I was all prepared to criticize a young atheist who refused to read the bible as literature in an English class.
Newton South High School officials dropped a requirement to read excerpts from the Bible for one student last month, after he refused to read the Biblical passages as a literature assignment because he is an atheist.
Jack Summers, a 15-year-old sophomore, said he objected to reading the religious text as part of an honors English class that also includes writings by William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, among others.
“This is the word of God. People take this literally … I don’t want to read about what they believe to be true,” said Summers, who described himself as an atheist.
That is so wrong. We are immersed in a culture that believes this nonsense is true, so we should read about it, the better to oppose it. It’s also a simple fact that, wrong as it is, that bible has been a major literary and cultural influence on the West…and it should be read critically for that reason alone. I think it’s a good idea for our schools to discuss these kinds of important influences, and I’m also in favor of teaching comparative religion in the public schools.
But then I read further and changed my mind.
South’s freshman curriculum lists the Book of Genesis from the Bible as a required academic subject in ninth-grade English courses, alongside “Lord of the Flies,” “Catcher in the Rye” and “House on Mango Street,” plus passages from “Romeo and Juliet.”
Whoa, hang on there: they want to teach the bible as literature, but their choice of an excerpt is the Book of Genesis? They pick one of the parts that purports to be a scientific and historical account of the world, that is cheesy, badly written, and wrong? Why not pick Revelation and really mess with their heads?
There are excellent parts to the bible, chapters that are not only beautifully written, but also would make students think: try Ecclesiastes, or even the book of Job, for dog’s sake, where everyone could chew over the ideas without inviting an intelligent teacher to have to help them understand all the elements of the story that are flat-out wrong. You cannot responsibly teach Genesis to 21st century students without explaining that it is not science, and that if you try to squeeze it into a literal, accurate description of our origins, you are both defying the evidence and buggering up the literature; and that all the accounts therein of the Chosen People’s tribulations and triumphs are utterly bogus tribal propaganda.
I am not sufficiently delusional that I would believe a public high school could actually teach Genesis critically, not without bringing down fierce parental wrath. That leads me to suspect that what the students would get is faith-affirming pablum, a survey of the book that would gloss over minor little problems, like that it is a frickin’ myth that contradicts reality.
So, while I think Jack Summers is wrong in principle in rejecting an education that makes him uncomfortable (I’ve said it over and over again, that that is what a good education should do), I’m suspicious of the school and the teacher, and don’t trust their motives at all. Why that book? How would they approach the material? Are they going to encourage criticism of its content?
I’m also even more suspicious because of this line.
JC Considine, a spokesman for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the state has a suggested book list that includes religious texts such as the Bible, the Koran and Buddhist scriptures, but local districts decide which books to use in classrooms.
Hmmm. So the local school board decided to include only religious material out of several choices that happened to coincide with the majority beliefs in the area? Apparently, the only people who get to be made uncomfortable in the classrooms are the ones who aren’t Jewish or Christian. If they genuinely wanted a compromise that would still show a little integrity, they should have included a chapter of the Koran to be discussed — and make everyone think.
The story has a poll associated with it, too.
Should the Bible be part of the 10th grade English literature curriculum?
Of course. It’s among the world’s most famous books 42%
No. It’s not fair to those who don’t believe in the Bible’s teachings. 20%
Are you kidding? This is a phony controversy started by a kid who was too lazy to do his homework. 38%
Undecided 0%
I hate all three choices. Yes, it’s one of the world’s most famous books; it’s also 90% crap, and the school district picked one of the crappy parts. The second choice is the only one that criticizes the choice, and does so for the wrong reason: it’s because they can’t include a religious book without encouraging students to criticize it, not because non-believers will be annoyed. And that third question is just slimy and loaded. I ended up voting “no” just because I think the poll sucks and the school district is dishonest.
I have been assured by quite a few people who have more direct knowledge of the Newton school district that they actually do teach Genesis critically, which removes most of my objections to their handling of the issue. I’m left with my first impression, which is that the student was out of line — he shouldn’t be avoiding instruction in material which makes him uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, I am not a resident of liberal Massachusetts. Out here in the rural midwest, a class in Genesis would mostly be a whitewash used to make excuses for fundamentalist beliefs. May the spirit of Newton spread a bit further westward!
You’re probably right about the problems in teaching Genesis as the muddled collection of poorly-hanging together stories that it is. But it’s hardly an inconsequential part of the Bible, and I might even argue that it would be the most important book for honors students to know.
You have the immensely influential set of creation stories, the flood, and the myth of why humans dispersed, along with a lot of the mythical (perhaps partly true) past of the Jews. While it’s “cheesy, badly written, and wrong,” it’s had a huge impact on Western civilization.
So yes, I fear that it couldn’t be taught in all of its ridiculousness, but if it were properly taught I would only approve.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
On the other hand, Genesis is likely to give them more cultural background than any of the other books of the Bible. There are plenty of stories there that students are likely to hear popping up for the rest of their lives – Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. From this viewpoint, it’s an excellent choice for high school literature.
I don’t think the kid has put as much thought into this as you have.
You’ve been wading in the creo-mud too long, PZ. Only the truly proudly ignorant ones claim that Genesis was written as a factual or scientific account. Myths are myths in every culture, and their messages (or what religionists call “their truths”, which I think means something on the same lines) are interpreted accordingly. I suspect that the messages of myths only become “facts” when they are co-opted by those in power as a means of isolating and excluding The Other.
The Ilaid purports to be the history of the Trojan war, gods and all.
Does that make it not worthwhile literature?
Better to have it all out in the open.
Ben, you are exactly right. Origins stories are a telling feature to culture, so Genesis is actually a good book to read in that context, Job is another excellent book for cultural understandings. The wisdom books (proverbs and Ecclesiastes) would also be fun excerpts.
And of course you are right PZ, you can’t have students read genesis with out telling them it ain’t science and goes against all evidence.
“If it were taught properly” is the important phrase.
Does anyone think it could be taught in the public schools in America that way? Imagine a teacher put in the position of having to explain that it’s just metaphor and poetry, that the world wasn’t really created in 6 days, and that there really wasn’t a global flood. Or, more likely, imagine a teacher affirming those poetic lies as fact.
They picked one book (I’ll agree that it’s significant, but amend it to say significantly bad) which puts teachers in a cultural straightjacket. That’s a guarantee that it will be badly taught, in almost every case.
Why do so many polls that ask yes/no questions append the answers with petulant reasons?
The Bible is a widely-read book, and I can’t help but feel like people who refuse to read it and cite atheism are trying to take the easy way out. Just because it’s a book doesn’t mean you have to believe it. I read fiction fully knowing that what’s occurring isn’t real.
As much as I would like to think otherwise, this seems like another underhanded effort to undermine progressive science education. “Teach the controversy,” and all that bullshit.
I could see it if they’d assigned the Book of Genesis in tandem with a sampling of Greek, Norse, Egyptian, or whatever creation myths, and done compare and contrast. But it looks like the teacher or school board seemed to think that picking out another religious mythos was too much work. Funny how they went with Christianity–nobody ever pays any attention to that!
(Okay, that last line was a bit of a jab at the folks who think that any time they’re challenged on their majority religion privilege, that they are under attack and treated horribly.)
I too question the motivation behind including the Bible. There’s an awful lot great literature out there, frankly too much to begin to cover it all. So why include a really bad translation of a series of ancient texts? The next oldest things kids read, Beowulf and then the Canterbury Tales, are thousands of years newer and have been translated by literature experts instead of people trying to support a specific world view. Used to be the schools stuck to covering more modern (i.e. less than a thousand years old) literature, while leaving the Bible to Sunday school. It seems to me that this is a back door way to get the Bible into public schools where it doesn’t belong. Which is bad for atheist, Muslim, and Buddhist kids and parents, but also bad for Christian kids and parents, since it seems to me they wouldn’t want their kids exposure to their holy book to be cast in the context of literary analysis when they could be learning it with a dose of theology in Sunday school.
What strikes me is that none of the other works of literature cited as in the curriculum are creation myths. If they had included other mythic literature, like the Book of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and Odyssey, etc, then the inclusion of the Book of Genesis makes much more sense.
As it is, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
My favorite. All about how God is a heartless bastard who amuses Himself (and his son Satan), by playing games with human lives.
I took a Great Books class in college that included Genesis and one of the Gospels on the reading list. The course was taught by, I’m pretty certain, an atheist who did a really good job of putting the book in proper context, with research on who wrote the books in question (3 people, including a woman, in the case of Genesis) among other things. The goal was to get us to think. (And this class was one of the key events that made me rethink religion and my views on it.)
That said, if this had been a class in my high school, these texts definitely would have been included in an effort to promote a religious view. But it might not be that way at the high school in the article. The Bible is an important text, historically speaking. There should be, and are, ways to include it in school that don’t promote a single religious view.
Agreed – bible should definitely be taught because it’s something that people are going to run into very very often. I don’t like Genesis either but I think it’s a defensible choice.
The more people read the bible and realize how incongruent it is with how reality is or should be, the more they’re going to question it. While ideally we’d love to convert everyone to Atheism, moving people away from Fundamentalism into believing the bible should not be taken literally is good as well. Teaching it is one way to do that because there is some crazy shit in there.
I don’t think there are many modern literature courses in which students get upset if you tell them that the gods in the Iliad are literary vehicles with deep cultural resonances, but that they really didn’t exist in any literary sense.
I’d also say that the Iliad is a beautiful poem. Genesis is a hodge-podge, and doesn’t exactly soar. There’s nothing in Genesis with quite the power and promise of the opening lines of the Iliad:
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus.
In comparison, Genesis is doggerel.
Hmmm… I’ve read your account, PZ… and read the links to the story itself… and I’m still a little torn.
I think your first instinct was right, PZ. I’m not sure I follow you to the point of your argument where you question the Book of Genesis as being the proper choice.
Knowing the inner workings of a Boston area school district rather intimately, I can tell you that the decision to include the Book of Genesis likely had more to do with the familiarity / popularity of its content than its relevance as compared to the other works listed. I’d compare it to the inclusion of “Romeo and Juliet”… I don’t think this was remotely Shakespeare’s best work, but it is by far his most popular and well known.
I think your point about not being able to teach Genesis critically without bringing down parental wrath is frankly ubiquitous… I think you could make that argument about whatever book of the bible they chose to use.
As for the inclusion of other religious works, I think the district knows full well the firestorm that would result from reading / analyzing the koran or other religious texts… there would be hysteria, and I’m thinking they would never knowingly allow that. I’m not saying that’s the correct philosophy… I’m just saying it was the likely decision.
All in all, I think this kid is off base and is sending exactly the wrong message. A literature class is exactly the place where discussion of the bible should take place, as long as it is made clear both to students and parents that it is being done so in the interest of analyzing it as a piece of period literature, and not as a reinforcement of its teachings. I see nothing in any of the articles I read that lead me to believe that this is not the case, or that religion is being taught. Until I see or read about that, I’m going to side against the kid in this case.
Go back to criticizing him. Every person in the West should read the Bible cover to cover – especially atheists. It is both cultural literacy and self-defense.
BTW, anytime someone starts yapping about a “Biblical viewpoint” tell them to compare Job to the 23rd Psalm.
Same viewpoint? Which one is “Biblical”?
If you want to say that Genesis and the rest of the bible is foundational to western civilization (which it is) and thus should be included in a literature curriculum, you cannot get around the fact that Greek and Roman mythology and literature is equally foundational and thus should also be included.
Or, in the immortal words of Hobbes the Tiger, “Since when did ignorance become a right?”
30 years ago in freshman honors English class we also had to read parts of the bible.
I was half tempted to write a paper analyzing Jesus as a Christ figure, as it seemed that was the theme of all the papers we wrote.
Could be? Yes. I had a teacher that could, and we did Job in exactly that way. That teacher was also the inspiration for the cowboy in “Lust in the Dust”, so he’s not exactly the average teacher.
Would be in the majority of cases? Hell no.
A quick persual of the school’s Wikipedia article reveals this important tidbit:
We’re talking about a really really good public school. I went to a really really good public school where Genesis was taught as literature and there were no problems.
I’m not saying that this school has taught Genesis appropriately. I am saying that it is one of very few schools that I could see doing it properly.
Speaking of which, the universal flood story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is much better than the one in Genesis. It should be required reading, too.
If you want to shy away from Genesis for whatever reason, how about 2 Samuel 13? Or is that unsuitable for minors?
