“What do you mean they’re teaching Lord of the Flies still? They were doing that when my Dad went to school!”

If you have ever wondered what kids read in schools these days and assumed it’s stuff you studied yourself back in the day, than you are probably right.

There’s a real art to the selection of texts for study and it’s one that is subject to an awful lot of considerations.

So this post is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series where worthy but unfashionable or obscure texts are offered for consideration.

Scripture Obscura is going to be my attempt at giving oxygen to texts that I think are worthy of study but are (presumably) overlooked. Here’s how I see it working.

• The posts are designed with teachers, students and parents (so basically you) in mind.
• Everything is on the table. ‘Scriptum’ is Latin for ‘text’ so plays, films, novels, and even (gulp) poetry are possibilities.
• The text and creator will be ‘introduced’ in the post but not analysed in great detail. The idea is that others will read/view the text and study it themselves. I’m mostly interested in introducing the factors that brought the texts into being and hopefully you’ll be curious enough to pick it up from there.
• I’m going to post these in a podcast style because I’m obviously at a lose end with nothing better to do with my time … and I want to get better at this format.
• These podcasts will be short. Like my attention span.
• The subject matter will be open to the public. If you, gentle reader, have suggestions for the posts I will be happy to use these. I will be even happier if you go some way towards writing the script for it too!

This first podcast is a little rough around the edges but it’s out there at least. If it sounds like I’ve recorded myself in a barn while suffering from a cold it’s because I pretty much did. I expect I will get better at it as we go.

Hope you enjoy it.

One final thing. The music in the background is “The Irving Rockman affair” by The Bachelors from Prague. If I could find a way to resurrect that band’s popularity to modern society I’d do it too.