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91-445: The NCBCPS was founded in 1993, and promoted its curriculum in many school districts throughout the country. The NCBCPS' proposed curriculum has been critiqued by scholars as "neither academically nor constitutionally sound" and an attempt to promote a single religious view of the Bible. The use of the curriculum has been challenged in lawsuits in two school districts, which have withdrawn

182-481: A "board of trustees," "board of education," "school committee," etc.. This body usually appoints or hires an experienced public school administrator to function as the district's superintendent of schools – a district's chief executive . The superintendent oversees daily operations, decisions and implements the policies of the board. The school board may also exercise a quasi-judicial function in serious employee or student discipline matters. School districts in

273-524: A "principal or primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion;" (3) "must not foster 'an excessive government entanglement with religion.'" Chancey found that the curriculum, even as revised, had the likely effect of advancing the interest of particular religious groups. In a 2007 article in Time magazine, David Van Biema wrote that the NCBCPS curriculum is not "legally palatable ... Its spokespeople claim it

364-718: A 2007 article published in Baylor Law Review , Amanda Colleen Brown reviewed the NCBCPS' The Bible in History and Literature and the Bible Literacy Project's The Bible and Its Influence . The author found that, under the three legal tests used by the Supreme Court to determine the legality of Bible courses, the NCBCPS curriculum was "unfit for use in public school classrooms," while the Bible Literacy Project's curriculum "comports with constitutional standards, thus making it

455-471: A case for inerrancy on the basis of inductive evidence, rather than deductive reasoning. Most evangelicals today follow E. J. Young's deductive approach toward bibliology, forgetting the great articulator of inerrancy. But Warfield starts with the evidence that the Bible is a historical document, rather than with the presupposition that it is inspired. In the Nicene Creed , Christians confess their belief that

546-603: A certain degree comparable to a school district. Other arrangements are possible: certain types of special schools in North Rhine-Westphalia are run by the Landschaftsverbände . There also exist private schools , mostly funded by the States, but run by private entities like churches or foundations. In Italy , school districts were established in 1974 by the " Provvedimenti Delegati sulla scuola " ("Assigned Laws [to

637-497: A church had invaded the public school system – and it wasn't my church." Announcing the settlement, the ACLU's Director of Litigation said in a press release that "We trust that any future curriculum will be appropriate for students of all faiths – including nonbelievers – and that it will respect the religious liberty of all Odessans." The Lee County School Board (Florida) was sued for its use of NCBCPS curriculum. The school district adopted

728-421: A combination of these facts that the argument for inerrancy comes. Stanley Grenz states that: Because God cannot lie and because scripture is inspired by God, the Bible must be wholly true. This syllogism may be valid for establishing inerrancy, but it cannot define the concept. Also, from Geisler: Those who defend inerrancy are deductivists pure and simple. They begin with certain assumptions about God and

819-561: A decline in property tax revenues during and after the Great Recession . By 2016 there were about 13,000 school districts, and the average student population was about 5,000. Although these terms can vary slightly between various states and regions, these are typical definitions for school district constitution: These terms may not appear in a district's name, even though the condition may apply. In England and Wales , school boards were established in 1870, and abolished in 1902, with

910-411: A decrease of 38,127 or 35%. Many states had passed laws facilitating school district consolidation. In 1951 the majority of the school districts in existence were rural school districts only providing elementary education, and some school districts did not operate schools but instead provided transportation to other schools. The Midwest had a large number of rural school districts. Previously areas of

1001-401: A grant of authority and within geographic limits created by state law. The executive and legislative power over locally-controlled policies and operations of an independent school district are, in most cases, held by a school district's board of education. Depending on state law, members of a local board of education (often referred to informally as a school board ) may be elected, appointed by

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1092-446: A guide by implication for teachers as to the tone and content of course lessons. Using only the Bible makes inadvertent or intentional Constitutional violations much more likely, since the class content is predominantly lectures by the teacher. Given that the curriculum has a sectarian nature and promotes religious viewpoints, the fact that the Bible serves as the only text makes the effect of the advancement of religion even more likely. It

1183-424: A high sanctuary of authority one false statement   [...] there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally,   [...] the author declared what was not true For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to

