Sunday School Bible

When the patriarch Abraham was 99 years old the Lord told him that his wife, Sarah, would be the mother of nations and of kings of people. Hearing this, the patriarch fell upon his face, roared in laughter shouting: "Shall a child be born to him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?"

Last week the National Sunday School Union of Great Britain printed a Bible which gave what the Lord told Abraham but carefully omitted the aged man's merriment and doubt. Both old and New Testament had been carefully revised and expurgated of all things that might bring evil thoughts to the young.

Many a modern parent is beset by the problem of the daily newspaper. The parent cannot re-edit the newspaper--he must prohibit it for his children, in toto if at all. But classic literature can be edited--although as to how it shall be edited parents violently disagree. Discussion now turns chiefly on the following examples of Sunday School editing:

P: When Joseph was 17 he was brought from Canaan into Egypt, sold to Potiphar, a captain of the guard. In the house of Potiphar he was well favored and soon made overseer. Then, during the warm, dry days when Potiphar was with his troops, his wife desired the lusty young slave that had come from the north, said to him, "Lie with me." When he refused and fled from the house, leaving his cloak in her hands, Potiphar's wife cried out that she had been attacked, caused Joseph to be jailed.

Such is the story the Bible tells with artistic realism. Carefully the National Sunday School Union substituted "tempted him to do evil" rather than give the exact words of the wife of Potiphar. Question: Does the substitution help?

P: An epic tale of a lonely girl working in dusty grainfields is the story of Ruth. One of the most dramatic and colorful scenes in all literature is the description of her entering the threshing room at night, creeping to where the mighty farmer Boaz lay drunken on a pile of corn, softly snuggling herself to sleep at his feet. Question: Would a child suspect evil?

P: Solomon's Song of Songs was deleted in entirety. (It contains the line Many waters cannot quench love--see Theatre p.40). Concerning this deletion there is little debate.

P: "The Sword devoureth one as well as another." Hardened and harsh was King David when he spoke these words to the messenger who told him that Uriah, husband of Bathsheba, had been slain as planned. But from the new Bible is missing the whole chapter that describes the unhappy King's brief interlude of passion with Bathsheba that lush spring when he tarried in Jerusalem although it was "the time when Kings go forth to battle." Without this tale is lost one of the most important psychological links in the evolution of David from the young idealist who befriended Jonathan into the almost fanatical writer of the imprecatory psalms --all of which are omitted. Question: Is it well to let the child think of David as always good?

P: Two of the most famed judicial stories in history are entirely deleted. There is no mention of Solomon deciding to which of the two harlots belongs the baby they both claimed. There is no mention of the woman taken in adultery to whose accusers Jesus said, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone."

At some point, of course, the youth must learn these stories--otherwise he becomes an ignorant boor. But the question is: When shall the child or youth learn them. And that, of course, is the whole question which revolves around the Tree of Knowledge.