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3.0 out of 5 stars
Who Is Jesus? (Childrens Bible Basics),
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This review is from: Who Is Jesus? (Childrens Bible Basics) (Hardcover)
ISBN 0802478565 - Printed in Singapore. I have had a terrible time coming up with a decision on this book and hope that I've got it nailed down now. There are things in this book that will offend some people, things that will offend others. I've tried to use those examples to explain why I have a hard time really liking, or really hating, this book. Moody Press, the publisher, is A Ministry of Moody Bible Institute, if that is helpful to know.I usually recap the story and then give my opinion, but in this case, I'm going to do both at the same time: A young girl tells the story of her friend, Jesus. She says that Jesus helped "God, His Father, and God the Spirit" to make the world (this is debatable, even if you believe the bible is true. Some Christian religions do not go in for the Trinity and others wouldn't agree that Jesus existed before his physical birth). They made Adam and Eve and Jesus walked and talked with them every day (an interesting, albeit odd, detail), then follows it up by saying that, once they sinned, God could no longer walk with them. Even for believers in the Trinity, this may confuse young readers and it wasn't necessary to flip back and forth. Thousands of years later (or millions, if scientific facts matter), as the world filled with sinners, God sent prophets to guide them. Finally, God sent Jesus, whose mother was Mary and whose adoptive father was Joseph. When they went to Bethlehem, they had to stay in a cave (which will come as a surprise to the stable-story-believers). Growing up, Jesus visited God's house, the Temple (which is sly of the author, who fails to mention that Jesus was a Jew. That detail always throws off the Christian story and is often totally neglected, so at least Nystrom acknowledges the Jewish Temple as God's house). Like other men in his part of the world, Jesus had light brown skin and dark hair (again, a nice recognition of reality - Jesus was not likely to be white, being born in the Middle East), and probably wore a turban (which ought to make some folks' heads spin). Jesus teaches the people around him to love God and gains many followers before "bad men" decided to kill him by nailing him to a cross (sadly, the choice to not mention who the bad men were is a common, poor, choice in Christianity, which often allows ignorant people the chance to claim it was Jews, when it was not, not historically, not even in the bible). Jesus could have come down from the cross, but chose to die to take away the sins of the people. The girl explains that, when she sins, she knows that Jesus has already taken her punishment (which has always struck me as a bad thing to teach someone because there's little stick to the be-good carrot). Although the friends and followers of Jesus were sad about his death, that didn't last because Jesus came back alive (which is where the story goes off the rails for me, as a rational person). He taught them how to understand the Bible (which wasn't written yet, according to historical records, AND was written by the very followers he was teaching, but whatever), spent time with them and was lifted to heaven. Some day, Jesus will come back and "all of us who love Jesus will be caught up to meet Him in the air. Even the people who have died will come back to life" (interpreted by some to be "the Rapture", a point of view not shared by all Christians and bound to confuse the snot out of children who don't understand death yet and won't, with this in their heads). It's not a terrible book. Author Carolyn Nystrom and illustrator Eira Reeves are a good team. Nystrom's text, with biblical references, might be a little tough for very young readers, but religion is one of those things that Mom and Dad should take some time to explain, anyway. The images by Reeves are nice watercolors that are a little cartoon-y, with good detail that will entertain kids. The problem I see with the book, as a whole, is that there are statements that one group or another would be offended by, making the audience seem a bit small. - AnnaLovesBooks
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