As the Texas Board of Education continues its new “educational bible” initiative, the Dallas Observer reports that the board is using $4.5 million in public funds to teach an old-fashioned version of the bible, which was created during the Great Depression.
The new “covid Bible,” the paper reports, “uses the Bible as a resource for teachers in the classroom, and students as students.
It does not teach or support specific topics.
It simply presents a collection of Biblical verses, the bible’s original text, and other information.”
The newspaper notes that the new book is the product of a collaboration between the Texas Department of Education and the Dallas Public Schools, which will be publishing the new bible as soon as the new year.
“This book has been created by the Texas Public Schools and the state to promote an ‘educational Bible,’ not to be a substitute for a textbook,” said Edna B. Borenstein, Texas Public School Superintendent, in a statement.
The board also recently released a video promoting the book, titled “The Bible: A Book for Every Parent.”
The video features a number of different Christian groups and individuals, including the Dallas Independent School District, the Texas School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the American Foundation for Krishna Consciousness, and the Institute of Christian Education at Dallas Trinity College.
The video also features a speech from a former Dallas teacher who was recently fired for teaching a Christian version of her school’s history lesson.
“The Texas Board was created to make sure we do not teach the New Testament in a classroom, but instead to promote the Bible’s story and the Bible in a home setting,” the narrator says.
“We are using this opportunity to tell our kids that the Bible is the way of the Lord and the way to the kingdom.”
The Texas Board’s curriculum is currently being taught at some high schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, including in North Dallas, which includes the largest concentration of evangelical Christian schools in Texas.
The school district has also used the board to push for new state funding for the creation of its “education bible” in order to fund a new curriculum and to improve the state’s “school readiness” scores.
A new “school bible” is already in use in New Orleans, where it was first introduced last year.
In November, the school district also used public funds and taxpayer-funded vouchers to fund its own curriculum, a curriculum that includes “a biblical worldview, Christian ethics, and biblical history.”