Education does not mean telling people what they should believe. Education means conveying, as free of contradictions as possible, the knowledge they need to understand the world.

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Texas is taking a new path: In public schools, the Bible is set to play a greater role in the curriculum. Supporters do not see this as religious instruction, yet rather as the teaching of one of the most influential books in world history. The Bible has shaped literature, art, music, law, and politics for centuries and therefore belongs to general education.

Yet this is precisely where an obvious question arises: If the Bible may be taught in public schools as a work of cultural history, why not the Holy Quran as well?

The Quran is also among the most significant texts in human history. More than 1.9 billion people worldwide regard it as sacred Revelation. Its influence extends far beyond the religious sphere: it has shaped languages, science, architecture, philosophy, and the history of entire regions of the world. Anyone seeking to understand the history of the Middle East, North Africa, or large parts of Asia can hardly avoid the Quran. Moreover, it is a book that is still capable today of producing a small Miracle. Anyone who attentively reads Surah Al-Anbiya, The Prophets, 21:30, inevitably asks: How is it that a Book over a thousand years old so accurately describes the Big Bang theory? The Quran is, to put it mildly, a Book that overshadows the Bible.

A curriculum that treats both the Bible and the Holy Quran in an objective and historical manner could be a way to counter the accusation of state preference for a single religion. Instead of granting Christianity a special status, the state would demonstrate that it teaches religious texts as part of humanity’s cultural heritage.

Many critics of the Texan initiative invoke the separation of church and state. A comparative religious approach would partially address this objection. If different world religions are treated on equal footing, the issue is no longer proselytization, yet education.

However, such a proposal would likely spark new debates. While many Democrats might welcome a more balanced comparative approach, numerous conservative Republicans would likely argue that the United States has historically been shaped more by Christianity than by Islam, and that the Bible therefore deserves a special status.

The Bible, the Quran, and the Question of “Correction” – Does the Bible Deserve Its Special Status?

In debates about religion in the public sphere, it is often assumed that the differences between the Bible and the Quran are merely matters of taste or tradition. In reality, however, the issue concerns very fundamental questions about how Truth itself is understood.

A central starting point is the Bible itself. Both the Old and New Testaments do not form a completely uniform, harmonious doctrinal text. Rather, they contain different linguistic layers, traditions, theological emphases—and above all, contradictions. The Old Testament clearly emphasizes the one God of Israel, Jehovah, while the New Testament attributes a unique, elevated status to Jesus. Particularly in Paul and Thomas, one finds statements that later Christianity interpreted as the basis for the idea of Jesus’ divine nature. The overwhelming majority of Christian traditions—especially the Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant churches—read these texts in a trinitarian, polytheistic manner. This interpretation has undeniably become the dominant Christian reading, precisely because of the contradictions within the Bible.

Against this background, the Christian understanding of God is not simply a mechanical continuation of the Old Testament, yet a theological systematization of these various statements. Christianity is thus, historically speaking, an interpretative development of the biblical material, in contrast to Judaism and the Old Testament.

Islam, in turn, understands the Quran within a different framework. It is not a new or competing Revelation, yet the final and corrective confirmation of earlier scriptures. The Holy Quran claims to restore the original Message of the Abrahamic tradition and to cleanse it of later distortions. It is free from contradictions—contradictions that, on a smaller scale, have affected even the Torah, which, absurdly, alleges that the Almighty rested.

In this overall picture, the Hebrew Bible—that is, the Old and New Testaments—does not appear as a closed, final form of divine Revelation, yet as part of a history of Revelation that finds its completion in the Holy Quran.

Whether one shares this Islamic perspective is a matter of religious or philosophical position. What is decisive, however, is this: the Quran is free of contradictions in content, is capable of empirical confirmation—as seen above—and follows its own internal logic, positioning itself as a corrective within the same monotheistic tradition. It rejects trinitarianism.

Both Judaism and Christianity historically draw on the same Old Testament textual traditions, yet they develop different theological systems from them—systems as different as the Old and New Testaments themselves. These differences arise not only from the texts, yet from the respective interpretative traditions, which emphasize, connect, or systematically interpret certain contradictory statements. This is precisely the core of the debate that Republicans tend simply to drown out.

Despite the evidence, a fundamental question remains for many: Should public schools address religious scriptures at all? If so, there is much to be said for not placing only a single religion at the center. Anyone who wishes to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the world should introduce them to the most important religious and cultural texts in human history—objectively, critically, and without missionary intent. Education does not mean telling people what they should believe. Education means conveying, as free of contradictions as possible, the knowledge they need to understand the world.

By Okay Altinisik | 30-6-2026, 1:26:32