Austin, TX
I'm a Jewish parent and biblical scholar in Houston — I'm enraged that Texas is adopting this biblically illiterate new curriculum
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.
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Good evening, Texas. We’re wrapping up the day for you with the most important stories you need to know and your weather outlook.
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Today’s Big Stories
1. Talarico plans to win over Black voters after winning primary tinged with racial tension
State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, claimed the Democratic nomination after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas. Talarico had strong support from Latinos in the primary, but he’s missing support from a key bloc of voters.
Their race was tinged with racial tension after a social media influencer alleged Talarico called former U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico’s response was that he was referring to Allred’s campaign. And Crockett called an attack ad that used a filter, which darkened her skin, racist. Talarico said he had no control over the ad, which came from a pro-Talarico PAC, which the campaign can’t legally coordinate with.
2. City of Pflugerville says ‘it’s going to be a while’ before Stage 3 water restrictions lift
The City of Pflugerville is working to repair its fourth waterline break since September as residents operate under Stage 3 emergency water restrictions until further notice.
In a City Council meeting Tuesday, city officials provided a timeline of breaks to the existing raw waterline, which is a 30-inch waterline that connects the Colorado River Pump Station up to Lake Pflugerville. The first happened in September and took 12 days to fix. The next came in November and took 17 days to repair, and the third came in January and also took 17 days to fix.
Officials identified a fourth break on Feb. 6 but didn’t actually locate it roughly 20 feet under a creek until Feb. 17. Work began on a 24-inch temporary bypass waterline on Feb. 10.
3. President Trump announces first new U.S. oil refinery in 50 years to open in Brownsville, Texas
President Donald Trump announced plans to build the first oil refinery in the United States in 50 years, and it will be in Brownsville, Texas, according to a Truth Social post.
Notes for Tomorrow
Thursday, March 12
- PGA Tour golf continues
- Court hearing for Lil Nas X charged with assaulting police during arrest
- 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Paralympic Games continue, with three gold medals decided in a single sport
- Billy Joel honored at Michael Dorf’s annual Music Of tribute concert
- South by Southwest Festival and Conference kicks off in Austin
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University of Texas with Kevin Durant partner with NIL, Nike for KD apparel
The University of Texas athletics, with former player Kevin Durant, announced an NIL partnership with Nike to allow specific student athletes to wear KD brand apparel.
Smokable cannabis products must be removed from Texas stores by the end of the month under new rules adopted by the state’s health department.
Virtually all edible hemp products will still be allowed with stricter packaging and testing requirements. But sharply higher fees on retailers and manufacturers, while lower than initially proposed, could lead to more expensive products or force some companies out of business.
The sweeping regulations for the state’s hemp industry were first recommended in December. They were created based on an executive order issued by Gov. Greg Abbott after the Texas Legislature couldn’t agree whether to regulate THC products more strictly or ban them entirely.
Last week, the Texas Department of State Health Services adopted its final version of the rules and said they would take effect March 31.
The new regulations effectively ban the sale of smokable hemp and extracts by changing how DSHS measures Delta-9 THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.
Michael Minasi
/
KUT News
Under the state’s 2019 hemp law, cannabis with no more than 0.3% Delta-9 by dry weight is considered legal hemp.
The adopted DSHS regulation includes a new “total THC” rule, which counts a cannabis compound known as THCA in the Delta-9 calculation. THCA converts to Delta-9 when heated or smoked, which is why a product known as THCA flower has become widely popular in Texas.
During the public comment period, hundreds of people told DSHS they oppose counting THCA as Delta-9. THCA is not explicitly banned by state or federal law.
In its response, DSHS said the “total THC” policy follows existing state and federal regulations, which are the rules written by government employees tasked with interpreting law.
The Texas Agriculture Commission adopted regulations in 2020 requiring that tests account for the potential conversion of THCA to Delta-9. The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a similar rule on the last day of President Trump’s first term. The rule was adopted two months later by the Biden administration.
