Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture

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Date:	29 Sep 2005 04:20:05 PM
Object:	Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture

Bible Illiteracy in America
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From the May 23, 2005 issue: A report just issued by the Bible Literacy

Project suggests that young Americans know very little about the Bible.
The report is important, but first things first: A fair number of
Americans don't see why teenagers should know anything at all about the
Bible.
by David Gelernter
05/23/2005, Volume 010, Issue 34
A REPORT JUST ISSUED BY the Bible Literacy Project (more on this later)
suggests that young Americans know very little about the Bible. The
report is important, but first things first: A fair number of Americans
don't see why teenagers should know anything at all about the Bible.
Scripture begins with God creating the world, but there is something
these verses don't tell you: The Bible has itself created worlds.
Wherever you stand on the spectrum from devout to atheist, you must
acknowledge that the Bible has been a creative force without parallel
in history.
Go to the center of Paris and drop in on the apotheosis of the French
Middle Ages--Sainte Chapelle, whose walls are made almost entirely of
stained glass. It "has rightly been called," writes the scholar Shalom
Spiegel, "the most wonderful of pictured Bibles." The King James Bible,
says Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "has influenced our literature more
deeply than any other book--more deeply even than all the writings of
Shakespeare--far more deeply." The poet and painter William Blake calls
the Old and New Testaments "the Great Codes of Art." America's foremost
prophet offers his culminating vision in the second inaugural
address--"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness
in the right, as God gives us to see the right . . . " Lincoln's speech
"reads like a supplement to the Bible," writes the historian William
Wolf, with its "fourteen references to God, four direct quotations from
Genesis, Psalms, and Matthew, and other allusions to scriptural
teaching." "The best gift God has given to man," Lincoln called the
Bible. "But for it we could not know right from wrong."
Ronald Reagan called America "a great shining city on a hill,"
three-and-a-half centuries after John Winthrop (sailing for Boston in
1630) anticipated a new community that would be "as a Citty upon a
Hill"--invoking the famous verse in Matthew, "Ye are the light of the
world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid" (5:14). Which harks
back in turn to the prophets (Isaiah 2:2-3, Micah 4:2) and the book of
Proverbs (4:18). John Livingstone Lowe called the King James Bible "the
noblest monument of English prose" (1936); George Saintsbury called it
"probably the greatest prose work in any language" (1887). Nearly two
millennia earlier, the great Pharisee rabbi Hillel described the ideal
life: "loving peace and pursuing peace; loving humanity and bringing it
close to the Torah."
Here is a basic question about America that ought to be on page 1 of
every history book: What made the nation's Founders so sure they were
onto something big? America today is the most powerful nation on earth,
most powerful in all history--and a model the whole world imitates.
What made them so sure?--the settlers and colonists, the Founding
Fathers and all the generations that intervened before America emerged
as a world power in the 20th century? What made them so certain that
America would become a light of the world, the shining city on a hill?
What made John Adams say, in 1765, "I always consider the settlement of
America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and
design in Providence"? What made Abraham Lincoln call America (in 1862,
in the middle of a ruinous civil war) "the last, best hope of earth"?
We know of people who are certain of their destinies from childhood on.
But nations?
Many things made all these Americans and proto-Americans sure; and to
some extent they were merely guessing and hoping. But one thing above
all made them true prophets. They read the Bible. Winthrop, Adams,
Lincoln, and thousands of others found a good destiny in the Bible and
made it their own. They read about Israel's covenant with God and took
it to heart: They were Israel. ("Wee are entered into Covenant with him
for this worke," said Winthrop. "Wee shall finde that the God of
Israell is among us.") They read about God's chosen people and took it
to heart: They were God's chosen people, or--as Lincoln put it--God's
"almost chosen people." The Bible as they interpreted it told them what
they could be and would be. Unless we read the Bible, American history
is a closed book.
Evidently young Americans don't know much about the Bible (or anything
else, come to think of it; that's another story). But let's not kid
ourselves--this problem will be hard to attack. It's clear that any
public school that teaches about America must teach about the Bible,
from outside. But teaching the Bible from inside (reading Scripture,
not just about Scripture) is trickier. You don't have to believe in the
mythical "wall of separation" between church and state--which the Bill
of Rights never mentions and had no intention of erecting--to
understand that Americans don't want their public schools teaching
Christianity or Judaism.
But
can you teach the Bible as mere "literature" without flattening and
misrepresenting it? How will you address the differences (which go
right down to the ground) between Jews and Christians respecting the
Bible? (The question is not so much how to spare Jewish
sensibilities--minorities have rights, but so do majorities; the
question is how to tell the truth.) What kind of parents leave their
children's Bible education to the public schools, anyway? How do we go
beyond public schools in attacking a nationwide problem of Bible
illiteracy?
Tricky questions.
AMERICAN HISTORY STARTS with the emergence of Puritanism in
16th-century Britain. The Bible was central to the founding and
development of Puritanism. It was central to the emergence of modern
Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries--and modern Britain was
important in turn to America and to the whole world.
"Puritan" has been an insult for hundreds of years. (Where are the
revisionists when you need one?) It suggests rigid, austere,
censorious--exactly the kind of religion that secularists love to hate.
The Puritans were rigid and censorious to a point; most caricatures are
partly true. But mainly they were Christians who hoped to worship God
with their whole lives, body and soul; with a dazzling fervor that
still lights up their journals, letters, and poetry 300 years later. In
the early 18th century the young Jonathan Edwards (eventually one of
America's greatest theologians) writes of being "wrapped and swallowed
up in God." "The Puritans wanted that fullness of life that made David
dance before the ark" (thus J.D. Dow in 1897). America was born in a
passionate spiritual explosion. The explosion was created and fueled by
the Bible.
The invention of printing in the mid-15th century, and the Protestant
Reformation in the early 16th--whose central idea was that Scripture
and not human theological doctrine must be decisive for
Christianity--created an English Bible-reading craze. The masses were
hungry for literature, and religion was the hottest topic on the
agenda. Already in Henry VIII's reign (1509-47), the Bible was
"disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern,"
according to the king himself--who was not happy about it. The Bible
was a radical, subversive book.
English Bible translations date back to medieval times. (In fact
earlier: The first translation, into Anglo-Saxon rather than English
proper, was a word-by-word crib added to the Latin of the circa-700
Lindisfarne Gospel Book--one of history's most sublimely beautiful
manuscripts and greatest artworks.) But translating the Bible into
English was no mere literary act. It was a controversial theological
declaration. Religious reformers saw the English Bible as nothing less
than a direct connection between ordinary Christian believers and the
Lord. Putting the Scripture into English was sacred work; some were
willing to die for it. They were opposed by such Roman Catholic
stalwarts as Sir Thomas More, who expressed a widely held view when he
proclaimed it "pestilential heresy" to think that "we should believe
nothing but plain Scripture."
The English Bible as we know it begins with John Wycliffe's work in the
late 14th century. Wycliffe preached the primacy of the Bible and
founded the Lollards' movement, which in many ways harks forward to the
Protestant Reformation. When he died in 1384, Wycliffe's English Bible
was nearly complete. But his translation was banned in 1408, and the
Lollards (who had become revolutionaries of a sort) were brutally
suppressed. Many were burnt alive with Bibles hung around their necks.
In the early 16th century the next great English translator, William
Tyndale, announced to a learned theologian that "ere many years I will
cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the scripture than
thou dost." Tyndale was inspired by Luther and dedicated to the task of
producing an up-to-date English Bible. The English church denounced
him; he fled to the continent. He was declared a heretic nonetheless,
arrested near Brussels, and executed in 1536.
Henry VIII banned Tyndale's translation for its alleged Protestant
tendencies, but promised the nation a religiously acceptable English
Bible. Meanwhile he brought Protestantism to England in his own
idiosyncratic way. From Henry's time onward, the English Bible was an
established fact of English life. In his exhaustive analysis (1941),
Charles Butterworth ranks Tyndale's the early version that contributed
most to the King James Bible. The Geneva Bible ranks a close second. It
was published in 1560, two years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
"No greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over
England during the years which parted the middle of the reign of
Elizabeth," writes the historian John Richard Green in a famous passage
(1874). "England became the people of a book, and that book was the
Bible." Religious reformers, inspired by continental Protestants as
well as the Bible itself, became dissatisfied with the Church of
England--which was closely associated with the monarchy. They found it
too popish, too fancy-shmancy, insufficiently "purified"; too removed
from the Bible. They wanted a biblical Christianity.
People called the reformers Puritans. Most were Congregationalist or
Presbyterian but some were Baptist, Quaker, or something else; some
never left the Church of England. (Denominations weren't as sharply
defined as they are today. Nor did they stand for the same theological
positions. Early Quakers, for example, weren't necessarily pacifist.)
Elizabeth tolerated the Puritans. But things changed when the Virgin
Queen died and the Stuarts came to power. On succeeding Elizabeth,
James I announced that he would make the Puritans "conform themselves
or I will harry them out of the land." He meant it. Persecuted Puritans
set sail in rising numbers for the New World.
THE GENEVA BIBLE became and remained the Puritans' favorite. It had
marginal notes that Puritans liked--but King James and the Church of
England deemed them obnoxious. The notes were anti-monarchy and
pro-republic--"untrue, seditious, and savouring too much of dangerous
and traitorous conceits," the king said. Under his sponsorship a new
Bible was prepared (without interpretive notes) by 47 of the best
scholars in the land. The King James version appeared in 1611--intended
merely as a modest improvement over previous translations. But it
happened to be a literary masterpiece of stupendous proportions. Purely
on artistic grounds it ranks with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare--Western
literature's greatest achievements. In terms of influence and
importance, it flattens the other three.
"The Bible was central to [Britain's] intellectual as well as moral
life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries," writes Christopher
Hill (1993). "The effect of the continual domestic study" of the Bible,
according to the eminent historian G.M. Trevelyan (1926), "was greater
than that of any literary movement in our annals"--in fact was greater
(he adds) than that of any religious movement since the arrival of
Christianity in Britain. "The Bible in English history," he writes,
"may be regarded as a 'Renaissance' of Hebrew literature far more
widespread and more potent than even the Classical Renaissance."
We aren't discussing a merely "popular" or "influential" book. We are
talking revolution. In 16th and 17th-century Britain, the English Bible
was capable of affecting the first thoughts people had on waking, their
last thoughts before sleeping, their dreams, and their nightmares.
British homes were decorated biblically--with Bible quotations or
pictures painted or papered on the walls or printed on cloth
wall-hangings. British life grew and flourished on a biblical trellis.
Centuries later, Quiller-Couch wrote of the Bible in Britain that "it
is in everything we see, hear, feel, because it is in us, in our
blood."
ARCHBISHOP LAUD, high church and bitterly anti-Puritan, made life even
harder for the Puritans under Charles I, who followed James. James and
Charles had picked a fight that would continue in one form or another
almost till the end of the 17th century--a period that includes the
English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the Puritan Commonwealth
under Oliver Cromwell as "Lord Protector," the restoration of the
Stuart kings, and their final booting-out in the Glorious Revolution of
1688. When the smoke cleared, Britain was transformed: Parliament's
power had been established forever; absolute monarchy had been
permanently rejected.
Friction between Puritans and the Church of England was a major cause
of the Civil War (1642-51)--which in turn was a major shaping event of
the modern world. Parliament and the Puritans (to strip things down to
essentials) rebelled against King Charles I and the Church of England.
The Bible figured heavily on both sides, especially among the Puritans.
The Puritan army was famous for chanting psalms. Oliver Cromwell once
halted his army during a hot pursuit so they could all chant psalm 117
together. (He was a fine general; 117 is a short psalm.) The biblical
passage in which Samuel warns the Israelites of the nightmare dangers
of kingship was a natural Puritan favorite. The idea of a "Covenant
with God," the whole population swearing loyalty to the Lord, was
important too. (But the Bible was crucial across the theological and
political spectrum. "Although the Puritans were great Psalm-singers,
they were not as prominent in the writing of literary Meditations based
