THE PLACE OF BIBLE LITERATURE IN PUBLIC HIGH-SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASSES

Historically, the Bible has occupied a prominent-though sometimes disr uptive-position in American education. The 1963 Bible study benchmark case, Abington v. Schempp (1963),:ruled that the Bible is worthy of st udy, and that such study is constitutional. Both religious and educati onal organizations support a literary study of the Bible in public sch ools because it is great literature and because it is foundational for understanding Western culture. The purpose of this study was : to det ermine the current, actual place of Bible literature in high school En glish classes and the reasons that affect its place. The study used qu antitative and qualitative methods: survey, interviews, and observatio ns.;lt included observations of three models of teaching Biblical lite rature: a) a full-year elective course, b) a required grade 10 unit, a nd c) a Bible unit ina humanities course. The study found that Bible l iterature seems to play an extremely small role in high school literat ure programs. While 81% of high school English teachers reported it wa s important to teach some Bible literature, only 10% taught a Bible un it or course; High school textbooks average one fourth of one percent (.260%) from the Bible, Though 55% of college English instructors pers onally recommended that secondary English majors take a Biblical liter ature course, only 38% had done so. The wide gap between recommended s tudy and actual study of the Bible is filled with misinformation, cont radictory attitudes,and confusion. Two problems of teaching Bible lite rature are: dealing with religious beliefs (and nonbeliefs) of teacher s, parents, and students; and overcoming ignorance. Some college profe ssors, administrators, English department, chairs, and librarians did not ki;ow what Bible literature was; taught in their schools or that t eaching Bible literature was legal.