What do you think of this situation regarding the Bible in school coursework?

“The Bible as Literature” is a fairly common course, especially the King James version because it is considered poetic.

This is use of the bible in historical and cultural context, not as a vehicle to convert people to a way of thinking.

I’m against it if the class is compulsory. I might be swayed if there are several different religious texts examined in the class, but for now I am going to say I am completely against it. If the class is an elective, I am way more neutral on the matter.

The problem with where I live, and they do have the bible in English class here, is the high school where this particular class is given is very Christian, very right wing, and has some prominent racist stupid politicians and citizens. I just do not trust their intention, i do not trust the teachers, and I would not want my children surrounded by many Christians who can be exclusionary in this particular community, to have something in school that might trigger negative conversation regarding my children.

I would prefer children be able to take a Christianity class for credit or comparative religion. But, of course that is a different type of class than the study of the literature. There are so many great works, it is not necessary to select the bible.

If my community were more diverse I would be less paranoid.

I took a course in leadership as an elective history class in a public junior high.

We studied the rise of King David. Prior to final registration for the class; we were required to have parental sign off that we would be working with the Bible as a source.

The biblical passages were treated as just another source of material to study different forms of leadership.

I thought this was a wonderful use of our time, and no one seemed to complain.

I am concerned about having the bible taught within a mandatory framework, but would be glad to see it offered within an elective framework. For example, a class teaching English Translations of foreign language works would be silly without the inclusion of the King James.

@zenvelo @Imadethisupwithnoforethought I would be less inclined to object if this were a course called “The Bible as Literature” and if it were offered as an elective, because then students could choose whether they wanted to take the course.

@JLeslie It is not a required course for everybody, but it is a standard part of the accelerated English program; not an elective. Students in the accelerated program take this course during their junior year with few good alternatives. So it is essentially a required course for those students that have been in the accelerated program for the first two years of high school.

I’m an atheist brought up in an intensely Christian environment. I happen to believe that the English language is nowhere better than in the King James Bible, and I wish it could be taught in literature courses everywhere.

I also think it’s entirely suitable to teach Biblical writings as religious literature among other selections of religious literature: Buddhist, Muslim, Taoist, and so on.

I would not like to see any religious doctrine taught in public schools. And I don’t think there is a fine line at all. Looking at the language and its meaning is quite a different matter from inculcating beliefs.

What’s taught in private schools is up to the schools.

@Jeruba I agree that it’s highly innocuous when studied as a work of literature. I just wanted to add that this is a public school, though.

If you’re calling it innocuous, @Mariah, please don’t say you’re agreeing with me. That’s one of the last words I would choose to describe it.

But I don’t think it is necessarily teaching religion to teach the Bible, any more than it is teaching Existentialism to teach Camus. You can teach about a subject without guiding students to a belief in its tenets. When a teacher instructs in the history of science and teaches about the Ptolemaic model, the teacher is not calling upon students to believe that the earth is the center of the universe—only giving them an understanding of the principles of that model as they were accepted in their time.

Students in English-speaking public schools ought not to be ignorant of this great pillar of our language.

Hmm, I apologize for my poor wording, I just meant that it’s not so objectionable to teach the Bible in public schools when it is taught as a work of literature as opposed to when it is taught as a rulebook. Which I thought was the gist of your post. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

I agree “You can teach about a subject without guiding students to a belief in its tenets.”

I just don’t trust the conversation to only be about the literature where I live. Even if the teacher is very good at her job, and sticks to only teaching it as literature, which I am iffy on, I don’t trust the students to not be idiots. Of course, kids can be idiots anyway, but I prefer not to give them an easy starting point.

The more advanced classes probably it would not be a problem realistically, but if we just make a rule no religious texts without a minimum introducing three of them, then I feel a little better about it.

@Jeruba Your opinion makes me question my opinion. It has not changed my mind, but your literary knowledge matters to me greatly within the discussion.

@JLeslie, I understand your wariness, and I appreciate your reluctance to trust teachers to stick to objectivity and students to not be idiots. The King James Bible is the work of men; its fascinating history is the subject of this book. A failure to separate its contents and language from the dogma of narrow-minded religious sects is infuriatingly stupid.

If I lived where you live, my view might in fact be closer to yours.

In any environment where people start talking about “the Christian Bible,” all my senses go on alert because of course there is no such thing. Christians who think they own the Hebrew scriptures are displaying ignorance so deep that I can’t trust myself to treat them with civility.

I have no problem with teaching the Bible as literature. It is literature. I’ve encountered it in high school and college classes, as well as bits of the Koran.

@JLeslie, rereading my post, it strikes me that this remark might have seemed to be directed at you, which of course it wasn’t:

A failure to separate its contents and language from the dogma of narrow-minded religious sects is infuriatingly stupid.

