This is kinda long, but when our pals at Delancey Place
dropped this clip from Timothy Beal’s book The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an
Accidental Book into my inbox I was intrigued. Over the years I
have listened to so many idiots spouting so much nonsense and using The Bible
as the ultimate authority because it was supposedly written by their monotheist
God (above). The truth now emerges that a large number of the aforementioned
idiots and their ilk haven’t even read the damned book and are devoid of too
many clues as to what they’re talking about.
"According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life, 78 percent of all Americans say that the Bible is the 'word of God,' and
almost half of those believe that, as such, 'it is to be taken literally, word
for word.' Polling data from the Barna Group indicate that nearly half of all
Americans agree that 'the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings'
(88 percent of all 'born-again' Christians believe the same), and the Gallup
Poll finds that 65 percent of all Americans believe that the Bible 'answers all
or most of the basic questions of life.' These statements are shorthand descriptions
of the idea of the Bible as God's magnum opus, the first and last word on who
God is, who we are, why we're here, and where we go after this. ...
"Yet ... recent polls and surveys offer these biblical
revelations:
"Less than half of all adult Americans can name the
first book of the Bible (Genesis, in Hebrew Bereshit)
or the four Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
"More than 80 percent of born-again or evangelical
Christians believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a
Bible verse. ...
"More than half of graduating high school seniors guess
that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, and one in ten adults believes
that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. (Those two must've been multiple-choice
questions.)
"Almost two-thirds of Americans can't name at least
five of the Ten Commandments. Some of these people, moreover, are outspoken
promoters of them. Georgia representative Lynn Westmoreland, cosponsor of a
bill to display the Ten Commandments in the chambers of the House of
Representatives and Senate, could remember only three when Stephen Colbert
asked him to recite them on The Colbert Report (Colbert, who I hear teaches Sunday school
at his church, would probably have done considerably better). ...
"Even among the majority of Christians who identify
themselves strongly with the Bible, Bible reading is a rare activity. In a 2005
nationwide study of religious values, practices, and behaviors by Baylor
University's Institute for Studies of Religion, more than half of those
identifying themselves as 'Bible-believing' said they had not participated in
any kind of Bible study or Sunday school program at all in the past month. ...
"While biblical literacy is about as low as it can get,
Bible sales have been booming. The biggest Bible publishers in this highly
competitive business guard their sales data closely, but reliable industry
sources estimate that 2007 saw about 25 million Bibles sold, generating
revenues of about $770 million in the United States alone. That was an increase
of more than 26 percent since 2005, which saw U.S. sales of about $609 million.
In fact, the Bible-publishing business has been enjoying a healthy compounded
growth rate of close to 10 percent per year for several years. Even during the
high point of economic crisis in late 2008, when other book sales were hurting
badly, Bible sales continued to boom, with an estimated $823.5 million that
year. ...
"So biblical literacy is low to zip, even while
biblical reverence remains high and Bible sales rise. What's going on? Could it
be that biblical literacy is being replaced by biblical consumerism? In today's
consumer culture, we are what we buy, wear, and carry. We identify ourselves by
our patterns of consumer choices, by the market niches we buy into. It's gone
beyond that post-Cartesian proof of existence, 'I shop, therefore I am.' Today,
it's closer to 'I shop for what I am.' "
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