The Bible according to teenagers!

During their 40-year wandering in the desert wilderness, God helped the Hebrews by providing them with ‘a map and a compass’, a candidate in last year’s SEC religion exam wrote.

Other imaginative answers included God “turning stones into bread”, “raining loaves upon them’, feeding them “cotton” (instead of manna); and in an apparent confusion between the New and Old Testament another claimed that God fed all the Hebrews from “three fishes and two loaves of bread.”

These quirky answers are quoted in an examiners’ report on the May 2010 religion SEC exam.

A particular student described the ‘golden calf’ which the Hebrews adored instead of God as  “a special meal requested by God.”

And in another gastronomic revelation, to prepare the Easter meal requested by God from Moses, Hebrews “had to break all the lamb’s bones”, or to “take a white sheep and hang it to the door”.

Not surprisingly the Genesis story on Adam and Eve also elicited some imaginative interpretations.

A candidate claimed that Adam should have turned down Eve’s offer to eat the apple, because “the tree was poisonous”, while another evoked the image of a wrathful God who “became wild with anger when he got to know that Adam and Eve ate the apple.”

In an apparent confusion of religions, a candidate claimed that the Temple was the place ‘where Jews adored the prophet Mohammed, read the scriptures and worshipped God’ while another referred to the Koran as the “Korean.”

Some students also expressed interesting views on Christ’s love for sinners. One example of love according to a candidate was Jesus throwing out the devils from “the angry man with stones in hand to throw at Christ”, which he sent into the herd of pigs.

At the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, a student claimed that Jesus “turned his blood into wine”.

Another candidate described the Pentecost as “Jesus appearing over the heads of the disciples in the form of tongues”.

According to the report many mix the concept of an afterlife with ‘reincarnation’ – ‘a life after death in a new body, reconciliation.’

The report also notes that “quite a few candidates” were not aware that this is an exam in Religious Knowledge and that they must show that they have understood the teaching of the Church.

It also states that the “exam paper is not a forum where the candidate may air his views against the Catholic faith.”

When asked about the Church teaching about euthanasia the report says that “too many strange or unexpected answers” were expressed and this indicates “a real lack of knowledge about a subject which is delicate but of great consequence”.

Many candidates also explained the concepts of self esteem and dignity from a totally secular perspective. Many also spoke of holiness as an easy way to heaven, living a normal life, asking God’s forgiveness after sinning without any commitment of kind, the report says.

Despite these shortcomings only 16% failed the more difficult Paper A option of the exam while 23% got an A or a B.  But among those sitting for Paper B, 23% failed while 40% were given a low 6 or 7 grade.