Children Bible Story Books Part 2

I have always felt called into a publishing ministry. My spiritual vocation is to be a literature evangelist.

I am so glad that G-d has intersected this spiritual calling with my temporal calling. I am a Librarian and Information Specialist by training, and through this profession, I have learnt so much about publishing and the reading interests of people.

When I became a parent in 2008, a new world was open to me. Now I had to be responsible for my child's spiritual and cognitive development. Reading materials were crucial, but these materials would have to be accurate. I found all the available material both Christian and non-Christian inadequate. For non-Christian mateirals, references are made to fairies or witches. For Christian materials, pagan festivals or unscriptural practices or beliefs were present.

However, what has impressed me more than anything else is my experiences in a variety of Fellowships. None cater for my daughter's age range. The closest Fellowship that meet the needs of infants and toddlers is the Andrews Memorial Seventh-Day Adventist Church. So as much as I am more doctrinally diverse and liberal than the denomination, it is the one that has the best structured children programme for infants and toddlers. The details of its programme I will not go into.

However, the important issue here is their quarterly and the GraceLink Curriculum. The Beginner's quarterly for me is riddled with cultural issues of irrelevance to my child. Things that she does not see in her daily life experiences, as well as images that are not culturally relevant. Further, there are some issues of human viewpoints coming out. For instance, in the Beginner's 3rd Quarter for 2009, the celebration of birthdays is raised. Clearly the Bible has only one two indication of the celebration of birthdays - Herod and Jesus. With the Jewish calendar, I am not even sure that it was flexible to celebrate birthdays (See my blog post: Reasoning on JESUS's birthday).



This experience is now inspiring me to contemplate the writing of Christian reading material for toddlers and infants that will communicate the stories of the Bible in a form that is culturally relevant, that when chidlren interact with animals on a daily basis, they can remember G-d's word.

Pray for this ministry and initiative.

Works Cited:
Beginner Bible Study Guide: Third Quarter Vol. 33 No. 3 ,2009.

Children Bible Story Books Part 1

Being a parent has made me even more appreciative of the reading needs of toddlers. However, I am most concerned about Christian toddlers (I am not sure about the Jewish situation). Many of the Bible story books that exist for toddlers contain the errors of modern day Christianity.

To make matters worse, the children Bible story books contain images that do not culturally represent my West Indian culture. In the West Indies, acceptance of Christianity has been made difficult by the historical legacy of slavery, colonisation and exploitation. This has lead to the development of Rastafarianism which repaints the Messiah as a black man. Also it has lead to the development Revival or Poco Church, where African retention and spiritualism is retained and intermixed with Christian elements. (In a future post, I will discuss the Rastafarianism and Revival Cults with the relevant citations. Today, I just want to focus on the Children Bible Story concept.)

I hate to see Bible story books that paint cultural images - like a white Jesus or the incorporation of Easter and Christmas concepts. We know that Jesus was a Semite and would look like a modern day Palestinian. Further, Easter and Christmas are originally pagan concepts not even spoken about in the Bible. They were not festivals given to Jews and were not commanded by Scripture. They came after, based on theological interpretation and acculturation.

Based on these issues, I feel spiritually desirous of creating my own Bible story books that will avoid these errors. Instead, I want children to see images of animals that are a part of the stories in the Bible. This is culturally neutral as all children from all cultures can relate to animals.

It is hoped that children through reading these stories can learn about the animals and the sounds they make, as well as learn Biblical facts for future analysis and interpretation.

Thus when a child is of age, they may ask questions for further information about the story behind the animal, and the adult can explain or lead them to the Bible passage.

Also, I believe that G-d used the same strategy. He first cause Adam to name the animals, before he introduced Eve to him. That way Adam had to relate to animals first, before he could relate to Eve.

That way Adam by seeing the animals in pairs learnt about his own social needs and need for companionship, and that animals could not fill the void. He learnt so much from watching the animals, that when Eve came, he was so excited and said "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh" -Translation - Alas, someone that I can relate to.