It is funny now! And okay, maybe some cultures do have it more, but all cultures can understand it--would you say that's accurate?

My father agrees with you about the Bible, and back when he was teaching American literature (he's retired now; has been for quite some time), he was aware that the generations of college kids he was teaching were less and less familiar with the references that would have been completely familiar to, for example, Nathaniel Hawthorne's audience, or Mark Twain's, so he took to explaining them, e.g., "So when Hawthorne says 'serpent' here, he's referencing the serpent that tempted Eve, the first-created woman, according to the Bible story in Genesis." That way he could feel the class had the background knowledge to get what was going on.