I tell you. Imagine the earthquakes that would come from the parents if the book would’ve been a Buddhist script!
I’m not too familiar with the U.S. school system, but is it customary to include translated literature in “English literature”?
I mean, would translated versions of books by Proust, Nietzsche, Vondel, Voltaire, etc .. all be lumped in with “English literature”?
Shouldn’t “English literature” be restricted to literature written in English, rather than to include literature translated into English?
I have read a Dutch translation of “Don Quixote”, but I don’t regard that book as “Dutch literature”!
But the Bible isn’t English literature, eh?
@Dutchdoc: You know… I think you just hit a nail there. It IS translated literature. And badly translated at that! What a flaw.
Which probably explains why Virgil decided to
rip it offtake inspiration from it with his intro to the Aeneid (Dryden translation):Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
Funny thing is, Newton is heavily Jewish. (I work in Newton.)
I’ll preface this by saying that I’m Canadian (from Ontario).
Perhaps the inclusion of the Bible in English courses is an American only thing, but my public school education included Christianity only in an introduction to world religions course that was elective and available only to grade tens.
Foundational to Western civilization? Perhaps, though I’m willing to argue that point. (What isn’t foundational to Western civilization?)
I’m afraid that as a literary piece to be examined, however, the Bible is very low quality material. It shouldn’t be included in any English course, let alone in public school English courses.
Leave religion for classes wherein religion is to be treated directly and in comparison. Leave to English classes Greek literature, Chaucer, Shakespeare, modern and contemporary literature.
It’s difficult to believe that this is actually debatable.
I went to a Jesuit high school, and our English curriculum was awesome. We obviously read most of the standards (Shakespeare, Beowulf, etc) but the best part was the cross-pollination with the religious studies courses and my Greek and Latin classes; you’d be surprised at how insightful 10th graders can be when you’re reading the Epic of Gilgamesh in English, the Bible in theology class, and the Aeneid in Greek. I think exposure to as many myths as possible is absolutely necessary for that kind of thinking. Do I think that’s what the school board is going for here with the Bible studies? Well…
Actually, I think Genesis is a great choice. I took a course in college on Genesis as literature, that delved into the conflicting creation narratives and the consensus that there are three or four historical authors represented in the text. It was the first time that I’d ever been confronted with an analysis of the text, rather than just taught the text as parables, and it went a long way toward disabusing me of Christian upbringing. If you teach it right, Genesis is great evidence against the divine inspiration of the text.
Well, the Authorized Version is poorly translated in a technical sense, but as literature, it stands on its own as a great work in early modern English. The language used showed that the translating writers understood the purpose of scriptures in general, that they were not merely translating the works of some other writers. Modern translations rarely aspire to such linguistic heights.
#28:
Well, there’s another problem: which translation do you pick?
There are many! Probably way more than most people realize:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_Bible_translations
Genesis is OK but not great. What is most noteworthy is what happens when you try to make sense of it. You can’t. An example is below. My comments are in bold. This is BTW, clearly meant to be a story, not history. The guys who wrote it down were smarter than the modern US fundies.
Gen 4
13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
WTH!!! There is only supposed to be 3 people on the earth.
15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so [e] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, [f] east of Eden.
17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.
Well that is nice and all. But where did this wife come from?
Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18
WTH!!! There is supposed to be only 3 people and the mysterious wife and kid that just poof out of nowhere. So who is this city supposed to be for? And how did Cain even know what a city was and how to build one when there were only 5 people on the earth? What happened to the 2 million year old stone age?
To those who are questioning the Bible’s appropriateness (since it’s translated), I think it’s important to remember that for a long time in the English-speaking world, especially in America, it was either the only book, or one of two books (the other was almost always some collection of Shakespeare) that people had in their houses. So the Bible is arguably more foundational than other translated works. And just because its read in an English lit class doesn’t mean that the book itself is English literature; I can certainly see the appropriateness, for instance, of watching Seven Samurai in a film class about westerns, even though it’s not technically a western. A similar argument could be made for reading John Stuart Mill in American History. I’m everyone here can think of a bunch of other examples.
Genesis crappy and wrong? Lets see, vs 1 tells us that the universe had a beginning. Lucky guess? Vs 2 says the earth was formless and void (tick). 3 & 4 tells us that light (electromagnetic energy) separated (decoupled) from the darkness (‘waters’, or plasma, if you will). 6-8 describes the universe expanding, and vs 9 describes planet formation from accretion of solid material.
How much correctfullness can your cognitive dissonance cope with?
Oh, Wiley, I do love how you come to that with no evidence at all. Yes you must be a firm believer that God wants us to all be dumbass subservient fools. How else could you continuously spew such nonsense?
First, you’re reading both Genesis and The Iliad in English translations from dead languages. Which one “soars” is a matter of who translated it, not how the original read.
Second, although Genesis is a myth, so is Romeo and Juliet.
Third, I think every atheist should study the Bible extensively. I have. It’s very useful when arguing with godbots. I invariably find I know their book better than they do, and it drives them crazy.
Finally, if they’re going to teach a love story, such and R&J, why not go all the way and assign Song of Solomon? The kids might actually read that one. My lover’s breasts are as fawns – great stuff.
You can teach a text as literature without really having to care if it’s true or not. Science class is about truth, English class is not.
For example, if you were teaching Genesis, you could talk about all the common metaphors in Western culture that come out of it. You could talk about literary techniques – lots of repetition, which is annoying to read but perfect for speaking aloud. Or you could get historical, and talk about the impact there. None of this requires any particular stance on faith; it’s no different from the unit on Greek and Roman gods that he probably did in middle school.
FWIW, I did Genesis in 10th grade English, along with the Gospel of John. Plus stuff from the Torah and Koran, the Hindus, Zoroastrians, Daoists, etc. In public school. It didn’t hurt me any, and it’s good to know something about the stories that shaped various cultures. Of course, in my school, raving atheism was normal (hey, it was a science magnet). The teachers would have been laughed at if they tried presenting Genesis as literally true…I could see this getting abused in more god-infested quarters, though.
Back when I took an Honors English course as a sophomore in high school, we had a section devoted to creation myths. It included the book of Genesis as well as six or seven other equally implausible stories that various cultures read as truth. They were not selected for their beautiful prose by any means, but were instead selected to explore the similar themes that they shared and the literal and cultural differences. To be honest, it was a great unit that looked at all of the pieces [mostly] objectively.
I was hoping that this kid’s class used similar reasoning, but the article you quoted had a link to the school’s Program of Studies that said about Sophomore English: “All sophomores complete a unit on Shakespeare, the Bible as literature and a unit in public speaking during which they prepare and deliver a 4-6 minute speech.”
Bible as literature. There it is. Try not to giggle when Noah gets drunk and raped by his son.
“I am not sufficiently delusional that I would believe a public high school could actually teach Genesis critically, not without bringing down fierce parental wrath.”
I had a public school educational experience that actually counters the above statement. My senior year of high school, I took an honors class simply called ‘Humanities’ and one of our units was about the three main monotheistic religions. We read excerpts from Genesis (as well as other passages from the Old and New Testaments and from the Koran) and we studied them quite critically. I obviously don’t have my notes from high school in front of me (class of ’02) but I do remember spending a whole class period on the two different creation stories in Genesis and what these stories would have meant to early Jews.
After the unit was over, we visited a mosque, a synagogue and the Baha’i Temple in Illinois. To my knowledge, no parents ever complained about what we were learning or how it was taught.
Even at the time, I knew the class was special, but because classes like it exist, don’t give up on the possibilities of public education!
Wiley buys his doctrines from the ACME Doctrine Company. All doctrines guaranteed (to blow up in his face).
@Thomathy: Religion classes shouldn’t be in schools at all, even elective, even if it’s to introduce all religions. There’s certainly an history value to it, and I’d be all for that… if I wasn’t so scared that it would be used another way.
For instance, here in Quebec we have a mandatory religion class. Supposed to teach openess to all cultures and that kind of thing. Which is a fine idea, really. But what turned out was that you get things like kids being told that if they say “christmas” (Noel in french… Which is, by the way, the vaguest name for a christian holiday ever. You guys get “christ” in there, but what the hell does Noel even mean?) they would lose points for a contest. Which is…sorta not cool at all!
Not to mention, there’s also the high risk that a zealot teacher would use that to promote whatever their own religion is. There’s no doubt in my mind that a christian teacher would linger a lot on the goodness of christianity.
if only the class we have here was to teach religions in a historical context, that’d be a crazily interesting class.
You should have all the Pharyngulites vote “Undecided” just to fuck with their heads.
“98% Undecided?!? WTF?!?!?”
@wiley: Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” The Earth was not created anywhere near the beginning, and certainly not at the same time as the “heavens” i.e. the stars.
So yes, Genesis is crappy and wrong. From the tenth word. (Well, I would say it goes wrong at the fourth word, but whatever…)
Dude, wiley, “correctfullness”? C’mon…
Also, where does it say that water=plasma? And how do you explain that the Bible talks about the creation of the Earth before the creation of light? And then stars, moon, and sun aren’t created until verse 14-17? After the Earth? And birds come before fish? And whales come before land animals? Also, nice move on the separating light from the darkness was a “decoupling.” :sigh: Yeah, it’s real easy to make the Genesis account fit reality when you just pretend the words mean something else.
I also read Genesis in a high school honors English course before reading Paradise Lost, but I would not in any way say that it was a bible studies course, and I suspect this school may have a similar curriculum. Genesis is more relevant to Western literature than other creation myths and it is valid to select it for study alongside other Western literature. I also see no need to be critical of it as a creation myth or debunk it with scientific fact. If anything, reading Genesis along with other works of fiction helps teach students that it contains no more literal truth than Othello or Catcher in the Rye and does not describe reality.
In my high school, I took “Good Old Days of the Ancient People” — which was world history studied from the viewpoint of religions/myths of different cultures. (She said the deciding point between religions/myths is that people relating myths know they’re not true, like stories about Santa, whereas religions are considered to be true by those who practice them)
We studied sections of their sacred writings — bible, koran, Egyptian book of the dead, etc. Each was dealt with strictly as literature describing the culture/society of the time.
There was no hue or outcry over this class, which had been taught for many years by the same teacher. She was a theist, and her son (also a teacher at the same school) was an atheist who taught Physics. Neither of them foisted their views on others.
That’s a 50-50 shot, you idiot.
Wiley, your mythical babble contains very little fact. Demonstate with good hard evidence from outside of the babble otherwise. Until you do so, you remain an idjit troll.
Hello, all! I’ve been a silent fan of Dr. Myers for a while now. First time commenting today!
Ahem, onto the topic: I am so disappointed by that kid’s justification. “I don’t want to read about what they believe to be true”?? Where have we heard that before? Sounds like the age-old creationist refusal to hear any information that conflicts with their dogma. That people believe it to be true is one of the most important reasons TO read it (…and promptly tear it apart––figuratively––for the rest of the class).
From personal experience, studying the Bible from an analytical, literary perspective was a great learning experience. Not to mention just one more catalyst toward my renunciation of Christianity. We read the Book of Job in my 12th grade English class (public school) and it was so eye-opening. Somehow, Sunday School teachers had always managed to gloss over that story… go figure.
Genesis or any other religious text could be taught the way my teacher taught Job: no frills, no claims, no personal attitudes; just hand the students the text and make them think about hard questions. Whether that’s how this particular class was taught is unlikely, admittedly. Just saying it can be done with the right instructor.
On a side note: Dr. Myers, thanks for continually posting such engaging and entertaining entries! It really helps me avoid all this pesky work on my desk.
-EP
Wiley making idiotic comments (tick).
Plasma huh?
From an academic standpoint, Genesis should not be in there at all. The Bile is not a work of English Literature.
A little off topic, but I also went to school in Ontario, and despite going to a good/strong academic school (always in the top 20% on University competitions like Gauss math contest, etc.), I was quite disappointed with the books we had to read in English class (and I enjoyed English – I chose to take at least 6 different courses in high school).
Although it was nice to have the Shakespeare component (eg. Merchant of Venice, Romeo & Juliet, and MacBeth were covered among others), the other selections left a lot to be desired. I can understand wanting to have some Canadian content, but the three Margaret Laurence books we had to read were torture. Aren’t there any other Canadian authors of note? (At least they included a Margaret Atwood after I graduated). Short stories like ‘The Kid Who Fractioned’, or ‘The Loved One’ made us wonder who decided on these selections?
There are so many other good books/stories out there. Why do they torture high school students with so much crap? Doesn’t exactly foster a love for reading.
