The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy!

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I read the article HERE.

I find it interesting that they seem to think that biblical illiteracy is the problem. I support their cause. By all means, please Christians read your bibles. Read them very well.

Although, this bit just set me to giggling something awful...

A Barna poll indicated that at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

 

[bilby]

A bilby poll indicated that at least 15% of adults tell pollsters crazy shit just to mess with them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah. I have to think that is messing with a poll.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's a common line from various collections of really bad answers from school children.

"'F' in Exams" and so on.

 

[Bronzeage]

I read the article HERE.

I find it interesting that they seem to think that biblical illiteracy is the problem. I support their cause. By all means, please Christians read your bibles. Read them very well.

Although, this bit just set me to giggling something awful...

A Barna poll indicated that at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

If Biblical Illiteracy is bad, why would we expect anyone's French history literacy to be any better?

It's really to be expected. Real Biblical study is a university level pursuit. The ordinary Church Sunday School Bible study is not really aimed at serious education. Give a randomly selected group an multiple choice quiz filled with red herring answers such as Joan of Arc and we can expect a lot of silly answers. The problem with serious Bible study is that it doesn't fit well with literal belief or infallible scripture. The writer of the article seems to think a better knowledge of the Bible will lead to a stronger religious political base, but the opposite is true. Serious study and infallible scripture are incompatible.

If one wants to justify an anti-same sex agenda, based on scripture, a true Bible scholar knows all the other scriptures which are disregarded on a daily basis, by devout Christians. Not far from the line about men who lie with men, is a rule which decrees death for those who imbibe strong drink before the Holy Alter in the Temple. That's a rough one for Catholics, but they choose to ignore it. There are plenty of rationalizations presented to reconcile the Old and New Testaments, but any real scholar recognizes them as just that.

The reason there are more than 2000 separate Christian sects today(that's about one per year) is exactly this problem. When Bible readers come to a conflict, there are always a few who cannot accept ambiguity or compromise, and they leave, firmly believing they are following the true path.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I've often thought that if a pastor preached a series of ten or so sermons in which the Bible teaching of the week was one of the crazy-ass passages (Take your pick!), he would empty out his church by the end of the ten weeks. About five years ago I visited the 9-11 site of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the planes went down. One of my fellow tourists said to the rest of us with a knowledgeable shrug, "Well, you've got to remember, their Koran is filled with teachings that give them permission to kill infidels." There was a moment of silence and someone said (wish it'd been me): "The Bible has a lot of slaughter in it, too!"
Last year I took one of those Bible quizzes on line -- it had 32 questions and had a title like 'Do You Know More Than the Atheists?' Supposedly the atheists were outscoring the theists on Bible literacy. I got 31 out of 32 right. and the one I missed was only tangentially Biblical, in my opinion, because it was about a difference between Catholic and Protestant dogma.

 

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By Bronzeage:

The writer of the article seems to think a better knowledge of the Bible will lead to a stronger religious political base, but the opposite is true. Serious study and infallible scripture are incompatible.

Exactly. I wonder if the author of the article knows very much about the bible. He strikes me as a one who "studies" the bible by following "study" guides and having the material presented to him, as most of the flock does. This isn't study, it's affirmation. One would think anyone with any actual knowledge of the texts and especially it's history would know better than to think that more comprehensive study of the contents would improve ethical behavior. We could replace the word "bible" in his article for any other religious text, and nothing would change.