An old textbook.

I recently came across an copy of a textbook I used in Grade 7, back in 1993-1994. I enjoy history and I fondly remembered the textbook, so I opened it up and read it a little to see what it said... 20 years later.

​I found the passages on early Christianity and was a little bit shocked to see how credulous they were about treating the Gospels as useful historical sources for the life of Jesus. Here are the passages that surprised me:

http://jeffnords.tumblr.com/post/137762366551/i-found-a-textbook-i-used-back-in-grade-8-around

The tone in these passages clearly supports the Bible-as-history narrative, and they do so in a rather sneaky way. On Page 7, the paragraph sequence leads the reader into accepting the Gospels as legitimate sources:

• Paragraph 1: general history
• Paragraph 2: Claims couched in "According to the Gospels" clauses.
• Paragraph 3: Historical claims from the gospels without "According to the Gospels" clauses
  
• Paragraphs 4-5: Claims about Jesus' teaching and philosophy without even questioning the legitimacy of their source material at all.

I clearly remember reading these passages in Grade 8. It felt good to think that my faith had been historically legitimized in my secular school. I thought, We all have the same textbook. Why can't everybody see this? If this is in the textbook, why can't my fellow students treat my beliefs as truth? It was both affirming... and a little confusing.

Ironically, this was also the textbook that introduced me to the nature of "humanism," and this confused me greatly. I had heard sermons about the perils of humanism, but when it was described in the textbook, I couldn't help but feel like it was a good thing. And when I tried to confront the textbook with my own beliefs in my head, my adolescent anti-humanism, pro -theology arguments naturally fell flat. 

I'm not a die-hard mythicist, but I do find it annoying when historical books treat religious texts as historically accurate or authoritative sources. It puts the author's intention into question when they mash up history with theology.

I don't think many Canadian textbooks do this any longer; this textbook was published in 1984 and I imagine they've been retired in most schools. But it's nice to see that I'm a more critical thinker than I was in Grade 8.