on the Psalms as were the moderate Anglicans," for example--thus the
critic and historian Harold Fisch, 1964.)
In 2002, Fania Oz-Salzberger published a major paper documenting the
Hebrew Bible's influence on such seminal British political thinkers of
the period as John Selden, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. They all
agreed, writes Oz-Salzberger, that "the people of Israel had a
republic, a nearly perfect republic, from the time of the Exodus until
at least the coronation of Saul. . . . And precisely because of its
transcendent origin, it was an exemplary state of law and a society
dedicated to social justice and republican liberty."
John Locke is often described as the most important philosophical
influence on the American revolution. Locke believed in a "social
contract" in which citizens swap some freedom for a civilized life:
Everyone's freedom is curtailed, and everyone benefits. The results are
civil society and the state. Locke relied heavily on the Bible. For
Locke, writes Richard Ashcraft (1987), "the Bible was the primary
source for any endeavor to supply a 'historical' account of man's
existence."
After the 1600s, the Bible declined as a political hot topic in
Britain, but all sorts of evidence attests to the nation's continuing
tendency to see itself as ancient Israel reborn--with an exalted
destiny and special relationship to the Almighty. In 1719, for example,
Isaac Watts published a bestselling translation of the Psalms--in which
references to "Israel" were replaced by the words "Great Britain." When
Georg Friedrich H=E4ndel settled in London, he determined (naturally) to
do things British-style. Thus a long series of oratorios--Esther,
Deborah, Judas Maccabeus, Joshua, Susannah, Jephtha, Israel in
Egypt--all presupposing that Britain was the new Israel.
The Bible's influence on British literature was profound. The work of
John Milton, peerless semi-Puritan poet and political agitator, would
have been inconceivable without the Bible--"that book within whose
sacred context all wisdom is enfolded," he wrote in 1642. Wordsworth
said of Milton's poetry, "However imbued the surface might be with
classical literature, he was a Hebrew in soul; all things tended in him
towards the sublime." (The first-century Greek who is now called
"Pseudo-Longinus"--real name uncertain--got this ball rolling when he
famously associated "sublimity" with the Hebrew bible, especially the
start of Genesis.)
The Bible continued as a vital influence on English literature through
William Blake and the romantics and (of course) even farther, down to
our own day. In the literature of ancient Greece, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge announced, "all natural objects were dead, mere hollow
statues," whereas "in the Hebrew poets each thing has a life of its
own." In the Bible "I have found," he wrote, "words for my inmost
thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs. . . . " In
certain of Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies (poems to be sung to Hebrew
tunes), the poet captures not only the mood but the subject matter of
the biblical Song of Songs--"She walks in beauty, like the night / Of
cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that's best of dark and
bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes. . . . " Examples of the
Bible's centrality to English literature are countless.
MEANWHILE, ANGLICAN SETTLERS founded Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607;
Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower founded Plymouth in 1620. Boston and
Salem, 1630. The goal of the early Puritan settlers, writes the
historian Sidney Ahlstrom, was "a Holy Commonwealth standing in a
national covenant with its Lord." Ahlstrom mentions also that "an
'Anglicanism' deeply colored by Puritan convictions would shape the
early religious life of Virginia"; so it seems fair to describe the
first stages of the invention of America as a basically Puritan affair.
The early settlers founded a series of colleges to provide them with
pastors and theologians, starting with Harvard in 1636. By 1700, a
quarter of a million ex-Europeans and their descendants lived in the
future United States.
America's earliest settlers came in search of religious freedom, to
escape religious persecution--vitally important facts that Americans
tend increasingly to forget. A new arrival who joined the Pilgrims at
Plymouth in 1623 "blessed God for the opportunity of freedom and
liberty to enjoy the ordinances of God in purity among His people."
America was a haven for devoutly religious dissidents. It is a perfect
reflection of the nation's origins that the very first freedom in the
Bill of Rights--Article one, part one--should be religious freedom.
"Separation of church and state" was a means to an end, not an end in
itself. The idea that the Bill of Rights would one day be traduced into
a broom to sweep religion out of the public square like so much dried
mud off the boots of careless children would have left the Founders of
this nation (my guess is) trembling in rage. We owe it to them in
simple gratitude to see that the Bill of Rights is not--is never--used
as a weapon against religion.
You cannot understand the literature and experience of 17th-century
American Puritans unless you know the Bible. The Pilgrim father William
Bradford reports in his famous journal, for example, that his people
had no choice but to camp near their landing-place on the Massachusetts
mainland. There was no reason to think they could do better elsewhere;
after all they could not, "as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to
view from this wilderness a more goodly country."
Bradford saw no need to explain that he was referring to Moses gazing
at the Promised Land from atop Mount Pisgah before his death
(Deuteronomy 34:1). To 17th-century readers, the reference would have
been obvious--and so too the implied message: These Pilgrims are like
biblical Israelites. They are a chosen people who made a dangerous
crossing from the house of (British) bondage to a Promised Land of
freedom. Other Puritan settlers expressed themselves in similar terms.
There is a fascinating resemblance between these Puritan writings and
the Hebrew literary form called "melitzah," in which the author makes
his point by stringing together Biblical and rabbinic passages. The
Puritans' world, like traditional Jewish society, was permeated and
obsessed with the Bible.
Bradford's comparison between Puritans and ancient Israel is central to
the American revolution and the emergence of the new nation. Americans
saw themselves as Israelites throwing off a tyrant's yoke. Most
historians look to the British and Continental philosophers of the
Enlightenment, Locke especially, as the major intellectual influence on
America's Founding Fathers and revolutionary generation. To rely on
Locke is to rely (indirectly) on the Bible. Yet the Bible itself,
straight up, was the most important revolutionary text of all. Consider
the seal of the United States designed by a committee of the
Continental Congress consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and
Thomas Jefferson. (They don't make congressional committees like they
used to!) Their proposed seal shows Israel crossing the Red Sea, with
the motto "Rebellion to kings is obedience to God." The pastor Abiel
Abbot proclaimed in 1799, "It has been often remarked that the people
of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel,
than any other nation upon the globe. Hence Our American Israel is a
