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Just sharing a good article discussing secular Bible studies


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http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/010/teaching_bible.html

 

Markus in Secular Homeschooling Issue 10 (link above) emphasizes how important secular Bible studies are for our kids' cultural literacy (assuming we are not incorporating a religious curriculum into our homeschool). She discusses the difference between the popular take on certain stories and their literal translations, also interesting. 

 

She also recommends some quality resources, plus some rather unconventional media to help gain Bible literacy. 

 

It is a good article for anybody who wants to use Bible stories for literature in a secular homeschooling environment. Especially if you are just getting acquainted or re-acquainted with the Bible yourself. 

 

On my bookshelf we have the illustrated My First Bible Stories produced by the Watchtower Society for Jehovah's Witnesses, but I am looking for something else to read with my children. I don't like the-- I don't know, maybe the illustrations, or emphasis on certain details-- in this JW one I have, but it is interesting to read to see where some of my JW relatives' theological views come from.

 

I do like the illustrated sermon The Creation by James Weldon Johnson and James E. Ransome. I like how it describes only up to Adam's completion, and I like how it puts him on the bank of a river with the dark tan mud matching the color of his skin, to remind young readers that Adam was made by God from the earth. My 6 year old was enthralled, and I got to read its deep rhythmic verses out loud, which is delightful Harlem-Renaissance period poetry.

                                        

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This is a great article-it also references one of our favorite resources; The Brick Testament, a very ambitious project to illustrate the entire Bible in lego scenes. Awesome:

 

http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Like just wasn't enough.  My kids will love this!  

 

I agree with the need for secular Bible studies, just like the development of religion and it's impact on history.  To that end it is also help to understand more about the authors of the Bible and what they were referencing.  I'm taking a class now studying the Bible Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future to help discuss this very thing with my oldest DD in the coming year when we rotate back to Ancient history at the Rhetoric level.  Thanks for sharing the article.

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I love the Bible studies. I have one child who also loves her Bible stories, while the other two can take it or leave it.

 

The kids all have children's Bibles, and they also have a few picture books of popular Bible Tales. Every so often I pull out the KJV to read them something "the proper way", just because I like it better  :lol:

 

We've haven't yet pursued any formal studies as yet, but I do have a textbook or two that we might use in the future. I don't honestly think that kids need to go into great depth for their cultural literacy.

All I really want to cover is:

1. The Bible in historical context (why is this particular book so significant?)

2. The most well known stories (yes to David and Goliath, no to the Golden Hemorrhoids.)  (We've covered lots of stories already.)

3. Common sayings and quotes (some of which overlap with 2)

Anything more will be only if the kids are interested. I don't want to keep them stuck on one book, even if it is one of the most influential books ever, when there are so many other wonderful books.

 

I do appreciate that the author of the article would like to see better Bible education, but here's the thing. If there is a common misconception about the 'meaning' of something in the Bible, then this misconception is going to be more influential than the 'original' or 'accurate' version anyway. If you are going to be a Biblical scholar later, all those nice distinctions become crucial. But if you just want to have some idea of what all those Christian people -  or all those great books that reference the Bible - are on about, it isn't really necessary to delve too deeply.

 

I don't actually care whether Johah was swallowed by a fish or a whale, because it's not a true story, and it doesn't really make much difference in the scheme of things. He could just as well have been swallowed by a giant squid or a kraken as far as I care, because the point is that God sent some massive scary thing to swallow him. It's nice, of course, when the kids make links between different things they have learned, so if they figure out that taxonomy has changed over the centuries, great. Same with the Eve-as-deceiver question. If you already know some basic feminist theory (yes, my kids will) and you have grasped the idea of the patriarchal ways of depicting women, you don't need to go through the tedious process of identifying every instance in which Biblical writers and translators have made the Bible anti women. 

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When my daughter was in kindergarten, we read about Christianity in general in the DK's "Children Just Like Me" and "Children Just Like Me: Celebrations."

