Biblical Illiteracy
Beth Twiston Davies comments on a subject close to my own heart.
People often assume that you would only read the Bible if you were interested in religion. But without a degree of biblical knowlege, you can't understand Western art, from the earliest known artefacts right through to Banksy and Damien Hirst; you don't get Shakespeare or Chaucer or Milton or Donne, you'll miss all sorts of inferences in contemporary authors like John Stenbeck, Patrick Gale, Salley Vickers…
Amazing amounts of English idiom were coined by the bible translators of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Go read. It's worth it.
4 Responses to “Biblical Illiteracy”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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When I was working in academia, I would have been delighted if they’d just had a dress code to ban shorts – ugh. This level of fuss, though, is way over the top and typically indicative of a management style that is obsessed with measuring trivia and can’t come up with an exit route from a wet paper bag as far as planning the important stuff goes.
Can I commend CrossRefit: http://www.crossref-it.info/?gclid=CMrMoumR050CFeZr4wodG0AitA
a website which helps English literature students to understand the references which litter(!) exam syllabuses. Designed for A Level students in the UK this has got to be invaluable for anybody studying English literature anywhere in the world. Please pass the link on!
I agree! Perhaps, too, people will see the differences between the Bible and Paradise Lost.
I am worried by the number of Christians who don’t know the Bible. During a service with over 100 people present we were asked who had read all of the Bible and only about 6 hands went up. If Christians don’t know, love and explore the Bible how can we expect the rest of the population to read it.