I meant to convey my impatience with those dogmatic, narrow-minded religious sects that think the Bible is all about them and their beliefs—the same folks who talk about “the Christian Bible.”

I have every regard for your view and apologize if my hasty wording made it sound like I was disrespectful of your opinion.

In my 9th grade English class, we also read excerpts from the Bible. I see no problem with it. In an English class, it’s no different than any other book.

It is literature. The parts that your class read were poetry.

@jeruba I understood. :)

One thing is notable here. Some cultures don’t approve of other texts yet when it comes about school they lower their voices and “accept” some of them because they don’t want to cause to many problems.

@Hibernate I don’t understand what you mean. Can you restate it differently? Are you saying we will look the other way when a book is taught in school? Even if we disagree with it?

As a followup question, do you think people would feel differently about a school including passages from the Koran as part of a literature course?

Earlier today I would have said it is all equal to me. After reading this thread, I guess I would have to know how literary scholars view the writings of the Koran. It is all too intertwined with my fear of people possibly wanting to actually push a specific doctrine, rather than only evaluate the work as a literary piece. If both the Koran and Bible are presented I have more confidence there isn’t some sort of hidden intent.

@Mariah Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching – they are all okay with me if in a translation as highly regarded as the King James Version.

A lot of versions of the Bible are rather inelegant because they have been rewritten to be understood by “common” people. I’d object to those being taught.

Parables have a lot to do with logical philosophy. Basic Cause and Effect type of stuff. It is equivalent to reading a fable if you will. It’s whatever to me.

I am with @zenvelo on this one, although I am not a master of the English studies.

I am a history nerd, however, and think all of these texts should be introduced, with the Bible as just another source document among many, at the elementary levels.

I’m not religious whatsoever, but I think it’s fine. It’s not an attempt to push religion down students’ throats, it’s being viewed from a literary perspective. For the religious folks in the class, it’s a welcome sight. For the secular, it’s literature.
No one agrees with everything they read for class, and no one has to.

@JLeslie in my country there are people [from different cultures] that do not agree with some things that are being taught in schools but they do not make a fuss about it. They explain to the headmaster their problem and try to overcome it in a nice manner. I believe it’s the same with this question regarding the Bible. While some do not agree with it why don’t just they look at it like pure fiction [the same way they look at the other books kids have to study in school].
One example… the worldwide “Romeo and Juliet” ... most don’t have a problem with it yet kids can get from there the idea that it’s good not to listen to parents when it comes to love and you can do ANYTHING just so you can be with your loved one including suicide. Okay .. I know this examples not that good but I believe you get my point now.
I understand most people don’t want to believe in the Bible but why is it so hard to look at it at “just fiction” and be over it .. it’s not like they had to study only it in school.

@Hibernate Because in the Bible Belt of my great country the book is not presented to children as pure fiction, but the extreme opposite. And, if presented by teachers, that might be a little confusing to the kid.

Another thinking point: might this cause any sort of unfair advantage between the religious and non-religious kids in trying to write good essays about the reading material? Religious kids likely not only feel more passionately towards the text, which helps with writing an essay, but they’ve probably read it and discussed its meaning many times before.

@Mariah Actually, I think kids that have not been exposed to the bible would be more open minded about it and write more insightful essays. Kids who have studied it would be more inclined to write a doctrinaire view.

@Mariah They might have an advantage of not having to read it as thoroughly, having read it before. Meaning the read will be less time consuming for the particular class, but I think as far as writing an essay or answering questions it would not be unfair necessarily.

@JLeslie and @zenvelo , Unless the teacher was really right wing and gave them credit for their “insight into the spiritual signifigance of the passage,” instead of focusing on the literary asspect.

@Mariah

I agree with @Judi on this. It wouldn’t be much different than the fact that I had already read Ian McEwan’s Atonement before we were assigned it in my English class. I’m sure I had an advantage, but that’s just how it goes. In the case of the Bible, as long as we were treating it as a book, then it shouldn’t be any different than someone already having knowledge of any other book.

@Judi I am trying to hope that would not be the case. Of course it would be a fear of mine, especially where I live.

@JLeslie I feel you. But when the kid returns home and is asked what they did/talked in school he might explain that particular event. After that the parents can explain their side of seeing things. In the end the kid has to pick for himself if the Bible is the word of God or pure fiction though I doubt that with so many atheists in his life he’ll chose to see the Bible as the Word of God.

@Hibernate, Do you have kids? Trying to get them to tell you what happened in school is like pulling teeth!!

@Judi I’m sorry for you but you have the kids you raise. I don’t ask them every day what’s up, most times they share what they think it’s interesting.

I think so much literature and some of the more colorful daily English speaking has so many Biblical references that not to study the Bible can make one somewhat culturally illiterate. I think most people should be able to understand references like “two by two” , “belly of the whale” and “prodigal son”.

