Robin Scarlata is founder of Heart of Wisdom. Robin has written A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays and Far Above Rubies Lesson Plans. She=s the editor of the Life in America Unit Study Series, and writes for several magazines, including Home School Digest to which she is a regular contributor. Robin will be speaking on the Biblical Holidays at the Women Restored! Conference Feb. 19-21, 1999 in Branson, MO. You may visit her extensive website at http://www.heartofwisdom.com where she has posted samples of her homeschool program. IF you are a Sunday school teacher or Sabbath School teacher, I would encourage you to look over Biblical Holidays for material for your class whether adult or if you work with children.

This is an excerpt from Robin=s other book What Your Child Needs to Know When which includes evaluation check lists for Grades K-8. This book answers the questions (1) What are the state standards? (2) What are God=s standards? (3) How were children taught in Bible times? (4) How do I prepare my goals for the year? (5) How do I overcome my testing fears? (6) How do I overcome my child=s testing fears? (7) Are the achievement test scores accurate? You may order this book from HaY=Did ($20/$22).

CHAPTER 4

History of Biblical Education: Solid Foundation

Education in Bible Times

Education During the Monarchial Period

The period of conquest and settlement developed leaders who not only led the allied tribes in battle, but served as judges between their people. In time, sufficient cooperation was obtained to make possible the organization of strong intertribal union and, finally, the kingship. The establishment of the kingdom and the beginnings of city and commercial life were accompanied by more radical cultural changes, including the differentiation of religious from other social institutions, the organization of the priesthood, and the rise and development of prophecy.

Elijah, the Tishbite, Amos, the herdsman from Tekoa, and Isaiah, the son of Amoz, were all champions of a simple faith and ancient religious ideals as over against the worldly wise diplomacy and sensuous idolatry of the surrounding nations. Under the monarchy also a new religious symbolism developed. Yahweh was thought of as a king in whose hands actually lay the supreme guidance of the state: AAccordingly the organization of the state included provision for consulting His will and obtaining His direction in all weighty matters@ (W.R. Smith, Revue semitique, 30). Under the teaching of the prophets, the ideal of personal and civic righteousness was moved to the very forefront of Hebrew religious thought, while the prophetic ideal of the future was that of a time when Athe earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea@ (Isaiah 11:9), when all Afrom the least of them unto the greatest of them@ shall know him (Jeremiah 31:34). Concerning the so-called Aschools of the prophets@ which, in the days of Elijah, existed at Bethel, Jericho and Gilgal (2 Kings 2:3,5; 4:38), and probably in other places, it should be noted that these were associations established for the purpose of mutual edification rather than education. The Bible does not use the word Aschools@ to designate these fraternities. Nevertheless, religious training occurred.

Deuteronomic Legislation

Shortly before the Babylonian captivity, King Josiah gave official recognition and sanction to the teachings of the prophets, while the Deuteronomic legislation of the same period strongly emphasized the responsibility of parents for the religious and moral instruction and training of their children. Concerning the words of the law Israel is admonished: AThou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.@ (Deuteronomy 6:7= 11:19). For the benefit of children as well as adults, the law was to be written Aupon the door-posts@ and Agates@ (6:9; 11:20), and Avery plainly@ upon Agreat stones@ set up for this purpose upon the hilltops and beside the altars (Deuteronomy 27:1-8). From the Deuteronomic period forward, religious training to the Jew became the synonym of education, while the word Torah, which originally denoted simply ALaw@ (Exodus 24:12; Leviticus 7:1= 26:46), came to mean Areligious instruction or teaching,@ in which sense it is used in (Deuteronomy 4:44; 5:1), AThis is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel: YHear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and observe to do them@; and in (Proverbs 6:23),

AFor the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; And reproofs of instruction are the way of life.@

