This week the Texas State Board of Education will vote on a K-12 compulsory reading list that contains a dozen Bible passages.
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Across centuries and various Bible translations, there is one thing most religious leaders can agree on: Religion should not be compelled by the government.
So it’s distressing to me, as a rabbi and a parent, that the Texas State Board of Education and Texas Education Agency (TEA) are using state power to pick and promote particular translations of religious texts. Their proposed K-12 compulsory reading list, which will be voted on this week, contains a dozen Bible passages. These efforts to infuse Christianity into public schools do a disservice both to Scripture and to our children.
For seventh and eighth graders, three of the assigned texts use the King James Version translation of the Bible, despite the archaic language that reads at a 12th-grade level. But it’s the content that really concerns me.
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One of those seventh-grade texts is Psalm 23, grouped with works by Jewish writers Anne Frank and Hannah Szenes, alongside President George Washington’s letter about religious equality to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I. If the state board meant for these texts to teach respect for Judaism, it might have specified the 2023 revision of the Jewish Publication Society translation. Assigning a Christian translation of Psalm 23 teaches the opposite.
The Board’s preference for the King James version of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 in eighth grade is awkward for a different reason. This famous passage says there is “a time to kill” (Ecclesiastes 3:3). But Texas law currently mandates mounting a Ten Commandments poster in every classroom with the King James language, “Thou shalt not kill.” An observant eighth grader might ask, what gives?
Can the state board or TEA explain this apparent contradiction? Will teachers be prepared to do so? Serious explanations would include discussion of biblical genres — e.g. poetry, legal code, history, etc. — and the King James Version’s tendency to flatten nuances that were in the Hebrew original.
Ironically, the state’s education leaders don’t seem very serious about biblical education.
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The contemporary translation choices concern me, too. All but one are evangelical Christian, which smacks of religious preferentialism by the state. Three assigned New Testament passages come from the English Standard Version, created as an “evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version.” Another four texts come from the New International Reader’s Version, which reads at a third-grade level and was designed for children, new English readers and those with learning disabilities. That version has its use for inclusive learning in a devotional setting, but it cannot credibly have been selected for literary merit in public schools.
The New International Reader’s Version distorts the meaning of the Job passage assigned in high school. In the Book of Job, the Hebrew ha-satan means “the adversary” or “the accuser.” But this version translates it as the proper name “Satan,” reflecting Christian doctrine about the devil.
In other words, the state board’s choice of translation endorses a Christian interpretation of a Hebrew text.
More disturbing is the assignment of Lamentations 3 in eighth grade. The selection of the 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation might seem like a nod toward inclusivity — it’s the only non-Christian translation — but the “Old JPS” (as it’s known in Jewish circles) is outdated, replaced by more recent editions.
Also, I question whether this text –– which I’ve taught to adult learners –– is appropriate for eighth graders, with its themes of grief and vengeance and a worldview that sees the destruction of Jerusalem as God’s punishment for the Israelites’ sins.
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Making matters worse, the state board and TEA grouped this text with Holocaust literature by Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi –– which suggests that students should consider whether the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Jews.
Either this was intentional or, more likely, the list’s creators are oblivious to the text’s meaning. Either way, it’s unacceptable.
The state board and TEA may tell themselves they’re advancing a holy cause by injecting Christian Bible stories into Texas classrooms. But America’s colonial experience with established religion and persecution of dissenting sects should counsel otherwise. Our Texas education leaders should hit pause and seek guidance from teachers, scholars, clergy and families before putting the stamp of state power on religious texts and translations they don’t understand.
Rabbi David Segal is policy counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
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