Why We Should Teach the Bible

That would be none. I looked all over the web for something, anything that would help me justify teaching the Bible and found nada. The only real published resources treating this subject that I know of are The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch, et al. and The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, plus one news article I found on CBS called "The Bible as Literature" by Sean Alfano, published April 16, 2006.

You'd think as hot as this issue is, there'd be tons of literature out there, but no. That's pretty much it.

I should also mention here that while I was raised a Christian (a Southern Baptist), I now consider myself to be agnostic. I'm generally skeptical of religion as a whole and organized religion in particular. But my son and I still study the Bible, and we do so for many of the reasons you'll find below.

Yes, the Bible is relevant to our lives, and you don't have to be a Christian to find meaning within it. No, I'm not trying to convert you (believe me, that's the last thing I would do). But our culture relies heavily on the Bible as a basis for all sorts of things, from plotlines in modern media to truisms.

Don't believe me? Ok, then. Have you seen The Matrix movies? Guess where the symbolism was drawn from? You got it, from the Bible. I thought it was just a great movie, but no, there's actual scholarly discussion revolving around the connections between the underlying themes of the movie and their Biblical basis. HollywoodJesus.com has a decent review of the spiritual elements in the Matrix, which also describes some of the more secular cultural references (e.g. a scene alluding to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland).

This next one is obvious, but worth mentioning. The Byrds had a #1 hit single in 1965 called Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season), which was written by Pete Seeger. Virtually everyone who heard the song back then would've known that Seeger took the lyrics nearly verbatim from the Bible, specifically Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

There's so much more, but thankfully, you don't have to read my ramblings. Instead, visit E. D. Hirsch's web site that gives a list of the many references we use in everyday life that are taken from the Bible, with explanations for each entry. The author leaves it up to the reader to figure out how these are used, but the average English speaker should recognize most of these, and a few will go, Hmm, I didn't know that came from the Bible!

Read the Ten Commandments and what do you find? A treatise on how to treat other people. Commandments one through three deal with spirituality (i.e. respect for God), but the other seven ask us to respect the personal liberties of others, particularly those we know (our mother and father, our neighbors). This is, in short, a list of the rights to which we can lay claim. Here is the foundation for our government, the source from which our most fundamental ideals are drawn.

How many of the founding fathers of this nation do you think used passages from the Bible to justify a separation from England?

Source: the Ten Commandments from Wikipedia (scroll down to "Christianity: Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christianity" for the version I used, which is what I learned as a child).

Speaking of the founding fathers, how can we understand our ancestors' motives if we don't understand how they lived? Religion has played an important role in many people's lives throughout the past few centuries. How can we possibly understand an historical figure's point of view if we fail to consider the impact faith had on their life?

Whether we like it or not, the Bible has influenced the thinking of thousands of people, some of whom were in positions of authority. We can all think of examples of those who've used their spirituality to hurt or gain control of others, but many leaders haven't, and often the Bible has been used in a positive manner. No, again, I'm not trying to convert you. What I am asking is that we each set aside our personal feelings about religion and examine the Bible's impact on historical events and figures from a more objective stance. Ask questions, be skeptical, but be fair, too, or you might miss gaining a deeper understanding of why and how yesterday's events shaped today's world.

The Bible is full of great stories and great adventures. Where else will you find romance, murder, poetry, moral tales, truisms, horror, the apocalypse, monsters, kings, the paranormal, prophecy, world-wide disasters, greed, anger, jealousy, family feuds, and a host of other wonderfully interesting things?

(As an aside, when I was a teenager, Revelations was my favorite part of the Bible. What can I say? I was an odd kid.)

You don't have to take the Bible literally, or believe it at all for that matter, to understand that there are some wonderful tales contained within. Who doesn't love the story of Ruth, who gave herself in marriage to a virtual stranger in order to take care of her mother-in-law? How many cheered when David beat Goliath, or cried when Delilah, the evil witch, cut off Samson's hair, thereby robbing him of his greatest strength?

"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself."
--Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Quotation from The Art of War on Wikipedia.org)

If you want to be able to refute Christian testimony and defend your own beliefs with alacrity, then you need to know what weapons will be used against you. Reading the Bible, and thinking about its history and meanings, will help you understand what you believe and why, regardless of whether you're a Christian or an atheist. Don't rely on the words and opinions of others to formulate your beliefs; do your own research and decide for yourself, and you will be that much better armed against the world.