1274-413: A letter to Johannes Eck , Erasmus wrote that "Nor, in my view, would the authority of the whole of Scripture be instantly imperiled, as you suggest, if an evangelist by a slip of memory did put one name for another, Isaiah for instance instead of Jeremiah, for this is not a point on which anything turns." The same point of view held true for John Calvin (1509–1564), who wrote that "It is well known that

1365-632: A minority of secondary schools , a few primary schools, and much further education . (Most schools are neither organized geographically nor publicly managed, although the Department of Education inspects and funds them and pays teachers' salaries.) Each ETB area comprises one or more local authority areas , with city or county councilors forming the bulk of the ETB board. The ETBs was formed in 2005 by amalgamating Vocational Education Committees established in 1930, also based on local government areas. In Hong Kong ,

1456-412: A part of Holy Scripture. The prophetic and apostolic scriptures are authentic as written by the prophets and apostles. A correct translation of their writings is God's Word because it has the same meaning as the original Hebrew and Greek. A mistranslation is not God's word, and no human authority can invest it with divine authority. However, the 19th-century Anglican biblical scholar S. R. Driver held

1547-407: A political office holder, serve ex officio , or a combination of any of these. An independent school district is a legally separate body corporate and political . Most school districts operate as independent local governmental units with exclusive authority over K–12 public educational operations and policies. The extent of their control is set by state-level law. Litigation against school districts

1638-732: A position equivalent to biblical inerrancy. The doctrine of inerrancy, however, began to develop as a response to these Protestant attitudes. Whereas the Council of Trent only held that the Bible's authority was "in matters of faith and morales", Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) argued in his 1586 De verbo Dei , the first volume of his multi-volume Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos that "There can be no error in Scripture, whether it deals with faith or whether it deals with morals/mores, or whether it states something general and common to

1729-499: A press release describing the Texas Freedom Network as "a small group of far left, anti-religion extremists ... desperate to ban" the Bible from public schools. In a subsequent article, Dr. Chancey wrote: As early as August 12, however, the NCBCPS was mailing school districts a revised edition of its curriculum, along with a letter urging them in bold, italicized, underlined letters to 'please discard any previous editions of

1820-444: A scholarly basis, promoting a specific Protestant religious interpretation of the Bible at odds with the views held by Jews, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and most Protestants. The ACLU also criticized the court for promoting an "unbalanced view of American history that promoted specific religious beliefs that is in conflict with objective scholarly standards." According to the settlement, any Bible course Ector County schools offer in

1911-450: A school system that is separate but similar to a town's or a county's powers. These include the power to enter contacts, use eminent domain , and to issue binding rules and regulations affecting school policies and operations. The power of school districts to tax and spend is generally more limited. For example, many school districts in New York state require a majority of voters living in

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2002-421: A single religious view of the Bible. On August 1, 2005, Dr. Mark Chancey, professor of Biblical studies at Southern Methodist University , released a report through the Texas Freedom Network detailing his concerns about the scholarly quality of the curriculum. Chancey stated that the curriculum was improperly sectarian, and contained "shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism." In particular, Chancey wrote that

2093-706: A single school district." Noting that most modern school districts were formed by consolidating one-room school districts in the first seven decades of the 20th century, Fischel argues that "outside the South, these consolidations were consented to by local voters" who "preferred districts whose boundaries conformed to their everyday interactions rather than formal units of government" and that "[t]he South ended up with county-based school districts because segregation imposed diseconomies of scale on district operations and required larger land-area districts." In New York , most school districts are separate governmental units with

2184-520: A viable alternative to the NCBCPS curriculum." Brown argues that a key problem with the NCBCPS curriculum is that it consists of only a teacher's guide, with no student textbook. Brown writes: Using only the Bible makes compliance with the Constitution and regulating the classroom instruction much more difficult. If there is a text to follow, then the majority of what will be discussed in class can be scrutinized and approved or disapproved. It also provides

2275-527: Is attached to this, is 2 Timothy 3:16–17, which speaks of scripture as 'God-breathed' ( theopneustos )". According to McGrath, "the reformers did not see the issue of inspiration as linked with the absolute historical reliability or factual inerrancy of the biblical texts". He says, "The development of ideas of 'biblical infallibility' or 'inerrancy' within Protestantism can be traced to the United States in

