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In a Time magazine from April (yeah, that was a long time ago but oh well), the author talked about courses that teach only the Bible in public schools. He said that the Bible should be taught in public schools because it is the "most influential book ever written." He also goes on to say that literature from the Western culture make allusions to the Bible, such as Shakespeare's plays and The Old Man and the Sea, and a person has to understand the Bible to understand the "ideas and rhetoric that have helped drive US history." He believes that as long as teachers "teach it, not preach it", then constitutionally it's okay.
Personally, I'm against the Bible being taught in public schools. This is basically establishing Christianity as the legitimate government religion. Why? Because there are no discussions about the Lotus Sutra classes, or the Koran classes, and other religious writings that are somewhat neccessary to understand the writings from a particular culture.

No. It shouldn't be. Because, I'd like to point something out. The Bible is the most influential book in Western literature? Which is why the Bible was influenced by the Torah, right? Now, you can say that "well, it's the the first five books of the Bible, so it didn't really influence it..." but that's bullshit. It's like saying that the first five chapters of a book don't have any effect on the rest of the book. Also, every single story up until the end of the Gospels is about Jews. So...yeah. Sorry about that rant.

Anyway, it shouldn't be taught at a high school level. At this level, they can easliy just explain the allusions, and then move on. Furthermore, it's impossible to teach it in a way that won't offend somebody-even if you just say that "some people believe it's the truth", you're going to get uber-Christians saying "OMG! It's the Truth! How dare you suggest that it might not be! BLASPHEMY!!!1!". You can't teach it in a non-offensive way on this level. And, making it a required class would piss people off and would be way to close to establishing a state religion if you don't make students learn about every single religion. But, if you make it a mandatory class, only Christians are likely to take it, which would defeat the purpose. Simple solution: Do it in college, and only in college. That would save time.

Clearly, we're all pretty much going to say "College only" with regards to this. And I agree, although I think I could handle teaching the Bible.

Why? Because people have seen what I do to people who call me blasphemous.

I gotta say, I haven't read the whole bible and I get a lot of the allusions on my own. Now, I must say, many, many years of Catholic schools and church on Sundays may be the reasoning behind this; but I know intelligent non-Christians who also get the allusions. If you really weren't getting it you could always do what I would....

GOOGLE IT!

Yes, I know I'm a google-whore...but still, it's a doable option. I'm sure you can find the passage you need explained.

I can see this being valid. Since so much of Western literature does make reference to biblical allusions and whatnot, I see nothing wrong with referring to those allusions and explaining the social importance in terms of the religion of the time and whatnot. Sort of the sociology of the literature.

However, as to actually teaching the Bible as a work of literature? It's not very good. It's great because it was influencial, and had an effect on absolutely everything, but even considering it's age, it's not as impressive as, say, Beowulf.

I'm all for pointing out the allusions and discussing them in class. That's what happened in my English classes whenever a piece of literature alluded to a Biblical story. However, this plan to introduce Bible study in public schools so that kids can figure out the allusions to the Bible seems a little sneaky to me.
I remember reading this book with an essay arguing that the Bible should be taught in public schools because of the decreasing morality of society. Back then I was a Christian and still felt it wasn't right to teach the Bible in public schools, but my uber-religious friend wanted it. However, I'm sure that no one could get the Bible taught in school because of the freedom of religion part of the Bill of Rights.
The situation seems to me similar to the whole creationist/ID situation. They couldn't get creationism taught in school, so they tried to make it look like teaching ID was helpful for children because it taught kids to 'critically think' about the theory of evolution. In this situation, it seems that they couldn't get the Bible in public schools for moral reasons, so they are trying to get the Bible taught because it would help children understand historical events and allusions made in literature and pop culture.
Anyway, if kids can't figure out an allusion to the Bible, they could attend church and/or read the Bible themselves (they can buy a Bible for a buck at Dollar Tree). Or, like Drucilla said, they can Google it!

Since most of the old literature had more Biblical references, If we did in fact start reading more contemporary things, then I would think that not only our intellegence level would drop, since back in the days of old, they tended to use more intellectual words and phrases, more or less a higher vocabulary, so I wouldn't mind If said books were to be in curriculums, maybe if some didn't want to read it for a religious reason then they could say so.

On the other hand I really don't think God or any other deity should be in any school (Unless you're going to school for that specific reason, like some colleges but that's different and it's the persons own choice).

I mean I really don't know...I'm just another person with a somewhat useless opinion.

A lot of books these days have atheistic or anti-religious themes. Or are questioning of the initial precepts of faith and morality in subtle interesting ways. To fully understand these, you need context, which the Bible actually helps with. Of course, I'm thinking more along the lines of the sociology of Biblical interpretation than the Bible as a work, but the point still holds.