It should come as no surprise that outsiders would be more knowledgable about a religion than members themselves. Outsiders need to make an effort to learn about a religion, whereas many members (in a number of cases, most members, sometimes even the vast majority of members) grew up in the religion and thus their only knowledge comes from having "put in their pew time" (as Mike Doonesbury had put it to his daughter). As a result, not only did many-or-most members put in much effort to learn (eg, actually reading the Bible), but most of those members end up with partially-formed and childish understanding of their religion -- childish, because those understandings were formed in childhood and then never got revisited in order mature as the individual matured.
Another thing working against members may be what a forum member had described some time back. Baptists had a long tradition of reading and studying the Bible and would raise their children to do so as well, such that upon reaching adulthood they would have considerable knowledge about the Bible. But then when, starting with the "Jesus Freak" movement, new members, adult members, started pouring in, the old educational approach no longer worked. Those new members had to be brought up to speed, fast. So actually reading the Bible was replaced by being spoon-fed doctrine and verses lifted out of context. The new members learned what they were supposed to believe and a few verses that purportedly supported those beliefs, but they knew nothing of the context of those verses. And except for those who would go on to actually study the Bible, most new members would remain largely ignorant of their new religion -- one question that raises is whether Bible study sessions are also conducted through spoon-feeding.
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