Reading and Writing

With the development and reorganization of the ritual, priests and Levites, as the guardians of the law, were the principal instructors of the people, while parents remained in charge of the training of the children. In families of the aristocracy the place of the parents was sometimes taken by tutors, as appears from the case of the infant Solomon, whose training seems to have been entrusted to the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12:25). There is no way of determining to what extent the common people were able to read and write. Our judgment of these rudiments of formal education in the modern sense were not restricted to the higher classes is based upon such passages as (Isaiah 29:11-12), which distinguishes between the man who Ais learned@ (literally, Aknoweth letters@) and the one who is Anot learned,@ and (Isaiah 10:19), referring to the ability of a child Ato write,@ taken together with such facts as that the literary prophets Amos and Micah sprang from the ranks of the common people, and that Athe workman who excavated the tunnel from the Virgin=s Spring to the Pool of Siloam carved in the rock the manner of their work@ (Kennedy in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible). It should be added that the later Jewish tradition reflected in the Talmud, Targum and Midrash, and which represents both public, elementary and college education as highly developed even in patriarchal times, is generally regarded as altogether untrustworthy.

Education in Later Israel (from the Exile to the Birth of Christ)

The national disaster that befell the Hebrew people in the downfall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity was not without its compensating, purifying, and stimulating influence upon the religious and educational development of the nation. Under the pressure of adverse external circumstances, the only source of comfort for the exiled people was in the law and covenant of Yahweh, while the shattering of all hope of immediate national greatness turned the thought and attention of the religious leaders away from the present toward the future. Two types of Messianic expectation characterized the religious development of the exilic period. The first is the priestly, material hope of return and restoration reflected in the prophecies of Ezekiel. The exiled tribes are to return again to Jerusalem; the temple is to be restored, its ritual and worship purified and exalted, the priestly ordinance and service elaborated. The second is the spiritualized and idealized Messianic expectation of the Second Isaiah, based on teachings of the earlier prophets. For the greatest of Hebrew prophets, Yahweh is the only God, and the God of all nations as well as of Israel. For him, Israel is Yahweh=s servant, His instrument for revealing Himself to other nations, who, when they witness the redemption of Yahweh=s suffering Servant, will bow down to Yahweh and acknowledge His rule. AThus the trials of the nation lead to a comprehensive universalism within which the suffering Israel gains as elevated and ennobling explanation@ (Ames, Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 185). In the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, we must seek the inspiration for the later development of Jewish ritual, as well as the basis of those eschatological hopes and expectations which find their fuller expression in the apocalypse of Daniel and the kindred literature of the later centuries. The prophecies of the Isaiahs and the Messianic hope which these kindled in the hearts of the faithful prepared the way for the teachings of Jesus concerning a Divine spiritual Kingdom, based upon the personal, ethical character of the individual and the mutual, spiritual fellowship of believers.

Educational Significance of the Prophets

The educational significance of the prophetic writings of this as of the preceding periods is that the prophets themselves were the real religious leaders and representative men (Kulturtrager) of the nation. In advance of their age they were the heralds of Divine truth; the watchmen on the mountain tops whose clear insight into the future detected the significant elements in the social and religious conditions and tendencies about them, and whose keen intellect and lofty faith grasped the eternal principles which are the basis of all individual and national integrity and worth. These truths and principles they impressed upon the consciousness of their own and succeeding generations, thereby giving to future teachers of their race the essence of their message, and preparing the way for the larger and fuller interpretation of religion and life contained in the teachings of Jesus. The immediate influence of their teaching method, their marvelous simplicity and directness of speech, their dramatic emphasis upon essentials and their intelligent appreciation of social conditions and problems about them.

The Book of the Law

The immediate bond of union, as well as the textbook and program of religious instruction, during the period of the captivity and subsequently, was the Book of the Law, which the exiles carried with them to Babylon. When in 458 B.C. a company of exiles returned to Palestine, they, along with their poorer brethren who had not been carried away, restored the Jewish community at Jerusalem, and under the suzerainty of Persia, bounded a new nationalism, based, even more than had been the earlier monarchy, upon the theocratic conception of Israel=s relation to Yahweh. During this period it was that writings of poets, lawgivers, prophets, and sages were brought together into one sacred collection of scrolls, known later as the Old Testament canon, of which the Toran (the law) was educationally the most significant. The recognized teachers of this period included, in addition to the priests and Levites, the Awise men@ or Asages@ and the Ascribes@ or copherim (literally, Athose learned in Scriptures@).