2366-427: Is common and some law firms specialize in education law. Districts typically maintain professional liability insurance in order to pay its settlements and legal liabilities. As of 2023 in most U.S. states, public school districts may lay taxes to fund their operations. In others, such as Maine , some school districts are able to lay taxes and others are not. Independent school districts often exercise authority over

2457-618: Is currently offered in 362 districts nationwide. Such oft-repeated claims now appear to be quite inaccurate. If the situation in Texas is representative, the curriculum is probably actually taught in only a few dozen districts." Chancey writes that the NCBCPS's sectarian curriculum promotes an "obvious bias toward a view of the Bible held by fundamentalist Protestants" and teaches interpretation and perspectives of biblical scripture that are "simply not shared by many mainline Protestants , Roman Catholics , Eastern Orthodox Christians and Jews or within

2548-436: Is possible, as well, that the NCBCPS intentionally chose not to develop a text, in order to give the teachers more freedom to control the content of the course toward the views expressed by the NCBCPS in the curriculum. In 1999, Attorney General of Georgia Thurbert Baker issued an opinion on the state's proposed adoption of the NCBCPS courses. Baker wrote that the teaching of the classes might not survive legal challenge under

2639-403: Is refining itself as it goes and its most recent edition, which came out last month, eliminates much literalist bias—but still devotes 18 lines to the blatantly unscientific notion that the earth is only 6,000 years old." Van Biema praised the nonprofit Bible Literacy Project's The Bible and Its Influence curriculum as a good model for public school Bible electives. Similarly, in a 2007 editorial,

2730-481: Is singular rather than plural. This (as stated) sets a precedent for inerrant interpretation down to the individual letters of the words. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds", as (referring) to many, but (rather) to one, "And to your seed", that is, Christ. Similarly, Jesus said that every minute detail of the Old Testament Law must be fulfilled, indicating (it

2821-569: Is stated) that every detail must be correct: For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Although in these verses, Jesus and the apostles are only referring to the Old Testament , the argument is considered by some to extend to the New Testament writings, because 2 Peter 3:16 accords the status of scripture to New Testament writings also: "He (Paul) writes

National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools - Misplaced Pages Continue

2912-878: Is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching"; or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact". The belief in Biblical inerrancy is of particular significance within parts of evangelicalism , where it is formulated in the " Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy ". Inerrancy has been much more of an issue in American evangelicalism than in British evangelicalism : according to Stephen R. Holmes, it "plays almost no role in British evangelical life". Some groups equate inerrancy with biblical infallibility or with

3003-608: The Chicago Tribune criticized the NCBCPS—;citing the organization's "fundamentalist Protestant interpretation of the Bible that often ignores the differing beliefs and practices of Catholics, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Christians and mainline Protestants" and its "sloppy editing, factual errors and outright copying, word for word, from sources"—and praised the Bible Literacy Project's curriculum as an alternative that

3094-652: The Education Bureau divides primary schools into 36 districts, known as school nets, for its Primary One Admission System . Of the 36 districts, districts 34 and 41 in Kowloon and districts 11 and 12 in Hong Kong Island are considered the most prestigious. In Iranian cities school kids normal registrations are limited by school districts, register is online at my.medu.ir and the parent sees schools within range online. Biblical inerrancy Biblical inerrancy

3185-550: The First Amendment 's Establishment Clause . Baker noted that, under the Supreme Court's decisions in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), Bible courses in public schools "may survive First Amendment scrutiny only if their content is determined to be secular and they are taught in a secular, objective manner." Baker added that "with respect to the State constitution , the use of public funds to teach

3276-589: The Formula of Concord , "we receive and embrace with our whole heart the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the pure, clear fountain of Israel". Lutherans (and other Protestants) believe apocryphal books are neither inspired nor written by prophets, and that they contain errors and were never included in the "Palestinian Canon" that Jesus and the Apostles are said to have used, and therefore are not

3367-476: The Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like chronological details, precise sequence of events, and numerical allusions, we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate. A more comprehensive position was espoused particularly in the magazine Christianity Today and the book entitled The Battle for

3458-773: The Midwest and West tend to cross municipal boundaries, while school districts in New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions tend to adhere to city, township, and/or county boundaries. As of 1951 school districts were independent governmental units in 26 states, while in 17 states there were mixes of independent school districts and school districts subordinate to other local governments. In nine states there were only school districts subordinate to local governments. In most Southern states, school systems operate either as an arm of county government or at least share coextensive boundaries with

