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Bible Literacy Bill Advances Out Of Kentucky Senate Education Committee

The Kentucky Senate Education Committee passed SB 142 on February 18, 2010, according to this article in the Louisville Courier-Journal. 

SB 142 would require the Kentucky Board of Education to set up regulations to establish an elective course on Biblical literacy.  The full text of the bill may be found here, but most¹ of it is summarized thus (from the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission):

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 156 to require the Kentucky Board of Education to promulgate administrative regulations to establish an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible; require that the course provide students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy; permit students to use various translations of the Bible for the course; amend KRS 158.197 to permit a school council to offer an elective social studies course on the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, or a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible.

In principle, a non-sectarian Biblical Literacy/Biblical History class might not be a bad idea as a high school elective.²

As a practical matter, though, I think it would prove very challenging to do this well, for a number of reasons, including:

1. Right out of the gate, there's a problem with defining what we're talking about when we say "The Bible".  Not only are there many different translations (e.g. NRSV, KJV, NIV, The Message), but there are multiple canons - Catholic Bibles have books that Protestant Bibles don't, Eastern Orthodox Bibles have yet a different canon, and the Tanakh has a different structure than the Christian Old Testament.  Additionally, English translation of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts necessarily introduce subtle changes in meaning which can affect interpretation.  And then there are the issues with textual transmission in general...
2. Students of different backgrounds would necessarily bring different assumptions, presuppositions, and theologies to the class.  Teaching around those differences would be difficult, particularly if the teacher isn't knowledgable about them and skilled at recognizing his or her own biases.
3. While the bill states that courses must maintain religious neutrality, it's difficult to understand how a course on the Bible can be religiously neutral.  Will there be a section on the Qu'ran?  The Book of Mormon?  The Śruti?  Dianetics?
4. Specifically, what "knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives"  are prerequisites "to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy"?  This looks suspiciously like code for a broad conservative Christian agenda, and not a non-sectarian discussion of the Bible's influence on modern society.  There are other, arguably more fundamental, "prerequisites" to understanding modern arts, culture, and policy besides the Bible, including ancient Greek literature, politics and mythology, the works of Shakespeare, and human sexuality.³
5. Biblical "literacy" and "history" imply more than simply knowledge of the content of the Bible, which is what is called out in the summary.  While the text of the law itself specifies that students shall be familiarized with "(t)he history of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament" and "(t)he literary style and structure of the Hebrew Scriptures or New Testament", I seriously doubt that these concepts can be properly addressed within the context of a one or two semester elective.
6. Conspicuously absent from the bill are any specific references to the socio-political context during the periods of authorship of the various Biblical books, which have tremendous bearing on their content.  I do not think it is possible to adequately discuss the influence of the Bible on modern socio-political topics without discussing the contexts in which the Biblical books were written. 

The bottom line is that I'm not at all certain that a proper, non-sectarian curriculum could be put together for a class like this, and even if one could be, I'm not sure that's even the real intent.

To see why, we need to look at some of the comments of Senators quoted in the Courier-Journal article:

“The Bible is the most widely read book, and it’s also the most best-selling book of all time,”  (bill sponsor Sen. David) Boswell (D- Owensboro) said. “There are so many aspects of the Scriptures relevant to the subjects we are already teaching.”

He said the course would be constitutional “as long as we teach it and not preach it.”

Or:

Sen. Elizabeth Tori, R-Radcliff, told co-sponsors Boswell and Sen. Julian Carroll, D-Frankfort, that “an angel was sent down on your shoulders” prompting “you to put this bill together.”

“I‘ve said for many years that until we put God back into our households, things in society will not change for the better,” Tori said. “Your bill is the first step to that change.”

Or:

Carroll said that as long as the course is taught pursuant to the law as a “historical document” and not a “faith-based document,” the bill would be legal. But he then spoke about “taking the Bible out of the school” and “putting nothing back in.”

“When we took the Bible out the school, we also unfortunately took out that portion of Bible which relates to life skills and value systems,” Carroll said. “Our students these days do not have the full opportunity, in my judgment, to be taught those life skills that keep them out of our penitentiaries and make them a productive citizen.”

We should consider comments like these along with the part of the bill that the C-J didn't report on (and that isn't listed in the LRC summary):

(5) Any school council organized pursuant to KRS 160.345 or, if none exists, the principal, may authorize the display of historic artifacts, monuments, symbols, and texts, including but not limited to religious materials, in conjunction with a course of study that includes an elective course in history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, literature, or other subject area that uses such artifacts, monuments, symbols, and texts as instructional material if the display is:

(a)    Appropriate to the overall educational purpose of the course; and

(b)    Consistent with the requirements of KRS 42.705.⁴

All in all, this leads me to suspect that the whole enterprise is a not-very-well-disguised ploy to make an end-run around the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  It doesn't take much to envision a course being put in place in a school and then being used as an umbrella to justify a display of the Ten Commandments. 

Now, I'm all for people learning more about the history and content of the Bible.  Far too many people who claim to hold it in high regard have a very poor understanding of what it contains and how it came to be what it is.⁵ 

I just don't think this bill is going to get us there.

-Jay

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¹The part that isn't in the summary is interesting. I'll get to that later.

²Personally, I'd make some sort of world history/civilization class a prerequisite to it.

³The word "prerequisite" implies a necessary dependency.  The fact that there are contemporary societies and cultures that are not Christian or Jewish that produce literature, art, music, oratory, and public policy and have their own social mores strongly argues against the proposition that knowledge of biblical content is a prerequisite to understanding these topics in general.  Further, one could argue that trying to interpret such cultures through a Biblical lens actually distorts the understanding of them. 

⁴The relevant sections KRS 42.705 are sections (12) and (13):

(12) Historic artifacts, monuments, symbols, and texts, including but not limited to religious materials, may be displayed in Kentucky's public schools, within the framework of applicable legal precedents, if they are displayed in connection with a course of study that is academic, balanced, objective, and not devotional in nature, and that neither favors nor disfavors religion generally or any particular religious belief; and
(13) Historic artifacts, monuments, symbols, and texts, including but not limited to religious materials, may be displayed in Kentucky's public buildings and on Kentucky's public properties if they are displayed in a:
(a) Balanced, objective, and not solely religious manner;
(b) Manner that neither favors nor disfavors religion generally;
(c) Manner that neither favors nor disfavors any religious belief; and
(d) Manner which promotes the display of Kentucky's historic, cultural, political, and general heritage and achievements.

⁵My Sunday School class was very surprised when I mentioned the story of Elisha and the bears (2 Kings 2:23).  They didn't expect a story about bears mauling kids to be in the Bible.

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