 

In elementary, we covered the stories through the DK Children's Illustrated Bible http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Illustrated-Bible-Selina-Hastings/dp/0756609356 , as well as the stories in SOTW 1. I didn't choose to spend as much time on all the stories in SOTW 1 as the activity guide gave. For instance, for Joseph and the coat of many colors, we listened to it on the cd version, but didn't do any of the activities associated. My goal was familiarity.

 

Last year, for 7th grade, we did an intro to Bible course over the summer. I used The Bible and Its Influence, http://www.bibleliteracy.org/, designed for use in public high schools, as the spine. She read the Tanakh, the Protestant New Testament, and the deuterocanonical works from a Roman Catholic Bible. We also listened to Dr. Amy Jill Levine's Great Courses lectures--"The Old Testament" and "Great Figures from the New Testament." We included several Christian churches in our comparative religion field trips (along with the Hindu Center, Sikh gurdwara, Reform Jewish synagogue, etc).

 

This coming year she will be doing  a world religions class through co-op using Esposito's "World Religions Today." I've always pointed out allusions in our reading and we may do Windows to the World for lit analysis instruction this fall, in part for the focus on Biblical allusions. She's a humanities kid, so I feel it's imperative that she understand the Jewish and Christian allusions in literature and art (along with those to Shakespeare and to Classical mythology). I'd like to find something similar for the Qu'ran, and have been working to pull together resources on Shinto and Buddhism in manga and anime.

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Last year, for 7th grade, we did an intro to Bible course over the summer. I used The Bible and Its Influence, http://www.bibleliteracy.org/, designed for use in public high schools, as the spine. She read the Tanakh, the Protestant New Testament, and the deuterocanonical works from a Roman Catholic Bible. We also listened to Dr. Amy Jill Levine's Great Courses lectures--"The Old Testament" and "Great Figures from the New Testament." We included several Christian churches in our comparative religion field trips (along with the Hindu Center, Sikh gurdwara, Reform Jewish synagogue, etc).

What a wonderful resource, I just had to order one. :)  This thread is detrimental to my pocketbook.

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 I know that if we are secular homeschoolers we probably aren't teaching that the Bible is to be taken literally all the time, but we should still try to freshen our own perspective, and give our kids a good introduction to it. I took a women's studies course in college, and I never learned that the Bible's story of Eve was actually worded more in her favor than popular tradition. I wouldn't be able to teach my son where all the distortions occur, however, since I have not studied feminism, theology, nor the Bible extensively. I do think that trying to stick with the basic facts of what the Bible actually says, and trying not to indoctrinate my son in the process, will be my strategy until I can educate myself more. 

 

I can say this about my own experience: My first-grade, Catholic school Bible study was a bit of a shock and a disappointment that lingers to this day. First week of school, we learn that woman led man into sin. The boys all sat taller while the girls shrank in our seats. Some time later we learn that Jacob meets a beautiful woman at a well, and so he marries her, and her sister. I remember very clearly that day our teacher made us memorize the threesome of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah and imagine them riding their camels through the desert or something. Again, the boys sat taller in their seats. We didn't learn about the female servants also being part of the reproductive unit, thankfully. Yet I can't imagine talking to my child about his many, many children and the reason Joseph is his favorite, and why the girls names are so few, without talking about the status of the women to the men, and also, the  women to the other women. I don't know if they were co-equal as wives, how the birthright was passed to the sons, or anything like that. I definitely need to get my hands on a resource that explains the context of the Bible. That book intimidates me and yet it appears early in SOTW Vol 1. I feel I'd have to skip all the history involving it if I can't get a grasp on it for myself.

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While children are young don't over think it. I simply read a children's Bible to them so they are familiar with the stories. Talking about the position on women in history has to be explained anyway because oppression of women is not just in the Bible.

 

I have no desire to delve into deep theological discussions about the Bible with my kids. I want them to know and recognize the stories so that they understand Biblical allusions and symbolism they come across in their culture. I will not be doing seminary classes with them. ;)

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