Teaching the Bible as history has as much use in instruction as presenting material from Caesar's Gallic War, Froissart's Chronicles, or any other primary source. The bible DOES have a lot to offer in terms of history; a large segment of the OT is afterall a history of the Jewish people. HOWEVER, I would not reccommend that approach to anyone who is not familiar with how to read history, or have any background on the bible itself. As a primary source it should be read critically and analytically. As such I would never reccommend using the text as a sole source for the teaching of Ancient Near East history to anyone below the college level, or without a thorough background in bible theory. Snippets are fine, but whole cloth and you run into some real pitfalls.
Teaching the KJ version as literature is fine, and useful to any english speaker regardless of their religious or ethnic background. But still I think I would choose something else that doesn't have the attendant "baggage." Damon. ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003 http://search.yahoo.com/top2003 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
