Perhaps as Americans abandon reading the bible, the less they know about Iran (Persia)…

“The Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties” edited by Paul Finkelman (2006) tells us that in 1950, 36 states either required or permitted Bible reading in schools given American culture was partially based on Protestant Christianity.  The most popular version was the King James Bible.  They read passages without commentary to avoid promoting a religion, but rather to teach general morality.  In 1963, the Supreme Court found that reading the Bible in public schools was unconstitutional (Abington School District v. Schempp)…

[As a side note, apparently Schempp was 16 when he protested bible-reading in school… according to bios online, he noticed his Jewish friends were upset with such readings and in protest he brought a copy of the KORAN to read in school…not sure why he chose the Koran that would have surely been alien to 1950s Americans rather than the Torah or the Talmud, not to mention the historical Islamo-Judaic conflicts such as Mohammad’s extermination of Jewish tribe Banu Qurayza or launching battle of Khaybar… odd indeed…in his lawsuit against the school system that led to the 1963 Supreme Court decision, Schempp and his family were assisted by the ACLU… today the 77 yr old Schempp is an atheist …]

Sorry for the digression but the Schempp situation was of particular interest especially since today there are countless complaints about American public schools teaching Islamic indoctrination and passages from the Koran…one may wonder what Schempp or the ACLU might think about all that…

Now back to the connection between bible reading and interest in Iran (Persia)…

Until 1950s, the King James Bible (1611) was it… THE bible!!!... It is considered the most important Western literary work of modern era…we can see the influence of the bible in Western arts, literature, philosophy, politics, etc…

Surveys taken in 2016 indicate that more than 50% of Americans have read little or none of the bible… perhaps this is why when many of my students are exposed to the opening lines of Robert Frost’s 1913 poem addressed to Ezra Pound, they do not know to what it is referring…

“I am a Mede and Persian

In my acceptance of harsh laws laid down for me

When you said I could not read

When you said I looked old

When you said I was slow of wit

I knew that you only meant

That you could read

That you looked young

That you were nimble of wit

But I took your words at their face value

I accepted your words like an encyclical letter…”