“I don’t think you can understand Shakespeare, that you can understand a great deal of literary allusions or that you can understand a great deal of Western civilization without understanding the role of the Bible,” says a former Western civilization teacher, and so the state of Georgia has approved material for teaching the Bible in public high schools.
I know the thought police have told us since we were in a preschool that if we don’t separate church and state our country is going to hell in a handbasket, church being defined as anything remotely related to the Lord God as revealed in the Bible. But I hold that citizens of our English-speaking country should have at least academic knowledge of biblical literature for the same reasons given by the teacher above.
It seems to have escaped the notice of many that the first five words of the First Amendment are “Congress shall make no law …” In other words, it’s supposed to be a restriction on what congress does.
It’s not just Shakespeare. The great mass of Western literature is rendered more or less indistinct if not incoherent by ignorance of the bible.
But even if works remain intelligible, it is an unnecessary shame that readers should miss echoes, references and illustrations by unfamiliarity with the text.
The same is true to a lesser extent of Greek and Roman literature, as well of the great (widely and long-read, to define practically) works themselves. Many an echo of Shakespeare is unheard by an unfamiliarity with Shakespeare.