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

I love the Bible. That’s why I’ve chosen to devote my career to reading and dissecting it, finding new ways to parse its texts and meanings, and teaching about it to classrooms full of undergraduates at a state university in Texas. I believe that learning about the content of the Bible is important for understanding not only religion, but also world history, politics, art and literature.

But not like this.

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

The creators of the curriculum have defended its biblical content on the grounds that the Bible is a foundational document of our civilization, so students must understand it to be well-educated citizens. But if an understanding of the Bible — and not indoctrination with a Protestant Christian view of the Bible — is the main goal here, then why does the curriculum show so many signs of biblical illiteracy?

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

I also note that biblical scholars have yet to find evidence from outside the Bible of Solomon doing the things the Bible credits him with, or even evidence of his existence. He is an important figure for Jewish and Christian religious believers, but he cannot be treated as historical. In the sections of the kings and queens unit on King Midas and Cinderella, the curriculum prompts teachers to ask students which aspects of the stories could happen and which are “magic or fantasy.” There is no such prompt in the King Solomon lesson. He is treated as a historical figure and the story of his God-given wisdom is treated as fact. It is not.

In another example of biblical illiteracy, the curriculum introduces the biblical Queen Esther to second graders in a unit on “fighting for a cause.” Again, this story is presented as historical, though there is little in the story and nothing outside the Bible to indicate its historicity. More egregiously, the curriculum writes God and faith into a biblical book that famously mentions neither. Esther’s fast is given religious motives, while the text says nothing of the sort. Esther is characterized as fighting for the right of the Jews to practice their own religion, with the curriculum drawing a parallel between this story and historical tales of people seeking religious freedom in the United States.

Again, religious belief is not mentioned in Esther. What is at stake is the survival of the Jews as a people. This is nothing less than a Christian colonization of the story of Esther to make it look more like Protestant narratives of freedom of worship. (It is also more than a little ironic to stress freedom to worship for religious minorities when you are in the process of imposing your religion on those religious minorities.)

The fighting for a cause unit lists as an objective: “Describe the similarities among the methods of nonviolence used by Queen Esther” and the other figures studied. This characterization of Esther’s story as nonviolent would be hilarious if it weren’t part of a pernicious and unsubtle effort to sneak Christian religious instruction into Texas schools. Did the authors of this curriculum read a version of Esther that was somehow missing the final chapters, where the Jews slaughter those who would have killed them? Where Esther asks the king for permission for a second day of killing? Where the 10 sons of Haman are killed? I can only surmise that this is part of the evangelical tendency to sanitize the Bible so it falls more in line with contemporary sensibilities, what my biblical studies colleague Jill Hicks-Keeton calls “making the Bible benevolent.”

While I am a biblical scholar by training, I also teach Jewish Studies courses and direct my university’s program in Jewish Studies. I have observed 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 in the Texas education standards more than once. The idea that there is a real thing called “Judeo-Christian” obscures the major differences between these two religions, and between Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

Many of my students arrive at university believing Judaism and Christianity are essentially the same religion. Some do not understand that Jesus does not figure into Judaism in any way. Those who do know that Jews do not believe Jesus was the messiah or a prophet often assume that Judaism is just Christianity minus Jesus, or perhaps the Old Testament plus time. These students have an especially hard time understanding that Jews and Christians read the Tanakh and the Old Testament, respectively, in radically different ways.

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

I am indignant about Bluebonnet not only as a scholar and a teacher, but also as a Jewish parent. While my children currently attend a Jewish school, when they finish elementary school, they will likely move to public school. If Houston public schools adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum, my children will be attending the upper grades alongside kids who have learned incorrect, misleading, exclusively Christian-source information about the sacred texts of our religion.

If students are taught in kindergarten that King Solomon built a Temple that functioned much like a contemporary Protestant church, or in second grade that Queen Esther was a nonviolent activist for religious freedom, they do not have to do any hard work to understand the Hebrew Bible in its ancient context, not to mention its contemporary Jewish context. The Bluebonnet curriculum takes a rich collection of texts that are sacred for multiple religions and reads them in ways that are inaccurate, misleading and offensive — and that will produce biblically illiterate Texans.