Wise Men or Sages

Whether or not the sages and scribes of the later post-exilic times are to be regarded as one and the same class, as an increasing number of scholars are inclined to believe, or thought of as distinct classes, the wise men clearly antedate, not only the copherim but in all probability all forms of book learning as well. Suggestions of their existence and function are met with in earliest times both in Israel and among other nations of the East. Isaiah 29:10, 2 Samuel 14: 1-20, and 1 Kings 4:32 may be cited as illustrations of their pre-exilic existence. It is no lesser personage than King Solomon who, both by his contemporaries and later generations as well, was regarded as the greatest representative of this earlier group of teachers who uttered their wisdom in the form of clever, epigrammatic proverbs and shrewd sayings. The climax of Wisdom-teaching belongs, however, to the later post-exilic period. Of the wise men of this later day an excellent description is preserved for us in the Book of Ecclesiastes 39:3-4,8,10.

He seeks out the hidden meaning of proverbs, And is conversant with the subtitles of parables, He serves among great men, And appears before him who rules; He travels through the land of strange nations; For he hath tried good things and evil among men.

He shows forth the instruction which he has been taught, And glories in the law of the covenant of the Lord.

Nations shall declare his wisdom, And the congregation shall tell out his praise.

The Book of Proverbs

Of the instructional experience, wisdom, and learning of these sages, the Book of Proverbs forms the biblical compartment. Aside from the Torah, it is thus the oldest hand-book of education. The wise men conceive of life itself as a discipline. Parents are the natural instructors of their children:

My son, hear the instruction of thy father,

And forsake not the law of thy mother.

---- (Proverbs 1:8).

The substance of such parental teaching is to be the Afear of Yahweh,@ which Ais the beginning of wisdom;@ and fidelity in the performance of his parental obligation has the promise of success:

Train up a child in the way he should go,

And even when he is old he will not depart from it.

----(Proverbs 22:6)

In their training of children, parents are to observe sternness, not hesitating to apply the rod of correction, when needed (compare 23:13,14), yet doing so with discretion, since wise reproof is better than Aa hundred stripes@ (17:10). Following the home training there is provision for further instruction at the hands of professional teachers for all who would really obtain Awisdom@ and who can afford the time and expense of such special training. The teachers are none other than the wise men or sages whose words Aheard in quiet@ (Ecclesiastes 9:17) are Aas goads, and as nails well fastened@ (12:11). Their precepts teach diligence (Proverbs 6;6-11), chastity (7:5), charity (14:21), truthfulness (17:7) and temperance 21:17, 23:20-21,29-35); for the aim of all Wisdom-teaching is none other than ATo give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion: That the wise man may hear, and increase in learning; And that the man of understanding may attain unto sound counsels.@---(Proverbs 1:4-5).

Scribes and Levites

The copherim, or Amen of book learning,@ were editors and interpreters as well as scribes or copyists of ancient and current writings. As a class, they did not become prominent until the wise men, as such, stepped into the background, nor until the exigencies of the situation demanded more teachers and teaching than the ranks of priests and Levites, charged with increasing ritualistic duties, could supply. Ezra was both a priest and a copher (Ezra 7:11; Nehemiah 8:1), concerning whom we read that he Aset his heart to seek the law of Yahweh, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances@ (Ezra 7:10). Likewise the Levites often appear as teachers of the law, and we must think of the development of sopherism (scribism) as a distinct profession as proceeding very gradually. The same is true of the characteristic Jewish religious-educational institution, the synagogue, the origin and development of which fell within this same general period. The pupils of the copherim were the Pharisees (perushim or Aseparatists@) who during the Maccabean period came to be distinguished from the priestly party of Sadducees.

Greek and Roman Influences

The conquest of Persia by Alexander (332 B.C.) marks the rise of Greek influence in Palestine. Alexander himself visited Palestine and perhaps Jerusalem (Josephus, Ant, X, I, 8), befriended the Jews and granted to them the privilege of self government, and the maintenance of their own social and religious customs, both at home and in Alexandria, the new center of Greek learning, in the founding of which many Jews participated. During the succeeding dynasty of the Ptolemies, Greek ideas and Greek culture penetrated to the very heart of Judaism at Jerusalem, and threatened the overthrow of Jewish social and religious institutions. The Maccabean revolt under Antiochus Epiphanes (174-164 B.C.) and the reestablishment of a purified temple ritual during the early part of the Maccabean period (161-63 B.C.) [the reason for the Hanukkah celebration today] were the natural reaction against the attempt of the Seleucidae forcibly to substitute the Greek gymnasium and theater for the Jewish synagogue and temple (Felten, NZ, I, 83 f; compare 1 Macc. 1,3,9,13 and 2 Macc. 4-10).