As for the Bible, it would be appropriate for a religious studies class, but give me ‘Paradise Lost’ in English class instead.
Genesis is excellent literature. The narrative of the lives of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and Jacob’s sons is one of the greatest pieces of literature in the ancient world.
There’s a lot of character development and personalities involved. Look for example at how Issac is different from Abraham and Jacob. While Abraham and Jacob focus on God, Issac almost never does anything religious? Why? Well, it isn’t stated explicitly in the text, but a bit of thought suggests it is connected to the fact that he almost got killed because God told his father to sacrifice him.
Genesis has a lot more than just the creation myths.
No, it was the prevailing Semitic opinion that it had a beginning. The Hebrews didn’t think to doubt what their neighbors believed.
See, wiley, you haven’t been taught the Bible properly.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
No true Xtian…
Most of the xtians we know, and have known, believe the book of Genesis or some parts of it (the creation story) is literal, factual truth.
We keep hearing about these more intelligent xtians who understand that the bible is story and myth, but in the 2000 or so years we’ve been roaming the earth, we’ve yet to meet a single one.
Hey Wiley what about this?
Tell me the correctfullness [sic] of that?
Wiley, please read before making further ignorant comments:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/day-age_creationism_is_almost.php
It all depends on the intention of the school board…and the way any work on Genesis would be assessed!
If it was to be analysed in the light of the present day Scientific body of evidence, it would indeed seem that the whole book would be rejected as allegory and of mythical import.
I somehow do not think that would be the intention somehow, call me biased…many have…but it would seem affirmation and indoctrination would be the school boards real agenda here.
But I am prepared to be proven woefully wrong…I just do not think I am!
#56:
I thought that ‘character development’ usually pertains to the development of the character of one person over time.
But anyway, I find these stories simplistic, boring and rather dry AND “matter-of-fact-ly”.
If they are indeed the “the greatest pieces of literature in the ancient world”, then, IMHO, that doesn’t bode well for the other pieces of literature in the ancient world.
So you’re saying that Professor Jennings was wrong when he said “Don’t write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring too. He’s a little bit long-winded, he doesn’t translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible.”
As Meir Sternberg, Jan Fokkelman, Robert Alter, Adele Berlin, and others have shown in great detail, Genesis is exquisite literature, not to mention the most culturally significant part of the Bible. But, of course, we shouldn’t listen to them since they actually have qualifications in the field. Better we listen to PZ, who eagerly supports our preconceived notions and spews “doggerel.” Ignorance be damned…full speed ahead.
Oh, and I was taught Genesis as literature in a small town high school fully 35 years ago in a perfectly appropriate manner, Wellhausen hypothesis and all. Facts be damned…full speed ahead.
Genesis can be an excellent resource for teaching literary analysis. One possible exercise would be to assign the students a section of Genesis and have them delineate which sections were written by which source. This exercise would highlight conflicting versions of the creation story in Genesis, the conflicting descriptions of God himself, and make the students view the conflicts in terms of the preoccupations and biases of each version’s respective source(s). It would be a good counter to apologetic attempts to whitewash the discontinuity.
It would be fabulous to have the students read Genesis and the Enuma Elish and/or Gilgamesh side-by-side.
The redaction techniques used to edit everything together also deserve study. The Bible’s genealogies take on a new and insidious brilliance when you look at them as editing devices used to give disparate stories the illusion of being a continuous narrative while simultaneously promoting tribal identity.
A properly done analysis of Genesis would make explaining that it’s not science redundant.
Man – don’t you all know that correct Bible interpretation requires a secret decoder ring. Without it we are just ignorant heathens.
The good news is that one is in every box of “Tasty-wasty Wafer Crackers” produced by RCC Industries. The bad news is that we ain’t allowed to even touch the boxes without their agent’s monitoring and officiating. And try getting one to help you – why we are nothing but meeskait to them.
And even if we could get the decoder ring in our grubby hands it is only partially useful as the schema is some weird asymmetric key algorithm and I think the Pope or maybe Billy Graham or Rick Warren or some such person holds the key of keys.
Oh well – we atheists are sunk. We’ll never get the keys thus we’ll never know the real Truth. Oy vey!
FWIW, the Genesis creation myths have always been poorly translated. In a more accurate translation, Elohim doesn’t create matter ex nihilo, he just shapes it. I guess it is claimed he did turn the lights on.
And Elohim is a plural noun, meaning gods. In the early OT there are fequent mentions of other gods and goddesses, one of which was god’s wife Asherah, part of the polytheism that gave rise to the monotheism of one god who is 3 gods.
These kludgy old myths are a weak basis to contradict 200 years of modern science with.
dutch, I said it was “one of the greatest pieces of literature in the ancient world”, not the greatest. And yes, character development can occur for people over time and doesn’t need to focus on a single individual. Look at for example the changes in Joseph’s personality.
Part of the problem here is that these texts have been so culturally associated with religion that people aren’t sitting down and reading them as literature. Is Genesis on the same level as say the Odyssey? As a literary work, probably not. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have literary merit.
If the Greek pantheon was still widely worshipped, I suspect that we’d have a reverse with things like the Odyssey being downplayed.
I took a classical literature course in 10th or 11th grade in a public HS in the US, and — surprisingly — it was taught critically. The course was one quarter Bible-as-lit and one quarter of ancient Greek lit (especially the Odyssey). That was the class where I learned that textual analysis shows that Moses didn’t write the “5 books of Moses”, that there are two creation stories in Genesis, and that Exodus is not corroborated by external archaeological evidence. Actually, in retrospect I’m surprised that there weren’t complaints, but I think it was a case where people were warned well in advance that it’s Bible as lit, and if they have a problem with that, don’t take the course.
I was a believing Mormon at the time, and I found the class quite interesting. It wasn’t the reason I stopped believing, but it was yet another data point on my mental “religion vs. reality” chart.
Free Lunch #29
Hold on, wasn’t Virgil born circa 70 BC ?
And which facts would that be?
“Most of the xtians we know, and have known, believe the book of Genesis or some parts of it (the creation story) is literal, factual truth.
We keep hearing about these more intelligent xtians who understand that the bible is story and myth, but in the 2000 or so years we’ve been roaming the earth, we’ve yet to meet a single one. ”
Um, I believe you just did. If you display that level of understanding for others, I am not surprised you’ve never met one. I daresay they’re the norm, and that the creationist twits are indeed the vocal minority.
Well, as an aggregate. It’s kind of interesting, really; They’re a minority throughout a lot of the planet’s Christians, and even in the US, but the “Minority” usually isn’t, within their own local area.
Still, I think if Creationist morons were the majority, there’d be a LOT more legal challenges then we see, and a LOT more school boards would reach the lawsuit stage due to either including Creationism in the curriculum, or failing to do so.
In other words, confirmation. Of course you hear about the idiots in Texas and Tennessee who get their stuff into the classrooms. Do you hear about the other 48 states NOT having that shit come up?
And, for once, you are wrong, PZ: Genesis is actually a pretty good choice!
Remember that Genesis is two versions of the same story, told by different authors and arranged overlapping by the author of the latter version. Different motives, different vocabulary, and so on. And, despite the many translation steps, much of this is preserved in most English versions.
Yes, a worthy object for study. So much about the authors can be deduced by careful analysis of the text: their education, life style, life situation (slavery, in the second case), motives, etc.
do you mean that the bible is “english literature”?
Was it not written in hebrew, arameic and some parts in greek?, then translated all to greek (the septuagint)), and then translated to english.
(except the catholic bible, which was translated to latin first “The vulgata”…)
The bible should not be teached along Shakesperes, but along the vedas, the ramayana, the thales of Utnapisti, and other texts of ancient literature, as part off “universal literature”
Or maybe they really believe it was written only for americans..??
@Michelle R
Of course, anyone put in a position to teach has the opportunity, however slight, of subjecting the students to their own ideology. I think that, in the interest of learning, an elective course about religions from Christianity to the most obscure beliefs of remote African tribes is quite fine. (And it is taught from an historic perspective.)
Maybe he went on the p*ss with Herod and nicked his torah ?
PZ: Does anyone think it could be taught in the public schools in America that way?
Not across the whole country. However, that was pretty much exactly how it was taught when it was covered in my public school 9th grade English class in upstate NY back in the mid-80s.
(The teacher also sent home a note to the students’ parents the week before, letting them know that they would be doing this unit, and if there was anyone who wanted their kid to opt out and alternate unit would be available.)
They’re reading the Bible in English class?
Oy vey.
Hector Avalos makes a point in his book, The End of Biblical studies, that the bible is an old book written long ago.
He argues that it has no more relevance today for us than the Iliad or the Babylonian stories and should be filed under ancient literature and stay there.
When you look at the weird sex, frequent genocides, endless contradictions, slavery, and so on, it is hard not to agree with him. As a window into the ancient cultures, it can be rather horrifying. Anyone today following the OT lifestyle in the USA would end up doing multiple life sentences in prison
I remember reading Genesis in my AP English class, just before Milton. I remember discussing the two distinct creation stories. I remember the creationist student in my class getting really upset by the Milton (after Genesis) esp. the line about justifying the ways of god to man. I remember being the flash point of a big fight, though it was my friend who called Jesus a chickenshit.
(I do remember being shocked by the creationism. I just couldn’t believe that anyone would hold such a belief.)
I imagine that in many standard English classes, the focus is on the literary qualities. If it were an explicitly Christian school, I still would hope that in English class they’d focus on the literary issues. But, y’know, I think in a Christian school, the fact of Genesis showing up in an English class is the least of your indoctrinational concerns.
So, sign me up for it being no big deal until there’s concrete evidence that Genesis in that class is being taught as science. Genesis references crop up a lot in English lit. So be it.
Having taught Introduction to Ethics (and to Philosophy) and heavily leaned on Plato’s Euthyphro to justify secular ethics, I will say that it’s a bit tricky. But so is teaching abortion ethics. I’d hesitate before concluding from topic to poverty of instruction.
BTW, AP English seems to require quite substantial knowledge of the Bible (to unpack allusions), or so I gather from various, study guides. (Frankly, I object to using Atlas Shrugged far more than any Bible stuff!)
71: And which facts would that be?
The facts that belie PZ’s obviously ignorant claim in #7:
“‘If it were taught properly’ is the important phrase.
“Does anyone think it could be taught in the public schools in America that way?”
The testimonies contained in this thread alone put the lie to the claim.
It’s great (snicker… Ahem…) to see my High School in the news.
It’s been 20+ years since I’ve been there but can’t imagine that it has changed that much since I was there.
Considering that the Newton schools have been considered some of the best in the country and my own personal experience I find it hard to believe that the school is trying in anyway, shape or form to preach to anyone.
The overall approach to teaching there is to have an open mind and most of all be critical of everything.
So, I have to admit, that my opinion is that the student is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
I imagaine that all of the subject matter in the class would be analyzed and discussed from all stand points.
And considering that the greater population of the students are Jewish (at least it was when I went there) I hardly imagine that it is now a “hot bed” for the Evangelicals.
Peace
@Raven – I’m interested in this whole Asherah business, can you recommend any good sources?
Yep, long after The Iliad had been written or developed or evolved.
#81
And what would be actually taught in Genesis?
The story?…the myth?…the lie?…or the truth of it?
Depends on what part of Genesis they teach. The story of Joseph is one of the best bits of the bible. It’s great, the children can discus how Joseph is a dick for buying all the excess food for 7 years and marking up the price in the later years and forcing everyone to give him all their money.
In a sensible society you shouldn’t have to explain to students that Genesis is not scientific. Do I sit around explaining to my student that thunder isn’t really caused by Thor shaking his hammer? Or that whatever dangers life may hold, being kidnapped by the God of the Underworld (like Persephone) isn’t one of them. No, I take it for granted that she knows that already. OK, so I do know her (non)-religious background.
Hmmm… actually the creation story in the King James version is nearly the only part of the Bible I can stomach. It has some poetic qualities. I also like the Song of Songs and a few psalms. Revelations is cool, but arguably promotes the use of drugs. The rest is morally repulsive.
The point of including the Bible in an English class is so students understand the many Christian allusions in English literature. Genesis is probably the most useful chapter in this regard. That said, I think the best way to teach this is minimally. When I was in high school, we didn’t read the whole Bible (or even a whole chapter), but we would read small excerpts related to core work for the class. For instance, you need to know Cain and Abel and Noah and the Flood to understand some of Steinbeck’s work. I think this approach is perfectly acceptable, and doesn’t require the teacher to do much with religious material other than to say “Read this, and then we’ll discuss how XYZ character in ABC book refers to Adam/Noah/Cain/whoever.”
