Americans buy more than 20m new Bibles every year to add to the four that the average American has at home. Yet the state of American biblical knowledge is abysmal. A Gallup survey found that less than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis), only a third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Billy Graham is a popular answer) and a quarter do not know what is celebrated at Easter (the resurrection, the foundational event of Christianity). Sixty per cent cannot name half the ten commandments; 12% think Noah was married to Joan of Arc. George Gallup, a leading Evangelical as well as a premier pollster, describes America as “a nation of biblical illiterates”.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Bible v the Koran
The Economist has another fascinating article, this time on the Bible and the Koran. I found the section on biblical literacy to be particularly interesting:
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2 comments:
Humorous, yet also profoundly sad.
Let me guess: the Muslims knew everything there was to know about their scripture.
No, the article also recognized the knowledge gap there. Even some people who have memorized the entire Koran do not understand it well because it has to be done in Arabic which is not their native language.
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