Biblical Literacy as Cultural Literacy

Is there any book that can rival The King James Bible for its influence on the literature and culture of the West? Even The Catholic Enyclopedia admits that it "remained in undisputed possession for the greater part of three centuries, and became part of the life of the people." A working familiarity with any good translation would seem an essential part of a true liberal education, but for those of us in the English-speaking world, the KJV remains an essential part of cultural literacy.

In today's WSJ (also available free on OpinionJournal.com), Adam Nicolson makes the case for equating biblical literacy with cultural literacy:

Up until, say, 100 years ago, biblical literacy would have been practically mandatory. If you didn't know what "the powers that be" originally referred to, or where "the writing on the wall" was first seen, or what was meant by "the patience of Job," "Jacob's ladder" or "the salt of the earth"--if you didn't know what an exodus was or a genesis, a fatted or a golden calf--you would have been excluded from the culture. It might be said that a civilization consists, at its core, of these easily transmitted packages of implication. They are one of the mechanisms by which cultures can be both efficient and rich. You don't have to return to first principles every time you wish to communicate. You can play your present tune on a received instrument, knowing that your listener hears not only your own music but the subtle melodies of those who played it before you. There is a common wisdom in common knowledge. But does this Bible-informed world still exist? I would guess that on the whole, and outside committed Christian groups, biblical literacy is a thing of the past. That long moment of Christian civilization is over. The lingua franca of modern, English-speaking people is not dense with scriptural allusion, just as the conversation of educated people no longer makes reference to classical civilizations. If you dropped the names nowadays of Nestor, Agamemnon or Pericles--every one of which would have come trailing clouds of glory up to a century ago--you would, I think, draw a near total blank from even educated listeners. ...

... if this loss of biblical literacy is not disastrous, it is at least a shame, the fading of an aspect of our civilization that has enriched it. Without the set of archetypes and fount of wisdom in the Bible, our lives would be thinner and poorer. I know my own life would have been immeasurably less if I had never encountered the majestic language of scriptural stories, as told in the King James Version. I think of the Bible as our great joint cathedral, a place where, as Philip Larkin wrote in "Church Going," "someone will forever be surprising / A hunger in himself to be more serious."

As an antidote, Nicolson directs our attention to The Bible and its Influence, a new high school text book, which he describes as:

... exceptionally well-executed introduction to the books of the Bible and the shaping effect that it had on the writers and artists of Western civilization. It is a scholarly, clear and richly illustrated amplification of the stories of the Old and New Testaments. And where else will a high-school student find out that the Eucharist was the inspiration for Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis"? Or that when Hamlet calls Polonius "Jepthah," he is pointing to the willingness of Ophelia's father to sacrifice his daughter for his own advantage? The textbook's intention is to provide precisely the kind of biblical understanding that has drained out of the culture in the past century. ... The Bible Literacy Project, which published the textbook, aims to provide a way for students to read the Bible in public schools without trampling on the rights of religious or secular families.

It's been a long time since I bought a textbook, let alone one intended for use is high school, but I loved Nicolson book God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, so I'm inclined to take his recommendations on these issues, and I'm sure my own cultural literacy could stand a wash and a brush-up.