The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible by Janice Emmerson

This story Bible is broken into two larger sections of the Old and New Testaments and then into respective categories. The Old Testament sections are The Creation, The Patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, The Rise of Israel, The Time of the Prophets, and Psalms and Proverbs. Included in the New Testament section are The Gospels, The Early Church, The Epistles, and Prophecy. Within each of these sections, there are several stories. This story Bible includes far more stories than I’ve seen in others which is a plus in my opinion. However, the stories are also far more abbreviated. Each story is more like a short summary than a detailed description. It’s worth noting that this story Bible contains the cool feature of maps: one of the Old Testament world and one of the Holy Land in the time of Jesus.

Ages: 4-9

The Complete Illustrated Children’s Bible does a few things really well. It’s written in language that’s easy for kids to understand. The illustrations are descriptive and will help kids better understand the story. Stories are abbreviated for younger readers to keep them engaged. I didn’t see any apparent theological leanings or commentary inserted by the author. She did her best to simply tell the story straight from the Bible without putting in her own thoughts.

It’s worth noting that the illustrations are descriptive, which can be helpful with comprehension, but some of them might feel gruesome to younger or more sensitive readers. For example, you can see Cain is clearly about to hit Abel with fatal force. Abraham is depicted holding a knife to Isaac on the altar. The illustrations are true to the story, but there’s a difference between hearing Cain killed Abel and seeing it depicted when you’re four.

The language was intended to be easy to understand and appropriate for even preschool-aged children, but I think the attempt at this fell a little short. For example, it says Eve was created to be Adam’s “special friend.” Eve was Adam’s wife. That almost makes it more confusing to say it that way. Sometimes I think we can dumb language down too far and insult children’s intelligence unintentionally.

The author’s attempt at brevity and ease of comprehension created some theological issues–albeit likely accidental ones. The text says, “Abraham was a good man, who trusted in God.” I’m sure the author likely meant that he did good things because God worked through him as he trusted in God. But it could send the wrong message that Abraham was inherently good. I loved the inclusion of some Psalms, but only parts of Psalms were included sometimes. Psalm 63 leaves out the last two stanzas which I think takes away from the overall meaning of it. Job was included as well, which I think is vital so kids can develop a theology of suffering. However, when God speaks at the end and clears up confusion between Job and his friends, only God’s rebuke of Job is included. God’s rebuke of Job’s friends is not and it makes it seem as if Job’s friends were correct in their interpretation of Job’s suffering. This could impact a child’s view of God’s character and how He relates to His people in their pain.

It seems the overall issue arose at the attempt to be both comprehensive–including more books and stories–and brief at the same time. This led to abbreviating many stories to include all of them, but leaving out important things that ultimately changed the meaning of them. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad storybook Bible, but there are enough better ones out there that I’ll be skipping this one for my own kids. Clarity is important to understanding who God is.

This review was written by Good Book Mom contributor, Mary S. To learn more about Mary S., click HERE.

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