Remember that Genesis is two versions of the same story, told by different authors and arranged overlapping by the author of the latter version. Different motives, different vocabulary, and so on.
Genesis 1 and 2-3 are two versions of creation. They are not really “the same story” in any meaningful sense. For instance, while the god of the P text (Gen. 1) is the cosmic overlord of the entire world, the J text (Gen 2) gives no indication that Yahweh is responsible for creating any more than his little garden, the plants and animals in it, and Adam and Eve. Genesis taken as a whole contains numerous stories, composed and edited and redacted by many people, not two. Unlikely that the author of any one of the many texts included was responsible for the final redaction, either, although the idea that redacting and compiling the texts did not involve compositional activity also is probably wrong. There are extremely ancient texts, texts of intermediate age from the Assyrian and Persian periods, and later texts, some written to mimic the voices of the older.
Was it not written in hebrew, arameic and some parts in greek?, then translated all to greek (the septuagint)), and then translated to english.
All of that happened, yes (though only the New Testament texts were originally composed in Greek), but modern English translations are made from the best surviving Hebrew manuscript of the Masoritic text. They do not rely on the Septaguint translation, though the Greek is used in textual criticism to help study differences between the Hebrew originals those translators used and the ones we have today, which are about 8-900 years more recent.
(except the catholic bible, which was translated to latin first “The vulgata”…)
And, again, modern translations do not depend on this for their translations from the Hebrew. Even the KJV was translated mostly from Hebrew texts, though they considered the LXX and the Vulgate more authoritative than modern translators do.
This is the only reasonable answer I’ve seen so far.
Having a BA in English with a Literature Option, the issue with the Bible as Literature applies to the King James Version.
Gus at #83
Asherah is mentioned throughout the OT. But not in a nice way. They tried to write her out but apparently she was a popular goddess. When they dig in Israel, it is common to find small female clay figures that are probably her.
Just hit google and type in a few words.
#85: And what would be actually taught in Genesis?
The story?…the myth?…the lie?…or the truth of it?
It should be taught the same way I was taught it both in high school and college lit courses — as literature.
Duh.
To be fair, in my public high school my sophomore year we read the first two chapters of Genesis, but only after we had read all the myths it was based on (like the Babylonian, the Sumerian, and a couple others– and yes, the teacher blatantly said that Genesis stole those myths for that story). At that point in time I would have called myself agnostic, and I’ll admit reading chapter two in particular annoyed me, but more due to the treatment of Eve than because I didn’t believe.
In my case, I think it was fine that I was taught Genesis, since it wasn’t considered literal, and was just another creation myth from the fertile crescent (which we were studying).
kate @ 88 “The point of including the Bible in an English class is so students understand the many Christian allusions in English literature.”
Interesting. In the “secundaria” (in México is the equivalent og highschool”) the bible is never mentioned in the spanish literature class, even when dealing the works of people like “Santa Teresa de Jesus”. While the bible is mentioned in the Universal literature class, it is not a required reading. Maybe this is diferent in other latinamerican countries.
What about the graded essay? I remember from my high school days that the students grade came not directly from the reading but from the essay that the students were required to write about the book. So, if I’m a young atheist in a literature class taught by a true believing Christian, I would have to read Genesis, write and opinion of it, and submit that opinion to the Christian teacher for a grade. But then she will have to decide on what grounds to grade this essay: religious bias or impartial academics. Bias abounds in religion. So, I get two choices. Either, working really hard at writing something to confirm her religious opinions. The more honest that I am, the worse the grade will be. Or, work 10X harder writing how I really feel about the book so that the teacher can’t dismiss it as the work of the devil. Catch 22.
@raven – thanks, but I’m looking for something a bit more authoritative. Someone on another thread here was discussing her being transformed into the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I’m looking for works with a reasonably level of scholarly integrity discussing how she was written out of the Bible and where she might fit in (e.g. the serpent).
I studied quite a bit of the Bible in the course of doing an undergraduate degree in English literature — for instance, we looked at four different versions (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English) in my History of the English Language course. It really does help make a lot of western literature in general make sense — and it allows you to catch all those Liars for Jesus who insist on conflating The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost with the Bible.
I don’t think Genesis is “drivel” at all. I think it’s been quite badly mangled by a few thousand years of badly-handled rewrites (the content-management system crashed, obviously), but it’s quite nice. It’s better in the original Hebrew — the last time I actually studied anything Biblical, I was reading Kings in the original. I doubt the story of King Solomon and the two zonot gets much play in US high schools…at least not without mistranslating it as “women” or something. (It means “female prostitutes.”)
In reference to this along with some other comments:
“my sophomore year we read the first two chapters of Genesis, but only after we had read all the myths it was based on (like the Babylonian, the Sumerian, and a couple others” (emphasis added)
What the hell kind of schools did you people go to?
I never read or heard mentioned the Bible in any public school I attended. I learned a lot about it in Sunday school and confirmation class, but never in public school. I didn’t read any mythology until I was in college.
All I remember from sophomore English is that we read some Shakespeare (it wasn’t R&J, that was 9th grad), probably Julius Caesar. Lord of the Flies was definitely sophomore year, and probably Lost Horizon.
@ Gus Snarp:
I’m not Raven (obviously) but here’s a link to some info: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a794766629&db=all
For other information on it – and to keep this post from being held up – do a Google search for William Dever and Ashera. Bill was a professor of mine at U. of Arizona in the late 80’s.
Ah, Genesis is great. Patriarchy is listed as a curse, the creation of Eve is the first telling of the old feminist joke “Man was created first, but that was only for practice”, there are subtle attacks on the idea of one nation being preferred by the gods over another. In short – genesis is an attack on the fundies. Hell yes, let’s get everyone to read it very closely and carefully.
I also had to read the bible for literature in my sophomore year of high school, and while I still gag at the idea of getting one’s morals from it, I think I’m none the worse for having read it. In fact, I got a good experience out of it anyway:
1. I got my first actual introduction to the Bible, hence more evidence to defend my position as a non-believer.
2. I found out where a lot of the Western World’s most famous cliches and concepts originate from, such as the idea of a lost paradise, a flight to freedom, etc. all of which are useful tools for a young writer of fiction to have.
3. My teacher gave us two whole classes to partner up with classmates and make bible characters out of Legos. My former project partner and I still snigger as we relive fond memories of lightsaber-wielding ‘Crazy Jesus’ and alligator-riding ‘Wacky Moses’.
Seriously, kids. Try it. :D
Hey guys. I go to Newton South, I have even met this guy. Now, first off, I would like to say this
THE BIBLE IS READ FROM A SECULAR PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!
It really is, we explore god and jeebus as a metaphor.
PZ, you stated that we should read Job and Ecc instead of genesis. Guess what?
Sophomore honors english (the class I am taking this year) includes Job and Ecclesiastics as our two principal texts. Genesis is not included in either first term or second term papers, whereas Job is used very heavily in one, and Ecclesiastics is used a lot in both.
Not only that, but Genesis takes up a full week in curriculum. It is an easy start into analysis of quotation, and humanity in general.
The bible, despite being hogwash, is very insightful and interesting, providing archetypes, as well as windows into the thought processes of most european, historical writers.
Hmmm … given a choice between JD Salinger and god … plagued by a non-existent fairy and a really crappy dead writer. Where is the John Steinbeck?
I’d say the bible doesn’t belong in that class at all. What are the students meant to discuss? All the literature is make-believe but it makes no sense to include the bible unless you also bring in creation myths from other civilizations both extant and extinct. At least then you can appreciate how less knowledgeable people were prone to make up and believe in bullshit. The reading list makes no sense to me – it has me wondering if there is any point to the class other than to make kids read more books.
Rutee:
So you’re saying most xtians don’t believe that some or all parts of Genesis are true, or believe in an omnipotent super-being who created the heavens and the earth, the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, etc.? In other words, you’re saying most xtians don’t believe in Dog?
You’re kidding right?
We think you’re confusing aggressive xtian evangelism with garden variety xtian beliefs. Most xtians are relatively sane Compared to their radical brethren) but make no mistake, they believe in the core myth of Genesis.
For use in English literature class, the bible needs to be emphasized as the basis for many phrases and characters used in actual English literature. In itself, it is not English literature, it is ancient literature. And of course, the bible would be appropriate in religious studies class.
Recently, I have encountered a high school student on the net who is an atheist who was given a F for an English class paper regarding if there is a higher power. Now that topic is completely irrelevant for an English class, better suited for a philosophy class. His teacher just happens to be a pastor outside school hours. When the student asked why he got a failing grade, he was told that his analysis was wrong and should rethink his stance. This student has been advised to seek help for the unconstitutional treatment he has been given. The grade will often flush out the religious reason why certain assignments are given. But by then, it has become a stressful situation.
I voted no in the poll because it was not clear that the emphasis was showing that the bible contains many references used in English lit and that it, itself, does not constitute an example of English lit.
We read the creation story in Genesis in my high school English class, alongside other creation myths. We had to compare and contrast three different cultures’ creation myths in a paper. It was very interesting and productive, and one of the few things I remember from high school English classes.
We never discussed whether the stories were scientific, since the idea was to look at them from a literary and cultural perspective, but once you compare a few (or even read just one), you realize they’re simply stories and not fact.
I believe many consider the King James Version to indeed be a piece of English literature, in that James demanded that the translation be more than just a simple translation and it ended up taking quite a “liberal” interpretation of the original texts. (As I understand it)
@Gus 99: I went to a public high school in Colorado. I had a hippy teacher, at least for that class. For the underclassmen, we were randomly assigned a teacher for a combination history/lit class. Only as upperclassmen could we choose our lit classes. I suppose I just got lucky and got the right teacher.
Perhaps my use of the word “all” was a bit strong. Many? That is probably what I should have said.
When I was in high school and we were doing Paradise Lost, our teacher told us of an assignment she had had when she was studying it way back when. Her teacher had instructed the class to read the section of Genesis that told of the fall of the angels, so we could see where Milton had got his ideas from. Of course there is no such section, which was the point the teacher wanted to make. She said the lesson had stuck with her and she had thought about giving us the same assignment, but felt there could be church-state issues involved, so she settled for telling us the story.
I believe strongly that portions of the literature included in the present-day Bible (in particular Job, portions of Second Isaiah, certain Psalms, David’s lament over Saul) should be included in World Literature, alongside Homer, Sophocles, Ovid, portions of the epic of Gilgamish, and so on. The Bible’s influence on say Shakespeare or Melville is certainly a reasonable topic for discussion in English or American literature, depending. Whether the assignment of the book of Genesis was appropriate in this case I can’t tell; there doesn’t seem to be enough evidence.
By the way, the Greek version (the Septuagint) is taken seriously in most modern translations of the Bible; it is frequently used to fill in gaps in the Masoretic text, as in 1 Samuel 14:41 (for example).
When I was in High School in Boise Idaho I believe that we read Genesis as one of the books we read. We also read Dante’s Inferno. It was done in a critical way. I don’t think our teacher bothered with a biology lesson, but I think you are too worried. When you do serious literary criticism of any part of the bible one of the things that becomes apparent is that it wasn’t written by God.
when you’re dealing with insanity, its best to understand the root cause.
Some of the relevant points have been made already. But here are my thoughts, for what it is worth.
The whole of English literature is full of allusions and references to the Bible. Shakespeare is packed with them.
The King James Version is what should be used in teaching the Bible in an English literature class. It may be a less accurate translation but it is the work whose cadences and phrases are echoed in subsequent literature.
Consider just book titles like:
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
The Golden Bowl
The Sun also Rises
Jacob Have I Loved
Absalom, Absalom!
I wouldn’t stick with just Genesis, myself. But Genesis is a lot more than two creation stories. It is primarily the story of Abraham and his descendants. It is, along with Exodus, the founding story of the Jewish people. There are 50 books in Genesis. The story of Abraham begins in book 12.
Moreover, as others have mentioned, there are passages in Genesis with great literary merit. They are mixed in with genealogies and lists and other things that do not have any such merit.
@ Gus Snarp Author Profile Page | December 16, 2009 3:59 PM,
There being two separate creation stories, one where man and woman were created at the same time (Gen 1:27), and a second where they were created sequentially (Gen 2:7,Gen 2:21-22), the question comes up about what happened to the first woman, since there’s such a story about the second. There are non-biblical midrash stories about her as “Lillith”.
