A while back, I wrote of how I'd like to see the Ten Commandments posted in our schools, along with what the bible says is the fitting punishment for breaking them. My thought was that, if people realized fully what the "good book" says about this, they'd have second thoughts about how much sense it really made.
Well, I'm going a step further. I'm proposing that all schools offer courses using the Bible as a textbook. Offer it as a history class, even. Many places are already doing this, and some of them have been determined to be in violation of the separation of church and state. But let's ignore the First Amendment for just a moment, while we speculate.
Let's teach the bible as more than just a religious document. Let's look at it as a reliable source of information about history, science, and other things. And let's really look at it. Let's use other data to back it up! I wonder how many students and teachers will enjoy it, if we do.
After all, if we're using all available data from history to reinforce what the bible says, we'll find some rather interesting things. Take King Herod, for example. His reign is very well documented by historians, including those who lived during his time. And yet, not one of them mentions Herod's biblical death sentence on the lives of the firstborn males in the kingdom. Not one.
They'll also find that there are virtually no references to Jesus himself in outside sources. At least, very few that have been shown not to be forgeries. They'll find that corroborating evidence of an historical Jesus is very slim. And evidence of a Jesus as depicted in the bible is non-existent.
Of course, to make the class scholastically accurate, we'd have to get the best translation of the bible available. And when we do that, we'll see that there are some things commonly accepted as truth that have no basis for it, such as the "virgin birth."
They'll find that, as I've written of before, in the Old Testament "prophesy" of the birth of the messiah, it is said that the child would be born of an almah. This is the Hebrew word for "young woman," not "virgin." The Hebrew word for virgin is bethulah. This word appears throughout the Old Testament, usually regarding spoils of war. But it does not pertain to the mother of any messiah figure.
Perhaps most surprising to them would be the fact that the grand symbol of Christianity, the seemingly omni-present cross or crucifix, appears nowhere in the bible. Again, using the original Greek of the New Testament, we find references to a word which is pronounced "stau-ross" or "stav-ross," whenever it speaks of the death of Jesus. And yet, this word does not mean "cross." It is defined as an upright stake or pale. When talking about the method of death, which most people interpret as "crucify," we find a word pronounced as "stav-ro-oh." This means "to affix to a stake." A quick look into the gruesome history of execution tells us that such things were used in one of two ways, generally. They were used to impale a victim, pinning him to the ground, or they were implanted in the ground, point up, and the victim placed on top of it so that gravity would allow it to slowly pierce the body.
Nowhere, but nowhere, is there any reference in the bible to the two-beamed construct with which we're all familiar. For that matter, there are no crosses in early Christian art, either. The first crucifix that can be plainly identified as such dates to the 7th century, once the New Testament was mangled by translators.
And let's not forget such things as science. Let's teach about divine creation, including the critically important story of Noah and the flood. And then we'll use science textbooks to show the geological remains of the flood. Or rather, the amazing lack thereof. Nowhere can we see evidence of a worldwide flood, when the signs of such would be clearly visible in the geological strata of the earth. Not to mention that there would be nowhere for all that water to come from, and nowhere for it to go. Or that such a global flood would have killed the vast majority of the fish we have today. The flood waters would have been fresh when falling, but when the oceans overflowed the land, the global waters would be salty, resulting in instant death for the majority of freshwater fish, and quite a few of those who need the salinity content of ocean water, undiluted by forty days and nights of fresh rainfall. And yet, we have these fish. And we know they existed in the past, due to the fossil record. So how do we explain that?
How do we explain so much of the bible, when it clearly is unsupported by sources outside of itself, or even clearly contradicted by known science or history?
Maybe, just maybe, if people really took a look at what they consider "truth," and compare it to truths that can actually be verified, they'll begin to see the problem with regarding the bible as a source of trustworthy information.
