"When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my pistol," said the Nazi playwright Hans Johst. I suspect that if our paths had ever crossed that Johst would have shot me on sight. For I am what he would have despised most: a culturist.
I love culture. I love high culture, low culture, and middle-brow culture. I love pop culture, folk culture, and church culture. I love Texas culture, American culture, and the culture of Western civilization. I worry about culture wars and wars on culture. I despise cultural relativism and fret about the decline of culture. I read about the theology of culture and how to transform, redeem, and restore culture. I think about culture. A lot.
All this thinking about culture has lead me to conclude that the single most important activity we could undertake to change and improve culture is to read the Bible.
One of the most significant cultural disasters in the West is the loss of Biblical literacy. From the middle ages to the 20th century, the Bible provided the bedrock for our culture's shared heritage. The books of the Old and New Testament provided the fertile soil in which the Western literary imagination took root and from the scriptural terra firma grew the metaphors, allusions, narratives, and archetypes that fed the soul of our civilization. The term culture comes from the Latin cultura meaning 'to plow' or 'to till' and for centuries the Bible was the rich loam our civilization would plow.
But like the story of the Tower of Babel (remember that one?) we have lost our shared language. As Adam Nicolson laments in a recent Opinion Journal article:
Up until, say, 100 years ago, biblical literacy would have been practically mandatory. If you didn't know what "the powers that be" originally referred to, or where "the writing on the wall" was first seen, or what was meant by "the patience of Job," "Jacob's ladder" or "the salt of the earth"--if you didn't know what an exodus was or a genesis, a fatted or a golden calf--you would have been excluded from the culture. It might be said that a civilization consists, at its core, of these easily transmitted packages of implication. They are one of the mechanisms by which cultures can be both efficient and rich. You don't have to return to first principles every time you wish to communicate. You can play your present tune on a received instrument, knowing that your listener hears not only your own music but the subtle melodies of those who played it before you. There is a common wisdom in common knowledge. But does this Bible-informed world still exist? I would guess that on the whole, and outside committed Christian groups, biblical literacy is a thing of the past. That long moment of Christian civilization is over. The lingua franca of modern, English-speaking people is not dense with scriptural allusion, just as the conversation of educated people no longer makes reference to classical civilizations. If you dropped the names nowadays of Nestor, Agamemnon or Pericles--every one of which would have come trailing clouds of glory up to a century ago--you would, I think, draw a near total blank from even educated listeners.*
The most lamentable aspect of this loss is that the "committed Christian groups" are often as illiterate as the unchurched. I've been a Christian for thirty of the thirty-six years I've lived on this earth and yet my knowledge of the Bible is shamefully lacking. This point was illuminated for me several years ago when I was invited to join a Internet discussion group on Biblical inerrancy. The moderator of the list was an elderly retired English teacher name Farrell Till. Till was indisputably one of the most surly, churlish, and impolite men I've ever had the misfortune to meet. But he also possessed more knowledge about the Bible than a pew full of Baptists.
In our debates I was able to siphon from my memory some of the basic stories that I had learned in Sunday School while Till was able to draw from a deep well of familiarity with Scripture. His disdain for the Bible was palpable but he knew what it was he despised. Till�s depth of scholarship was as shallow as his reasoning so he was never able to succeed in proving scripture to be "errant." But he was a masterful spelunker who showed me the cavernous depths of my own Biblical illiteracy.
I wish I could say that I was an unrepresentative example of an evangelical. But I suspect that most of my fellow conservative Christians -- from the KJV-only fundamentalists to the emerging church conversationists -- are equally illiterate. Sure, we may have enough basic knowledge to best an unbeliever at Bible Trivia. We may be the first in our Vacation Bible School class to find Habakkuk during Speed Drills. And we may be able to hold our own in a proof-texting duel with a liberal theologian. But we don�t know the Bible. Not like we should.
Imagine what might happen, though, if we took a different approach. Imagine if we treated the Bible as if it were an actual book that we read from beginning to end. Imagine that instead of reading a chapter a day (as proscribed in our devotionals) that we hunkered down and read large chunks, the way we would read Melville, Dostoevsky or Stephen King. Imagine if we stopped treating it solely as a reference work, to be pulled off the shelf when we need some advice, but as a coherent narrative, a work of literary art co-produced by the very Creator Himself. Imagine if the names Onesimus, Naaman, and Mordecai were as familiar (and as meaningful) to us as the names Ginger, Mary Ann, and Thurston Howell III. Imagine how we might be able to speak with those from the distant past and pass on this lingua franca to future generations.
Ironically, Camille Paglia, an art critic and self-avowed atheist, seems to be able to imagine such a scenario:
[T]he Bible is a masterpiece. The Bible is one of the greatest works produced in the world. The people who all they have is the Bible actually are set up for life. Not only do they have a spiritual vision given to them but artistic fulfillment. They don't even recognize just the pleasure of dealing with this epic poetry and drama. Everything is in the Bible.
Can you imagine what would happen if Christians thought like that? Can you imagine the thinkers, artists, and saints that we could produce if we had that attitude about scripture? If you can imagine any of these things then ask yourself why you don't read the Bible more often.
*HT: Professor Bainbridge for the Opinion Journal article.
1
I'm not a believer, but I share your concern. The Bible is one of the foundations of Western culture, as Camille recognizes. Shakespeare knew his Bible intimately and he is one of the proudest products of our culture. If we forget the Bible, we lose our culture. The Anglican Church seems to have gotten there already.
posted on 09.27.2005 1:03 AM2
Joe, there's also the Latin word cultus, which is more directly related to worship, hence cults. My take is that culture manifests outwardly what it worships inwardly. IWO a culture is something in which transformation comes from the inside, not the outside, just like the leavening Kingdom about which Jesus spoke (yeast transforms the flour rather than replacing it).
Cultura came from "living in" the field, and cultus had to do with lifestyle as well.
I do believe that the Kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus, is the transforming agent in us, which, as it spreads, will cause an increase of His government and peace that will be without end. How could one not be an optimist with such predictions as He made? This is why I view America's current generation as pre-Christian more than post-Christian.
For this reason I would add that biblical literacy, while it is as foundational to culture as a fertilizer, cannot preserve a failing one. For that there needs to be vital worship, the "air" of lasting culture. Then you truly have worship in "spirit" as well as in "truth."
Thanks for the great post.
posted on 09.27.2005 4:46 AM3
The way of reading the Bible you imagine is already available - the "Disciple" Bible reading programme is very effective, and it obliges those who take part to read through very large chunks of the Bible at a time, revealing the "big picture" rather than picking away at details. I suspect its origins in the UMC might put some people off, but I have found it to be very enriching.
posted on 09.27.2005 5:38 AM4
The depth of the problem of B.I. (Bible Illiteracy) can be seen in the rapid rise of movements and new “churches” that attract hordes of people with fancy words and modern expressions of intellectual freedom (called post-modernism today). Anything is allowed in this emerging newism because people have been set free of the boundaries and limitations of absolutes.
The only way this can happen is:
1. Convince people to move away from the foundation of absolutes in the Bible. Give them paraphrases that remove all force. Stop them from studying the translations that are closest to the original words (no hint here at which translation is best, that is not the point).
2. Convince people that if they know the Bible stories (Adam/Eve, Noah, Jonah, Shepherds in the Fields, etc.) they will know what the Bible says.
3. Convince people that there is no hidden meaning to the Bible that can only be known by being revealed by someone called the Holy Spirit; that by even studying the text of every page of the Bible from every scholar ever known, no meaning exists beyond the stories learned in Sunday school.
4. Convince people that “truth” is relative. My truth is not necessarily your truth. God has something special for me to learn, and it might not be the same for you. After all, we will be accurately quoting the Bible when we ask ”What is Truth”?
How similar today is to the “Dark Ages” when the Bible was taken out of the hands of the people and only allowed to used by the special classes of priests. They were dark ages because the light of the Bible was turned away from the people. The people had no light to see by. We are in a new Dark Age now, and it will only get darker before the Dawn.
5
Joe,
I've never really been one that could follow the devotional methods, however I can unfortunately count on my hands the number of times I have read the bible, cover to cover. The sad truth is that our culture and lifestyles, and unfortunately many Christian Leaders don't encourage or promote reading the biblical text books, much less a categorical reading. I would attribute some of current culture's lack to the innumberable amount of reading materials available, where in previous cultures, the average family may have only owned three or four bound books, the bible or "Family" bible, was the most prominent. Bible reading in past cultures also revolved around the family, where the patriarch or the student would read aloud the bible for entertainment, or tutoring and teaching doctrines. Most families have become too busy for even family table dinners, and biblical teaching within the home is another of the victims of a family too busy to contain itself. These are all issues that Men and Women of faith should be concerned and a concerted effort to battle the pace at which we rush through our daily lives must be waged.
posted on 09.27.2005 6:19 AM6
C.S. Lewis said that the Bible was an education all its own, and was the reason why an "unlearned" man like Bunyan could produce a masterpiece like The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegory I regularly draw strength from. It's like the Bible, distilled, painted, written in verse, and acted out.
Steve
DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS
7
The problem is not athiests or Bible critics but the evangelicals themselves. Teaching the Bible as literature is such a loaded gun that few public schools have the guts to even try it despite the fact that texts like Homer are taught which are, in fact, religious texts of dead religions.
posted on 09.27.2005 8:15 AM8
Has anyone else reacted this way? Your pastor is preaching and mentions a verse that he's relating to, but says "Don't turn there" or "You don't have to turn there". That just burns me and and there's no way I Won't turn there!
posted on 09.27.2005 8:31 AM9
I know what you mean! I nearly drove off the road on the way to work this morning when Jeff Inskeep of NPR said that as a "church-going" man, the subject of the story "worshipped the sign of the cross."
At least they could TRY to do some fact-checking!
posted on 09.27.2005 8:39 AM10
Joe, your post concerns me, but since it was full of vague generalities, it makes me even more nervous because "I don't know what I don't know." Perhaps you can give me some concrete examples of your experiences with Till.
posted on 09.27.2005 9:16 AM11
I'm not a believer, but I've often thought that pretending the Bible didn't exist as literature in schools was a mistake. If there were some way of studying religion from a non-religious standpoint in public education, I'd say it was a good idea.
I attended Lutheran Bible studies as a teen before I determined that religion was a load of hooey, and then took various philosophy of religion and Bible as literature courses in college. It's facinating stuff, really, worthy of study as a facet of our inherited culture whether you "believe" or not.
However, there are many who cannot separate study from belief, and I don't just refer to those of my persuasion. Many, many believers suffer from this problem as well, and I fear that in early education it is far too difficult to manage this distinction -- not only for educators and other adults, but children as well. Dead religions at least have the benefit of being dead.
So my modest proposal is to move as quickly as possible toward Christianity as a dead religion, so we can get about the business of studying it across our collective culture.
posted on 09.27.2005 9:24 AM13
I'm a dissenter from the Bible-as-literature school. Frankly, as literature it's good but not great. Most of the things held up as examples of the greatness of the Bible "as literature" are not really examples of literary or artistic greatness, but of its revelatory spiritual wisdom and humane philosophical wisdom. Those who are not educated in philosophy and theology classify these as "artistic" merits when they encounter them. But if you stick to the real literary criteria, the Bible is fairly good overall and it has its great moments, but "masterpiece" is just going too far.
The Song of Solomon reveals much that is glorious about the oneness of all love - how the intensity of sexual love is God's way of allowing us to experience for ourselves the intensity of His love for us. To someone who really believes in God, that's a rapturous thought. But as a love poem? Well, judge for yourself. True, there's this:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the LORD.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
Obviously that passage works not only as a spiritual revelation, but also as art. And there are other great passages. However, there are also things like this:
Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful.
Our couch is green;
the beams of our house are cedar;
our rafters are pine.
There's a lot of that - comparing people to buildings and furniture and animals. As a poem, the Song is pretty uneven.
Much the same can be said of the psalms. For every 103...
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
...there's a 150.
Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
I'm far from denying that things like Psalm 150 are of great spiritual value. But as art?
Incidentally, it was C.S. Lewis who made me see this. Yes, he said Christianity is an education in itself in the passage about Bunyan. But "education" does not mean artistic education. In fact, what makes Bunyan's book so great is not its artistic merits - allegory rarely posesses much artistic merit - but its insight into truth. In comments made elsewhere, Lewis correctly saw that the big "Bible as literature" movement of the mid-20th century was a transition phase that allowed respectable schools and universities to continue giving the Bible a prominent place in the curriculum without confronting its only really important claims. If you talk about how the Bible contains lots of great *art* you can avoid dealing with its own very clear claim that it contains *truth*. He also correctly predicted that the movement would pass away before long, for the simple reason that it isn't true; if it's art you're looking for, there are lots better places to go than the Bible.
posted on 09.27.2005 9:51 AM14
Jeff Perhaps you can give me some concrete examples of your experiences with Till.
Examples of the “discrepancies” he claimed or his behavior? The history of the exchanges are found in his archives so I’m sure I could provide examples of both.
So why don't YOU read the Bible more often?
Huh? I already asked that question. You did realize I was writing that post for me, didn’t you? ; )
15
Thank you, Joe, for a fascinating post. I also had read the Journal piece yesterday, and had much the same reaction to it.
I began my journey to Christianity just a few years ago. My starting point was neither as a believer or atheist. Whether there was a God or not, it just didn't seem to make a difference in my life, so I wasn't interested in theological issues.
However, a few years ago I had an experience that completely changed my mind. Before the experience, I saw the Necker Cube of life in one way. After, I saw the cube the other way. It was also interesting to me (as an experimental psychologist) that the experience was not a trancendent experience - a Jamesian / Damascus Road experience - but just an everyday interaction with a Christian who made no attempt to proselytize.
Anyway, my wife and began a journey (that has simply become miraculous) by reading the Bible. It took me a while, but I eventually got through it, and I was simply astonished - to the point of the WSJ article - how much of everyday understanding in American (and I suppose Western generally) culture is based on the Bible.
Had I not continued the journey of my heart, reading the Bible would have been one of the most significant literary experiences I have had. And I don't see why the Bible cannot be taught qua literature as Milton, Dante, or Bunyan are taught qua literature. Aside from being the revealed Word of God, the Bible is a towering literary achievement.
By the way, Jeff S, I had to chuckle when I read [...] move as quickly as possible toward Christianity as a dead religion [...]. About 2 billion people call themselves Christians and span the spectrum from liberal to conservative. The number of atheists is basically down in the noise. If you think Christianity is "dead", I submit you are the victim of sampling bias.
posted on 09.27.2005 10:15 AM16
George:
Heh, no I don't think it is dead, you misunderstand me. Hence my modest proposal, make it a dead religion so we can actually study it properly.
17
A great (and sadly funny) example of this comes from President Bush's inaugural addresses. His chief speech-writer, Mike Gerson, is an evangelical Christian and graduate of Wheaton College, and accordingly Bush's speeches were salted with biblical allusions and language straight from Scripture. Immediately afterwood, the lefist web sites and opinion writers went into full paranoia mode that Bush was using secret "code" language to speak to his "political base"; they just didn't recognize good writing when they saw it and, frankly, didn't recognize the source of much of the language.
posted on 09.27.2005 10:30 AM18
(1) jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj is simple order: low entropy, low information;
(2) jshgfiuqwhgfu9wqhfjhewfhhffjh is a random string, with a selection range of 26 +10 = 36 characters, length 29: 1 of 36^29 possible such strings. But, the specific string could just as easily be any other -- i.e. it is not functionally specified. This exhibits high entropy and low information.
(3) "This is an example of a highly functionally specified, complex, information-rich intelligent agent-generated, low entropy string." It is vastly improbable relative to random string generation, but not at all improbable in its context, generation by an intelligent agent. Notice also just how it is functionally specified: it communicates in accordance with the rules of textual English. DNA communicates in accordance with the rules of the cellular control language,
Context, the magic word here. Let's look at #2 again. Is it a random string? Suppose it is an encripted version of #3 with "Gordon wrote this in post 394" appended. In that case it would be a string with more information and complexity than #3.
#3 is deemed the work of intelligent agents because it is improbable to be random (although it can) AND it is WRITTEN IN THE LANGUAGE OF KNOWN INTELLIGENT AGENTS. The 'cellular control language' is not the language of a known intelligent agent but the known coding of self replicating molecules. To use the analogy with crystals, it was stated that crystals have their structure 'built into them' by the rules of chemistry/physics. Hence when we come upon a crystal it isn't reasonable to first assume it was purposefully created there by an intelligent agent since we know it is in the nature of crystals to form under certain conditions.
Now if something was written in DNA that was NOT the language of 'cellular control'...say a 'God was here -3.7BC' or 'Zeus loves Aphrodite!' you might have an argument.
posted on 09.27.2005 10:53 AM19
Sorry about that guys, that was meant to go on http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1549
20
Jeff S:
I'm glad you can't see how red my face is. Sometimes when I look in the mirror in the morning, a dork looks back at me.
posted on 09.27.2005 11:36 AM21
Literary criticism theorist and former Methodist preacher Northrop Frye wrote a landmark treatment of the Bible's significance to the culture of the Western literary tradition in his "The Great Code: The Bible and Literature," here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0156027801/qid=1127838980/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/002-4374439-0464828?v=glance&s=books
22
George:
Nah, it's all good. As an atheist, I'm used to being misunderstood. ;)
23
I pointed out on Michael Spencer's blog how infrequently Christian blogs quote the Bible in their posts. Maybe it is because, as Michael Spencer answered, we can "[live] out the Biblical story without citing references." But maybe it is because most of us do not know the Bible all that well, like you say.
Can you imagine the thinkers, artists, and saints that we could produce if we had that attitude about scripture?
We already have thinkers, artists, and saints like that. Some are ignored, marginalized, and dismissed as irrelevant crackpots. Others are followed uncritically by admirers who do not read their Bibles on their own, but who are content to hear and parrot what their learned sages say about the Word.
posted on 09.27.2005 12:13 PM24
Joe says:
All this thinking about culture has lead me to conclude that the single most important activity we could undertake to change and improve culture is to read the Bible.
Well, actually Joe, I'd settle for just getting them to read in the first place.
And you know, the founding fathers of our country read a lot more books than the Bible. I've been reading a biography of John Adams. I found it amazing what he had to study just to pass the bar exam. How many law schools today require you to learn enough Greek to be able to read and translate the classical Greek oratories and discourses?
Tom says:
Immediately afterwood, the lefist web sites and opinion writers went into full paranoia mode that Bush was using secret "code" language to speak to his "political base"; they just didn't recognize good writing when they saw it and, frankly, didn't recognize the source of much of the language.
If they didn't recognize the "source" then how could they get all upset by it? Personally, I have often found the Presidents speeches to be borderline offensive. I really don't care to hear my President talking like a preacher. I'd rather go to church for that. If he was both a preacher and President I might give him more slack, but President Bush's preacher-speak belays an assumption that he's the spiritual father of the nation instead of just an elected official. His authority comes from the will of the people, not from the will of God, no matter what Karl Rove wants you to think. In this country, we got rid of the divine right of kings, remember? Its unseemly for an American President to speak in such a manner. For example, when Bush goes on and on about the "sanctity" of marriage. Who is he to tell me that something is "sanctified" or not? God does that, not the President.
posted on 09.27.2005 2:08 PM25
I agree that we don't know enough about the Bible. But knowing the Bible is no guarantee of being a biblically sound Christian. Like you said, Camille Paglia knows the Bible better than most, as did Ferret Till (sorry). The problem with many of us Christians is sort of like what Mark Twain said, "As to the Bible: it's not the parts I don't understand that trouble me; it's the parts I do." For us Christians, what's more important than knowing what's in the Bible is that we are obedient to what we know now. I know that sounds like the typical know-nothing response, but it isn't, not really.
Suppose you are biblically literate by anyone's standards. You will always find someone who knows more. Suppose that someone is determined to make you look like a fool for being a Christian and succeeds. Does that mean you just didn't know enough about scripture? No, it might just mean that you're being a fool for Christ as St. Paul said he would be. I have a deathly fear of looking foolish and I have a more than deathly fear of looking foolish for Christ. It's especially difficult when there are rabid anti-Christians around, like some of the commenters on this site. But we are told by Christ Himself that what appears foolish to the "wise" simply means it has been hidden from them.
I guess all I'm saying is that there are worse things for a Christian to be than biblically illiterate--like being full of the knowledge of the Word of God, without a belief in the Christ who died for me.
It would be foolish to disagree with Joe on this point, so I won't. After all, Allan Bloom wrote a whole book in basic agreement with him, but from the broader perspective of the whole culture. More recently, Theodore Dalrymple wrote an absolutely horrifying book, "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass," about the British "poor" who are lucky to know who the current prime minister is. The British are farther along the multi-cultural education curriculum than we are--and with disastrous results.
posted on 09.27.2005 2:48 PM26
All your commentators, except, oddly enough, Camille Paglia, extol the importance of the Bible as a cultural touchstone. And you're right, given the long history of compulsory Christianity in the West, it was indeed at one time a common reference point for educated people, and remains the source of many of our best-loved cliches and pithy quotes. But this is no argument for a restoration of Biblical literacy.
As a contingent historical fact, the Bible was an important part of our culture. And it is true that the collective experience we call culture has changed as we have lost that common literary/linguistic touchstone. But if it is not obvious why the benefits of having such a common grounding should be be regained - and it is not - it is still less obvious why our new touchstone should be the Christian Bible.
Assuming - again, in lieu of an extensive argument why this is a good thing - that we do choose once more to ground our culture and our education on one common literary cornerstone, there is only one reason I can see why that new cornerstone should be the Christian Bible. That is that that text was once our cultural heritage, so by restoring it we can connect our new forcibly homogenized culture with our old forcibly homogenized culture, and then everyone in this generation will be just as speedy in looking up Habbakuk as their great-(great?)-grandparents were. But that's a pretty small reward for making such an important choice on otherwise arbitrary grounds.
All the cultural benefits - a common language, useful linguistic tropes, amusing ancestral names . . . - that you note from the Bible could equally well be gained from installing some other work as our new cultural centerpiece. But if we're going to do so, we may as well choose one that's less offensive, less bigoted, and less primitive. The problem with everybody reading the Bible is that a certain percentage of them inevitably start taking it seriously and running around raving about gays, oxen, harlots, and plagues of frogs and then killing people in the name of Yahweh when all we really wanted them to do was memorize some cool sayings. If we're going to do this thing, we need to pick a source text that not only has cool sayings but has a built-in fail-safe, some sort of hidden theme that, when the schizophrenics convince themselves it was really written by God and they have to do what it says, leads them to run around raving about ice cream sundaes and smiting each other with big fuzzy pillows - you know, so things don't get out of hand like last time.
But, the thing is, there are lots of texts we could use: The complete film scripts of Groucho Marx. Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. Ulysses, by James Joyce. The Happy Hooker, by Xaviera Hollander. Hell, even Shakespeare, though we'd have to keep the schizos away from Desdemona, Shylock, and all that ugly stuff at the end of Hamlet. All these contain enough literary gems and shared cultural content to give us something to talk about, and the language to do so with, for as long as we need. Some of these texts, to be sure, incorporate Biblical themes, but we can ignore those the way Bible adherents ignore the parts that were lifted directly from the Epic of Gilgamesh. By choosing a more uplifing - and, frankly, relevant - text, we would give our culture a common language, but one composed largely of words that are actually still in use, without all the bad stuff mixed in.
I suppose many proponents of "Biblical literacy" are motivated by their own personal devotion to what the Bible actually says, not merely the fact that it has cultural/linguistic heft. But that's exactly the wrong reason to promote it universally, and exactly the reason it has lately been eclipsed. We've seen how much damage the Bible can do, and we know how damaging compulsory religion is under any circumstances. Only Paglia hints at its religious content as a reason for adopting the Bible universally - but that is the worst reason of all, and we see that the other benefits such adoption offers are limited at best.
Then, too, the world has moved beyond the limited cultural compass that assumes everyone has the same cultural reference points, or wants them. The reason the Bible is no longer common currency is not that people have "drifted away" from it, but that large parts of society center their cultural landscapes on completely different reference points, and others have rejected the imposition of religious practices they do not endorse, even if they are open to the general message. For this reason, it may be a mistake to imagine that any source text can capture the good that each person finds in pursuing their own cultural commitments independently, and certainly a mistake to think that the Christian Bible, if we must have a common catechism, should be its source.
