Biblical Illiteracy

It may be too late, but at least we now have a high school textbook that seeks to discuss the Bible, albeit only as literature, within public schools. The book is "The Bible and Its Influence" and is referred to by Adam Nicolson in a Wall Street Journal piece today. Nicolson wrote, "God's Secretaries" a book about the making of the King James Bible.

Nicolson's article shows how few people reference the Bible in everyday language. People today are biblically illiterate, even though the book remains a bestseller. Speaking of life a hundred years ago he says, "If you didn't know what "the powers that be" originally referred to, or where "the writing on the wall" was first seen, or what was meant by "the patience of Job," "Jacob's ladder" or "the salt of the earth"--if you didn't know what an exodus was or a genesis, a fatted or a golden calf--you would have been excluded from the culture."

Times have changed. The whole piece is a good read.