term frequently used; and our common consent allows it apt and proper."
That Britain and America should both have been inclined to see
themselves as chosen peoples made a subterranean connection between
them that has sometimes--one suspects--been plainer to their enemies
than their friends. Down to the war in Iraq, enemies of America and
Britain have suspected an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy to rule the world. In
part this is paranoia; but it might also have something to do with
Britain's and America's Bible-centered cultural histories. The two
nations speak of a "special relationship" with each other--besides
which, each has a history of believing in its own "special
relationship" with the Lord Himself.
THE BIBLE CONTINUED TO SHAPE AMERICAN HISTORY. Some Americans saw the
great push westward as fulfilling the Lord's plan for the United
States, modeled on Israel's settlement of the holy land. Meanwhile,
many have noticed that the history of modern Israel resembles earlier
American experience. Harassed Europeans arrive in a sparsely settled
land in search of freedom. They build the place up and make it bloom.
They struggle with the indigenous inhabitants, some of whom are
friendly and some not. At first they collaborate with the British
colonial authorities; each group winds up in a push for independence
and a deadly fight with Britain.
But long before Israel resembled America, America resembled Israel.
It's true that Manifest Destiny--the idea that America was predestined
to push westwards towards the Pacific--was less a Bible-based than a
"natural rights" approach to America's place in God's plans. You didn't
have to consult the Bible to learn about America's Manifest Destiny; it
was just obvious. But America was called back to her biblical faith by
no less a man than Abraham Lincoln himself.
As the Civil War approached, both North and South saw their positions
in biblical terms. Southern preachers sometimes accused abolitionists
of being atheists in disguise. Lincoln rose above this kind of dispute.
"In the present civil war it is quite possible," he wrote in 1862,
"that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either
party."
Lincoln was America's most "biblical" president--"no president has ever
had the detailed knowledge of the Bible that Lincoln had," writes the
historian William Wolf. Lincoln turned to the Bible more and more
frequently and fervently as the war progressed. His heterodox but
profound Christianity showed him how to understand the war as a fight
to redeem America's promise to mankind. Lincoln never joined a church,
but said often that he would join one if "the Saviour's summary of the
Gospel" were its only creed. He meant the passage in Mark and Luke
where Jesus restates God's requirements in terms of two edicts from the
Hebrew Bible: to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and
strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Lincoln's religion was
deeply biblical--and characteristically American.
In modern times the Bible was no less important as a shaper and molder
of American destiny. Woodrow Wilson, another intensely biblical
president, spoke in biblical terms when he took America into the First
World War--on behalf of freedom and democracy for all mankind. Harry
Truman's Bible-centered Christianity was important to his decisions to
lead America into the Cold War, and make America the first nation to
recognize the newborn state of Israel--to the vast disgust of the
perpetually benighted State Department. Reagan's presidency revolved
around Winthrop's Gospel-inspired image of the sacred city on a hill.
George W. Bush's worldwide war on tyranny is the quintessence of a
biblical project--one that sees America as an almost chosen people,
with the heavy responsibilities that go with the job.
There is no agreement whether God created the world, but the Bible's
awe-striking creative powers are undeniable. There is no agreement
whether God "is not a man that He should lie" (Numbers 23:19), but the
Hebrew Bible's uncanny honesty respecting Israel and its many sins is
plain. The faithful ask, in the words of the 139th psalm, "Whither
shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?"
And answer, "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the
uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy
right hand shall hold me." Secularists don't see it that way; but the
Bible's penetration into the farthest corners of the known world is
simple fact. Most contemporary philosophers and culture critics are
barely aware of these things, don't see the pattern behind them, can't
tell us what the pattern means, and (for the most part) don't care.
* * *
THE BIBLE LITERACY REPORT: What Do American Teens Need to Know and What
Do They Know? was commissioned by a nonprofit organization called the
Bible Literacy Project; it was published April 26. Students in the
Gallup-conducted survey were mostly in 7th through 9th grades; they
were enrolled at 30 public and 4 private schools (one Catholic, one
Protestant, and 2 non-sectarian). Forty-one teachers took part--"a
diverse sample of high school English teachers in 10 states." All are
reputedly "among the best teachers in their subject."
These teachers are convinced that students ought to know the Bible and
don't. Forty of forty-one agreed that "Bible knowledge confers a
distinct educational advantage." But the majority estimated that fewer
than a quarter of their current students are "Bible literate."
Contrary to what a person might guess, the teachers don't necessarily
believe that Bible literacy has declined in recent decades. They
describe a complex picture; naturally, individuals differ. (One teacher
said that "Pentecostal kids or religious Muslim kids" seem
better-informed than the others.)
The teachers are strikingly confused about the legal status of
Bible-teaching in public schools. The ACLU and kindred organizations
are winning the fight to suppress religion in public--to ban it from
the public square as religion has traditionally been banned under
regimes that tolerate it only marginally; to force it indoors and under
wraps, as minority religions have traditionally been treated by
powerful majorities that threaten violence. The ACLU and friends are
winning by court order and--more important--by confusion and
intimidation. "It was not uncommon," says the report, "for educators to
hold erroneous beliefs about the legality of using the Bible and Bible
literature in public-school classrooms."
Another of the report's sobering aspects has to do with the Bible
topics deemed by teachers to be important. Mostly these are people and
stories, not ideas. The report lists 72 biblical "items" that the
teachers consider essential. The list starts: "Ten Commandments, Cain
and Abel, Christ, Genesis, Jesus, Adam and Eve, Bible, Moses, David and
Goliath"--and so on. Not what you would call challenging stuff. From
the special viewpoint of American history, it seems to me you would
rate four biblical "items" essential: Exodus, Covenant, and the related
ideas of Promised Land and Chosen People. Two of these appear on the
teachers' list; Covenant and Chosen People don't make the cut. This is
no criticism of the teachers or the report, merely a sad reflection of
the collapse of our educational standards across the board. It used to
be that young children learned Bible stories and Bible basics. They
didn't need high school teachers to bring them up to speed on the Ten
Commandments.
