In H.W. Crocker’s “Custer of the West” series, George Custer survives the Battle of the Little Big Horn and roams the West under the pseudonym of Armstrong Armstrong. In “Armstrong and the Mexican Mystery,” he travels with some companions to Mexico, seeking lost treasure and eventually doing battle with descendants of an underground ancient Atlantis, whose philosophy mirrors that of today’s radicalized people who seek to destroy Western civilization.
Crocker presents Armstrong as a man devoted to duty and honor, but also as impetuous and so sure of himself that he sometimes appears ridiculous. Throughout the novel’s hijinks, adventures, and buffoonery, for example, Armstrong frequently mangles verses and stories taken from the Bible. At one point, he says: “Horses are a man’s best friend. Far be it from me to quote Scripture in front of Father Goncalves, but as the Bible says, it is not good for man to be alone, which is why God created horses—and dogs.” Later, Armstrong slips Samuel Johnson’s aphorism into Scripture: “As Samson told Delilah, ‘Depend on it, Madam, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Push forward a few pages, and we find: “I remind you that Samson was left eyeless in Gaza and yet tore down a Philistine temple, married Delilah, and spawned Jason and the Argonauts.”
Crocker clearly intends Armstrong’s mishmash of the sacred and the profane as entertainment. But after encountering several of his scriptural goofs, the thought suddenly occurred to me, “What if some readers are themselves so ignorant of the Bible that they don’t get the joke?”
Statistics
"Bible and Book of Common Prayer," circa 1607, by Robert Barker. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Public Domain)
Approximately 100 million Bibles are printed worldwide each year. Twenty million are sold annually in the United States. In America in 2017, nearly nine out of 10 households owned a Bible. Of these, the average number of Bibles per household was three.
Search online for “biblical illiteracy,” however, and an abundance of sites, nearly all Christian, pop up, lamenting scriptural ignorance among American churchgoers. Here, commentators, pollsters, and preachers reveal how so few of the faithful read or know the Bible.
This unfamiliarity only increases when we move from the sanctuary to secular culture. Twelve percent of adult Americans, for example, believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. A large number of respondents to one poll thought that Billy Graham preached the Sermon on the Mount. Sixty percent of Americans can name no more than five of the 10 Commandments.
"The First Bible Lesson," 1861–1897, by L. Prang & Co., Boston Public Library. (Public Domain)
In the article where he cites these and other statistics, theologian and minister Albert Mohler writes: “Secularized Americans should not be expected to be knowledgeable about the Bible.”
For those who treasure Western culture, Dr. Mohler’s casual observation begs for disagreement.
A Legacy Neglected
Reconstruction of the Acropolis and Areopagus in Athens, Greece. "The Acropolis at Athens," 1846, by Leo von Klenze. Oil on canvas. Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich. (Public Domain)
Since adolescence, I’ve heard that Athens and Jerusalem were the two pillars of Western civilization. Athens was the birthplace of democracy and Western philosophy, Jerusalem the mother of our Judeo-Christian heritage. In my undergraduate American history classes, and from books I’ve read since, I was told that many of the Founding Fathers—men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams—were well-versed in both the classics and the Scriptures, that these headwaters of our civilization influenced their thinking, oratory, and writing.
Behind them came an army of Americans quite familiar with the Old Book. Whatever their religious beliefs, leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge could identify figures like the prophets Nathan and Jeremiah, Rebecca and Judith, King David, and the Apostles. Untold millions of other Americans, once again putting aside the spectrum of their religious faith, knew these same stories. Phrases like “old as Methuselah” or “to cast pearls before swine” were familiar across the land.
These bonds have now largely vanished. The doctrine of separation of church and state, the emphasis on multiculturalism, and the long propaganda war waged by our arts and culture on “Bible-thumpers” have cast their shadows over the Bible as a key document of our civilization and its importance to our laws, history, arts, and moral code.
Moses and Michelangelo
"Moses Descends From Mount Sinai With the Ten Commandments," 1662, by Ferdinand Bol. Oil on canvas. Royal Palace of Amsterdam. (Public Domain)
More than 30 years ago, an 80-something atheist in my hometown launched a crusade to have the Ten Commandments removed from the courthouse. He was protesting because the Commandments, which were engraved on two marble plaques and bolted to an interior wall more than six decades earlier, invoked a deity. He died before a final decision by a court could be rendered.
This man apparently appreciated little of law or history. The Commandments, and later some of the teachings of the New Testament, are basic to our understanding of law and even government. Many other elements, such as English common law, enter into that development, but “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal” remain linchpins of our legal system. New Testament teachings such as “Love your neighbor as yourself,” justice for the oppressed, and helping the poor have heavily impacted our behavior and our government.
From colonial times until the early years of the 20th century, Americans also invoked stories, proverbs, and lessons from the Bible to promote social change. Slaves who knew the Bible, for example, adopted Moses as their hero and sang songs of freedom drawn from Scripture, like “Go Down, Moses” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” creating along the way a whole genre of music: “spirituals.” Civil War orators and songwriters frequently brought Scripture references into their performances. Popular expressions of that day—“the blind leading the blind,” “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” “fight the good fight,” and many more—have their roots in Scripture and remain in use today.
The same debt holds true for the arts. Michelangelo’s “David,” da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” Handel’s “Messiah,” T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”—these are only a handful of the works connected to the Bible. This fact in itself should rank the book as one of the world’s great artistic masterpieces. Poets and composers have drawn inspiration from the Psalms, and hundreds of other writers from Shakespeare to the American Marilynne Robinson have felt the influence of the Bible’s proverbs, metaphors, and similes, and have referenced these in their writings.
The Bible as Literature and History
"The Fair Student (Girl Reading)," 1858, by Daniel Huntington. Oil on canvas. National Academy of Design, New York. (Public Domain)
When I was teaching Advanced Placement European History courses to homeschooling students, we would read “The Communist Manifesto.” I selected that document not to endorse communism, but instead to give those young people the words and philosophy that would in the 20th century sweep around the globe, killing more than 100 million people and imprisoning the populations of entire nations. In our world history classes, we looked at Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, recognizing their importance in history and art, and seeking to understand their hold on their adherents.
We can increase our knowledge of the Bible, and so enhance our understanding of our Judeo-Christian roots, with the same approach. Whether we’re believers or nonbelievers, we can read the Bible for its stories, its history, and its wisdom. We can dive into Proverbs and the Psalms for their aphorisms and poetry, we can study the leadership lessons taught by King David and the Apostle Paul, and we can deepen our appreciation of the past by visiting the historical events found throughout the Bible.
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Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make The Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
