'GOOD BOOK' TAUGHT AS WORK OF LITERATURE.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

CANYON COUNTRY - After screening a slang-laced, student re-enactment of Adam and Eve's biblical expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Canyon High English teacher Harry Welch asked the members of his class to open their Holy Bible and read the Tower of Babel passages.

``I want you to look at it carefully,'' Welch said to his ``Bible as Literature'' class Wednesday. ``We're going to find some literary symmetry.''

While the Moorpark Unified School District canceled a high school Bible history class about two weeks ago - it may have violated rules on the separation of church and state in public education - the William S. Hart Union High School District has offered classes studying the Scriptures as literature for more than 30 years to little controversy.

For educators, it's a matter of approach. State guidelines allow public schools to teach about religion, but they cannot advocate a particular religion, said Tom Adams, curriculum framework director at the California Department of Education.

``It would have to be clear that it isn't religious or intended to promote a religion,'' he said. ``The state constitution and the Education Code are pretty clear about those.''

Moorpark district officials have said the scrubbed high school Bible history class - proposed by a math teacher who is also an ordained minister - also failed to undergo public review and lacked school board approval.

In the Hart district, Bible as Literature is offered as an English elective to seniors at Canyon and Valencia high schools. Hart curriculum director Vicki Engbrecht said the course uses the Scriptures only for literary analysis, in the same way a student might examine Greek mythology or the legends of King Arthur.

``All our English classes have to address state standards,'' she said. ``The course description breaks it down as the vehicle in this class to discuss the different aspects of literature. What the course does is to solely examine the Bible on its literary merits.''

Welch, also Canyon High's longtime football coach, agreed.

``If there is a fault in teaching this class, it would be taking an angle or proselytizing a particular faith,'' he said. ``What (my students') beliefs are outside the walls of the classroom is a very important part of their lives. But inside the wall of the classroom, this is a literature we will study, smile at, enjoy and sometimes tremble with.''

The goals for the semester-long class include an understanding of the book's ``far-reaching influence in the fields of art, music, literature,'' to develop ``tolerance toward varying views'' and ``demonstrate an understanding of the basic literary techniques used in the Bible,'' according to the course description.

``It arguably is one of the greatest works of literature,'' said Welch, who has taught the class for roughly three decades. ``People of all faiths study it throughout the world. The book has had an impact on culture for 1,500 years. It has molded and changed history and literature.''

This class includes close readings of the Bible, with an eye toward storytelling, and comparisons with other ancient texts such as the Babylonian epic ``Gilgamesh'' and the laws of Hammurabi, from which idea of ``an eye for an eye'' first emerged. During Passover, Welch and his students actually prepare their own Seder celebration to illustrate the deliverance of ancient Jews from Egyptian slavery.

It's a constant challenge for Welch to push his 72 students to think critically about the Bible beyond what they may have already learned in Sunday school.

``It's my belief that, in education, we push students to their limits,'' he said. ``And when they reach their limits, we have to extend that.''

Andrea Walcott, 16, said the class had opened her eyes to other interpretations of the Bible.

``What I hear at church is very religious,'' she said. ``But in this class, we get to look at it in different ways.''

``We get to look at (the Bible) through different angles,'' Chachi Spann, 17, said. ``It's not about faith. It teaches you about allegories and parables and double entendre.''

Before class ended Wednesday, Welch compared the structure of the Tower of Babel tale to a five-act Shakespearean play, with a beginning, climax and an end.

``At the climax, something happens, and you can't go back any more,'' he said, alluding to the point when the ancients embarked on the ill-fated construction project.

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in SAC edition only; ran in Valley, SAC and Simi editions only) Harry Welch, an English teacher at Canyon High School, holds up a depiction of the Tower of Babel during his Bible as Literature class.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) Corissa Menga, a student in Bible as Literature at Canyon High School, studies passages during the class.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer