I was stunned to learn that most liberal arts students have little or no knowledge of the most famous stories in the Bible. Most of the great literature contain numerous references to the Bible. I wonder if most students just skim over these references from laziness and lose the full meaning and representation?
The author has a strong point when discussing the bible as an important foundational text for Western Civilization. Consider for a moment that the bible is a middle eastern oral tradition turned written record of various tribes transcribed by various ethnic groups over several centuries and preserved by entirely different ethnic groups in different locations and eras. The book is full of stories told repeatedly across centuries and contains several genres including poetry, pre-modern history, satire, narrative, chiasmus, etc.
I always loved the times we studied Roman, Greek, Norse, Hindu, Native American, or Chinese mythology in school. Learning the stories of those civilizations was always the first step to then understand more about them as we went on to learn of their culture, war fighting, building plans, agriculture, etc.
My point is that maybe we've reached a point where we spend a week explaining the top stories from the Bible as an introductory way to explain Christianity. The same way we teach Hercules or Beowulf we might teach Moses or King David.
The people who might benefit the most from such an approach? Christians! Whose only exposure to the bible may have come from prooftext laden sermons.
I was stunned to learn that most liberal arts students have little or no knowledge of the most famous stories in the Bible. Most of the great literature contain numerous references to the Bible. I wonder if most students just skim over these references from laziness and lose the full meaning and representation?
The author has a strong point when discussing the bible as an important foundational text for Western Civilization. Consider for a moment that the bible is a middle eastern oral tradition turned written record of various tribes transcribed by various ethnic groups over several centuries and preserved by entirely different ethnic groups in different locations and eras. The book is full of stories told repeatedly across centuries and contains several genres including poetry, pre-modern history, satire, narrative, chiasmus, etc.
I always loved the times we studied Roman, Greek, Norse, Hindu, Native American, or Chinese mythology in school. Learning the stories of those civilizations was always the first step to then understand more about them as we went on to learn of their culture, war fighting, building plans, agriculture, etc.
My point is that maybe we've reached a point where we spend a week explaining the top stories from the Bible as an introductory way to explain Christianity. The same way we teach Hercules or Beowulf we might teach Moses or King David.
The people who might benefit the most from such an approach? Christians! Whose only exposure to the bible may have come from prooftext laden sermons.