I've never been too taken with children's bibles. One problem was that they aren't really Bibles (this doesn't bother me so much these days.) They seem to have dry archaic illustrations, or laborious text, or more sexism than I can easily swallow, or insert too much moralizing, or whatever.
I thought I had a hit with Read Aloud Bible Stories by Ella K. Lindvall. Colorful illustrations, lyric text...but I choked when the creation story talked about the creation of a daddy and a beautiful mommy. It didn't talk about a beautiful daddy and beautiful mommy, the daddy wasn't cited as handsome, the mommy wasn't intelligent and wise.....but she was beautiful! I tried skipping over those pages....but kids kind of notice that (and it wasn't the right time for a discussion on sexism.)
Maybe I haven't looked far enough for good children's bibles. I've just generated a list of over 100 collections of bible stories from the public library. I didn't expect to find so many! I probably won't go for the Precious Moments Storybook Bible. But, I do have lots to check out: a board book, a comic book, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, The Taize Picture Bible, The Bible-The Really Interesting Parts....
I'll let you know what I find. Meanwhile I'm curious about your experiences. Do you remember a children's bible from when you were a kid? Have you found some that you & kids you know either like or dislike?
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Hard questions to think about without having kids. I suppose I would err towards the Candide style of management by letting my kids try to explore those matters on their own without the imposition of a preprogrammed and dumbed down storyline. But the whole understanding of god in my opinion is a life long journey and has to start somewhere. I remember back to CCD classes and how mundane and boring and lifeless it all was and wonder if that structure is beneficial at all to children. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I think you will find most bibles no matter from what source will incorporate a patriarchal structure as that is the basis of the Hebrew bible. And if your kids read the bible that viewpoint will be reinforced. Male leader deity be praised. You can't really whitewash that as that is what is written so if you want to teach your children that the bible is important you are also in some ways stating that that view of gender roles is acceptable. Or so it seems to me. Just some thoughts and ramblings. Hope you are well. Keep writing. I will keep reading! Peace be with you
It has been decades since I have given any thought to children's Bibles. My recollection of those I came in contact with when younger mirror what you have commented on thus far. Most seem to me to be written/paraphrased/edited from a white western conservative fundamentalist perspective. (That's probably where the money is.)
Have you given thought to writing your own? You have a degree in Ministries, and are theologically well educated beyond that degree. You know, love, and have kids. You know how to communicate to them in language they can relate to and understand.
But, I digress. Rather than using the public library, I would email the seminary libraries of of a variety of theological schools...Luther-Northwestern, for one, perhaps Seabury Western or Garret in Evanston, perhaps Fuller in Pasadena. Their librarians may give you some leads.
Frankly, though, I think you may have inadvertantly stumbled upon a need in our biblio corpus. Perhaps a consortium of parents known and trusted by you could be persuaded to write these biblical exerpts, and they could be produced for publication/distribution at regular intervals.
So much for my perspective. Never count on me to say anything in a sentence that I can get away with in a good paragraph.
I wish I could be of more help.
WCS-M
In reply...thanks for your thoughts. The issue of sexism is important to me. If I were to make it the only consideration and deal with it as I would like to I would take a road that was less uphill, where the issue wasn't such a frequent challenge. But many factors bring me to the place I am. So my approach at this time is to work within the context of this faith and tradition in which the Bible is important, and as much as I reasonably can, to use approaches and resources that are gender neutral or gender balanced.
Of course much debate can be found about when gender specific language should or should not be used. And much debate can be found about the extent to which sexism is or is not inherent to Christianity. For the most part, I don't want to mire my blog in those debates at this time. If those of you who know me want to talk about those things in person, I'd be interested.
I've made a little progress in my search for children's Bibles or Bible stories - but will wait to report further until I've had time to do some more work on it.
I'm not up to a formal writing of a children't Bible. But when any of us retell a Bible story in our own words, especially if we've planned it out, we're doing something related to that. Interesting juxtaposition w/ the 1st comment which got me thinking about the possibility of using the actual biblical text (well, one of the translations of it that is) more with kids. There are things to be said for both approaches I think. Part of it comes down to practical considerations about accessiblity to young kids. It also raises interesting questions about the value of the text itself vs the value of the story in a more general sense, and to what extent the two are necessarily connected or not.
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