I think it’s just as important for kids to know Greek mythology for the same reasons, and you never hear people—even the most Evangelical Christians— complain about studying it and having their kids turn into pagans.

I also think the Marx Brothers, WC Fields, and most musicals should be required viewing too, so maybe I should be taken as a cultural literacy extremist.

@keobooks not to mention the Complete Works of Charles Schulz

@Hibernate; my kids and I talked a lot. It wasn’t until they were grown that I found out how much they didn’t tell me.

@DominicX Very good point that any student who has already read any book assigned in an English class is going to be at an advantage. I do think it’s a bit different of a situation, though, when the kids at an advantage all belong to a particular group (in this case, Christians), although of course anyone, Christian or not, can read the Bible if they want.

I’m mostly just playing devil’s advocate here, though. I really don’t think there’s any big issue with teaching the Bible as literature assuming that it’s not an attempt to go through a loophole to put bibles in schools for the purpose of instilling its doctrines. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here.

@Hibernate That sounds a little naive. I don’t have children, but I remember being a kid. I was very open with my parents, but I didn’t talk about what I learned in school every day.

@Judi that’s too bad.

@JLeslie I don’t expect them to tell me every little thing and I respect their privacy. But they have to tell something. And the “teachers told us this/ we have that for homework/we need to pay that for school/we want to go into a trip with the school” are things that don’t need to be shared on a daily basis.
When they learn something they either discuss it at home or they just say they learned more. Again you misinterpret what I post.

@Hibernate Well, I hope for you the thing they happen to mention is my teacher told me about Christianity/Buddhism/atheism/ today and I was really interested. I think you were offensive towards @Judi. I will never understand why any parent thinks they know everything about their kids and what they are thinking or going through at any given time.

It’s just because most of the people here interpret any reply as an insult or a rude response.
First of all with all due respect [no pun intended] you have no knowledge about being a parent. yes you were a kid and you were open with your parents but it’s normal to keep things hidden from parents or don’t tell them everything. I never said they tell us EVERY little thing. When it came to give a reply here you only speculated and you told me I’m naive. I know they do not share everything and I’m not bothered by it.
I’ll explain something. At some point or another a parent has to spend time with the kid and discuss about a lot of things. After the first years of school when it’s the time of all the “why“s they develop their cognitive process and they know what is worth mentioning and which not. He can come from school and start stating random facts. Some are nice, some aren’t while others are worth discussing a bit. I like to skip the gossip part to the discussion part.

Was I rude when I told her she has the kids she raised? Is it not the truth? And this is not about talking to them it’s about discussing and hearing their way of thinking. I have a lot of friends with kids in school and they talk more to the kids. Guess what? They talk unimportant things and after 5–6 hours of discussions there’s nothing to be learned.

@Judi I’m sorry if you interpreted that part the same way JLeslie did. I didn’t want to be rude I was just saying you have the kids you and your husband raised to be.

I really don’t agree that you can “mold” kids. I never presumed to have that much control. At some point, they have autonomy, and make their own decisions regardless of how we raise them. It’s the old Nature vs. Nurture debate. I think my kids are incredible people in spite of me, not because of me. I won’t take credit for their successes or blame for their failures.
What was the topic again?

@Hibernate I am willing to leave it as we miscommunicated, I misunderstood your intention and what you were trying to say. To be clear, what I found offensive, and I am not easily offended usually, was questioning Judi’s parenting abilities. She has adult children, so now she knows what her children had not revealed as young children. I am assuming you have young children, so you have not yet been on the other side so to speak. I guess it compares to you pointing out I don’t have children, which is true, I admit I do not have the perspective of a parent, but I think I am a person who is pretty aware in general.

@Judi hahaha teaching the bible as literature. Wow, that got way off track.

@Judi it wasn’t about control. And a parent shapes a lot of the kid character till a point. The more interest he pays the more the kid will interact with the parent. Indeed they grow up and become autonomous but this doesn’t mean they won’t discuss/talk/interact with the parents. I looked how one of my grandpa raised his kids… they became good persons, hard working and family people yet they interacted with him only when they needed to. And the other raised the kids in a different way and still when the kids where 60 years old still went to him to talk about personal issues and discuss things. These were just examples. I always liked the second grandpa so I want to “mold” my kids that way. It all comes to how good I’ll be into shaping them and explain things to them.

@JLeslie it’s not out of track to teach the Bible as literature. Whatever works making people feel fine with it. And one more thing. Not to be rude or anything but till now all your assumptions were far from truth. Better just ask and I’ll reply to what I think it’s relevant for the future. Thank you.

@Hibernate Huh? The question, the original question was regarding teaching the bible as literature. We got off track discussing parenting.

Yes I know. In first reply I just said better to teach it as common literature because debating over it takes to much times and it can cause a lot of stress for parents and kids the same.