I prefer the response you gave at one of your debates, something along the lines of “The Bible is crap.”
Me likey!
It would have been ok if they were teaching the LOLcat Bible…
I think it is “Lilith”, but regardless.
I’ve always wondered why such a big deal is made of this supposed “first woman (before Eve)” yet not about the first man, why is it assumed that they are both Adam? In fact re-reading it just now, God creates man “male and female he created them” and spread them across the earth telling them to be fruitful and multiply.
Then in Chapter 2 he forms a man from the dust of the earth and sets him in the Garden of Eden (and names him Adam). So why don’t people write stories about that first man? And why is “Lilith” often portrayed as some kind of “demon” when it was Eve that “caused” the fall?
I suppose one could argue that these first people are the sources of the “daughters of men” that Adam and Eve’s children (the sons of God) go forth and mate with later on in the story.
As a student and teacher of literature, I’d argue that Genesis is a very useful book to read because it is such a rich source of story and metaphor in European literature and American literature. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Hawthorne and countless others up to now use and rework these stories.
The KJB is probably the only beautifully written piece ever produced by a committee (OK, the U.S. Constitution is also a work of genius but its prose style is not that mellifluous) and was and is extremely influential on English writing.
My own child, raised a cheerful pagan like me, sometimes stumbles in her college literature classes because I sadly neglected to make her read Genesis to be familiar with the stories there.
Maybe we could hope the class will read R. Crumb’s lovely new illustrated version of Genesis.
I’ve never understood why anyone would read either the Kings James Bible or Shakespeare. They’re little more than quotations strung together. ;b
‘Tis @#119: !!
I’m a student at Jack’s school (South) and I’d like to provide a bit of context.
Newton is an extremely liberal city. NSHS has a grand total of one obnoxious evangelical (Eddie), and I don’t think even he’s a creationist. I took the sophomore honors English class last year, and it is in no way presented as fact.
The chunks of Genesis are taught in much the same way as Gilgamesh or Greek myths would be. The creation stories are analyzed for their themes, symbols, etc, and occasional emphasis is given to parts that are often referenced in Western literature.
And it isn’t just the irritating holy-shepherd stories; after Genesis, the class covers the book of Job.
I don’t really have a problem with teaching the KJV version* of Genesis 1-11 as part of a high school literature course.
My second favorite would probably be the whole David cycle, though it’s spread across the books of Samuel and Kings and can be tricky to separate from the mix. David has some fantastic character flaws that make him a uniquely human national hero figure.
There is a huge difference between reading Genesis in literature class and reading it in science class. It belongs in literature class, as part of a reading list of many types of fiction across the ages.
As long as the teacher maintains class discipline and keeps the discussion on the literature and not theology, then there really should be no problem. And, I think the atheist kid should do the same assignments as the theist kids…he should add a unique perspective to the class discussion and he might even get some of his peers to engage a few critical brain cells. Wouldn’t that be something.
*Why KJV? It’s not the best translation from a theology or ancient languages standpoint, but from a literary standpoint it’s the best choice. It’s the version that gives us all the great catchphrases and allusions.
@ Steve M,
I’m sorry, but since it seemed that the primary language of this thread was English, it would be silly to just come out with לילית.
You’re right, however, and Wikipedia at Lilith puts you on the track to more information.
In answer to your question, I suspect that it’s because the biblical authors were absolutely obsessed with sex. Lilith seems to be the biblical symbol for all of the erotic activity that isn’t supposed to be in “family” books.
wiley #38, sunshine,
The droppings you leave as you take a little gallop through the text have not gone unnoticed. “Light” in Genesis means “the visible spectrum for the average human”, a narrow band of the entire electromagnetic spectrum and the only kind of electromagnetism known innately to almost every human. The mention of light but silence on the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum is one of the pieces of evidence that the Bible is prescience gobbledygook—the authors had no clue what light was other than how their bodies and brains naturally processed it. That is not a swipe at the authors of Genesis, it is a swipe at you for being a credulous zombie worshiper too stupid to realize that everything you say is plainly a lie.
I went to high school in a heavily Baptist, small-town in Texas, where we were taught abstinence only sex-ed, guys weren’t allowed to have facial hair or piercings, girls couldn’t wear shorts or skirts shorter than the point at which their fingertips met their thighs, and parents were more than likely to complain about evolution or the Bible being misrepresented in English class. But when some idiot in my pre-AP Bio class tried to start an argument about creationism and evolution, my totally awesome teacher just said, “You can believe whatever you want, but you will be graded on how well you learn the material that I teach,” and that was that. Had a parent complained, I do not doubt that the administration would have had Mrs. Burch’s back. Meanwhile, in AP English 4, my senior year, a parent complained about the use of the word “fuck” in Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale (I know exactly which retarded blonde girl complained about it too, and ten years later, I still want to smack her and tell her she did not belong in AP English), and my totally badass English teacher stood her ground and was allowed to continue teaching the novel the next year.
My point is that I think that if you assume that the default position of every teacher in every American school is retarded religious bigot who cares more about being reprimanded by the administration than about really teaching kids, then you’re selling the majority of teachers short. In my very Baptist school, where most of my teachers were deeply religious, I cannot think of one pre-AP or AP English teacher there who would not have done justice to Genesis as a cultural touchstone. I can’t speak to the regular English teachers, but at least in honors programs, I think the teachers can handle it. Hell, aside from the extreme literalists, I would wager that most American Christians already look at Genesis through the symbolic, literary lens that you want Genesis taught through.
As for the appropriateness of Genesis, I’m in the camp that thinks that you couldn’t pick a better book of the bible to teach if you’re going to teach one. Without at least a passing familiarity with Genesis, you miss a good portion of the allusions in English literature, from Chaucer to present day, and without a passing familiarity with Greek and Roman mythology, you miss a similar amount. And you’re still going to miss a bunch if you haven’t made a lifetime study of the Bible. Of course, that’s what footnotes are for. It’s not really about whether it’s a translation–so is Beowulf–it’s about how much content you miss in actual English literature without a passing familiarity with the Bible.
There is another way to parse this. Take another look at what the student actually says:
So the reason he doesn’t want to read the bible in a literature class is because other people think it is “the word of God”, and “believe [it] to be true.”
In other words, he doesn’t think the bible belongs in a literature course with the other works of fiction because other people believe it to be true, and he doesn’t want to participate in analyzing said work from his own atheist perspective because he doesn’t want to offend!
*Gasp* Our young man here is an accommodationist!
Though I must say his use of the word “literally” in this context suggests that he needs to pay more attention in this particular class.
(But here’s another thought – it is a little odd for a self-proclaimed atheist to say “This IS the word of God” isn’t it? Could we have one of those apocryphal fake atheists out stirring trouble trying to make real atheists look bad?)
Genesis is a bad choice for reading part of the bible as literature? It seems like probably the best choice to me (barring one of the Gospels, or perhaps Job or Psalms). While teaching it critically without having Christians raise a stink could be an issue, the cultural impact of Genesis is higher than just about any other book of the bible. I haven’t read much of the bible (some of Genesis, some of the gospels, and a little bit of other pieces here and there), but most of the bible stories I can think of offhand(i.e., the ones that have real cultural relevance) are in Genesis.
Off the top of my head, bible stories I could come up with were (I’m pretty fuzzy on the details of a lot of these, and had to look them up to find out what book they were in):
Adam&Eve/Creation (Genesis)
Cain&Abel (Genesis)
Noah (Genesis)
Tower of Babel (Genesis)
Abraham&Isaac (Genesis)
Jacob&Esau (Genesis)
Sodom&Gomorrah (Genesis)
Joseph (Genesis)
Moses (Exodus)
Job (Job)
David/Solomon (Samuel/Kings)
Mordecai/Haman/Esther (Esther)
Daniel in the Lion’s Den (Daniel)
Jonah and the Whale (Jonah)
Elijah (Kings)
Walls of Jericho (Joshua)
Jesus (Matthew/Mark/Luke/John)
Genesis accounts for a major chunk of the stories that people might be expected to be familiar with. Several of the non-Genesis stories I’ve listed (Esther, Walls of Jericho, Elijah) I suspect are pretty obscure in secular culture.
I really can’t see arguing against the literary IMPORTANCE of Genesis; while it’s literary MERIT may be low and teaching it critically could be a problem in certain school districts, it really is the single (Old Testament) book that has the most stories people in our culture will encounter. One of the gospels might also be a good choice for Jesusy stuff, and I know Psalms & Proverbs also have some passages that are frequently quoted or alluded to.
Personally, I have no clue what happens in Ecclesiastes, and on skimming the Wikipedia article nothing rings a bell. While Ecclesiastes may have more literary MERIT than Genesis, I don’t think its literary/cultural impact comes anywhere close (but maybe I’m ignorant).
We read parts of the Book of Genesis in middle school in public school along, and while most of my classmates were Jewish or Christian of some variety, I don’t think anyone would have gone so far as to such it was actually true in any kind of a literal sense.
PZ, I think you spend too much time engaging the creationists. Most American Christians do not view Genesis as literal, but as symbolic. The Bio faculty at Gustavus, St. Olaf, Macalaster, St. Johns, Hamline, Concordia Moorehead are teaching the same thing you are. The religion department isn’t picking a fight with them. This is where most American who have even bothered to consider the two issues together are.
“So you’re saying most xtians don’t believe that some or all parts of Genesis are true, or believe in an omnipotent super-being who created the heavens and the earth, the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, etc.? In other words, you’re saying most xtians don’t believe in Dog?
You’re kidding right?”
So you think all Christians (Xians makes me read it as “Shi-ans”, which is nonsense) can handle God creating Gravity, electromagnetism, meteorology, chemistry, and everything else, but that they go Apeshit at Evolution, and only Evolution? Every single time? Everywhere forever, when even the Pope has said that Evolution is how God chose to put Man on Earth? Seriously? Do you /ever/ talk with Christians?
Seriously, they are not all walking caricatures of stupid people. Christians who aren’t caricatures and don’t wear big, funny hats don’t make the news. For that matter, it’s not that hard to justify Evolution /and/ an omnipotent God. I mean really, the biggest stumbling blocks involve human nature and random chance. For the majority of Christians, if you can accept that terrible things happen to saintly people, evolution becomes child’s play. The dude’s supposed to be /omnipotent/, remember?
never learned Greek then, eh?
WTF? I went to NSHS first semester 10th grade… I think Bible as literature was great because it approached the Bible as a secular text, first time I’d ever seen the veil pulled back. It was a good experience for me, as an RCC cultist (at the time). I do remember my Jewish classmates grumbling about reading excerpts from Matthew … well, it is boring.
Another Boston story: the Taunton kid “suspended” for drawing a crucifix? More reichtard lies. Taunton schools rebut report on child’s Jesus drawing
You will not believe the zinger at the end.
The comments are EPIC.
@ : SteveM,
BTW, I would respectfully disagree with you that Eve caused the fall. Look at the story this way:
A&E were plopped down in the garden and instructed not to eat the fruit of certain trees (Life, and Knowledge). Since they supposedly had no knowledge of good or evil, they had no knowledge of the value of the order not to eat of those trees. If they had not eaten of those trees, there would be no more story. Bible ends there. Since the story goes on, we see that it was Eve who had the scientific question, “What if…?” Adam had no such inclination to learn. And here we are. I suspect that the deity would have been very disappointed if Eve hadn’t taken a bite. As a parent I know that forbidding something generates a lot if interest in that thing.
We never studied the bible in English at (Australian, public) high school. As it is there isn’t enough time to read all the books I do want to read; I can’t imagine that I’m going to feel the urge to read that particular work of pseudo-historical fan-fiction.
I think PZ and Dawkins are wrong about the idea the bible should be taught because it would help students better understand other literature and art references.Baloney. The bible wsn’t taught when I went to public school and I had no problem what so ever. When a biblical reference did come up-rarely-then I could reference it.Brian Rutledge
“never learned Greek then, eh?”
What would “Xians” be in Greek? I keep connecting it to Xia, like in Wuxia movies. I know that Xian is poor chinese, but in my head that’s where it keeps snapping back to.
sry if this is off topic but i jus came across this incredible piece of evidence for creationism
“the word dinosaur is only 160 years old”
I thought the giant ones called themselves that :D
Um… PZed (it’s his hip hop name):
When I was a student in the Newton Public Schools in 1994, the teacher chose which books in the Babble to read. We read a little bit of Genesis, spent a lot of time on Job, and then read a little bit of Matthew (although, really, we ought to have been looking at John, or maybe we did and I blocked that part out). Genesis has the stories everyone is familiar with so it’s good to see the original.
