The Real Story -- After the vote by the Hamilton County Commission against a property tax increase, much of which would have provided additional funding to local education, the August 19, 2004, edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press carried a full page advertisement. In this ad, the outstanding community leaders (board and staff) of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, Inc. expressed their concerns under the title "It's Supposed to be about the Children."

In early August, a new film by the director of Wet Hot American Summer was released. According to The Christian Post, unlike Charlton Heston's The Ten Commandments, this film uses each of the commandments as vignettes to create a foundation for an often inappropriate caricature.

According to LAtimes.com, "It looks like a scene out of Sunday school - students in a southern Orange County classroom huddle over Bibles as teacher Ryan Cox guides them in analyzing the relationship between God and Satan."

"If God is supposedly omnipotent, if he exists and is all-powerful, why let the serpent in the Garden of Eden?" Cox asks. "Why let him hurt Job? Why let him tempt Jesus?"

But this lesson, at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, is one of the growing number of Bible classes being taught in public schools across the nation.

How are your Bible math skills? Test your memory.

1. (Churches in Revelation) multiplied by (stars that bowed down to Joseph in a dream)
2. (Number of years Israel wandered in the wilderness) plus (number of years that Israel spent in Babylonian exile)
3. (Day of creation on which God made whales) multiplied by (number of waterpots at marriage in Cana)
4. (Number of cows in Pharaoh's dream) divided by (seals in Revelation)
5. (Number of people 'sealed' in Revelation) divided by (length of New Jerusalem in furlongs / stadia)
6. (Number killed by tower of Siloam falling on them) plus (number of lepers Jesus met on the way to Galilee)
7. (Number of loaves at the feeding of 4000) multiplied by (number of loaves at the feeding of 5000)
8. (Age at which Adam died) minus (age when Jesus started his ministry)
9. (Number who carried the paralytic man and lowered him through a roof) plus (baskets of left overs after the feeding of 5000)
10. (Number of the beast / of man) divided by (number of spies hidden by Rahab)

We've all seen pictures of ancient Rome ruins or even seen them first hand. Rome Reborn 1.0 is the continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects and artists since the Renaissance who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images. "Rome Reborn 1.0" is a true 3D model that runs in real time.

Users can navigate through the model with complete freedom, moving up, down, left and right at will. They can enter important public buildings such as the Roman Senate House, the Colosseum, or the Temple of Venus and Rome, the ancient city's largest place of worship.

In South Carolina, according to Charleston.net, the Dorchester District 2 school board approved an elective course called History and Literature of the Old Testament and New Testament.

The course will be taught as an English elective and is open to sophomores, juniors and seniors at Fort Dorchester High School.

But it is not without debate. Along with comments found at the bottom of the linked article, you may be interested in one blogger's perspective.

When one visualizes the environment group Greenpeace with boats and ships, it is usually in the context of activism against whaling or other fishing endeavors.

But, according to its website, Greenpeace has built a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, the biblical mountain, to warn of impending climate disaster.

The New England Primer, first published in 1690, was an educational textbook which was published in colonial and the early days of United States history and the first textbook to be printed in the 13 colonies. The 90-page pamphlet contained mostly religious maxims, alphabetical assistants, acronyms and moral lessons. Many of its selections were drawn from the King James Version of the Bible