Bible Curriculum
Personally, I think Bible Curriculum should be kept as simple as possible. Those who want to study to become theologians, pastors, and bible scholars have to do enormous amounts of work studying various languages and surveying millennia of history to argue compellingly with each other.
For the rest of us, I think we should just focus on surveying the Bible, believing what we read, and obeying humbly. In most cases, that will likely be more profitable than arguing about one system of theology versus another.
Beyond reading in church, it's best if the family has a regular practice of reading the Bible together. Children who read through the entire bible and deliberate on the meaning of most of its passages will already have a better education than most people ever get.
There are 1189 chapters in the Bible, meaning that at only one chapter per school day, to say nothing of non-school days, a young person has the opportunity to pass through the Bible multiple times over the course of their childhood. At the very least, once in elementary school, and once again in secondary school.
Unfortunately, it's all too easy for bible teachers in class or in the pulpit to get distracted with unpacking various concepts through long chains of analogies and illustrations, to the point that we forget what we were even talking. I think it's better if we just take it chapter by chapter and make sure we are understanding what is told as best we can in whatever language we have available to us.
Biblical knowledge accumulates. The more we have pondered each part of scripture, the better we will understand all the rest of it.
The curriculum below is planned to contain vocabulary questions and interpretation questions for each chapter of the Bible, to help elementary and secondary students (and adults!) ponder the passage.
Student expectations:
Students can read each chapter aloud, through practice learning how to gracefully handle unfamiliar vocabulary and names.
Students can renarrate what just happened in the passage or through questioning ascertain what they failed to grasp.
Students can make narrative and thematic connections from one passage to another.
Students can actively engage with the interpretation questions, and form their own reasonable interpretation of what is written, rather than being mute.
Students can appreciate the different ways a passage is interpreted by different traditions, and argue reasonably from their own.
Students can form a precise application of the moral teaching to their own hearts and to the culture at large.
Old Testament
- Genesis
- Exodus
- Leviticus
- Numbers
- Deuteronomy
- Joshua
- Judges
- Ruth
- 1 Samuel
- 2 Samuel
- 1 Kings
- 2 Kings
- 1 Chronicles
- 2 Chronicles
- Ezra
- Nehemiah
- Esther
- Job
- Psalms
- Proverbs
- Ecclesiastes
- Song of Solomon
- Isaiah
- Jeremiah
- Lamentations
- Ezekiel
- Daniel
- Hosea
- Joel
- Amos
- Obadiah
- Jonah
- Micah
- Nahum
- Habakkuk
- Zephaniah
- Haggai
- Zechariah
- Malachi
New Testament
Biblical Themes
Biblical Ethics
Conquest & Just War
Political policy and divisiveness
Deception and cunning
Decision making
Abortion
Adoption
Imagination and iconography, pornography
The veneration of saints
Hostile speech, trolling, fights, denunciations, controversies, insults
Speech, heresy, right teaching, divisiveness, epistemic communities
Usury and debt based financial system
Loyalty, patronage, nepotism, partiality, and localism
Wealth gathering, saving, investment, generosity, conspicuous consumption, cultural capital, distinction
Church leadership & female clergy
Imitation of Christ
Holiness
Assurance & Salvation
Hell
Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life
Kinship and racism, patriotism, nationalism, ethnic identity
Christendom
Tradition, filial obligations, ancestral obligations
Science
Liberalism
Sexuality
Deconstruction