Also, we used KJV because it was English class.
The teachers took time to explain the what and why of the unit and how it wasn’t unconstitutional. (Though walking a fine line–Bible as literature classes have been ixnayed in the babble belt for their impiety.)
In short, this kid is a putz who is maybe it less lazy and more purity troll … kinda like me when I was an RCC. I can’t read THAT, I’ll be impure!!!
I wonder which version of the bible we should teach.
No matter I actually agree with PZ, though I think that the bible should be thought in history classes rather than English classes. It is after all very poorly written. So again, I really thing it would be best that children learn to intellectually tear it to peaces in the history classes.
My two cents. In a Christian culture, such as the US, it is nearly impossible to say you’re an atheist if you’ve NOT read the Bible. I think it’s absolutely required to read it. Once one does, there is little doubt that the discerning reader will be one when they’re done.
That’s one of the reasons why there are so many Christians in this country. Barely 5% of them actually read the Bible. Oh yes, they attend Sunday school and go to Bible study classes, but they don’t READ the thing.
Whoa, PZ, you seriously don’t know much about Eastern Mass.:
If that crap happened in the Newton Public Schools the kids would be calling the State House so fast you’d think it was Civics Day. We knew our rights … and we were rotten little buggers. Unless something drastic has changed (I mean, besides MCAS (growl)), there’s no way any teacher at that school is trying to invite Christian (well, especially Xtian–IT’S A JEWISH ‘HOOD) piety.
How critical will they be? Well, it isn’t college. I don’t remember a particularly critical reading of Romeo and Juliet (in any sense of the word) or To Kill A Mockingbird.
I’m a senior in high school, in Advanced Placement English. We studied the Bible. We split into groups, each with a different story: Creation/Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Job, and Jesus’ Crucifixion. We read the section independently, then did a presentation about it to the class.
The teacher never really made a strong statement either way. She didn’t affirm it as fact, or dismiss it as fiction. She did tell us at the beginning of the unit that this was in no way intended to influence our religious beliefs. That the Bible is one of the most influential literary texts in all of Western Literature so we needed to have a working knowledge of it to understand allusions and such made in other literature.
I didn’t really feel offended by the unit. The other atheist in the class and my friend who is a Hindu both didn’t think it was a big deal.
Hector Avalos does a good job of explaining why the bible is not “literature” and Bart Ehrman finishes the job by explaining how the bible isn’t even what it purports to be. Refusing to read it would probably have been less fun than loudly pointing out that more people buy “Playboy” (it’s true!) and that doesn’t make it literature.
How could you spot it in the first place?
The X is the Greek letter Chi (“khy”), so I guess “khy-an.”
But it’s used as an abbreviation of “Christ.”
Yes, it was a setup from the word go.
God is omniscient and all powerful.
So he puts two people in a garden with the tree of knowledge. They aren’t very bright, not having eaten the apple.
There is also a walking, talking snake who is bright and a smart ass.
So, what is going to happen? It was inevitable and the All Powerful had to know what would happen. And what is wrong with being smart?
Blame god. Where did this talking snake come from and why was he in the garden anyway? A deity who can create a universe should be able to do a minor traffic control task without screwing it up. Bleed through from another universe, left over from a previous creation?
Isn’t objectivity an important aspect of literary analysis? Certain kinds of Christians are going to view the bible as ‘better’ than other works, simply because they believe it – unlike any other text – to have been at the very least inidirectly inspired by their magic, invisible super-best-friend. Well, except for the bits that are collossally wrong, of course; that’s human error. Or translation error. Or a deliberate joke we don’t get. Or that one sentence in a passage that’s literal truth was mysteriously written in a different genre from the sentences either side of it…
Witness woo-soaked shirker and tapdancer extraordinaire Robocop’s comment in #64 where he refers to it as ‘exquisite literature’.
PZ, I’m sorry, but I must take strenuous objection to this.
Once again, I WAS IN THAT CLASS IN 1994. And none of your slippery slope assertions were even REMOTELY true.
Most of the honors kids were taking MULTIPLE honors courses. That meant we had completed Physics (w/o trig) in 9th grade and were in Honors Chem, which in the days of our chemlord, Chuckles Horowitz, was a college-level course. The Bible portions were a unit in ENGLISH class–hello? Hello? NOT HISTORY OR SCIENCE CLASS. Oh yeah, 10th grade history was a deep look at the Age of Exploration from primary sources.
Since the students consisted of Jews, agnostics, Catholics, (mainline) Protestants, and Buddhists, there was never any question of taking Genesis literally. Creationists? In MY vagina? Oh, and Honors Bio was year three–many went on to take AP bio year four although I had my heart set on Phyzz. There was a big kerfuffle when some kids transferred in from Vermont and already had AP bio.
The 9th grade history textbook WAS crap, but hopefully it’s been binned by now. Nothing kills Biblical literalism like a little ancient history. We read about the lawgivers (Hammurabi, etc), the first writing (1000 years before the creation of the world–heheh) and so on a whole year before this class. This is general history–there was no honors. Actually, mi madre got nervous and tried to teach me Euro history from the Catholic POV b/c she thought it was too critical… you know, Crusades and Inquisitions and stupid shit like that.
BTW, any other NSHS alums out there??? I know I’m not crazy. (Hm, let me put in some keywords: The Lion, Denebula, Duckle, the Merrill effect, Esso Cah Towah, Kantrowitz, Markin, Reflections, class of 1997, van the man, what do you do when you’re fifth Joshua Cohen in school, brandeis rd)
I agree, that’s why I wrote ” “caused” ” (with the quotation marks) to indicate that it is open to interpretation.
Faithful Reader #118:
Crumb’s illustrated version was the first time I managed to read Genesis all the way through. The illustrations make it much more understandable and considerably less boring, which is good considering all the mindless repetition of the later parts. And I’m not just talking about begats: men disguise their wives as their sisters on three separate occasions, and other similar stories happen multiple times.
Definitely a good grounding in the bible is necessary to understand much of Western literature, and highly useful for atheists. Though I share with PZ a distrust of the school’s motives, I think the kid should eat his broccoli at least until such time as those motives become more explicit, for example if the teacher closes down discussion about the silliness of the talking snake story.
@137: the more things change….
The Bible portion of the curriculum is still basically that; I don’t remember if the teacher said anything about Constitutionality or fact vs. myth, but I do remember analyzing Genesis as literature, and nothing more.
And going way back in the comments:
@PZ: “Does anyone think it could be taught in the public schools in America that way? Imagine a teacher put in the position of having to explain that it’s just metaphor and poetry, that the world wasn’t really created in 6 days, and that there really wasn’t a global flood.”
This is Newton MA, not Hicksville, Kansas. I’m imagining that very well; memory is a particularly precise sort of imagination.
Although, of course, the teacher didn’t stop to specify that this was just “metaphor and poetry”, because it was taken for granted. We could cut right to the thematic analysis.
FWIW, it is true that most xians have never read most of the bible.
The churches keep most of it hidden from their members as well as they can. It is just for quote mining.
They’ll quote the OT kill the gays passages and forget about the ones about killing disobedient children, selling them as sex slaves, not wearing jewelry, being poor to get into heaven, the duplicate and triplicate versions of stories that are all different, contradictions, and of course, the endless genocides and slavery.
Not to mention that it is mostly a literary work of fiction. Some of the Pauline letters are known forgeries, the book of Daniel was a historical novel, and so on. The wonder is that some of it actually is based on historical facts, the kings and the tunnel of Siloam.
And the anachronisms. It is easy to date many books by the anachronisms and allusions to then current events.
It is after all very poorly written.
Some of it is, some of it isn’t. A lot of it, I don’t think we can tell, really. Its aesthetic is lost to us. In any case, the massively composite nature of the text argues against the validity of such sweeping generalizations.
This is an English literature class, not a class on comparative religions. What does the Koran have to do with 17th century English poetry? Try to keep up.
@11
We covered Gilgamesh superficially in History class.
The Odyssey is read in 11th or 12 grade English, non-honors track b/c they made my brother read a crappy version where all the chapters were rearranged. WTFBBQ? Would you rearrange chapters in a Christy novel?
Fortunately I read it in college with a Greek professor.
I would skip the Iliad with the books of Joshua and Jeremiah. It’s 90% warriors dying, 10% warriors arguing over who gets to own & fuck a girl who was taken prisoner. Classy.
SteveM wrote:
Don’t worry, SteveM, I’m sure there’s an appropriate Christian
answerrationalisation for why their god was suddenly unable to do something, thereby displaying characteristics that don’t match those described in other parts of the bible.Much like why, when the whole Noah incident took place, he’d suddenly slipped in power from being able to create the universe and everything in it to be being almost completely impotent beyond making it rain for a shitload of days.
@152
But we’re atheists, therefore the Bible is dumb and lacks any merit whatsoever! Oh, and goat-herders wrote it.
I agree in principle – I don’t know how well a high school can teach Genesis critically. I’ve met teachers who are arguments for both sides. But let’s not forget the literary merit of introducing students to the accounts of the Patriarchs consorting with prostitutes and revenge for the rape of Dina. That should get high school students hooked on literature and mythology.
God is omniscient and all powerful.
The God of Genesis 2-3 clearly is not. When the Yahwehist(s) (auhtor(s) of the J texts) were writing, the concepts of omnicience and omnipotence had not been invented yet.
So he puts two people in a garden with the tree of knowledge. They aren’t very bright, not having eaten the apple.
There is also a walking, talking snake who is bright and a smart ass.
So, what is going to happen? It was inevitable and the All Powerful had to know what would happen. And what is wrong with being smart?
Yes, but this tension is right there in the text, enhanced by the clever juxtaposition of this story with Genesis 1, in which God judges all his creations “good.” So, the set up is God, who does what is right and good in his own eyes (Gen 1), creates humanity (Adam, lit.) “in his own image” (Gen. 2), and then is dismayed to discover that they, too, do what is right and good in their own eyes. It’s actually rather an ironic, even critical, treatment of the human condition and its author.
It doesn’t have anything to do with being “bright.”
Don’t mess with me, Paul.
;-)
What does a Hebrew book from 500 BCE have to do with English literature?
Actually, I teach Genesis, Exodus, and Matthew along with Classical myths to my Junior AP English and have done so for nine years. I’ve only had a couple of questions about in all of that time, and those were dealth with by simply stating most of the reasons PZ mentioned in his post.
I also teach parts of those same books to my non-honors level students when we read Lord of the Flies since Golding uses several biblical archetypes in that book. The kids get it as foundational literature, and there’s not even a need on my part to discuss it as anything other than myth.
Because the greater proportion of those who wrote English literature, at least prior to the last century or so, were almost certainly Christians, educated in a strongly Christian system and, as a result, frequently drew on the bible for inspiration in some form or another – even if it was something to be mocked or criticised.
#102 S
Ah, so your teacher is responsible for The Brick Testament ?
Because, as has been mentioned already, the King James Version of the Bible is a masterpiece of English literature. For example, the 23rd Psalm is pure poetry:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest son-of-a-bitch in the valley.
I think everyone should read the whole Bible. I wanted to be a priest one day and did it… which lead me straight away to atheism :)
“The X is the Greek letter Chi (“khy”), so I guess “khy-an.”
But it’s used as an abbreviation of “Christ.””
Huh. I underestimated the respect intended. I figured that, as “Christian”, it was like, the x was the cross, and just intended as disrespectful shorthand for an admittedly longish word.
Also, weirdly, I didn’t read the bible in AP English. In the Bible Belt (Sorta. It’s Panhandle Florida, so we get spillover from Mississippi and Alabama).
We also read from Genesis in my 10th grade honors English class. I don’t recall it being treated as anything other than a myth. I remember expecting some anger and arguing or something, but we all treated it like anything else we’d read.
I was Muslim growing up, so it was just as mythical to me as all the other stories. However, reading and discussing the similarities between biblical stories and myths from other cultures (and knowing the similarities between Islam and Christianity), it became pretty apparent to me that all of it was equally false. I’d definitely been questioning my beliefs beforehand, but I think that lesson had a big impact. I stopped wearing the hijab that year.
Also, I meant to add I went to high school in NC. Unless Raleigh is considered liberal or something (highly doubt it).
Thanks, NSHS students and alumni, for setting things straight. Sounds like a pretty nice place to get an education. You’re definitely benefiting from a better than average high school experience.
