Thanks everyone for the interesting contribution to "reading the Bible".
It helped to clarify some of the background of the persistent
misconceptions of some of my students. (Among them, the surprise that
baptist students show when I tell them that their denomination is a
"protestant" one. But at state schools, fundamentalist Christians tend to
keep a lower profile anyway. They are about as prominent here
as the adherents of the Wicca religion, who claim a direct historical link
between the persecuted witches in the 16th century and themselves.
There are, however, two myths that seem persistent among American
students. One is: "The Medieval Church Was Corrupt". This keeps surfacing
on essay questions on exams ... they certainly didn't pick it up from MY
lectures ! The other one is that Columbus discovered America because he
was searching for freedom of religion. I finally decided that high schools
are to blame for spreading myths like this.
For everyone's amusement, here are some quotes from student's exams that I
graded; thank God the semester is over here.
(PS These quotes are genuine, and collected by myzelf. I am acquanted with
the collections of "student bloopers" cerculating on e-mail. Please don't
distribute that one on this list !)
"Abelard was a walking scholar of the twelfth century. His teaching method
was called dispensation"
"Mohammed had a revelation from his God, Abba"
"In 1305, the Holy City was moved to Avignon"
"Innocent III studied law, while serving his duties"
"Benedict of Nursia is the rule for monastic monks"
"Trench warfare in the First World War made Calvary obsolete"
cheers :)
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Frans van Liere
College of Charleston 0 Bee Street
Charleston SC 29424 Charleston SC 29403
tel. (803) 953-8103 (803) 723-4051
fax (803) 953-6349
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