After all, as all members of our culture must surely be aware: "I am large, I contain multitudes" (Walt Whitman)
posted on 09.27.2005 2:52 PM27
I agree that it's a shame to lose a commom culture, but a big part of the problem is that Biblical tradition has been turned into junk by the literalists and right-wingers who try to make a political agenda out of it. And it's not just the Biblical tradition that we've lost; in the 19th century people were well-educated in Western culture generally, including Greek and Roman traditions. Since those traditions are not being tied to an extreme political agenda, maybe they're the ones that should be revived.
posted on 09.27.2005 6:35 PM28
"I'm not a believer, but I've often thought that pretending the Bible didn't exist as literature in schools was a mistake. If there were some way of studying religion from a non-religious standpoint in public education, I'd say it was a good idea."
A couple of stories from the KJV appear in the anthology my British literature class has as a primary text. I teach it as literature, like anything else in the text; we delve into the elements such as allusion, simile, metaphor, characterization, etc. It's not that big a deal. I teach some Greek mythology in a different level class. As an atheist, I have no problem with it. I tell my own children some of the Bible stories to encourage cultural literacy, and my elder daughter occasionally picks up one of the Bibles and reads a bit. She's a smart girl, and she can figure out what does and does not make sense to her.
posted on 09.27.2005 8:15 PM29
I always wondered what would happen to our culture, if all the people who said that they believed the Bible actually read it, and practiced it.
Or, even a third of them.
posted on 09.27.2005 9:00 PM30
Surely, Kevin W., you don't want people to practice what they have read in Leviticus :)
posted on 09.27.2005 9:48 PM31
Something's missing in this discussion: 2 Tim 3:16 &*17 tell us that "all(!) scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" So it would seem that the first people to sit up & take notice of what scripture teaches would be the "men of God" -- in other words those who claim to be God's people. As our church leaders do or do not pay attention to the Word of God they set the stage for what is to follow whether for good or for ill. As for those who are still "strangers to the grace of God" (Look it up in a good concordance or do a google search if need be)these words still hold true: ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY GOD AND IS PROFITABLE... and a good place to start is Romans 3:23 & following, coupled with John 3:16 (which is more than a football game slogan, btw). It's time that the dwellers of this poor beknighted sphere "wake up and smell the coffee" when it comes to paying attention to the words of our Creator before it's too late. Especially in view of the fact that none of us has his next breath promised to him.
posted on 09.27.2005 10:35 PM32
Kevin T. Keith,
I agree with most of what you have to say, and as always I admire your facility with language and ideas.
But I think you are downplaying the significance of the Bible a little too much.
I believe the Christian doctrines of faith, love, charity, forgiveness, and so on, have had a truly profound impact on Western civilization that cannot seriously be considered analogous to the influence exerted by Groucho Marx, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, or even Shakespeare himself.
I know your examples were made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and I understand and agree with the point you were trying to make, but only so far and no more.
Rob Ryan,
You are paleface with mighty big medicine. Me want to be in your class!
Joe,
I think reading the entire Bible as literature is too ambitious a project for most people. Heck, reading Darwin's The Origin of Species is too ambitious for most people!
I think a better way for some people to learn the scope and power of the Bible would be to set up some special Bible study classes around a performance of Handel's Messiah, both before the performance and afterwards.
The classes would be based on the libretto of the oratorio so that people could appreciate the tale that was being told and why people think it's so important. Since the focus would be on Handel's Messiah, participation in the classes would be meaningful to believers and non-believers alike.
By the way, I'd like to thank you for admitting defeat in your misguided attempt to poke holes in materialism, even if you only did so by forfeiting the match.
But don't worry, I'm sure one day God will give you a way to ridicule materialism that will actually hold water -- he is omnipotent after all. :)
33
Matthew,
By the way, I'd like to thank you for admitting defeat in your misguided attempt to poke holes in materialism, even if you only did so by forfeiting the match.
Well, you can lead a materialist to logic but you can't make him think. He'll just claim that since beliefs are immaterial then they must not exist. ; )
posted on 09.28.2005 12:19 AM34
"But he also possessed more knowledge about the Bible than a pew full of Baptists."
Must be elderly Baptists. The under 50 crowd has not absorbed Scripture, as most will freely acknowledge.
posted on 09.28.2005 1:20 AM35
"You are paleface with mighty big medicine. Me want to be in your class!"
You would be welcome in our tribe, of course. If only more of my young braves shared your enthusiasm!
On a related note, the Scholars Bowl team I co-sponsor has as a strength its Bible literacy. If, in the midst of competition, our team is called upon to "name the wives of the following Bible characters", my hopes for victory are immediately buoyed.
posted on 09.28.2005 6:39 AM36
Joe,
And you can lead a Plantingist to an atheist, but he'll dismiss the fellow's beliefs as immaterial! ;)
posted on 09.28.2005 7:50 AM37
I believe the Christian doctrines of faith, love, charity, forgiveness, and so on, have had a truly profound impact on Western civilization that cannot seriously be considered analogous to the influence exerted by Groucho Marx, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, or even Shakespeare himself.
