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Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 14:39:57 -0400
From: Elizabeth Vandiver <ev23@umail.umd.edu>
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To: classics@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: religious knowledge (was Religious foundations/virgin hero cults)
References: <000b01c0c048$e5f39ca0$82519318@Rourke.ne.mediaone.net> <003301c0c057$f2ff9de0$b4cb64a8@jfgannon>
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J. F. Gannon wrote: 
> 
> There are some Americans, educated in the public schools and having had
> little or no outside religious instruction, who probably almost literally
> know nothing about the Bible just as they know literally nothing about the
> classical world, unless they have seen Gladiator, or indeed about U.S.
> history, except perhaps as it appears in some movie,  before 1980.  

On Friday, I was talking to some students after class. Somehow
the conversation turned from the deification of Emperors to the
veneration of saints' relics, and one girl--who's quite
bright--asked me if "The Christians" have ever claimed to have
the bones of Christ. I said something like "Well, think about
that for a moment--in Christianity, by definition there couldn't
*be* any bones of Christ." She looked puzzled and asked why not.
I said "Because of the Resurrection." She looked blank. I said,
"You know, the belief that Christ rose again from the dead ...
so, no body, no bones."   Her eyes grew wide and she said "He
WHAT?" And I found myself having to explain the whole Easter
story to someone who apparently had never heard a single word of
it before in her entire life. 

I'm used to meeting students who have huge gaps in what I
consider basic knowledge, but I have to admit that this really
took me aback.  

EV
.