Where the Bible is concerned, you underrate a certain kind of American. Have you ever read a few volumes of Charles M.Schulz's Peanuts? If you read it through - which is much the best way of reading it, as Mort Walker realized long ago - you will find after a while that Biblical quotations, imitations and situations are constant, and they tend to outnumber non-biblical ones by a significant factor. The only figure quoted as extensively as the Bible is Beethoven, and there is an evident underlying irony in Schulz's use of him, however admiring, that is never there when he quotes or comments on Biblical passages. What is more, it is done with a kind of quiet convinction, an underlying assumption that everyone will just understand what he is talking about - that normal people read the Bible as they read their newspaper, perhaps more often. Schulz claimed to have read the Bible cover to cover at least four times, and, on the evidence of his work, I believe him.