Now let's consider the actual results. What do high school students
know?
The good news: If you ask questions that are so simple the average
arthropod would find them patronizing, and cast them in multiple choice
format to make things even easier . . . American high school students
do okay. Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of students in the survey
could answer correctly that Moses "led the Israelites out of bondage."
Ninety percent could tell you that Adam and Eve were the first man and
woman in Genesis. Sixty-nine percent figured out that "the Good
Samaritan" was "someone who helps others." Break out the champagne!
On second thought . . . "Significant minorities of American students
have not yet achieved even this rudimentary level of Bible knowledge."
"Eight percent of American teens," for example, "believe that Moses is
one of the twelve Apostles."
Go beyond rudimentary and you find that "very few American students"
have the level of Bible knowledge that high-school English teachers
regard as "basic to a good education." "Almost two-thirds of teens"
couldn't pick the right answer out of four choices when they were asked
to identify "a quotation from the Sermon on the Mount" ("Blessed are
the poor in spirit"). Two-thirds didn't know that "the Road to Damascus
is where St. Paul was blinded by a vision of Christ." Fewer than a
third "could correctly identify which statement about David was not
true (David tried to kill King Saul)." And so on.
WHAT TO DO? Every school that teaches American history must teach the
Bible's central role. Easily said; but experience suggests that many of
today's classes in English and U.S. history are stuck somewhere between
useless and harmful. High school history and English curricula ought to
be rebuilt from scratch right now, on an emergency basis. Those rebuilt
curricula should (of course) teach students about the centrality of the
Bible.
But students need to read the Bible, not just about the Bible. High
school Bible-as-literature electives are rare and controversial. Not
long ago Frankenmuth, Michigan, became (briefly) famous when its school
board refused to allow such an elective.
There are good reasons to be wary of such courses. There is nothing
wrong with them on constitutional grounds, and the Bible Literacy
Project has reasonable, serious curricula of its own on offer. But
these courses have to keep well clear of teaching the Bible as a sacred
text, or promoting religious views of any kind. And it happens that
nearly all of the smartest, deepest readers of the Bible through the
ages have approached it from a religious direction. No doubt their
views can be worked in somehow, but in how natural a way? And won't
they be a lot easier just to skip?
And those in favor of such courses should be aware of their bleak
history--specifically, the bleak history of Bible teaching that refuses
to treat the Bible as sacred scripture. The German "higher critics,"
starting with Julius Wellhausen in the late 19th century, picked the
Bible to pieces like vultures addressing a dead cow. They were always
ready to invent a new "source," never quite able to see the point--to
understand Scripture as loving readers do. Being in love with a book
doesn't guarantee that you will succeed as a critic. But not being in
love guarantees that you will fail. (One reason "deconstructionism" is
the least successful critical approach in modern history.)
When I was a graduate student in Bible studies during the long-ago late
1970s, this particular fight was raging. (Fights are nearly always
raging in Bible studies.) Scholars such as Brevard Childs of Yale were
struggling to wrest the Bible from the palsied grip (which looked a lot
like a choke-hold) of higher critics who could tell you nearly
everything about the Bible, in academic German as charming and graceful
as Blutwurst, except what the words actually meant. The new "canonical
critics" (such as Childs himself) were struggling to put the Bible back
into the religious context out of which it had been untimely ripped by
profoundly irritating Germans.
So let's have Bible-as-literature electives in every public high
school, by all means. But let's also face facts: These are hard courses
to teach at best. Do we have teachers who are up to the job? (With
laudable foresight, the Bible Literacy Project is already developing
workshops for teachers.) And let's also keep in mind that, for most
children, such courses can only be half-way houses. Children studying
the Bible should learn their own religious traditions as precious
truth, not as one alternative on a multicultural list.
Teaching precious religious truth is not what America's public schools
are for. Ultimately there is only one solution to our Bible literacy
crisis. Our churches, our synagogues, and all other institutions that
revere the Bible must do better. How well are they doing? To judge by
the new report, lousy. (Of course some are doing a lot better than
others.)
It's impossible to find one global solution to the problem of Bible
teaching in America. But it's easy to find one global hope. America is
fertile ground for Great Awakenings--mass movements in which large
chunks of the population return to their religious roots. We haven't
had one for awhile; we are overdue. Great Awakenings are big, dramatic
events that take off like rockets and burn out like rockets, after
brief but spectacular careers. Even so, many people find in the
aftermath that their life-trajectories have been changed forever.
The next Great Awakening will presumably be centered in the Protestant
community--but will deal in friendship with America's other religious
communities. To have a Great Awakening, you need a great talker. (To
change people's ideas about religion and the Bible and God, you have to
look them in the eye and speak to them from the heart.)
My guess is that our next Great Awakening will begin among college
students. College students today are (spiritually speaking) the driest
timber I have ever come across. Mostly they know little or nothing
about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever
speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or
greatness. They are empty--spiritually bone dry--because no one has
ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having.
Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin
gruel for intellectually growing young people.
Let the right person speak to them, and they will turn back to the
Bible with an excitement and exhilaration that will shake the country.
In reading the Bible they will feel as if they are going home--which is
just what they will be doing. Nothing would do America more good than a
biblical homecoming.
What has the Bible been to this country? In 1630, John Winthrop
repeated Moses' instructions: "Lett us choose life." How to do it? By
reading and obeying the Bible, above all "the Counsell of Micah"--"to
doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God." Americans (by
and large) have done their best to follow Winthrop's instructions. If
they haven't always succeeded--if America has managed at times to be a
profoundly sinful nation (which is no less than the Bible expects of
all nations)--they have also tried hard to be good. They have tried
hard to choose life. And the Bible has been as good as its own word
(Proverbs 3:18)--"It is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold of it."
David Gelernter is a senior fellow in Jewish Thought at the Shalem
Center, Jerusalem, and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.
.