3549-671: The Unorganized Borough of Alaska were not served by school districts but instead served by schools directly operated by the Alaska Department of Education and by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools. The state schools were transferred to the Alaska State-Operated School System (SOS) after the Alaska Legislature created it in 1971; that agency was terminated in 1975, with its schools transferred to

3640-442: The county council and county borough councils becoming the local education authorities . In France, the system of the carte scolaire was dismantled by the beginning of the 2007 school year. More school choice has been given to French students; however, priority is given to those who meet the following criteria: In Germany , schools and teachers are predominately funded by the states of Germany , which also are in control of

3731-404: The creation in six days , and the creation of women from a man's rib ) began increasingly to be seen as legendary rather than as literally true. This led to further questioning of the veracity of biblical texts. The Fuller Theological Seminary formally adopted inerrancy restricted to theological matters (what some authors now call "infallibility"). It explained: Where inerrancy refers to what

National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools - Misplaced Pages Continue

3822-442: The "Bible History I" curriculum dispute a warning from its attorney that the course had a biased title; appeared "to teach the Bible 'as an inerrant document '"; had an apparently non-secular purpose; and taught a "single Protestant perspective." In a January 1998 decision, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited the teaching of the "New Testament" curriculum, which it found likely unconstitutional, and allowed

3913-443: The Bible by Harold Lindsell. Lindsell asserted that losing the doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture was the thread that would unravel the church and conservative Christians rallied behind this idea. Norman Geisler and William Nix (1986) say that scriptural inerrancy is established by a number of observations and processes, which include: Daniel B. Wallace , Professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary , divides

4004-791: The Bible courses in question may be held to constitute 'aid' to a particular religion, i.e., Christianity, if appropriate instruction regarding other religions is not included or if the instruction is not offered in a neutral and objective manner." The syllabus of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools has endorsed by D. James Kennedy , Bill Bright , Joyce Meyer , Jerry Falwell , John Hagee , T.D. Jakes , Dale Evans Rogers , Jane Russell , Pat Boone , Carman Licciardello , and Scott O'Grady . The NCBCPS' proposed curriculum has been critiqued by scholars as "neither academically nor constitutionally sound" and an attempt to promote

4095-563: The Bible in Texas Public Schools , Chancey found that "the number of Texas school districts using the NCBCPS curriculum, 11, is less than a fourth of the 52 claimed by the NCBCPS itself. Adding the very few school districts known to have used the course in the past ... does not significantly change the total number. The NCBCPS markets its course by strongly emphasizing the large number of school districts that supposedly teach it; as of late July 2006, its Web site claimed that its curriculum

4186-661: The Bible's place in Christian doctrine. Barclay said that "errors [in the Bible] may be supposed by the injury of the times to have slipped in", but that because of inspiration from the Holy Spirit, all necessities remained. During the 18th and 19th centuries and in the aftermath of the Enlightenment critique of religion, various episodes of the Bible (for example the Noahide worldwide flood ,

4277-541: The Bible, and lambasted a couple of books of the Protestant Bible as worthless; he also stated that his idea of Christ trumps the letter of the Scripture, especially when the Scripture is cited in order to give the lie to his idea. The Christian humanist and one of the leading scholars of the northern Renaissance , Erasmus (1466–1536), was also unconcerned with minor errors not impacting theology, and at one point, thought that Matthew mistook one word for another. In

4368-459: The Bible, and the more necessary, the more expressly. This later influenced Martin Luther. Scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam , who published the first Latin-Greek New Testament in print, believed not only that translations between languages was always imperfect, that transmission errors had occurred by scribes, and that Scripture was sometimes deliberately obscure, but also that "the sayings of Jesus in

4459-475: The Bible. For example, Jerome believed in the historicity of the book of Jonah. He further argues that while Origen resorted to allegorical interpretation, he held a high view of inerrancy. Biblical inerrancy adherents say that the Early Church Fathers did hold to biblical inerrancy, even if it was not articulated that way. In particular, Shawn Nelson cites Clement of Rome , Papias, Ignatius of Antioch,

