Bible section that I was NOT teaching them what to believe in any sense, and that if they had questions on such matters they had other people in their lives such as their parents and clergy to discuss these thoughts with.
We talked about how pre-literate people in various cultures transmitted their ideas through song and storytelling, and what common features could be noted in the style. I forget which version of the Bible was in the textbook, but I recall bringing in a couple of different versions so we could compare the various translations. We had absolutely no problems whatsoever.
There is a big difference between teaching *about * the Bible, as opposed to teaching The Bible.
I cannot see why rational people would object to children learning *about * the contents and nature of the Bible, the Koran, or any other religious book, any more than they would object to learning about Zeus, Thor, Buddha, or any other religions or spiritual subject, in the context of literature, history, or culture.
It would be impossible to accurately depict the settlement of the American continents by Europeans without including the religious beliefs of those discoverers. How could you study the history or culture of, say, India without at least explaining the nature of the religions that are practiced there? One could not possibly teach about the European Renaissance, ancient Greek or Roman art without including something about the religious beliefs that inspired much of that art. How can you even begin to study current events without including something about Islam, Judaism and Christianity? It would be a farce.
I think what I, any many others, would object to is the *indoctrination * in a specific set of religious beliefs in a public school setting. That’s an entirely different thing.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. Religion does NOT belong in the science or mathematics curriculum.
The pastor of the church I attended during my teens was very supportive of the removal of prayer from the public schools. He felt that forcing the rote repetition of a set prayer in a school classroom demeaned and cheapened the meaning of prayer. “Don’t try to teach religion in school,” he’d say, “and I promise not to teach algebra in church.”
I’m not opposed to the teaching of the Bible as literature, but I’m pretty sure this one is just a smokescreen. The guy behind this is the same person who heads up School Ministries, Inc., which has as its vision things like
Not necessarily the type of person I want behind a secular teaching of the Bible.
This is one I think wil backfire in the fundy’s faces no matter what happens. A crtical and through reading of the bible has probably turned more people away from Christianty than to it.
Could be, but I have a feeling that there’s a lot of that going on in schools located in fundamentalist neighborhoods right now.
FWIW, my mom (Jewish) taught “The Bible As Literature” at Berkeley High School for a while…the last time that I checked Berkeley was still a pretty tie-dyed, loopy, non-fundamentalist kinda town.
She said that the biggest problem was from some students who were very devoutly Christian who wanted to get into religious discussions, rather than sticking to the “literature” goal of the class, but those weren’t the majority of the students.
I agree with those who opine that, if it is to be a literary treatment, then the King James is the way to go — not only for its stylized prose, but for its quite significant influence on Western culture.
Thats assuming they support it at all. They don’t want the Bible taught as literature but as “the word of God” Any study that hints at critsizing that concept would be unacceptable for most of them.
Dangermom, being a devout Christian, even an outspoken, Fundamentalist one doesn’t necessarily guarantee one knows the Bible story. I still remember one thread here a few years ago when I asked one such outspoken Fundamentalist Christian what it was Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well. Her reply was “Go and sin no more.” (She was conflating that story, in which Jesus reveals He was the Messiah with the one about the woman caught in adultery which may be a later addition. There’s still some disagreement about which book in the Bible the latter belongs in.)
As I was reading this thread yesterday, it occurred to me that I grew up on stories of Greek and Roman mythology which I think I learned in school as well as at home. We even got a bit of Egyptian mythology. As I recall (this was a long time ago), they were taught as part of the culture our culture was founded on. Given that, I think teaching the Bible as a way of showing what modern Western culture was founded on and how it’s influenced it. I think even those who’ve no patience with Christianity will concede that whatever did happen in Palestine a couple of thousand years ago had a major influence on the world, whether that influence was for good or bad.
Religion has played a large part in American history, both good and bad. I remember being a bit nonplussed to learn that the Puritans who, I was taught, came to America seeking religious freedom didn’t necessarily believe in it for others. (Yes, I’ve since learned there was more to it than that. There always is.) More recently, I’ve learned how religion has influenced American politics, including some of the Great Revivals which added their unique touch to American culture and explains some of the differences between it and European.
I hate being proselytized and I’ll be among the first to object if the classes turn into it, but surely failing to acknowledge the influence the Bible and Christianity have had on American culture would be just as bad? After all, if we don’t understand how religion has shaped our past, won’t it be much more difficult to control its influence on our future?
My niece started at NYU this year and I know she doesn’t have a good foundation in the cultural artifacts of the Bible. She probably knows some of the big stories, but that’s it.
I think the Bible is an important document for understanding Western culture. It’s also, in my opinion, one of the worst reads ever. I’ve read it twice, once because I was young and weird and once for a university-required theology course. Because I grew up in a church, I already knew the important cultural aspects of the book. Reading it through was just torture.
That has always been my problem in trying to read it. Worst read ever.
Would they be teaching from a bible or from a text book on the bible?
I would imagine it would be more productive and less controversial to teach from a text book.