{"id":4303,"date":"2007-08-17T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-17T09:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/08\/the-bible-rated-r\/"},"modified":"2007-08-17T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-17T09:17:00","slug":"the-bible-rated-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/08\/the-bible-rated-r.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bible – Rated R?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I thought I\u2019d share another old post<\/a> (below), in light of Hong Kong\u2019s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) issuing the following press release<\/a> in May of this year:<\/p>\n

The Bible is a religious text which is part of civilisation. It has been passed
on from generation to generation. TELA considers that such longstanding
religious texts or literature have not violated standards of morality, decency
and propriety generally accepted by reasonable members of the community.
Therefore, TELA will not submit the Bible to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for
classification.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When discussing the books of Joshua, Judges and 1-2 Samuel in class, I have on occasion asked my students who they would get to direct the stories. My own suggestion is to have Mel Gibson direct Joshua, which has a Braveheart epic sort of feel to it, while Judges is definitely more up Quentin Tarantino\u2019s alley. Both books would clearly deserve an \u2018R\u2019 rating. My assignment for that part of the semester is to have students reflect on the difference between reading these stories as adults and their exposure to them as children. Many details they don\u2019t remember from their childhood are mentioned, without fail including that they were not told as children that Goliath was decapitated by David.<\/p>\n

Should Bibles have parental advisory labels<\/a> affixed to the cover? Would we really want out children to put what they learn from these parts of the Bible into practice? (On a related note, I came across an entertaining spoof site, The Society of Christians for the Restoration of Old Testament Morality<\/a>, that some readers may find amusing, as well as thought-provoking satire). Earlier this year I heard someone tell a story in church about how, as a child, they had been inspired by the story of David and Goliath to fling a stone at a large bully\u2019s forehead! The interesting thing is that it is hard to see why this wouldn\u2019t be a perfectly appropriate application of the story!<\/p>\n

Although one can find plenty of books presenting liberal Christian values<\/a> for adults, it is hard to know what to give one\u2019s children to read. Presumably there is an age or stage of development before which distinguishing between historical\/factual and symbolic\/metaphorical stories will not be helpful, but when and how does one start making the distinction? For those of us who want to expose our children to the Bible and the Christian tradition in a way that does not set them up to lose their faith when they learn about history and science<\/a>, what resources are available? As I find such materials I will mention them here, and in the mean time I would appreciate comments and suggestions from readers who may have things they can recommend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I\u2019d share another old post (below), in light of Hong Kong\u2019s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) issuing the following press release in May of this year: The Bible is a religious text which is part of civilisation. It has been passedon from generation to generation. TELA considers that such longstandingreligious texts or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bible - Rated R?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I thought I'd share another old post (below), in light of Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) issuing the following press\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/08\/the-bible-rated-r.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Bible - Rated R?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I thought I'd share another old post (below), in light of Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) issuing the following press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/08\/the-bible-rated-r.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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