“Teaching The Bible In Public Schools…The Odd Couple of Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament”
Welcome back!
This is the continuation of a series of posts beginning with “Should The Bible Be Taught In Public Schools?” about the decision by the Texas State Board of Education to authorize the teaching of an elective course on Bible in public high schools. It brings to the surface just about every question imaginable about the relationship between religion, politics, and the Bible.
Although my crystal ball is a bit clouded right now, I predict that the effects of this decision will echo throughout the land in courts and school boards for years to come.
In these posts, I will raise questions, objections, and suggestions for the problems involved in teaching what I am going to call, “The Public Bible” in public schools.
The Board has chosen to name the courses:
Let’s start with the name.
Nothing about language is ever neutral, and this decision to refer to Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament is a demonstration of language that is attempting to tiptoe through a minefield.
What are we going to call the portion of the Bible that is not explicitly Christian, and is the whole Bible for Jews? The Board has chosen to divide the Bible into two parts named the “Hebrew Scriptures, with “Old Testament” in quotations, and “New Testament.”
Already we have tripped the first mine.
At this point, I have a story to tell about the first time I stepped on a landmine about the name of this portion of the Bible.
During my doctoral work, I met regularly with a woman who was both a Professor of Political Science with a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley, and a Roman Catholic nun, who lived in community with other nuns at the private Catholic university where she taught.
Sister Barbara not only taught college level political science, she also offered spiritual direction. And so, I met with Sister Barbara for almost two years. She was without doubt the most radiant, happiest, and wisest person I have ever met, and I loved her dearly.
At one point, she invited me to spend a weekend on a mini-retreat in the convent, which was part of the college. I slept in a room that reminded me of my college dorm room, took showers down the hall, and ate meals with Sister Barbara in the nuns’ section of the cafeteria.
Sister Barbara had told me that very few young women were entering the convent. During one of the meals, I met a young woman who was the only new member to join the order in recent years. The new member turned out to be a Jew who had converted to Christianity and decided to become a nun. Not very far into the meal, I told her that I was a doctoral student in Bible at the Graduate Theological Union, with an Old Testament emphasis.
I was completely unprepared for the explosion that followed. The new nun became irate and began to lecture me. “It is not Old Testament. It is the Hebrew Bible.” And she declared that she was “sick and tired of Christians who call it Old Testament.” As I sat there, pulling out the shrapnel, I mused over a converted Jew in a convent who lost her temper when I mentioned the “Old Testament.”
Since then, I have heard many people argue for one name or another. Although I have never attended a meeting of the Texas State Board of Education, I can imagine many heated discussions over precisely this question.
“What do we call this section of the Bible? If we call it “Old Testament,” we will offend many Jews. If we call it “Hebrew Bible,” we will offend many Christians.”
Let’s just look at the traditional Christian designations of “Old Testament” and “New Testament.” What does this mean? Why old and new? The simple answer is the old has been superseded because it was somehow deficient. If we add this to the idea that is prevalent in Christian churches that the Jews are part of the old covenant, this means that the old law that has been replaced by the new covenant, defined by grace instead of law.
So, out with the old! In with the new! They have the old stuff. We have the new stuff. But we really don’t want to offend Jews with the idea that their sacred book is “old” and needs to be replaced by something “new.”
All of a sudden, “Old Testament” and “New Testament” are no longer simple historical designations. They are theologically loaded categories.
So, what do we do? One solution is to use the name, “Hebrew scriptures.” This seems like a good solution. Now we are not using a value judgment to identify this portion of the Bible
Since all of the books were written in Hebrew (with a few words and sections in Aramaic here and there,) let’s call the Bible the “Hebrew Scriptures” so that Jews will not be offended.
But then logic asks, is “Hebrew scriptures” really a parallel construction to “New Testament?” And if we are going to keep using the term “New Testament,” aren’t we still claiming that somehow this is the new and better covenant?
Here is another question–which I doubt came up in the discussions. If we are going to use language to designate the first part of the Bible, why not use language to designate the second part? Why not “Hebrew Scriptures” and “Greek Scriptures?” Now there is no value judgment about which is better. Both are simply referring to the original language. Yet, somehow, most Christians would probably ask, “Where is the idea of new covenant? What happened to the “new” testament?”
And here’s another question. Why are they “Hebrew scriptures” in the plural, but the Christian portion is a singular “testament?”
I haven’t even asked all the relevant questions yet, but I will end for now with this suggestion. As Bob–my friend from doctoral work who always started every conversion with a joke–put it, “What we have is the “Bible” (Old Testament) and the “Appendix” (The New Testament.) By the way, Bob is now a New Testament Professor at a public university. This tongue-in-cheek suggestion acknowledges that there is a whole more Hebrew Bible than Greek Bible.
Here we are, not even past the name of the course, and we have already hit the first minefield. What shall we call the “The Public Bible?”
So far, the efforts of the Texas State Board of Education to name the course have raised more questions than answers.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
