Teaching the Bible in public schools

[cosmosdan]

Here’s a review although looking at the source it doesn’t put me at ease about the book.

Here’s a review by another Christian group that pbjects because it isn’t Christian enough. It contains a lot of passages from the textbook. Reading the passages it’s unclear to me what age group they are aiming at.

In this
article it was interesting to note the crticisms from both sides.

“We caught quite a few factual mistakes, but I also looked for places where the Christian point of view was assumed. There were some and we made some changes,” said Marc Stein, general counsel of the American Jewish Committee who reviewed the text before publication.

Still, there has been criticism of the book coming from both the political left and right. On the liberal side, Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said the book sanitized the effect of religion throughout history, by minimizing Christian support for slavery and Christian anti-Semitism.

“To teach religion objectively, you really have to teach the good, the bad and the ugly and this book only teaches the good,” he said.

On the other side, Dennis Cuddy, a Christian conservative who has worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Education, said the book raised doubts about God and prompted students to ask the wrong questions.

“If you are going to teach the Bible, are you going to teach it as if it were the word of God? At the least, it should be taught as truthful. It shouldn’t be presented as something that is false,” he said.

[raindog]

I would be opposed to it.

[Polycarp]

@Siege

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.)

I see her from time to time on another board. Lately she’s been explaining to some fairly decent Catholic folk how Constantine turned the church pagan at Nicaea. :rolleyes:

I’m a bit uncomfortable at this idea, though I see the sense in teaching the cultural influence of the Bible. Also, the King James Version has always ranked as one of the greatest lights of Elizabethan/Jacobean literature, in a period in which excellent literary work was by no means scarce. Whatever its faults as a contemporary Scripture source, it certainly is important in that regard.

[cosmosdan]

@the raindog

I would be opposed to it.

why pray tell?