Educational Functions of Biblical Narratives: Insights from an Empirical Research

The process of building personal identity can be interpreted in a narrative sense: each person is the author and protagonist of their own story. Educators use multiple narratives, some of which have a suggestive power and will become “structuring” for the narrative construction of the self. Here, we present some results from a research study that explored the knowledge and meaning a sample of young people attributed to biblical stories and some “fantasy” stories, focusing on biblical texts. The analysis of the data reveals a limited knowledge of the Bible, which is often vague and superficial, stemming from readings that took place during childhood. Three possible types of relationships between the process of constructing personal identity and biblical texts emerge. There are people who link reading the Bible to their personal faith life and consider these texts a source of inspiration for their life choices. There are people who had a superficial encounter with the Bible in childhood, and their relationship with the biblical texts is not particularly significant or structuring. Finally, there are people who have had significant engagement with biblical texts but, at some point in life, distanced themselves from faith, still considering those texts as a point of reference.