Report: Bible Courses - TX Public Schools. Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Bible Courses in Public Schools. Bible Courses in Public Schools: SBL's Response to a Growing Trend The cover of Time Magazine (April 2, 2007) proclaims "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public Schools. " Stephen J. Prothero's heavily marketed new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), calls for every American high school student to take a Bible course. Multiple state legislatures debate bills promoting Bible courses, and Georgia passes a law providing funding for such classes. Bible courses in public schools have always been legal — the famous 1963 U. We have surprisingly little data on what happens in the classrooms of public school Bible courses, but the information that is available is not especially encouraging.
Actions at the state level have been uneven. What should the role of the Society of Biblical Literature be in this public discussion? SBL has created a working group to formulate a programmatic response to the issue. Carleen R. What You Should Know Before Reading The Bible - Kristin Swenson. This essay might, alternatively, be called "On Not Reading the Bible. " But then I must hastily add: I'm not against reading the Bible. Not exactly, anyway. Thing is, the Bible doesn't lend itself to reading straight through for understanding in the ways that modern books do. It is a wildly unusual book, and there is a big difference between simply reading it and knowing about it. Simply reading the Bible (really reading it, in any of its three main forms, all the way through) without any background information results more often than not in bewilderment and confusion, leaving readers at the mercy of others to interpret for them. Why is there so much concern about dermatological conditions, so little about homosexuality, and nothing explicitly about abortion?
Without any background information, simply reading the Bible is not only really hard (Leviticus, anyone?) Other uninformed readings can have terrible effects. An Individualist Approach To The Hebrew Bible. Hebrew scripture is a "message in a bottle," says Yoram Hazony, and in The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, he tries to decipher that message. Hazony's new book makes the case for a different reading of the ancient texts — and argues that the Hebrew Bible is a work of philosophy in narrative form. Hazony says the five books of Moses — which Christians speak of as the Old Testament — should not be thought of as discrete narrative but, rather, considered together with the books of Judges, Samuel and Kings. All of those books form a history of Israel, from the creation story to the dissolution and dismemberment of a decadent monarchy. It is a cautionary tale, an epic that advocates wariness of great imperial powers and individualism in the face of authority.
The scriptures were most likely written down by the prophet Jeremiah or one of his students while they were in exile, Hazony tells NPR's Robert Siegel. Interview Highlights "It's quite a long history. Translating the Bible - I. Scholars are still laboring to produce a contemporary English version of God's Holy Word by Barry Hoberman The online version of this article appears in three parts. Click here to go to part two. Click here to go to part three. Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews alike affirm that the Bible is Holy Scripture, the inspired Word of God. Yet go to the bookstore in your local shopping mall and you will find the Word of God in half a dozen to a dozen different English translations, and in two or three, or more, editions of each translation. The translations may vary drastically in the style of their English, and some Bibles will contain more biblical books than others.
Translations of the Bible do more than fortify the faithful and make money. The first English translation of the entire Bible was made in the late fourteenth century, by followers of the religious reformer John Wyclif. In 1870 the Church of England authorized a revision of the King James Bible. Translating the Bible - II. The online version of this article appears in three parts. Click here to go to part one. Click here to go to part three. The next issue that confronts the Bible translator is that of the textual basis for the translation. We have no original text of any biblical book, and some books may have circulated in more than one version almost from the beginning of their existence as written documents.
One theory has it that in the case of a number of Old Testament books three distinct texts emerged between the fifth and first centuries B.C., among the Jews of Palestine, Egypt, and Babylonia, respectively. Later, when ancient Jewish and Christian authorities defined the limits of the biblical canon, they did not fix the precise text of each individual book. To further complicate matters, all the books of the Bible have to some degree suffered the textual corruption that is the inevitable by-product of two to three thousand years of manuscript copying and recopying. Translating the Bible - III. The online version of this article appears in three parts. Click here to go to part one. Click here to go to part two. The final issue in the translation process -- and one that goes hand in hand with determining the meaning of the original text -- is putting the text into appropriate English.
Bible translations can and do differ markedly in the way they handle questions of canon, textual basis, and interpretation, but style is the main criterion by which most readers distinguish one version of the Bible from another. Although the question of archaic language has already been touched on, a few more things need to be said, if only because this issue obstinately refuses to die. The idea that archaic biblical language has an awe-inspiring quality cannot be dismissed easily. The preference for a Bible that sounds antique is easily explained, but archaism is not a defensible option for translators. Exceptions can be found, but these only prove the rule. Duke University - The Bible in the Public Square.