Why Texas’ New Bluebonnet Bible Curriculum Infuriates Me – The Forward

The Texas state flag flies in Austin, Texas. Photo by Getty Images

I love the Bible. That is why I have decided to dedicate my career to reading and analyzing this book, finding new ways to analyze its texts and meanings, and teaching this book to students at a public university in Texas. I believe that studying the contents of the Bible is important for understanding not only religion, but also world history, politics, art and literature.

But not like that.

The Bluebonnet curriculum, which is about to become part of classroom instruction in some Texas public schools, is a travesty. The Texas State Board of Education voted 8-7 Friday to adopt a school curriculum that smuggles Christian religious education into public schools. The curriculum is voluntary, but school districts that adopt it will receive financial incentives.

The curriculum’s creators defended its biblical content on the grounds that the Bible is the foundational document of our civilization, and therefore students should understand it as well-educated citizens. But if the main goal here is understanding the Bible, rather than being indoctrinated into a Protestant Christian view of the Bible, then why does the curriculum show so many signs of biblical illiteracy?

For example, in a kindergarten lesson on kings and queens, students learn that King Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem because “he wanted his people to have a place where they could gather, pray, and sing songs to God.” The Hebrew Bible does not describe most of these activities taking place in the Temple or its predecessor, the Tabernacle. What he does describe is a lot of animal sacrifices. The lesson ignores actual biblical material in favor of grafting onto biblical Israel what Protestant Christians are doing in churches today – what a coincidence.

I also note that biblical scholars have yet to find extra-biblical evidence that Solomon did what the Bible attributes him to do, or even evidence of his existence. He is an important figure for Jewish and Christian believers, but he cannot be considered a historical figure. In the kings and queens units on King Midas and Cinderella, the curriculum encourages teachers to ask students which aspects of the stories can happen and which are “magical or fantastical.” There is no such hint in King Solomon’s lesson. He is treated as a historical figure, and the story of his God-given wisdom is treated as fact. It’s not.

In another example of biblical illiteracy, the curriculum introduces second-graders to the biblical Queen Esther in a lesson on “fighting the good fight.” Again, this story is presented as historical, although there is little in it or outside the Bible to indicate its historicity. Even more egregious is that the curriculum describes God and faith in a book of the Bible that famously makes no mention of either. Esther’s fast is given religious motives, but the text says nothing of the kind. Esther is characterized as a fighter for the right of Jews to practice their own religion, and the curriculum draws parallels between this story and historical accounts of people seeking religious freedom in the United States.

Again, Esther does not mention religious faith. The survival of the Jews as a people is at stake. This is nothing more than a Christian colonization of the story of Esther to make it more similar to Protestant narratives of religious freedom. (Also, it is more than a little ironic to emphasize religious freedom for religious minorities when you are in the process of imposing your religion on those religious minorities.)

The goal of the Fight for the Cause unit is to “Describe the similarities between the methods of nonviolence used by Queen Esther” and the other figures studied. This characterization of Esther’s story as nonviolent would be amusing if it were not part of a disastrous and crude attempt to introduce Christian religious instruction into Texas schools. Did the authors of this curriculum read a version of Esther that somehow left out the final chapters where the Jews kill those who wanted to kill them? Where does Esther ask the king for permission for the second day of murder? Where were the 10 sons of Haman killed? I can only assume that this is part of an evangelical trend to clean up the Bible to make it more in line with modern sensibilities, what my fellow biblical scholar Jill Hicks-Keaton calls “making the Bible friendly.”

Many of my students enter university with the belief that Judaism and Christianity are essentially the same religion.

Although I am a biblical scholar by training, I also teach Jewish studies courses and direct a university Jewish studies program. I have noticed a tendency among my students, many of whom were educated in Texas public schools, to seriously misunderstand Jews and Judaism. I blame this in part on the misguided concept of the “Judeo-Christian tradition,” a phrase that appears repeatedly in Texas education standards. The idea that there is something real called “Judeo-Christianity” obscures the major differences between the two religions and between the Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

Many of my students enter university with the belief that Judaism and Christianity are essentially the same religion. Some people do not understand that Jesus does not figure in any way in Judaism. Those who know that Jews do not believe Jesus was a messiah or prophet often assume that Judaism is simply Christianity without Jesus, or perhaps the Old Testament plus time. It is especially difficult for these students to understand that Jews and Christians read the Tanakh and the Old Testament, respectively, very differently.

I worry that as lessons like the ones I point out above from the Bluebonnet curriculum make their way into Texas classrooms, the problems of biblical and religious illiteracy among my students will worsen. By exploring readings of the Hebrew Bible that are not scientifically justifiable and that only make sense if your goal is Christian indoctrination, how much more will they try to understand that people can read the Bible in more than one way and that Judaism is not the scent of Christianity?

I resent Bluebonnet not only as a scholar and teacher, but also as a Jewish parent. Although my children currently attend Jewish school, when they finish elementary school they will most likely transfer to public school. If Houston Public Schools adopts the Bluebonnet curriculum, my children will be attending high school with children who have learned incorrect, misleading information exclusively from Christian sources about the sacred texts of our religion.

If students are taught in kindergarten that King Solomon built a temple that functioned much like a modern Protestant church, or in second grade that Queen Esther was a nonviolent religious freedom activist, they don’t have to make any effort to understand the Hebrew Bible. in its ancient context, not to mention the modern Jewish context. The Bluebonnet curriculum takes a rich collection of texts sacred to many religions and reads them inaccurately, misleadingly and offensively, resulting in biblically illiterate Texans.