I agree, what we are stumbling upon here as we reinvent the wheel (which isn't the first time this blog has done that) is the concept of cannon. Namely the set of literature that we should consider the 'required texts' of studying English literature.
Shakespeare's influence is probably very close to the Bible (in many ways he made Enlish a literary language...btw keep in mind the Bible is not an English work...only its translations are). Joyce and Whiteman are lesser figures in the hall of giants but still far above us regular people. I like Groucho as much as anyone but I'm not sure he is equal to Joyce.
Well, you can lead a materialist to logic but you can't make him think. He'll just claim that since beliefs are immaterial then they must not exist. ; )
Ironically Joe is the only one who has made this argument.
posted on 09.28.2005 7:51 AM38
I agree with most of what you have to say, and as always I admire your facility with language and ideas.But I think you are downplaying the significance of the Bible a little too much.
I believe the Christian doctrines of faith, love, charity, forgiveness, and so on, have had a truly profound impact on Western civilization that cannot seriously be considered analogous to the influence exerted by Groucho Marx, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, or even Shakespeare himself.
I want to point out that you are assuming the Bible was more widely read historically in Western culture. That may be true, but it's not the complete picture. Remember that for individuals, reading the Bible frequently is more of a modern Protestant pastime than for other Christian religions. Unless they knew how to read Latin, not many Catholics were reading the Bible. And women often were not allowed to learn to read in the first place, so there goes half of the population out the window.
I think who read the Bible is just as important, if not more so, than whether it was widely read.
posted on 09.28.2005 2:54 PM39
Boonton:
"Shakespeare's influence is probably very close to the Bible."
On what possible grounds can you say that Shakespeare's influence has been very close to the Bible? He might be one of the greatest writers who ever lived, but explain how he could be considered a guiding light to the founders of this country--to say nothing of the many Christians who quoted scripture to each other, but probably never read much Shakespeare.
posted on 09.28.2005 2:56 PM40
Shakespeare created literature in the English Language. Not everything is politics you know but I accept it's difficult to measure these things. You're probably right the Bible has had more influence than Shakespeare.
Also its important to remember that culture is different than a simple poll counting who has read what. Those that read would read the Bible and that would influence them when they created plays, stories, made speeches and so on. Those who listened to them likewise carried the message to others so the impact is felt second, third and forthhand all the way to even illiterate areas.
How many things are you familiar with in general...like PDA's, Pokeman, digital music, file sharing etc. that you learned not from first hand experience but second and third hand?
Even better, look at the impact Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Keynes had on economics yet a minority of economists ever read a single entire book by any of them. You'll be lucky to find economists who read maybe 10-20 pages from each in some type of survey course. I could also ask how many biologists read Darwin's Origin of the Species but 4-5 active evolution threads is more than enough!
posted on 09.28.2005 4:16 PM41
Speaking of the shame of Biblical illiteracy:
One person at EO recently quoted Romans 1 ". . . first to the Jews and then to the Greeks.
The response: " I am neither a Jew or a Greek."
But this is not half as bad as Howard Dean saying that the book of Job was his "favorite book of the New Testament," or Al Gore in one of his presidential debates misquoting Jesus by saying, "Where your heart is there your treasure is also," instead of "Where your treasure is, there your heast is also."
The examples are many and sometimes humerous, as in the cases above. But there is an apparent lack of depth of understanding of Biblical history are everywhere you look, including here at the EO where worlds usually collide
before the thread reaches double digits. So much effort is consumed in clarifying basic doctrines and correcting petty missunderstandings, that seldom do the gifted Bible teachers, of whom there are many, even bother to enter the fray.
42
Terence,
I haven't noticed a problem with Bible unfamiliarity at the Evangelical Outpost.
If anything, the posters here seem quite well-versed in the themes and history of the Bible. And that goes for the non-Christians as well as the Christians. I just haven't seen what you are talking about.
And to label anyone's ignorance as "the shame of Biblical illiteracy" is mean-spirited and un-Christian. There is no shame in ignorance. You should be glad to be able to help someone overcome any gaps in their knowledge.
Jesus didn't go around shaming people for their ignorance. He taught the ignorant, inspired the unbelievers, and forgave the sinners. You could do a lot worse than to follow his example.
posted on 09.30.2005 12:58 AM43
If anything, the posters here seem quite well-versed in the themes and history of the Bible. And that goes for the non-Christians as well as the Christians. I just haven't seen what you are talking about.
Are you so sure of that? Recently we had a few times where these 'well-versed' people tried to tell us that evil entered the world thru Adam's decision to eat the apple...despite the fact that serpant existed and was in the world before that and the fact that Satan's fall came before man was created (I guess a purest could argue that isn't as directly from the Bible...)
posted on 09.30.2005 8:45 AM44
Matthew:
I have to go teach chess in a short while, but a few quick points.