PZ, you’ve gotta do a little more research on these things or they will continue to bite you like this. It’s still great discussion fodder, to be sure.
They also drew inspiration from epics such as The Odyssey, but that doesn’t mean Homeric epics are suitable for English Literature. Translating a piece into English doesn’t make it English Literature.
The person I was replying to was stating that KJV Bible was suitable for English Lit, while the Koran was not. The Koran also has English translations. Your reasoning makes sense, as even if it is not actual English literature it informed a lot of English literature. His did not, and that was what I was pointing out. If translations are fair game, the Koran is as valid as the KJV to study as English literature.
@’Tis
Pure awesome.
I have the 2008-09 Program of Studies in front of me.
Sophomore English Honors:
“[…] Students develop a background for the further study of literature through readings in The Bible, and develop analytical tools for discovering themes in literature by examining a variety of genres, from Antigone to Shakespeare, from […]”
It’s more about “how to read literature” than anything else.
I’m a lit. prof. who came late to the bible. I got an MA in Lit. without once cracking open a bible. A SCANDAL! Most schools won’t touch it. But later in life I felt I had to know it.
so…
I’m now a convert–the bible is the most important book in western civ. to teach, and I’ve decided to teach it in my lit. courses.
AND I’m an atheist.
Genesis is simply fabulous. It contains most of the archetypal stories in our culture.
The “J” text, beginning “In the day that YHWH created earth and skies,” is the oldest prose narrative in literary history.
Untangling the authorship of the whole Torah–the Documentary Hypothesis, which several people have mentioned here already–is one of the greatest literary mysteries ever.
It sounds like a lot of people commenting here–and that atheist kid in the original article–still have baggage associated with the Genesis account of creation. Let go, for crap sake!
Once the bible ceases to have any power over you–then, and only then, can you really enjoy it, for all its antiquity, its glory, and, yes, its utter absurdity.
Paul wrote:
I guess it depends – if you’re studying historical English literature then the Koran isn’t going to be of much relevance; however, modern and/or contemporary English literature would be another story.
John Harshman @ #149:
I haven’t seen the Crumb version yet, though the reviews and the ad in The New Yorker lead me to expect it’s great.
Somewhere around my house is a very tattered comic version of the Old Testament– must be older than I am — it’s lousy art and not a well- written adaptation, but as a kid I read it over and over just for the stories– war, chaos, fights, deceptions, love, magic, betrayals.
And thanks for noticing my comment. I’m infrequent here and feel lost in the scrim sometimes.
“Newton South High School officials dropped a requirement to read excerpts from the Bible for one student last month, after he refused to read the Biblical passages as a literature assignment because he is an atheist.”
I’m with the kid.
Bible reading is just one more way to force conformity on the young. He should be offered alternatives and the option to come up with alternatives of his own, as long as he can justify them.
The people who force their cannons of great literature on others have held sway in academia for far too long.
Whoops. cannons –> canons
It seems you folks (and, PZ, that goes for you, too) are all over the place here. First, this is apparently a *literature* course and dog knows that that category could allowably include damn near anything ever written (even cooking recipes). According to Wiki, literature is simply, “the art of written works”, so even pornography is literature (the fact that Timothy F. LaHaye writes death prophesy porn should be obvious and can easily be treated as literature). So *any* part of the Burble or practically any other writing can be treated as literature and criticized as such.
That said, it seems that our youngster has not been properly taught (and thus does not understand) what literary criticism really means. If he was, he would be able to shred any part of the Burble (or any other book) on the grounds of literary merit alone (which includes truthfulness if it claims to be truthful). His only error in refusing is to misunderstand the scope of literary criticism and the proper application thereof.
That his teachers, school, etc. wish to attempt to indoctrinate him by insisting that the Burble is part of the course is no matter. What they have *failed* to do, however, is show him that this (literary criticism) is the *perfect* way for him to learn to shred blatantly horrible literature, and this is where he errs in refusing to take the opportunity. He should be able to set aside his personal beliefs and critique the literature on the basis of its own claims and literary values. He should be able to rip such a hole in Genesis’ literary value (which includes its factual claims) that he would be proud of himself forever. Had he been trained in literary criticism (as the course supposedly does), this opportunity should be obvious to him.
I can contribute a concluding sentence for his review paper: “Only the most poorly educated fool who has never read a good book and who has never demanded proof of fairy tales, who cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, who has never read Yeats or Shakespeare, who believes what television tells them, would conclude that the book of Genesis has any literary value whatsoever.”
The people who force their cannons of great literature on others have held sway in academia for far too long.
Since the 60s, the canon in university literature courses has opened up considerably, without jettisoning the ‘old’ canon outright, and that’s as I think it should be: we take courses in literature precisely so that someone who has read more than us can tell us what to read. Of course we also look for critical insight from a teacher of literature. ‘Teaching’ the old canon in a critical way that makes it relevant in the light of later and formerly marginalized work is literary education done right.
Dear Dr Myers,
I have to disagree with your take on the young atheist ,who refused to do the assignment about genesis. The bible does NOT belong in an English Lit class. It should be in a class of world religeons where All of them are discussed, not just christianity. Since the young man claims to be an atheist I would assume he has some familiarity with the christian bible.
It seems to me a ,somewhat sneaky, attempt to introduce religeon into the public school. It is opening the door for the ID-ers and I wonder what the real objective of the school board really is.
Most sincerely,
Dan Groeneveld
People should never be afraid of reading something they don’t agree with on a personal level – after all, informed decisions are based on understanding all sides of an argument.
However I agree with PZ in that the choice of Genesis (which is terribly poor fodder for literary discussion) smacks of intent.
“…we take courses in literature precisely so that someone who has read more than us can tell us what to read.”
That’s not why I took courses in literature. But you have a point. Signing up for the class is an implicit acknowledgment that the teacher has some wisdom to impart.
Brian Rutledge @ #134: Can you spot the biblical reference in this passage from Hume’s “On Miracles”?
“There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person, than those, which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of Abbé Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were every where talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary; many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. Nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation.”
Please cite chapter and verse, and do this without googling.
Ch’an Fu @#178: “Only the most poorly educated fool who has never read a good book and who has never demanded proof of fairy tales, who cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, who has never read Yeats or Shakespeare, who believes what television tells them, would conclude that the book of Genesis has any literary value whatsoever.”
You mean, I suppose, poorly educated fools like Shakespeare.
Please see http://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Companion-Literature-Companions-Religion/dp/1405131608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261018076&sr=8-1
chapter 16 especially. And see the whole thing for the relevance of the Bible to the study of English literature. (But also see chapter 44 for the relative lack of importance, though not total insignificance, of the Bible for Yeats.)
I haven’t had time to read all the comments, but as a university professor, I see it as an irrelevant issue. I would be titillated to tears if incoming freshman were in the habit of reading anything at all. Hell, seniors aren’t in the habit of reading outside of coursework, and it shows in their writing and critical analysis, which IMHO are piss-poor on average, even after three years of college.
As such, I don’t have a problem with teachers choosing the material (from a long list of good literature) that they are most equipped to teach. Some teachers might be able to make a critical reading of Genesis work in some school-districts*. On the other hand, some would not. A teacher with a strong background in ancient classics might find the Illiad more suitable. If we are going to place an expectation on teachers that they have some expertise (which we should) why not let them play to their expertise where feasible? Any means by which teachers can use literature to convey the importance and sheer fucking enjoyment of literacy is a good method.
*In districts where any presentation of doubt of biblical inerrancy would create more distraction than edification this could backfire, especially if a teacher is not incredibly adroit.
Reminds me of high school. I went through the same thing (though it was in 8th grade – and before anyone asks, yes 8th grade WAS a part of high school at mine). I didn’t make a stink out of it, I just flat out refused to go buy a bible for English class (they weren’t provided – they assumed we all had one already). So I got a bunch of 0 grades that quarter. And in my case, I didn’t refuse because it was “uncomfortable”, which of course it was, but because the English teacher was also an unabashed devout christian. From what I vaguely recall on those occasions in class when I didn’t get to sleep immediately, I made the right decision – she pushed the religion whilst teaching the literature. And this from a supposedly honors program in a public school. Even if that were NOT an issue, personally I’d rather be 100% clueless concerning it’s literary qualities; as it is, I’m NOT clueless and I regret that every day…
@ Paul,
The Bible was (mis)-translated in 1611ce, from Hebrew/Greek into English; it became the King James’ Version. For many English speaking people, this may have been their only connection to the printed word. It became the standard for how English was to be spoken or written. As has been noted so often previously in this thread, many authors of English works have used the forms and references in their writing.
The muslims have gone out of their way to preserve the Koran in Arabic, and have avoided translations when they could. The Koran has, therefore, never had a chance to become a style sheet, or a pattern for English writing.
It is therefore evident why the KJV might be an appropriate primer for the study of English and American literature, and the Koran is inappropriate.
Interesting. I also had to read Genesis is my AP English class at a public high school. I was in 12th grade, from a upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles. I remember thinking it was a strange requirement. However, it was my first real exposure to religious texts, and I found it highly valuable. I went from not really thinking about about religion to “wow, this is garbage… wait…. people actually believe this crap?” Plus, my jewish friends (lots of jewish people at the school) told me this is exactly the type of discussions they have in hebrew school. That didn’t surprise me.
It was weird having to discuss questions like “Did God design women as inferior beings?”
@ Antiochus Epiphanes:
The reason your seniors don’t read anything outside of class is because they are FUCKING BUSY churning out papers, lab reports, and exams for professors who don’t believe in their students. Attitude reflects leadership, professor. Quite frankly I can’t understand how anyone can expect college students to excell when they are being taught by disparaging elitists such as yourself.
(Why yes, I am a stressed out college senior, how did you know?)
First of all, as has been pointed out, the creation stories in Genesis weren’t intended to be literal truth.
Also, when you study something like Romeo and Juliet in English class, you talk about it “as if” it were true, e.g., what are Juliet’s motivations, etc., not what would they be if this story were true? Presumably you would do the same thing with Genesis.
Robert Alter, who has written several studies of the Bible as literature as well as a translation of the Torah, would probably dispute your “cheesy and badly written” comment. I would agree with the people who point out that a lot depends on the translation – also on the fact that the people it was written for, while they certainly enjoyed stories of the kind we read today, didn’t have any experience of novels. Even an epic like the Iliad is fairly foreign to our experience. The story of Joseph is a finely crafted novella in itself.
Finally, there are a lot of really awkward stories in Genesis that some fundamentalist parents are going to have a lot of difficulty explaining to their parents, the thought of which which should make you smile if not laugh out loud. How about that great story about the “sons of God” consorting with the daughters of men, Lot’s offering his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom if only they’ll leave his guests alone, oe the “rape” of Dinah and the resulting massacre of the citizens of Shechem while the men recovering from circumcision. (I put “rape” in quotes because my Torah study group – which picks these things apart from every angle – thinks that it was a seduction that was only portrayed as a rape to justify the violence that followed.)
Oops – in “Finally, there are a lot of really awkward stories in Genesis that some fundamentalist parents are going to have a lot of difficulty explaining to their parents…” the last word should be “children.”
My 10th grade lit class had a similar collection of books (that year was “world literature”). We read Genesis and the Book of Ruth, and also a ton of Homer (Illiad, that year) and Gilgamesh. From what I understood, the Gilgamesh myth was meant to be our “Middle Eastern” section. Ancient Sumerian is totes like modern/early modern Islamic, right? The worst part was definitely where we had to do projects about the end of the flood myth and how god created rainbows as a promise. Uh. No.
I think the book of Genesis is a fine choice for creating Atheists. Reading the first two chapters, describing two distinctly different creation myths, that are both supposedly canonical, should be a good introduction as to why critical thought is important. Also from The Godfather we know to “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”. Thus it is critical that all Atheists have read and understood The Holy Fucking Bible.
Well if that’s the metric, you should also be teaching “Quotations from Chairman Mao”, “Mein Kampf”, “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “1984”, depending on how you interpret “famous”. Not to mention “The Quran”, “Lord of the Rings”, “Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship” and “A Tale of Two Cities”.
By whom? Name one country (never mind a nuclear armed superpower) in which The Iliad is considered to be literally true. One country where they have statues of Achilles in front of their courthouses. One country where they have used passages from The Iliad to condemn a man to death. Go on. I dare you.