The end of the Maccabean period found Phariseeism and strict Jewish orthodoxy in the ascendancy [power] with such Hellenic tendencies as had found permanent lodgment in Judaism reflected in the agnosticism of the aristocratic Sadducees. The establishment of Roman authority in Palestine (63 B.C.) introduced a new determining element into the conditions under which Judaism was to attain its final distinguishing characteristics. The genius of the Romans was practical, legalistic, and institutional. As organizers and administrators, they were preeminent. But their religion never inspired to any exalted view of life, and education to them meant always merely a preparation for life=s practical duties. Hence, the influence of Roman authority upon Judaism was favorable to the development of a narrow individualistic Phariseeism, rather than to the fostering of Greek idealism and universalism. With the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans a little more than a century later (70 A.D.) and the cessation of the temple worship, the Sadducees as a class disappeared from Judaism, which has ever since been represented by the Pharisees devoted to the study of the law. Outside of Jerusalem and Palestine, meanwhile, the Jewish communities at Alexandria and elsewhere were much more hospitable to Greek culture and learning, at the same time exerting a reciprocal, modifying influence upon Greek thought. It was, however, through its influence upon early Christian Theology and education that the Hellenistic philosophy of the Alexandrian school left its deeper impress upon the substance and method of later Christian education.

Education in New Testament Times (from the birth of Christ to the end of the 1^st century) Elementary Schools

Jewish education in the time of Christ was of the orthodox traditional type and in the hands of scribes, Pharisees and learned rabbis. The home was still the chief institution for the dispensation of elementary instruction, although synagogues, with attached schools for the young, were to be found in every important Jewish community. Public elementary schools, other than those connected with the synagogues, were of slower growth and do not seem to have been common until some time after Joshua ben Gamala, high priest from 63-65 A.D., ordered that teachers be appointed in every province and city to instruct children having attained the age of six or seven years. In the synagogue schools, the chazzan, or attendant, not infrequently served as schoolmaster.

Subject Matter of Instruction

As in earlier times the Torah, connoting now the sacred Old Testament writings as a whole, though with emphasis still upon the law, furnished the subject matter of instruction. To this were added, in the secondary schools (colleges) of the rabbis, the illustrative and parabolical rabbinical interpretation of the law (the haggadhah) and its application to daily life in the form of concise precept or rule of conduct (the halakhah). Together the haggadhah and halakhah furnish the content of the Talmud (or Talmuds), as the voluminous collections of orthodox Jewish teachings of later centuries came to be known.

Method and Aims

As regards teaching method, the scribes and rabbis of New Testament times did not improve much upon the practice of the copherim and sages of earlier centuries. Memorization, the exact reproduction by the pupil of the master=s teaching, rather than general knowledge or culture, was the main objective. Since the voice of prophecy had become silent and the canon of revealed truth was considered closed, the intellectual mastery and interpretation of this sacred revelation of the past was the only aim that education on its intellectual side could have. On its practical side it sought, as formerly, the inculcation of habits of strict ritualistic observance, obedience to the letter of the law as a condition of association and fellowship with the selected company of true Israelites to which scribes and Pharisees considered themselves to belong. The success with which the teachings of the scribes and rabbis were accompanied is an evidence of their devotion to their work, and more still of the psychological insight manifested by them in utilizing every subtle means and method for securing and holding the attention of their pupils, and making their memories the trained and obedient servants of an educational ideal.

Valuable Results of Jewish Education

Jewish education, achieved four valuable results:

(1) it developed a taste for close, critical study.

(2) it sharpened the wits.

(3) it encouraged a reverence for law and produced desirable social conduct.

(4) it formed a powerful bond of union among the Jewish people.