User: "Llanzlan Klazmon"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 12:17:13 AM

"words of truth" <wordsoftruth21@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1128028805.149664.14000@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

<SNIP>

From the May 23, 2005 issue: A report just issued by the Bible Literacy

Project suggests that young Americans know very little about the Bible.

So things are not as bad as I thought over there. Good to hear.
Klazmon.
.

User: "wbarwell"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 05:40:05 PM

Llanzlan Klazmon wrote:

"words of truth" <wordsoftruth21@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1128028805.149664.14000@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

<SNIP>

From the May 23, 2005 issue: A report just issued by the Bible
Literacy

Project suggests that young Americans know very little about
the Bible.

So things are not as bad as I thought over there. Good to hear.

Klazmon.

Apparently the Bible Literacy Project is using this all
as an excuse to get the bible back in school under the
rubric of Bible as Literature.
After all, with the bible, how could we understand Shakespear
(wink wink)?
--
The official spokesman of the Foxes said
today that investigation into what happened
to the henhouse may be needed.
Cheerful Charlie
.

User: "1932 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 09:00:42 AM

On 30 Sep 2005 17:17:13 +1200, Llanzlan Klazmon
<Klazmon@llurdiaxorb.govt> wrote:

"words of truth" <wordsoftruth21@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1128028805.149664.14000@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

<SNIP>

From the May 23, 2005 issue: A report just issued by the Bible Literacy

Project suggests that young Americans know very little about the Bible.

So things are not as bad as I thought over there. Good to hear.

I remember a few years back some prosetylizing type demanded of the
resident atheists what book turned them into atheists. Over half that
replied said, "The Bible"
You may have noticed that outside of the carefully controlled Sunday
school and church lessons, Christians aren't exposed to the bible
much, even though Protestants triggered a 600 year civil war among
Christians just be demanding the Bible be translated from Latin into
modern European languages.
When Christians DO insist on reading the bible, anxious ministers and
pastors and other apologists flock around them, at the ready to
explain to them what the actual meaning was of the passages they read.

Klazmon.

"'I�m not meeting with that goddamned *****,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I�m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk
"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans instead."
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_essays
a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 01:57:47 PM

1932 Dead wrote:

When Christians DO insist on reading the bible, anxious ministers and
pastors and other apologists flock around them, at the ready to
explain to them what the actual meaning was of the passages they read.

I don't recall who said it, but it went something like this:
Speaker: A preacher is a man who is smarter than God.
2nd Speaker: What? How can you say that?
Speaker: Simple. He'll stand up in front of a congregation
and read what God said...then he'll tell them all what God *meant*.
--
Walt Smith
Firelock on DALNet
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 11:20:07 AM

On 30-Sep-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

I find all of this amazing when I think of how Jews aren't just encouraged,
but *commanded* to read & study Torah as much as possible - and
how those who study it the least also likewise believe it the least.
Susan
.

User: "1927 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 12:20:24 PM

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:20:07 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

Carefully supervised reading, in which the rabbis explained all that
was being read.
And what percentage of the world's population are made up of careful
readers of the torah? The practice isn't exactly a popular one.

Susan

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 05:23:34 PM

On 30-Sep-2005, 1927 Dead <zepp#22111927dead@nospamzeppscommentaries.com>
wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:20:07 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

I find all of this amazing when I think of how Jews aren't just
encouraged,
but *commanded* to read & study Torah as much as possible - and
how those who study it the least also likewise believe it the least.

Carefully supervised reading, in which the rabbis explained all that
was being read.

Wow, you really *are* clueless, aren;t you?
And yet making such definite pronouncements!
Ever been anywhere near a chavrusa?

