This fall, students in San Diego will be able to take a class called “The Bible as Literature.” The idea behind teaching the class is that students need to understand the Bible fairly well in order to fully appreciate all of the allusions made to it in canonical literature.
True enough. My only thought on this is that they better get themselves a really good teacher, because once you start teaching the Bible as literature you’re just setting yourself up for problems. The problems won’t arise from atheists or those of other faiths, but Christians have a problem disassociating themselves long enough to evaluate their sacred text as literature. And that statement isn’t meant to be an attack on Christians. It’s just that anyone would have a problem with the foundation of their faith deconstructed and analyzed in an academic way.
I’ve been in graduate level classes where people seemed to get a little miffed about the Bible being read as literature. I would hate to see how some high school students react to that process.
If the reason behind this decision truly arose because the students lack a base of knowledge from which to study literature, the school should also begin teaching Ovid as well. The Bible and Ovid’s Metamorphoses are two texts that are invaluable to understanding literature.