Name the ten commandments.
No, really… pause for a moment, turn away from the computer, and jot down all ten.
Got ’em? Good. Okay, now name the twelve disciples.
How about the Beatitudes?
Know the location of Paul’s famously beautiful chapter about love and all of its distinguishing characteristics?
Don’t worry… I’ve been embarrassed myself in recent days as I’ve studied the crisis of Biblical illiteracy. (What an ugly term.) But America… and the church… are in the midst of a crisis. While the country prides itself on its religious freedoms, even born-again believers are frightfully ignorant about what the Bible contains. And I’m one of those who needs to learn more.
After months and months of interviews and writing, my biggest assignment for Response magazine has been published. It’s a glimpse at the problem… and its devastating consequences.
I love working on this magazine, with this talented team of creative people. Below, you’ll find a list of the articles we’ve composed for this issue.
If you’d like a free copy of the print issue, send me an email at joverstreet [at] gmail (dot) com. Your subscription is free, and it really is worth it. The magazine looks absolutely beautiful (as usual). It’s worth it just for the pictures… not to mention the articles that my colleagues write for it.
This issue contains:
Are We Biblically Illiterate?
This is my cover story article. Research shows that 21st-century Americans — including Christians — are stunningly ignorant when it comes to the Bible, the book that profoundly influenced Western history and culture, and that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. So … does biblical literacy matter anymore?
Why Does Biblical Literacy Matter?
A gallery of perspectives from Christian leaders on this crisis, drawn largely from my interviews with them.
Eat This Book
My review of Eugene Peterson’s impassioned appeal to believers to meditate on scripture.
Online Exclusive: Response Biblical Literacy Quiz
A quiz to test your Bible knowledge.
The Multifaceted Bible
The Bible is one of the most extraordinary books ever written, containing a vast compilation of texts, yet forming a whole pointing to God’s story for his people. SPU professors lead Response readers through four ways the church has historically viewed the Bible: as literature, Scripture, canon, and sacrament.
Eyes of Faith
Richard Hays, one of the world’s experts on New Testament ethics, sees an urgent need for clarified vision in biblical scholarship. Today’s scholars, he says, are choosing between two diverging paths: a secularistic, historical interpretation of the Bible or a theological interpretation for the benefit of the church.
The Bible Tells Me So
While the majority of Americans may be biblically illiterate, children at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Issaquah, Washington, know their Bible. They take part in a challenging Sunday school curriculum with such offerings as Old and New Testament surveys and classes in church history and world religions.
Found in Translation
At home in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, alumni Jeff and Laura Beth Webster believe Bible translation has the potential to transform an entire people group — because it communicates the gospel message while preserving a language previously found in little or no written form.
(Here’s an archive of my film reviews for Response.)
Name the ten commandments.
Hmmm, not as simple a command as you might think — there are two or three versions of the Decalogue in the Torah (in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and possibly Exodus 34), and the various religious traditions have different ways of dividing the Decalogue. Hence, e.g., the Second Commandment in Judaism is “You shall have no other gods but me,” and in Catholicism it is “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and in Protestantism it is “You shall not make any graven images.”
Okay, now name the twelve disciples.
I believe the gospels have slightly different lists here, too — which is not to say that they list different people, but they do list different names.
How about the Beatitudes?
Bizarrely enough, I never have any trouble singing them in church every week, but I don’t know that I could sing them on my own!
You just *love* stirring up trouble, don’t you? 😉
It’s a bit of a flimsy way to introduce the subject of Biblical literacy, I’ll admit. Especially since the best kind of Biblical literacy has little to do with “Are you an expert on the details of the Bible?” and more to do with “Are you meditating on it, to see what God reveals?”
Name the ten commandments.
This is a major aspect of traditional Catholic catechesis. My six-year-old son can name them in order and identify them by number.
As for the variant traditional enumerations Peter mentions, my two older kids (9 and 12) can elaborate the differences between the traditional Catholic, Protestant and Jewish enumerations… and give reasons in favor of the Catholic enumeration. 🙂 (This is not traditional catechesis, but I cover in the classes I teach at church, so they’ve heard it all.)
Okay, now name the twelve disciples.
Here, too, my three older kids would have no trouble — though rather than drawing on Catholic catechesis, they would have recourse to a little song most familiar to Evangelicals! (“There were 12 disciples Jesus called to help him….”) They would do the same in rattling off the 27 books of the NT. (Neither they nor I could run through the 46 books of the OT.)
How about the Beatitudes?
Here I don’t know how well my kids would do. I envy Peter his Church’s tradition of singing them every week! I know I can say them, though I might make a mistake or two.
It’s a bit of a flimsy way to introduce the subject of Biblical literacy, I’ll admit. Especially since the best kind of Biblical literacy has little to do with “Are you an expert on the details of the Bible?” and more to do with “Are you meditating on it, to see what God reveals?”
Well, I don’t know. Meditating on the Bible is certainly a more important question, but literacy does seem to me to have to do with basic familiarity with the contents and character of the material.
I went to Bible college. So I’m more literate than most laymen. And I also knew about the difficulty in nailing down the Ten Commandemnts and the Twelve Apostles.
I taught at a Bible college for three years. It was not uncommon for my students–mainly freshmen–not to know a simple chronology of Christ’s life. One of my colleagues ran into trouble when he asked students to defend theological principles using Scripture rather than teacher notes. And that was with upper classmen.
This is a major aspect of traditional Catholic catechesis. My six-year-old son can name them in order and identify them by number.
I was in junior high school when a guy spoke on memory aides at one of our assemblies and handed out a set of cartoons, each of which was designed to help us remember one of the commandments. And I have to say, the cartoon has stuck with me ever since.
So not only can I name the ten commandments, I can also tell you which commandment is the 2nd or 9th or whatever, without reciting them in order — as per the Protestant enumeration, of course, this being a Protestant school that I was attending at the time.
E.g., with the 9th commandment, the number “9” was turned into a balloon and a string, and a bear was hanging onto it and floating up a tree (a la Winnie the Pooh) and doing something to a bird’s nest, hence… “Thou shalt not BEAR false WET-NEST (i.e. WITNESS).”
The 5th commandment was illustrated by a 5-pointed star which children made at school and gave to their parents, kind of like sheriffs’ badges, hence… “Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother.”
The 3rd commandment was a tricycle that somebody was riding into a garage with a weather vane on top, and the word “God” was attached to the tricycle, hence… “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in VANE (i.e. VAIN).”
The 8th commandment was a snowman, and a rabbit was running away with its carrot-nose, hence… “Thou shalt not steal.”
The 6th commandment was an elephant’s trunk, crushing a man, hence… “Thou shalt not kill.”
And so on.
It’s goofy, I know, but hey, it obviously worked!
And FWIW, my first exposure to the Catholic enumeration was when I watched Kieslowski’s Dekalog series and wondered why “Thou Shalt not kill” was now #5 instead of #6, etc.
Great stuff, Jeffrey. I’m more “Biblically literate” than most, with a Minor in Bible from a Christian college, but I’ve definitely seen knowledge of the Bible going steadily downhill. A few months ago, one of our youth teachers discovered two girls in his class that had no idea who “the Israelites” were.
Gotta pick at you for this line, though: “The Bible is one of the most extraordinary books ever written” ONE of?
Jeff, as a campus pastor I have been shocked and amazed at this issue for many years, thanks for the heads -up on the response articles. I will check them out and use them in my fight to keep us from the neo dark ages.