Monday, March 03, 2014

The Bible- Appropriate for children?

We have the comic-book-style Old Testament, and my kids love it.  There's some rocking good stories in there with strong narratives and bad ass prophets.  You've got Elijah's showdown with the 400-odd priests of Baal, calling down fire from heaven hot enough to burn up the sacrifice (even after he had his assistants pour buckets of water on it), the wood, and the stones of the altar.  You've got Ezekiel who ATE HIS SCROLLS to internalize the messages contained thereon.  And, after Daniel gets out of the lion's den alive, the king throws the evil priests (and their wives and children, which is a bummer) into the den to get eaten.  PAYBACK, JERKS!

With my kids getting a little older, we're starting to outgrow the comic books, and so when The Friend Magazine published a little chart to read the Old Testament with your kids, I thought this could be a good bridge to reading straight out of the good book itself.

However, we're running into a few issues.

Warning: When reading with children, do not stray from the selected passages.  Last night, we read the story of Abraham and Lot and his unfortunate wife.


I glossed over what exactly was going on in Sodom and the incident with Lot and the visitors.  (It's all in Genesis 19 if you need a refresher).  Lillian was way bummed out for Lot's wife, and I tried to explain the idea of "looking back" in that she was looking back with her heart, and wanted to go hang out with the naughty people, not just that she was interested in watching the fire storm.

While this was a little hard for her to swallow, plus the fact that the gentle, loving God that she has come to know was RAINING FIRE on people and burning them up, she was into the story, so I kept reading.

Lot flees with his daughters and hides out in a cave.  The daughters think that they are the only people left on the earth and are stressed about how they are going to find husbands so they decide to..... uh... nothing.  Time for bed!

No wonder there's the euphemism of knowing someone in the biblical sense, everyone is having sex all over the place.  And if they're not having sex, they're being destroyed by fire, or sold into slavery, or buying wives.

I'm not entirely sure that this book is appropriate for children. We might just stick with the comic book.

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