Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Joan of Arc, Noah's wife

I'm working on the slides for public opinion and touching on political ignorance.

I ran across the following fun fact:

Many high school seniors believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, while a majority of Americans cannot name one of the four Gospels. Jay Leno asked his Tonight Show audience one night to name one of Jesus’ twelve apostles; they came up empty. One in ten Americans believes that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and only one-third knows that Jesus (not Billy Graham) preached the Sermon on the Mount. One of the most frequently quoted passages from the Bible—“God helps those who help themselves”—actually appears nowhere in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

Many allusions in debates over government during the formative years of the republic - and every since - are couched in biblical language. Tough to follow these is basic facts contained in the document are unknown.