And what percentage of the world's population are made up of careful
readers of the torah? The practice isn't exactly a popular one.

So? The only percentage of Torah readers I'm interested in are Jews.
Everyone else is none of my business.
Susan
.

User: "�� /Riain Barton"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 01:43:06 PM

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!
We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.
We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from family and
friends and to have 'study partners. And we are taught to always
question and to look for alternative interpretations, including our own.
"1927 Dead" <zepp#22111927dead@nospamzeppscommentaries.com> wrote in
message news:7rsqj1h2tsnagganj662cl31vkl1svl4da@4ax.com...
: Carefully supervised reading, in which the rabbis explained all that
: was being read.
:
: And what percentage of the world's population are made up of careful
: readers of the torah? The practice isn't exactly a popular one.
: >
: >Susan
:
.

User: "Olrik"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	01 Oct 2005 12:00:35 AM

/Riain Barton wrote:

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!

<piggybacking>
It's only important to Jewish people; the rest of the world does not care.

We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.

Like any clubs or sects.

We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from family and
friends and to have 'study partners. And we are taught to always
question and to look for alternative interpretations, including our own.

Good. I hope this works for you.

"1927 Dead" <zepp#22111927dead@nospamzeppscommentaries.com> wrote in
message news:7rsqj1h2tsnagganj662cl31vkl1svl4da@4ax.com...

: Carefully supervised reading, in which the rabbis explained all that
: was being read.
:
: And what percentage of the world's population are made up of careful
: readers of the torah? The practice isn't exactly a popular one.
: >
: >Susan
:

--
Olrik
aa #1981
Qualified SMASH member
EAC Chief Food Inspector, Bacon Division
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 05:24:05 PM

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

Phooey - I was trying to be a bit more obscure :-)
Susan
And we are taught to always

question and to look for alternative interpretations, including our own.

"1927 Dead" <zepp#22111927dead@nospamzeppscommentaries.com> wrote in
message news:7rsqj1h2tsnagganj662cl31vkl1svl4da@4ax.com...

: Carefully supervised reading, in which the rabbis explained all that
: was being read.
:
: And what percentage of the world's population are made up of careful
: readers of the torah? The practice isn't exactly a popular one.
: >
: >Susan
:

User: "1932 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	01 Oct 2005 10:20:29 AM

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

Phooey - I was trying to be a bit more obscure :-)

Susan

And we are taught to always

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	01 Oct 2005 09:28:20 PM

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?
Susan
.

User: "1935 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	02 Oct 2005 12:13:17 AM

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.
Do you have an answer?

Susan

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	02 Oct 2005 09:13:48 PM

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Do you have an answer?

If you can't admit you were wrong when you obviously were so,
you are admitting to an agenda that I needn't further digniofy.
Susan
.

User: "1936 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	03 Oct 2005 08:31:23 AM

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:13:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Is that an example of the Talmudic reasoning of which you are so
proud?

Do you have an answer?

If you can't admit you were wrong when you obviously were so,
you are admitting to an agenda that I needn't further digniofy.

Ah. So you don't have an answer. Thank you. You may sit down now.

Susan

User: "�� /Riain Barton"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	03 Oct 2005 06:14:11 PM

*plonk*
"1936 Dead" <zepp1936#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote in message
news:5kc2k190d08c8aole4iqhdec09ed32o56j@4ax.com...
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 02:55:28 AM

On 3-Oct-2005, 1936 Dead <zepp1936#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:13:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il>
wrote:

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!

We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.

We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from

family

and
friends and to have 'study partners.

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Is that an example of the Talmudic reasoning of which you are so
proud?

Thanks for admitting yet again what your problem is - tho' I admit
it copuld be one of only 2 things:
a) you're stupid
b) you're lying, and we all know why.
Susan
.

User: "1945 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 08:43:49 AM

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 07:55:28 GMT,

wrote:

On 3-Oct-2005, 1936 Dead <zepp1936#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:13:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il>
wrote:

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!

We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.

We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from

family

and
friends and to have 'study partners.

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Is that an example of the Talmudic reasoning of which you are so
proud?

Thanks for admitting yet again what your problem is - tho' I admit
it copuld be one of only 2 things:
a) you're stupid
b) you're lying, and we all know why.

OK, I see where you're coming from: you don't do Talmudic studies, and
you're not even Jewish.
You're probably one of the nationalist party assholes trying to
discredit Jews.

Susan

User: "�� /Riain Barton"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 10:55:51 AM

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.
"1945 Dead" <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote in message
news:0faak151pjav20mgesdvfki7vii1i8us3u@4ax.com...
:
: OK, I see where you're coming from: you don't do Talmudic studies, and
: you're not even Jewish.
:
: You're probably one of the nationalist party assholes trying to
: discredit Jews.
: >
: >Susan
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 07:29:43 PM

On 6-Oct-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.

No, it's the same loser - he keeps changing his nym to avoid killfiles.
Susan

"1945 Dead" <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote in message
news:0faak151pjav20mgesdvfki7vii1i8us3u@4ax.com...
:
: OK, I see where you're coming from: you don't do Talmudic studies, and
: you're not even Jewish.
:
: You're probably one of the nationalist party assholes trying to
: discredit Jews.
: >
: >Susan

User: "Mimi Cohen"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 08:19:31 PM

wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.

No, it's the same loser - he keeps changing his nym to avoid killfiles.

Susan

The nym he uses signifies the number of dead US GIs in Iraq on the day
that he uses it. As of today there are 1945 dead GIs so far, if there
are more dead tomorrow it'll be a bigger number tomorrow. It's his way
of honoring our fallen dead. He's way off on all things religious and
anything Israeli, though.

