What are Texas students learning about Judaism in their public school Bible courses? Often these courses present Judaism as flawed and incomplete — incomplete without Jesus. Even worse, perhaps, are those courses that portray — intentionally or not — Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus. Such portrayals were long used to justify the persecution of Jews in Christian society.
Here’s an excerpt from the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund’s new report, Reading, Writing & Religion II: Texas Public School Bible Courses in 2011-12 by Prof. Mark Chancey at Southern Methodist University in Dallas:
(T)he deicide motif is explicit in an essay distributed to students in Dalhart ISD. A handout taken from raptureready.com attempts to incorporate Daniel 9:24-27 into detailed calculations about history’s steady progression towards the end of the age. “No prophecy in all of Scripture is more critical to our understanding of the end times than these four verses,” according to the article. Expounding on Daniel’s 9:26’s reference to the “messiah” being “cut off,” it explains:
“It wasn’t the killing [of] the Messiah that put the Jews at odds with God. After all He came to die for them. No. It’s that in killing Him, they refused to let his death pay for their sins so He could save them. This had the effect of making His death meaningless to them. That’s what severed the relationship.”
The writer attributes the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple by the Romans and the scattering of Jews around the world as a result of Jesus’ crucifixion but assures that when Jesus establishes his kingdom on earth, “Israel will finally have her Kingdom back and will live in peace with God in her midst forever.”
The TFN Education Fund’s new report includes many other examples of serious flaws in Texas public school Bible courses. You can read a short overview of the report here. Read what some Texas courses teach about race and how they portray the Bible as “one of the most accurate history books in the world.”
The new report is available here. Our previous reports on public school Bible classes are here and here.
:staredog:
oh lord.
Such ignorance is perpetuated in Texas. Well of course!
The amazing thing is that these people actually have trouble figuring out why minorities (of all stripes) don’t vote Republican.
As a Jew and the parent of kids in TX public schools, this disgusts and angers me.
I wonder where this leaves Jews (persons whose mother was Jewish) who don’t go to synagogue…. are they in trouble with Jesus and his minions?
What about a Koran study course or Buddist course? Yet another reason why public schools need to be kept secular.
Unbelievable. Don’t these idiots ever learn?
Nope, that is why they are idiots!
Children are not born hating…it is what they are taught…
Ruiz – you are missing a lot of info on the history. Palestinians are not blameless for the events of the last 60 plus years.
Let’s get this course out of the schools or mandate proper training.
There can be no “proper training” as the bible is a book that should not be taught in public schools, period.
When I was in public school, I was once stoned for killing “baby Jesus.” That is how I was taught hatred and bigotry. The kids had to, in the words of “South Pacific” “be carefully taught to hate…”
Too bad the funny-mentalists didn’t pick up the part of the bible that said to love your neighbor as yourself.
The entire excerpt from the Bible Course materials is fundamentalist Christian doctrine with no basis in evidence or reality. It certainly has no basis in “history” or “literature,” the supposed reasons for a secular Bible Course in public schools. In fact, the materials’ only purpose is fundamentalist Christian proselytizing in a way that promotes bigotry.
As a Texan who happens to be Jewish, this is EXACTLY what I knew would happen when the legislators opened the door for Christianity Only in our public schools.
As a scientist, I am OUTRAGED that they teach our kids fairy tales about the age of the earth and the universe.
Bush, when he was governor, had a “Jesus Day” in Texas and Perry is no less of a religious bigot than any of the others.
I hand out free copies of the Constitution of the United States to people who think that this is a Christian nation or have other idiotic concepts about the United States.
The Founders were NOT 100% Christians, many of them were deists, they did not accept trinitarian Christianity.
To use one of their own quotes, “Proclaiming themselves to be wise, they became FOOLS.”
Huh!!! What!!!!!!????? What!!!!!?????
With apologies to Billy Crystal’s grandpa.
Holy crap (literally).
Religion poisons everything