Wow. You really must be stupid if you can’t even read the fucking bible correctly. Genesis 1:1 from the KJV clearly states “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It says nothing about the universe, or about how god came into existence in the fist place. Thus Genesis clearly tells us that the universe did not have a beginning.
How can you read such a short text, and not get any of it right?
Reading Genesis is one of the reasons that I’m now an atheist. Particularly comparing the Noah parts to Gilgamesh (i.e., Utnapishtim’s Ark). Very enlightening stuff. It really puts the rest of the Old Testament in perspective. Also interesting was comparing the creation parts to the Popul Vuh–some of the language is shockingly similar.
This type of thing can be done well, even by a Christian teacher (mine was Methodist). The student really doesn’t have an excuse here. I can see objecting to the class if and only if it was teaching that Genesis was True, and it doesn’t seem like that was the case.
PZ, I have to disagree with you on this one. I think that reading the Bible as literature is a crucial component of a humanistic education, and it is especially important to read Genesis, as it has been among the most referenced parts of the Bible in the last several millennia. Given the choice to read the Bible as literature, the choice to read Genesis is not inherently suspicious.
Don’t get behind this kid in Newton, he’s probably just a hot-headed punk who doesn’t want to do the work.
My university Honours English Literature course included a compulsory semester called “The Bible in English”. It covered the history of translation into English and how its translation affected literacy and culture and politics in English-speaking countries.
At the time, I believed the bible was the word of god and was happy to do the course. In hindsight, looking at it critically as a historical document was one of the first steps I took on my path to atheism.
The conscientiously objecting student should not be afraid to read the bible, as a close reading makes obvious all the contradictions, inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Many christians who say they have “read the bible” haven’t: they’ve just read the bits that are read in church or set as Sunday school homework. In my opinion, there is no better way to deconvert someone than to have them actually read the bible!
As someone living half a world away from the US I found the above comment in the original post quite … revealing. Where on dog’s blue earth do you have to make sure, when teaching Genesis, to explain that it’s not science?
The mind boggles.
The big question is who included the Bible as English literature.
@25
Actually, Michelle, in the last decade we’ve had problems in Newton not from public school parents (okay, well there was this one incident with the summer reading list at Newton North) but from this cranky dude who gets printed in the local Entitled Small Business Owners’ Monthly (aka the Tab) who raises a scene about every “diversity” presentation ever, especially if it has to do with gays. He raised a firestorm about a very nice event that the Chinese teacher at the middle school put on that was admired by all the parents, screaming about communism and this and that. The teacher being an East Asian woman was so intimidated she never did a culture day again. I think his name is Brian Camenker and his name occasionally comes up nationally in an anti-gay context.
Believe me, the parents know their kids are getting an excellent education–they pay through the roof for it in housing costs and property taxes, after all!
(I did a personal comparative mythology class in 3rd grade from the comfort of my elementary school library–not only did they have the illustrated D’Aulaires series, but also brand new volumes about Indian and Chinese mythology–Journey to the West and all that. Plus there was this illustrated book about Athena & her exploits that never left me. When I realized Athena was cooler than the Virgin Mary (by several orders of magnitude) it was the first time I think I really questioned Catholicism. So anyway, considering what they were checking out to 8 year olds, I don’t think HS parents would give a flip about their kid taking a course on East Asian culture… hell, a bunch of the kids’ parents COME FROM East Asia. Not everywhere is the friggin’ South.)
The version used is the KJV–not particularly known for its fidelity to the original, but is well known for its … er … peculiar cadences.
It is also considered groundwork for the literature to be covered in the succeeding years. Remember, you have to take English every year at that school, and it gets harder every year.
Mythology units are in the same vein. Believe me, they do not skip Greek mythology in the Newton Public Schools.
@Paul 171
Well, if a teacher decided to include Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in the curriculum one year, then of course a Koran unit would be appropriate.
Not only was the KJB itself a great piece of English literature, not to be outdone was the introduction which included this swipe at Catholicism:
..since things of this quality have ever been subject to the censures of illmeaning and discontented persons, it may receive approbation and patronage from so learned and judicious a Prince as Your Highness is, whose allowance and acceptance of our labours shall more honour and encourage us, than all the calumniations and hard interpretations of other men shall dismay us. So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish Persons at home or abroad, who will therefore will malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God’s holy Truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness..
..or if, on the other side, we shall be maligned by selfconceited Brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing, but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil; we may rest secure, supported within by the truth and innocency of a good conscience, having walked the ways of simplicity and integrity, a before the Lord; and sustained without by the powerful protection of Your Majesty’s grace and favour, which will ever give contenance to honest and christian endeavours against bitter censures and uncharitable imputations.
wiley, why leave out the relevant smarm to the true authority? :)
Allow me.
The KJV seems to be designed to be an instrument of social control. 1600’s propaganda, designed to support the schismatic Church of England.
@John Morales
Yea but nay, the Sovereigns of that fair realm didst loseth their ‘divine rights’, forsooth.
wiley, sorta (in practice, but not in law).
PS You’re emulating the Piltdown with your latest posts. :)
Thinking back to my A level English Lang/Lit course I’m pretty sure that we didn’t study any translations.
We did, however, study Chaucer and Shakespeare, both of which were important in the development of the English language. Chaucer especially, as AFAIK it was the first work of literature written in the English language. (If you haven’t read him, do, it’s good fun if you can get your head around it. Tip: IMO it makes more sense if you read it aloud, the language flows better as it’s significantly different to modern English).
There is a very good argument that the KJV is another one of these influential pieces on the development and standardisation of the English language so IMO studying it as literature is valid…
Oh yeah, UK A levels are exams that you take at 18. Not sure if that helps for anyone not familiar with our education system!
FWIW I was crap at writing essays under exam conditions so studying English at university was never going to happen for me. :-)
I remember in my literature class that only books that were written in Englsih were allowed for English lit, and only original French books for French etc.
No translated books were allowed….
That would be the reason I never read the Bible in literature class, it is a translated book.
I don’t know the situation in Newton, but I was taught the Bible, including Genesis, as literature in public high school in New Jersey. It was twelfth grade Advanced Placement English, the year was 1981. We read excerpts from the KJV as part of our coverage of Elizabethan English.
How things have changed. We had to supply our own Bibles because the school system had none. (The teacher may have loaned out some personally acquired copies for students who didn’t own a KJV; I don’t recall.) The teacher ensured we discussed the planned curriculum with our parents to head off any objections (there were none). We were asked not to carry the Bibles around openly through the halls on the way to class and to leave them in our lockers at other times. It was like smuggling samizdat into the Soviet Union.
It was an excellent class. Most of the students had never read anything from the Bible. We covered the creation stories in Genesis, Job, Ruth, some of the Psalms, and parts of the Song of Solomon. The focus was solely on the literary value and tradition, and the class did not address the truth or falsity of any theological claim.
But it was in this class that I did learn that Genesis contains two different and contradictory creation stories. Not that I was ever a literal interpreter of the Bible, but this was probably the first chink in religion’s armor that led to my becoming an atheist.
Not only do I support the non-evangelical teaching of the Bible as literature in public schools for its part in the cultural history of Western civilization, but any neutral analysis of the Bible will actually aid the atheist cause. When addressed rationally, religion collapses. The key is to do the instruction without proselytizing, which is difficult if not impossible in today’s school environment.
146: Isn’t objectivity an important aspect of literary analysis? …Witness woo-soaked shirker and tapdancer extraordinaire Robocop’s comment in #64 where he refers to it as ‘exquisite literature’.
Hail Wowbagger, full of shite.
Had you cared as much about reading comprehension as vitriol you might have noticed that my “exquisite” comment was predicated not upon my own view but upon the views of qualified experts in the field who, are far as I can tell (non-expert that I am), are essentially unanimous in their regard for the literary merits of Genesis. I referenced these experts in part due to my less than objective status and in part because — duh — I’m no more an authority on ancient literature than you or some biology prof. Now, if your claimed affinity for nonpartially is actually true, you might ask why the experts extol the literary merits of the text while you and PZ, avowed haters of all things Christian, find it so poor. Mayhap it’s because actual evidence of literary merit is irrelevant to the the position held?
My apologies if this point has been made in the comments already– but, Genesis being taught in school smacks to me of sneaking in a little creationism into the curriculum.
So you read Chaucer in Middle English? My AP English Lit class read the Modern English Translation, although I got a copy with Middle English for my own edification. It’s not just reading it out loud, some of the words are completely different from any modern usage.
I find funny that people are both disagreeing with PZ that the student should read Genesis in class, and disagreeing with PZ that the student should not.
When I was in high school we read parts of the Bible as part of our World Lit. class. Luckily, I had a pretty intelligent teacher who taught the matter as ONLY literature and nothing more.
We read lots of different stories from random parts (mostly Old Testament stuff I think) including the creation story. The thing is, we read the creation story at the same time as we read lots of other creation stories and compared/contrasted them which was pretty cool and enlightening.
So, there is a right way to do things and, as usual, depends on the competence of the teacher.
@Annie, #189: You missed the point. I haven’t said that my students are lazy or that they are not busy. I said that anything that a highschool teacher could do to promote the practice of habitual reading in students would be beneficial. People read less than they used to, and it shows in the way that they write, talk, and think about the world. My opinion is that this is a bad thing.
I read in my spare time because I like to. I read about all kinds of things that are not important to my career, but are interesting to me nonetheless. However, I might not have developed an enjoyment of reading if literature had not been introduced to me in a way that was relevant, challenging, and fun. Which pieces of literature were chosen by teachers was less important than HOW they managed student interaction with the literature.
Now regarding my being a “disparaging elitist”, I have looked through my post to determine which part of it you regard as disparaging. I assume it’s the part about “piss-poor” critical thinking /writing skills. Allow me to clarify. I don’t see these as a failure of “a” student because we are talking about an average of a population of students. It is likely a failure of the educational system that produced the “piss-poor” distribution in the first place. One of the things that I think we could do better is turn students into readers.
Let’s deal with some of your other problems:
Its not my job to believe in students. I suspect that the professors at your university are under no such contractual obligation either. It is my job to provide informative lectures, meaningful classroom and laboratory excercises, to grade students’ work according to a high but fair standard, to be accessible to students during the work day, to maintain an active and externally funded research program, to publish like a maniac, and to perform the administrative tasks assigned to me by my department, college, and university with competence, however vile or demeaning those tasks might be. Hopefully your university requires these things from your professors rather than a vacuous sense of “belief” in students.
Clarity of writing reflects clarity of thought.
Yet some do excel. Miraculous isn’t it?
I have an idea. Maybe you should spend your time studying, rather than poring through blog forum comments looking for offense where none was intended. Alternatively, if you need to just relax and blow off some steam, I recommend that you find a nice warm place, get something good to drink, and maybe read a book.
You wouldn’t say that if you’d read it in the original Klingon.
Best Frasier episode ever. Kid’s father giving a speech in Klingon at a Bar Mitzvah, lol.
sooooo…
you didn’t pick up the phone and call huh?
And you played the URI GELLER card?
For goodness sake, put down your pride and infighting for a few seconds and make a phone call PZ. The skeptic movement needs some unity and yes you are right to call him out, but your methods are lacking in the one thing that all humans are capable of… being kind and being willing to communicate one on one. Instead of carrying your fight out in public, which you are ofcourse allowed to do, take a page from Obama and the beer summit and try some voice time with a telephone. There comes a time for the personal touch. In this case, I think it would take so little for you to perform this simple action, and could make suce a difference.
402: Then you don’t understand doubt. As a lawyer, you should understand the concept of guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Once again, Nerd, as with your consistent misunderstanding of what “bigot” means, you struggle with understanding basic concepts. Indeed, you keep providing clear evidence that careful thinking, careful reasoning and careful distinctions simply elude you. If the criminal proof standard in the USA were truly proof “beyond a shadow of a doubt” as you allege, there would be far fewer convictions. Not many things in life can be established to that level of certainty. The actual standard is proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Yet again, when reason and reasonableness is involved, you are weighed and found wanting. But I sure appreciate your coming around.
Oops. Will fix (curse the new sign-in requirements…).
#218,219: Wrong thread, homies. Damfino: You are looking for one of the two threads about global warming skeptic James Randi.
975Robocop…you are looking for a fight with NoR. You will probably get it regardless of thread.
Boy, Robocrock is loosing it. Wrong thread, wrong analysis, wrong decision about imaginary deities. Just plain wrong.
NoR…975 posted the same message on a different thread. To quote the real Robocop
“Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.”
And that crime is a full pot of coffee that nobody seems to be drinking.