I've been trying to find out what was said at that press conference called by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools - you know, the one with Chuck Norris - earlier this month. As it turns out, after savaging Mark Chancey's scathing report on the suitability of their curriculum as the efforts of "far left, anti-religion extremists", the NCBCPS has actually incorporated those criticisms into new revisions to that curriculum and they announced those revisions at the press conference:
At the time, National Council officials lambasted Chancey's report and the Texas Freedom Network. A statement still posted on the council's website Sept. 16 labeled TFN "a radical humanist organization" and said the group was "desperate to ban one book -- the Bible -- from public schools."
It also said Chancey's report "cites several passages from the teacher's guide to the curriculum out of context, and clearly misrepresents the curriculum's contents and objectives."
Nonetheless, many of Chancey's recommended changes -- including substantive ones -- are reflected in the latest revision.
For example, Chancey faulted the curriculum for assuming a Protestant view of the Bible in the material's very first section, titled "Introduction to the Bible." It had asserted that "there are 66 books in the entire Bible" and that Scripture has "two major divisions" -- the Old Testament and the New Testament.
However, Chancey noted, Jews do not accept the New Testament as part of the Bible. Therefore, it is accepted practice among biblical scholars to refer to the Old Testament as the "Hebrew Bible."
In addition, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians accept several books as part of the biblical canon in addition to those that Protestants accept.
The revised curriculum now begins the section by saying, "The term Bible means 'books,' but refers to different volumes for different religions. For example, 'the Hebrew Bible' of the Jewish faith contains 24 books.... While the Old Testament of the King James translation and other Protestant Bibles contains 39 books, it consists of 46 books in the Catholic Bible."
In another example, the new version removes a citation, presented as fact, of an urban legend that attempted to prove the historical veracity of a famous passage from the book of Joshua. It had suggested that teachers tell their students to take note "in particular the interesting story of the sun standing still in chapter 10. There is documented research through NASA that two days were indeed unaccounted for in time (the other being in II Kings 20:8-11)."
A statement on NASA's website says the agency never made any such claim.
I'm trying to get my hands on a full list of the revisions to see if they took out or revised the numerous other examples of shoddy scholarship, like the use of Carl Baugh's creationist videos or David Barton's pseudo-historical research. I've written to Mark Chancey to get more details. And while Chancey commends the NCBCPS for making the revisions, I can only laugh at the contradiction between the hysterical ad hominems they threw at him and the Texas Freedom Network when the report was released and their now admission that many of those criticisms were accurate. And note that they had just revised the curriculum in March of this year and it was that revision that was used in Chancey's report in the first place. The only thing that changed in the last 6 months is the existence of his report, the same report that they disingenuously claimed was a vicious attack on the Bible and totally without foundation only a few weeks ago. Always good to see people who claim that teaching the Bible is the key to building moral behavior among our children engaging in highly dishonest rhetoric.
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Now if they would only include an accurate history of the creation and development of the biblical canon over the first millenia, say just from the period of the council of nicea through the vulgate texts. Of course a better historical view might wish to dig back into Greek and Babylonian mythologies which include versions of son of god sagas predating the christian genesis by half a millenia or more. But naaaaaa, that might invoke questioning among the students regarding the process by which humans create myths and hold them as articles of faith; we can't have our evangelical fundamentalist types encouraging that sort of critical thinking.
The shenanigans of the NCBCPS are inexcusable. I would think that by now every serious teacher of the Bible in public schools is aware of "The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide," an excellent survey of the relevant legal and pedagogical landscape. (It's required reading for my own college-level "Bible as Literature" mini-course and is available at http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?id=6261.)
The NCBCPS is not only blatantly unconstitutional, but in its attempt to inculcate a particular theology it actually seriously MISeducates students about the Bible. Any board of education approving such a curriculum has, at best, been duped.
And yes, Spyder, you're right that conservative Christians do NOT want the Bible taught in the "objective, academic manner" that can pass constitutional muster. Simply by making students aware of the existence of certain facts (say, the history of canon-formation) it undermines some basic fundamentalist "teachings," which of course are actually mystifications.
It makes me pretty queasy to think we actually have teachers in this country stupid enough to be teaching that NASA has "found two days unaccounted for in time". How does that even make sense? It really is one of the stupider things these cretins go on about.
Speaking of religious fruitbats, you might want to check out this latest gem from Vox Day:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2005/09/maybe-there-is-hope.html
So now working women are now "evolutionary dead-ends."
NCBCPS Revises Bible Curriculum
National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools
This is a new one for me. I suppose that the bible (which one is unclear) can be used in a literature course in public schools. Of course, those who are pushing for use of bible-curriculum in public schools don't want it to be merely taught in a literature course.
Andere Laender, andere Sitten (Other countries, other practices): in German public schools, there is religious instruction, with instructors selected and paid for by the various churches, if the student and/or his/her parents want him to attend. If they don't want to attend, they don't have to: they go to a study hall or such. Actually, this might have made for an interesting comparative religion curriculum and I feel a bit deprived by the fact that such was not offered to me in public schools in the 1960s.
Funny story: A couple of years ago, one of the Catholic teachers in a school in Saarland was dismissed by the Catholic church because she was a lesbian. She remained on at the school, and virtually all of her students remained with her, not the replacement. This was reported in Der Spiegel.
If they're going to be honest with these kids for these Bible classes, I'm sure they'll be very surprised how violent and downright frightening the Bible can really be when you're reading the parts that they normally don't tell you about.