"1945 Dead" <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote in message

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 10:21:48 PM

On 6-Oct-2005, Mimi Cohen <imnot@cox.net> wrote:

flaviaR@verizon.net wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.

No, it's the same loser - he keeps changing his nym to avoid killfiles.

Susan

The nym he uses signifies the number of dead US GIs in Iraq on the day
that he uses it.

I figured that.
Or the death toll from katrina.
As of today there are 1945 dead GIs so far, if there

are more dead tomorrow it'll be a bigger number tomorrow. It's his way
of honoring our fallen dead.

I find it disgusting that he would prostitute them to make himself look
respectable.
Susan
He's way off on all things religious and

anything Israeli, though.

User: "1949 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	07 Oct 2005 08:51:17 AM

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 03:21:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, Mimi Cohen <imnot@cox.net> wrote:

wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.

No, it's the same loser - he keeps changing his nym to avoid killfiles.

Susan

The nym he uses signifies the number of dead US GIs in Iraq on the day
that he uses it.

I figured that.
Or the death toll from katrina.

As of today there are 1945 dead GIs so far, if there

are more dead tomorrow it'll be a bigger number tomorrow. It's his way
of honoring our fallen dead.

I find it disgusting that he would prostitute them to make himself look
respectable.

Interesting. How does one go about being prostituted through the
reflexive action of being tabulated? I take it you have some
experience in this, and I was hoping you could share your acumen with
us.
And how does counting confer respectability? I mean, the Nazis were
GREAT bookkeepers, but I never thought of them as a particularly
respectable lot. How does that work?

Susan

He's way off on all things religious and

anything Israeli, though.

User: "1945 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 08:49:55 PM

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 18:19:31 -0700, Mimi Cohen <imnot@cox.net> wrote:

flaviaR@verizon.net wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote:

And another idiot rears his EMPTY head.

No, it's the same loser - he keeps changing his nym to avoid killfiles.

Susan

Hey, I support Israel's right to exist. Settle for what you can get.

"1945 Dead" <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote in message

User: ""
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 07:29:14 PM

On 6-Oct-2005, 1945 Dead <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 07:55:28 GMT,

wrote:

On 3-Oct-2005, 1936 Dead <zepp1936#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:13:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il>
wrote:

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!

We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.

We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from

family

and
friends and to have 'study partners.

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Is that an example of the Talmudic reasoning of which you are so
proud?

Thanks for admitting yet again what your problem is - tho' I admit
it copuld be one of only 2 things:
a) you're stupid
b) you're lying, and we all know why.

OK, I see where you're coming from: you don't do Talmudic studies, and
you're not even Jewish.

Ah, proving me right again.
Yyou know I nailied you & you're getting even more ticked off.
off about it. After all, if you were *honestly* confused by what I was
saying,
you would ask me to clarfiy. But you are doidging the point, because you
know I am right, start to finish.

You're probably one of the nationalist party assholes trying to
discredit Jews.

Thanks for admitting that you are nothing but a sad little loser.
And not just because you won't keep your nym straight to
stay in people's killfiles.
Susan

Susan

"'I�m not meeting with that goddamned *****,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I�m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk

"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans
instead."

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_essays

a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson

User: "1945 Dead"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	06 Oct 2005 09:02:55 PM

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:29:14 GMT,

wrote:

On 6-Oct-2005, 1945 Dead <zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 07:55:28 GMT,

wrote:

On 3-Oct-2005, 1936 Dead <zepp1936#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:13:48 GMT,

wrote:

On 2-Oct-2005, 1935 Dead <zepp1935#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:28:20 GMT,

wrote:

On 1-Oct-2005, 1932 Dead <zepp1932#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 22:24:05 GMT,

wrote:

On 30-Sep-2005, "�� /Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il>
wrote:

You know nothing about learning Torah in Judaism!

We don't need rabbis to teach us, we have each other.

We learn to study Torah and other Hebrew Biblical Texts from

family

and
friends and to have 'study partners.

What happens if you reject the notion of miracles?

So you're admitting that you were wrong?

No, I'm asking you a question.

& in so doing, admitting you were wrong.

Is that an example of the Talmudic reasoning of which you are so
proud?

Thanks for admitting yet again what your problem is - tho' I admit
it copuld be one of only 2 things:
a) you're stupid
b) you're lying, and we all know why.

OK, I see where you're coming from: you don't do Talmudic studies, and
you're not even Jewish.

Oh, please. You think we don't see trolls around here or something?
You're a classic case, buddy, refusing to answer simple and direct
questions.
Run along, little troll. Maybe you'll have better luck with the
god-struck. They don't have much wit or imagination -- just the sort
of audience you crave.

You're probably one of the nationalist party assholes trying to
discredit Jews.

Thanks for admitting that you are nothing but a sad little loser.
And not just because you won't keep your nym straight to
stay in people's killfiles.

Susan

Susan

"'I�m not meeting with that goddamned *****,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I�m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk

"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans
instead."

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
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a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson

User: "nevermore"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	07 Oct 2005 04:05:55 AM

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:02:55 -0700, 1945 Dead
<zepp1945#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:

You're a classic case, buddy, refusing to answer simple and direct
questions.

So what's the story behind your Greywolf posts, Jamieson? Did you
just have all these weird fantasies about being a wolf and feel a need
to tell somebody about them? Or is Greywolf really your wife? Are
you really married to a woman who brags about being drunk and fighting
and getting thrown in the drunk tank?
Or are you going to refuse to answer a simple and direct question?
--
Steve
.

User: "Steve Knight"
Title: Re: Bible Illiteracy In America Threatens National Culture	30 Sep 2005 08:17:39 PM</