The reference to the "shame of Biblical illiteracy" was from the title of this thread and if I wanted to shame anyone on another thread, I would have indentified them personally. Literally everyday I see evidence of a lack of Biblical knowledge at the EO, as I am sure many others do, particularly the webmaster. Rarely does anyone make a big issue of it, perhaps a quite clarification, or nothing is said at all. Biblical knowledge is all relative. My son studies Hebrew in college. His knowledge in that respect dwarfs mine, but at least I am aware of it. I would agree with you that there "is no shame in ignorance" unless the unknowing places himself in a position of authority in the matter. For example, Jesus many times rebuked the scribes and pharisees (who were supposed to be the Bible scholars), for their lack of knowledge. He said,
"You error, not knowing the scriptures. . . "
"Have you not heard . . . "
"Have you not read . . . "
He had a very sharp tounge, as Gorden has recently pointed out, but his sharp words were not for the meek and uneducated, they were reserved for those had a tendency to pontificate about things that they did not understand.
45
Kevin T. Keith's comments, and Joe E.'s follow-up, are a reminder that the Bible makes claims of itself that distinguish it from even the greatest of great literature (though Keith's inability to preference the Bible over the Happy Hooker suggests either abysmal taste or a certain fashionable post-modernism cleverness that makes me worry for his children).
Atheist Christopher Hitchens (or, perhaps, Christopher "Atheist" Hitchens) has suggested, quite seriously, that great literature can form the basis of a public morality (he remains quite clear that the distance between "private religion" and "public morality" shall remain, ahem, as far as the east is from the west). The question of what qualifies as "great literature" is not self-evident, and so one can choose two roads: with Paglia, one can accept a generally established canon; or, with Kevin T. Keith, one can throw one's hands in the air and admit that you can't see any real difference between the Happy Hooker and Revelation of St. John, so let's read both (or neither).
In the midst of Kevin T. Keith's interesting summary was this: "..it may be a mistake to imagine that any source text can capture the good that each person finds in pursuing their own cultural commitments independently, and certainly a mistake to think that the Christian Bible, if we must have a common catechism, should be its source." Fair enough! Since we've ruled out the Bible as an acceptable common catechism (bring on Xaviera Hollander!) why should I not pursue my offensive, bigoted, primitive and schizophrenic goals, since these represent my apparently unassailable independent cultural commitments? Of perhaps I am to be restrained by the consensus opinion of blog comment boxes?
I won't quote Whitman (or, alas, Hollander), but perhaps I can interest you in an increasingly obscure yet still useful linguistic trope: Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
posted on 09.30.2005 3:58 PM46
Boonton:
"Recently we had a few times where these 'well-versed' people tried to tell us that evil entered the world thru Adam's decision to eat the apple...despite the fact that serpant existed and was in the world before that and the fact that Satan's fall came before man was created (I guess a purest could argue that isn't as directly from the Bible...)"
These "well versed" people were correct in asserting that by one man sin entered the world, but it was not meant to imply that at the fall "evil" first reared its ugly head. Paul states:
"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)
Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good. According to the Bible, it was first manifested before
fall - that is, the fall of man. I don't mean to go Silmarillian on you, but read Eziekiel 28:11-19 for an inside look at the fall of the angels. What both episodes have in common is an exercise of free will.
47
Terence,
Thank you for your thoughtful and cogent response.
I hesitate to respond with anything other than simple gratitude, but I want to point out something.
The reference to the "shame of Biblical illiteracy" was from the title of this thread...
Perhaps Joe thinks it is personally shameful for someone to have or display ignorance of something Biblical.
The way I took the title of the post, however, is very different.
I took Joe's meaning to be "shame" in the sense of "Gee, ain't it a crying shame that things are the way they are." There didn't seem to be any reference to something Joe would consider to be personally shameful on the part of anyone, at least not on the surface.
Your comment, on the other hand, seemed to be saying that some of us here were displaying a shameful ignorance. Such use of the word shame is very different, much more judgemental in a harsh and unfair way.
So although you were on topic, more or less, you were taking things in a significantly different direction.
Thanks again for your reply, sir.
posted on 09.30.2005 10:21 PM48
Matthew,
You got me thinking about my own level of Biblical literacy, especially after I questioned the literacy of others. I took the advanced level test at biblechallenge.org. just for fun. It was completed by over 67,000 participants and should give a person a pretty good idea of where they stand.
It covered 300 questions regarding characters, references, doctrines, chronology, and geography. I found that I was shamefully mediocre in names, geography and chronology but in doctrines and references I was in the 90% bracket. The reason for this discrepancy is that I read alot of Bible commentaries, but not enough Bible where the smaller details are learned.
I would encourage everyone to take this test, it is a real eye opener.
Aloha
49
I'm impressed with your article. I'm looking forward to your next blog.
posted on 10.03.2005 7:25 AM