To these four points of excellence enumerated by Davidson must be added a fifth which, briefly stated, is this:

Jewish education by its consistent teaching of lofty monotheism, and its emphasis, sometimes incidental and sometimes outstanding, upon righteousness and holiness of life as a condition of participation in a future Messianic kingdom, prepared the way for the Christian view of God and the world, set forth in its original distinctness of outline and incomparable simplicity in the teachings of Jesus.

The Preeminence of Jesus as a Teacher

Jesus was more than a teacher; but He was a teacher first. To His contemporaries he appeared as a Jewish rabbi of exceptional influence and popularity. He used the teaching methods of the rabbis; gathered about Him, as did they, a group of chosen disciples (learners) whom He trained and taught more explicitly with a view to perpetuating through them His own influence and work. His followers called Him Rabbi and Master, and the scribes and Pharisees conceded His popularity and power. He taught, as did the rabbis of His time, in the temple courts, in the synagogue, in private, and on the public highway as the exigencies of the case demanded. His textbook, so far as He used any, was the same as theirs; His form of speech (parable and connected discourse), manner of life, and methods of instruction were theirs. Yet into His message and method He put a new note of authority that challenged attention and inspired confidence.

Breaking with the traditions of the past, He substituted for devotion to the letter of the law an interest in men, with boundless sympathy for their misfortune, abiding faith in their worth and high destiny, and earnest solicitude for their regeneration and perfection. To day that Jesus was the world=s greatest and foremost example as a teacher is to state a fact borne out by every inquiry, test, and comparison that modern educational science can apply to the work and influence of its great creative geniuses of the past. Where His contemporaries and even His own followers say only Aas in a glass, darkly,@ He saw clearly; and His view of God and the world, of human life and human destiny, has come down through the ages as a Divine revelation vouchsafed the world in Him. Viewed from the intellectual side, it was the life philosophy of Jesus that made His teachings imperishable; esthetically it was the compassionate tenderness and solicitude of His message that drew the multitudes to Him; judged from the standpoint of will, it was the example of His life, its purpose, its purity, its helpfulness, that caused men to follow Him; and tested by its immediate and lasting social influence, it was the doctrine, the Ideal and example of the human brotherliness and Divine sonship, hat made Jesus the pattern of the great teachers of mankind in every age and generation. With a keen, penetrating insight into the ultimate meaning of life, He reached out, as it were, over the conflicting opinions of men and the mingling social and cultural currents of His time backward to the fundamental truths uttered by the ancient prophets of His race and forward to the ultimate goal of the race. Then with simple directness of speech He addressed Himself to the consciences and wills of men, setting before them the ideal of the higher life, and with infinite patience sought to lift them to the plane of fellowship with Himself in thought and action.

Educational Work of the Early Disciples

It remained for the disciples of Jesus to perpetuate His teaching ministry and to organize the new forces making for human betterment. In this work, which was distinclty religious-educational in character, some found a field of labor among their own Jewish kinsmen, and others, like Paul, among the needy Gentiles (Galatians 1:16; 2:7). As regards a division of labor in the apostolic church, we read of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11). The apostles were the itinerant leaders and missionaries of the entire church. Their work was largely that of teaching, Paul insisting on calling himself a teacher as well as an apostle (2 Timothy 1:11; 1 Corinthians 4:17). The prophets were men with a special message like that of Agabus (Acts 21:10-11). The evangelists were itinerant preachers, as was Philippians (8:40), while the pastors, also called bishops, had permanent charge of individual churches.

The professional teachers included both laymen and those ordained by the laying on of hands. Their work was regarded with highest honor in the church and community. In contrast with the itinerant church officers, apostles and evangelists, they, like the pastors, resided permanently in local communities. With this class the author of the Epistle of James identifies himself, and there can be little doubt that the epistle which he wrote reflects both the content and form of the instruction which these earliest Christian teachers gave to their pupils. Before the close of the first century the religious educational work of the church had been organized into a more systematic form, out of which there developed gradually the catechumenate of the early post-apostolic period. In the Didache, or Teachings of the Apostles, there has been reserved for us a textbook of religious instruction from this earlier period (Kent, GTJC). Necessarily, the entire missionary and evangelistic work of the apostolic church was educational in character, and throughout this earliest period of church history we must think of the work of apostles, evangelists, and pastors, as well as that of professional teachers, as including a certain amount of systematic religious instruction.