Personally, I don’t see a big deal here, but a recent British study has revealed that knowledge of the Bible isn’t as important as it used to be.
Forty per cent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 per cent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found.
Exchanging gifts might come from some other earlier pagan traditions prior to Christmas getting plopped into the middle of winter solstice celebrations – specifically Saturnalia which was a bit of a party in Roman days before Christianity became the state religion. And probably some Christians are unaware that gift giving and trees and much of what makes Christmas Christmas was once considered incredibly blasphemous and unChristian. In the 1600s, Christmas itself was completely outlawed.
It’s just convenient to attribute December 25th traditions with Christ. Early Christian propaganda arranged it that way to aid conversion.
The good Samaritan thing is kind of surprising though. It’s all about helping a stranger while others pass by. It’s been years since I read the parable but I still know that.
Rev Brown said the survey showed the need to push for greater religious education among young people as knowledge of the Bible among the under-45 age group was in decline.
“We have got to recognise that it [the Bible] is the foundation of our society, upon which our whole culture has been based,” he said.
And maybe it’s time to rethink basing one’s culture on a specific religion at the expense of other cultures trying to fit in. It’s very ethnocentric and not a very good example of good Samaritan behaviour. We live in a far different time than Bronte and Austen did. The Bible isn’t the only book on the shelf anymore and it’s not how entire villages spend their evenings and Sundays.
“To understand it and to live in it you do need an understanding of the Bible.”
To understand certain parts of our culture, a basic knowledge of bible verses is probably handy. But necessary? I don’t think so. Not anymore. But knowing what the bible is like might help people from another culture understand why people who grew up in the shadow of the “Good” Book, lorded over by it, threatened with fears of hell by it, shown to be a horrible sinners because of it are so maladjusted.
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible’s popularity.
“It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people,” said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association.
“The fact that people have little knowledge of the Bible perhaps suggests that it’s becoming less and less relevant to people in the 21st century,” she said.
The bible may become irrelevant, but there are some good things in it. That said, those good things can be seen in other places, too. It’s worthwhile promoting peace and love and good will and kindness to strangers and morality and justice and mercy. One doesn’t have to memorize the whole New Testament to know those are all good things.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the Bible among the 900 respondents, three-quarters said they owned one and almost a third said it was significant in their lives.
Yeah, I’ve got three – a little red NT one I got while I was still in Catholic school, and would actually read the thing once in a while, a blue one of the same size that I think I got when I signed up with the Naval Reserves that I don’t think I looked at much, and the big one I got from a girl at a retreat I’d begged my parents to let me attend at a Christian college because all my friends were going. I accepted Christ that weekend officially and for a while highlighted all my favourite passages and tried to pray every night and read though it. The spine’s worn out now and pages are loose but it’s still filled with bookmarks I put in for memorable moments at the time.
But, that was then. The feeling of being anchored by words while sitting in a pew surrounded by people far more faithful than me soon faded. Without daily urging from a friend to attend on Sundays, I didn’t bother. The book remained and still remains shelved with all my other leftover ideologies from my university days – palmistry, Tarot reading, Taoism. I used to have a witchcraft book but I felt pretty silly jingling bells and waving incense around while whispering words infused with mystical meaning and soon quit doing that, too.
Atheism’s easier. It takes no effort whatsoever because I can just be. It doesn’t make me a terrible person, or an anarchist, either. I’m peaceful, law-abiding, courteous, loyal, helpful. I work hard, I get along with people. I don’t cause trouble. I’m good and decent. I’m weird, I’m strange, I’m funny sometimes, too.
I’m just another human being. Being.