AUSTIN — The No. 3 Texas Longhorns secured their second straight 10-win season Saturday with a 31-14 victory over the Kentucky Wildcats on Senior Day at DKR.

Texas stayed steady on a day where the rest of the SEC experienced chaos, as three ranked teams lost to unranked opponents on the road. The Longhorns entered as the No. 3 team in the College Football Playoff rankings and the AP Poll, but their win wasn’t enough to move them ahead in the AP’s Week 13 release.

No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Penn State all remained idle in the AP Poll. The Ducks were on a bye while the other three teams picked up wins. The Longhorns are one of eight SEC teams in the AP Top 25, joining No. 6 Georgia, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 13 Alabama, No. 15 Ole Miss, No. 16 South Carolina, No. 20 Texas A&M and No. 24 Missouri.

Texas has now been No. 3 in the AP Poll for three straight weeks. The Longhorns have fallen to as low as No. 6 and have been as high as No. 1.

Now, Texas has arrived to one of the most anticipated weeks in the state’s college football history, as the Longhorns will travel to College Station for Saturday’s meeting with the Texas A&M Aggies. The renewed rivalry will kick off from Kyle Field at 6:30 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on ABC.

Join the Community:

Subscribe to our YouTube Page HERE

You can follow us for future coverage by subscribing to our newsletter here. Also, be sure to like us on Facebook @LonghornsCountryOnSI & follow us on Twitter at @LonghornsSI

Other Texas Longhorns News:

MORE: Here Is What The College Football Playoff Bracket Looks Like After Nov. 19 Rankings

MORE: Texas Longhorns Announce Home and Home Matchup vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

MORE: Texas A&M Aggies Coach Slips Up In Press Conference When Asked About Texas Longhorns

MORE: Brent Venables Blasting 5-Star Commit For Visiting Texas Longhorns? ‘Not Committed!’

MORE: Texas Longhorns Remain at No. 3 in Latest College Football Playoff Rankings

AUSTIN, Texas – The 28th annual Austin Empty Bowl Project brought in thousands for a good cause.

“We have over 30 restaurants, over 200 gallons of soup,” said project co-director Deb Dixon.

The event donates all proceeds to Kids Café, a program of the Central Texas Food Bank, and to Meals on Wheels Central Texas.

“The Central Texas Food Bank has school pantries where we have pantries in over five schools. We also have after-school meals and summer meals. And 1 in 4 children go to bed hungry in our service area. So, it’s critical that this event raises as much funds as possible to support those kids,” said CTFB president & CEO Sari Vaske.

Throughout the year, local Austin area potters make more than a thousand soup bowls and donate them to the project.

“We have our communities of potters, our restaurants and our musicians that have all come together and donated time and materials in support of something pretty terrific,” said Dixon.

At the event each year, attendees give a donation, pick out a ceramic bowl, choose from several soups from different restaurants, listen to live music and bid in a silent auction.

After lunch, guests take their bowls home as a reminder that others less fortunate have empty bowls.

MORE AUSTIN NEWS

“There’s over 530,000 people that don’t know where their next meal is going to come from throughout 21 counties. So, this event supports those families,” said Vaske.

For Pflugerville resident Kim Hanson, supporting the Empty Bowl Project has become a special tradition. Every year for the past 20 years, she’s celebrated her birthday by attending the event.

This year, for her 40th, she took it up a notch—bringing 40 friends and family along to give back and make her special day even more meaningful.

“I just think it’s really important for the community to help to support each other. And this goes to support people in our community that need food. And it helps with the children who don’t have enough to eat throughout the year. So, I love to come and support this mission,” said Hanson.

Hanson says she hopes to continue the tradition for years to come.

You can find more information about the Austin Empty Bowl Project here.