4550-551: The Church. The most prominent theologian of the Medieval era was Thomas Aquinas . Aquinas wrote: It is heretical to say that any falsehood whatever is contained either in the Gospels or in any canonical Scripture. Another theologian, Hugh of St. Victor , is known for stressing the importance of the historical and literal senses of the Bible in the face of the strong allegorizing tendency of

4641-527: The Evangelists were not very concerned with observing the time sequences." However, Calvin also said that Scripture is the "certain and unerring rule." Calvin scholars are divided on whether Calvin actually held to inerrancy or not. Some scholars such as Jack B. Rogers and Donald McKim said Calvin "was unconcerned with normal, human inaccuracies in minor matters" in Scripture. Other scholars such as John D. Woodbridge and J.I. Packer said Calvin did adhere to

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4732-546: The Government] about the school"). Each district must contain a minimum of 10,000 inhabitants. The national government attempted to link the local schools with local society and culture and local governments. The school districts were dissolved in 2003 by the "legge finanziaria" (law about the government budget) in an attempt to trim the national budget. In the Republic of Ireland, 16 Education and Training Boards (ETBs) administer

4823-404: The Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets". This creed has been normative for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and all mainline Protestant denominations except for those descended from the non-credal Stone-Campbell movement . As stated by Alister E. McGrath , "An important element in any discussion of the manner in which scripture is inspired, and the significance which

4914-689: The NCBCPS materials in their district: A federal lawsuit on behalf of eight parents in Odessa, Texas , was filed in 2007 against the Ector County school board. The suit was brought by the ACLU of Texas, the People For the American Way Foundation and the law firm of Jenner & Block . The suit alleged that the course promotes certain religious beliefs to the exclusion of others. The Ector County School Board

5005-414: The NCBCPS's revised (2005) curriculum's was "an improvement" but was "still maintains a historicizing perspective that strongly reflects conservative Protestant views". Chancey found that all versions of the curriculum failed the legal test of Lemon v. Kurtzman , 403 U.S. 602 (1971), in which the Supreme Court ruled that public education in religious matters" (1) must have a "secular purpose;" (2) must have

5096-617: The Shepherd of Hermas , the Didache , and the Epistle to Diognetus as examples of those whom held to inerrancy. Clement of Rome said to his readers: You have looked into the holy scriptures, which are true, which were given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or falsified is written in them. The medieval church fathers held to the divine origin of scripture and most believed there could not be any error in scripture as interpreted by

5187-768: The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were slightly different in each. He suggested that the Holy Spirit had not bothered to correct the faulty memories of the evangelists." By the time of the Reformation , there was still no official doctrine of inerrancy. Although the term was not used, some scholars argue the Reformers did believe in the concept of inerrancy. For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch

5278-402: The U.S., most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts. A school district usually operate several elementary , middle , and high schools . The largest urban and suburban districts operate hundreds of schools. While practice varies significantly by state (and in some cases, within a state), most American school districts operate as independent local governmental units under

5369-403: The United States tend to be different from the demographics of the students. This difference is "most pronounced in majority nonwhite jurisdictions and school districts with the largest racial achievement gaps ." There were 130,000 school districts in the country in 1930, with an average student population of 150. From 1942 to 1951 the number of school districts declined from 108,579 to 70,452,

5460-612: The accounts of the Gospels but dismissed them due to their lack of theological importance, writing "let these four [Gospels] agree with each other concerning certain things revealed to them by the Spirit and let them disagree a little concerning other things" ( Commentary on John 10.4). Later, John Chrysostom was also unconcerned with the notion that the scriptures were in congruence with all matters of history unimportant to matters of faith: But if there be anything touching time or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures

5551-460: The age. He wrote: The mystical sense is only gathered from what the letter says, in the first place. I wonder how people have the face to boast themselves teachers of allegory, when they do not know the primary meaning of the letter. "We read the Scriptures," they say, "but we don't read the letter. The letter does not interest us. We teach allegory." How do you read Scripture then, if you don't read

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5642-429: The books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of our salvation." However, descriptions of natural phenomena are not to be taken as inspired and inerrant scientific assertions, but reflect the language and contemporary understanding of the writers. According to Coleman (1975), "[t]here have been long periods in