The state’s new hemp regulations slash a proposed 10,000% increase in the annual fees charged to retailers and manufacturers of what Texas calls “consumable hemp products.” But the adopted fees — $5,000 per year for each retail location and $10,000 per year for each manufacturing facility — are still 33 and 40 times higher, respectively, than existing levies.
More than 9,100 retail locations in Texas are registered to sell consumable hemp products, according to state health records.
Michael Minasi
/
KUT News
Some retailers say the fees are still crippling, especially coupled with the new prohibition on smokable products.
“It’s a high rate, but it would still be feasible, but then we come into the [THCA] regulations,” said Estella Castro, owner of the hemp store Austin Cannabis Co. “If you don’t have the flower, and the flower is going off completely, I don’t think you’re going to have the $5,000.”
Castro said smokable products account for about 40% of her sales.
Cannabis advocates say they are glad to see new product recall standards and a process to track consumer complaints, but they believe high licensing fees and a ban on flowers and extracts will power up the unregulated market.
“We know that consumers will be able to still acquire these products either from out of state operators who are not restricted by DSHS regulations or from the illicit market, which causes the most concern for us,” said Heather Fazio, who leads the Texas Cannabis Policy Center. “The illicit market doesn’t have age restrictions. It doesn’t have safety mechanisms and consumer protection.”
The new DSHS rules only affect the manufacture, distribution and sale of hemp products. They don’t affect state law allowing for possession of them.
Mark Bordas, head of the Texas Hemp Business Council, compared the $10,000 fee annual on hemp manufacturing facilities to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s fee on distillers: $3,000 every two years.
“Our concern is some of these measures are so draconian that you are going to drive people out of the business and then folks’ access to the products,” Bordas said. “Invariably, we’re going to have to bring forth a [lawsuit], and the state has to defend what it’s done, and that’s taxpayer money, and it’s a waste.”
The Texas Longhorns continue to do everything they can to better their team for the future, including dominating on the recruiting trail with some of the most sought-after prospects in the country.
Their latest installment comes after extending offers to offensive lineman Ty McCurry and Jayden Thompson, while also leaving a favorable impression on premier recruit Brayson Robinson.
As they continue to make a push for another top-10 class under head coach Steve Sarkisian, the Longhorns made a staunch impression on three of their top targets for the 2028 cycle.
Forty Acres Stands Out
The Longhorns continue to make a push on the recruiting trail, hosting some premier targets on the first day of spring camp, and extending offers to McCurry and Thompson. Both players were impressed with what they saw, not just on the football field, either, but from the Forty Acres as well.
“They said I’m their top guy and that they want me back out for a visit soon. “McCurry tells me of his conversations with the Longhorns before continuing on where they stand in his rankings. “I’ve loved the past two times I’ve been in Austin to check out the Longhorns and can 100 percent see them being a contender in my commitment down the line.”
McCurry was a Sports Illustrated freshman All-American and currently stands at 6-foot-6 and 270 pounds, currently holding 11 offers with many of them coming from the Lone Star State. The other offer from the first day of practice went to Jayden Thompson, number 15-ranked offensive tackle in the 2028 class according to 247Sports.
“My conversations with the coaches went very well, they were all very inviting and helpful,” Thompson told Texas Longhorns On SI of the Longhorns staff. “If I had one takeaway, it would be the tour of not just the football part of the school, but the campus as well.”
Another target for the 2028 cycle is Brayson Robinson, an edge defender out of Mavel, Texas. While he didn’t receive an offer yet, he has quickly garnered interest with some of the top programs in the country. The Arizona State Sun Devils and Alabama Crimson Tide have been on him mainly, but he’s hearing from a lot of schools, including the Longhorns, who impressed him.
“It went amazing and I like how every coach introduced themselves to my family and me,” Robinson told Texas Longhorns On SI about his visit. “I also love the culture.”
With still a while to go until the 2028 cycle becomes the forefront on the recruiting trail, Sarkisian and his staff continue to set themselves up to be at the top of the conversations regarding the premier talent on their target board.
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