<p>Since the advent of Gutenberg’s printing press (AD 1455) to the present day, the Bible has been translated into nearly 2,500 languages and reproduced six billion times. Its influence on western culture can hardly be denied. And the Bible has never been more accessible in a variety of formats than it is today. This is why the statistics on biblical literacy in America are startling. The Pew Research organization found that atheists, agnostics, and Jews scored five percent higher on religious knowledge surveys than Christians. Additionally, out of twelve Bible knowledge questions, Mormons scored 7.9 while Christians only scored 6.2. The Barna Group also found that biblical literacy is declining among Millennials (ages eighteen to twenty-nine). For example, only thirty-seven percent of Millennials could name the first five books of the Bible and only eight percent could name the first five books of the New Testament. </p><p> In response to the widespread problem of biblical illiteracy in the local church, this project designed and deployed a biblical literacy, small group training course for disciples at Eastpoint Church. The purpose of this project was to encourage believers to learn the contents of the Scriptures in the context of community. Prior to the biblical literacy course, participants took a biblical literacy test that gauged their knowledge and understanding of biblical themes and content. After the ten-week course, the participants took the same test and filled out a qualitative questionnaire that measured their experience in the course and their personal learning habits. The result of deploying the curriculum was that disciples showed a marked increase in their knowledge and understanding of the Bible’s contents and themes. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3619355 |
| Date | 13 June 2014 |
| Creators | Kennedy, Jeff Scott |
| Publisher | Biola University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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