5733-446: The canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other writings, in reading them, however great

5824-584: The course as contravening the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment . NCBCPS was founded on April 8, 1993, by Elizabeth Ridenhour, a Greensboro, North Carolina paralegal. The organization's annual 990 tax forms , available on Guidestar .org, list Ridenhour as an ordained minister. NCBCPS contends that "the Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, our educational system, and our entire history until

5915-492: The curriculum "uses a discredited urban legend that NASA has evidence that two days are missing in time, thus 'confirming' a biblical passage about the sun standing still [pp. 116–17];" and that more than one-third of the curriculum's 300 pages are reproduced word-for-word from uncredited sources such as Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia. Hundreds of Biblical scholars at universities around the United States have signed on as endorsers of Chancey's findings. The NCBCPS responded with

6006-581: The curriculum that you may have.' ... Why a purportedly problem-free book that had been published only five months earlier needed to be completely replaced was not explained. Robert Marus of the Associated Baptist Press Washington Bureau wrote that the revision of the curriculum "incorporat[ed] many of the changes recommended by an organization [the NCBCPS] characterized as 'anti-religion extremists.'" Writing in 2007, Chancey wrote that

6097-464: The district or the local government to approval their annual budget, but school districts in Virginia have no taxing authority and must depend on another local government (county, city, or town) for funding. A district's governing body, usually called a school board , is typically elected by direct popular vote but may be appointed by other governmental officials. The governing body might also be known as

6188-405: The future cannot be based on the NCBCPS curriculum, and that any course about the Bible taught in the county's public schools had to have an objective and balanced, rather than sectarian, curriculum. One of the plaintiffs, an ordained elder and deacon at a local Presbyterian Church, said that it was inappropriate for one set of religious beliefs to be promoted over others, and that "It seems as though

6279-591: The heart of the Gospel." When Matthew appears to confuse Jeremiah with Zechariah in Matthew 27:9, Luther wrote that "Such points do not bother me particularly." However, other Luther scholars have pointed out that Luther, in other places, said the Scripture cannot contradict itself. Luther said in regards to whether the Bible had errors or not, "the Scriptures cannot err." Other statements made by Luther seem to contradict that, e.g. he stated that he found numerous errors in

6370-450: The history of the church when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy." The first formulations of the doctrine of inerrancy were not established according to the authority of a council, creed, or church, until the post- Reformation period. Origen of Alexandria thought there were minor discrepancies between

6461-566: The last 20 or 30 years." Dr. Mark A. Chancey of Southern Methodist University, a Bible scholar, writes that the organization is a "promotion of a fundamentalist Protestant understanding of the Bible and a revisionist history of the United States as a distinctively (Protestant) Christian nation, the curriculum appears not to pass legal muster." Purportedly, it is based on a course previously taught in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. A 2006 report, Reading, Writing and Religion: Teaching

6552-515: The letter? Subtract the letter and what is left? Philosopher John Wycliff proposed an extreme version of inerrancy, that meant that even parables must have been factually true, in the book Latin : De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae (On the Truthfulness of Holy Scripture, c.1378). Wycliffe's dictum Latin : omnis veritas est ex scriptura, et ut necessarior est expressior says that all truths necessary to faith are found clearly and expressly in

6643-524: The middle of the nineteenth century". People who believe in inerrancy think that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God. The Lutheran Apology of the Augsburg Confession identifies Holy Scripture with the Word of God and calls the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible. Because of this, Lutherans confess in

6734-463: The necessary clarity of scripture ; others do not. The Catholic Church also holds a limited belief in biblical inerrancy for the original writings in the original language including the Deuterocanonicals , particularly in relating to the goal of salvation: that "since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that

6825-585: The newly created Alaska Unorganized Borough School District, which was broken apart into twenty-one school districts the following year. In the 2022 Census of Governments, the United States Census Bureau enumerated the following numbers of school systems in the United States: School districts in the US have reduced the number of their employees by 3.3%, or 270,000 between 2008 and 2012, owing to

6916-504: The overall education policies. On the other hand, school buildings are mostly run and funded by municipal governments on different levels of the municipal system (municipalities proper, districts), depending on the size and specialization of a certain school or the population size of a certain municipality. As with other fields of government, for more specialized schools, special government bodies ("Zweckverband") can be established, where municipalities, and not voters, are members; these are to

7007-441: The power to levy taxes and incur debt, except for the five cities with a population of over 125,000 ( Buffalo , Rochester , Syracuse , Yonkers , and New York City ), where the schools are operated directly by the municipalities. The Hawaii State Department of Education functions as a single statewide school district, unique among states. According to a 2021 study, the demographics of voters who elect local school boards in

7098-525: The same way in all his letters...which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures". Wallace describes the inductive approach by enlisting the Presbyterian theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield : In his Inspiration and Authority of the Bible , Warfield lays out an argument for inerrancy that has been virtually ignored by today's evangelicals. Essentially, he makes

7189-560: The scholarly community." The curriculum promotes a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative ; a Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) that contends that certain passages are messianic prophecies of Jesus; the idea that Christianity supersedes Judaism ; and a belief in the imminency of the Second Coming . Two school boards have been sued for adopting

7280-443: The scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture: It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false.   [...] If you once admit into such

7371-528: The scriptures, namely, that God cannot lie and the scriptures are the Word of God. From these assumptions, inerrantists deduce that the Bible is without error. A second reason offered is that Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament in a way that assumes it is inerrant. For instance, in Galatians 3:16, Paul bases his argument on the fact that the word "seed" in the Genesis reference to "Abraham and his seed"

7462-551: The state's counties. A 2010 study by economist William A. Fischel found that "two-thirds of medium-to-large American cities have boundaries that substantially overlap those of a single school district" with substantial regional and state variations in the degree of overlap, "ranging from nearly perfect congruence in New England , New Jersey, and Virginia, to hardly any in Illinois, Texas, and Florida." Older and more populous municipalities "tend to have boundaries that closely match those of

7553-485: The statement of faith of the Evangelical Theological Society says, "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs". Supportive of this is the idea that God cannot lie. W. J. Mcrea writes: The Bible then makes two basic claims: it asserts unequivocally that God cannot lie and that the Bible is the Word of God. It is primarily from

7644-472: The subject, but scholars who have surveyed the corpus of his work usually affirm that this is case." In his Commentary on Galatians , Jerome also argued that Paul's rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2:11–14 for acting like a Jew around the Jewish faction of the early Church was an insincere "white lie" as Paul himself had done the same thing. In response, Augustine rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that

7735-418: The superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of in truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason However, John D. Hannah argues that Jerome did indeed affirm the historical nature of

7826-410: The teaching of the "Old Testament" curriculum under certain conditions. (The Old Testament class curriculum had been modified at the suggestion of the plaintiffs to remove potentially unconstitutional content.) In February 1998, the school district settled the lawsuit by agreeing to end the teaching of the classes (which had been offered in seven high schools) and to pay the plaintiffs' attorney fees. In

7917-402: The truth of what they have said   [...] [but those things] which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little John D. Woodbridge disputes this claim about Chrysostom writing, "In fact, Chrysostom apparently believed in biblical infallibility extended to every detail. He does not set forth a comprehensive discussion of

8008-406: The various evidences into two approaches: deductive and inductive approaches. The first deductive justification is that the Bible says it is inspired by God (for instance "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness", 2 Timothy 3:16) and because God is perfect, the Bible must also be perfect and, hence, free from error. For instance,

8099-546: The whole Church, or something particular and pertaining to only one person." Bellarmine's views were extremely important in his condemnation of Galileo and in Catholic–Protestant debate, as the Protestant response was to also affirm his heightened understanding of inerrancy. In the 17th century, Quaker apologist Robert Barclay took a step away from Biblical Inerrancy while continuing to affirm Biblical inspiration and

8190-455: Was "vetted, accepted and praised by a wide range of scholars, critics and education officials." School district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary or secondary schools or both in various countries. It is not to be confused with an attendance zone, which is within a school district and is used to assign students to schools in a district and not to determine government authority. In

8281-461: Was represented by Liberty Legal Foundation. In March 2008, the lawsuit was settled after Ector County School Board agreed to cease teaching NCBCPS materials in its schools after that current school year. The course offered, introduced to the county in 2005, had been taught as an elective in two high schools in Odessa. Bible scholars, as well as the ACLU, had critiqued the course as inaccurate and lacking

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