Saturday, October 25, 1997

Chapter and verse on Bibles for kids

By ANN RODGERS-MELNICK

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"The prophet Elisha was walking from one town to another. On the way, he met a gang of mean boys. They teased the prophet because he had no hair. 'Get out of here, baldy!' they shouted.

"Elisha turned and stared at the boys. Then he put a curse on them. Right away two bears ran out of the woods and tore the boys to pieces."

That account from 2 Kings 2:23-24 is unlikely to be found in any recent children's story Bible. It is violent, frightening, reflects poorly on a biblical hero and - perhaps most important to publishers - is guaranteed to confound any parent who has to explain it to a 5-year-old.

But 250 years ago, the story of Elisha and the bears was so popular that "some (children's Bibles) multiplied the numbers of boys which are eaten," said Ruth Bottigheimer, associate professor of comparative literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, an authority on children's Bibles.

Today, most children's Bibles are vigorously edited for violence, sexual content and other behavior that would earn at least a PG-13 rating were it in a movie. But in censoring those troubling images, some scholars wonder if editors have also excised sin, judgment, repentance, forgiveness and redemption.

For instance, today's story Bibles usually depict Noah with a happy scene of giraffes and elephants aboard the ark. No corpses float by as a reminder that everyone else on earth drowned as judgment for their sins. Even the texts often omit that aspect.

But generations ago, many children's Bibles illustrated the story with a woodcut of desperate people clinging to trees. Mothers held their infants above water as the ark set sail without them. The message of judgment was clear.

Children's Bibles are rarely viewed as important works of theology. But what goes into them - and what is left out - can shape a generation's image of God. Since many people never study the Bible seriously as adults, those childhood impressions may define their faith.

"For most people, 95 percent of what they know about the Bible comes from children's Bibles," said Bottigheimer, who analyzed more than 1,000 versions spanning 800 years for her groundbreaking book, "The Bible for Children" (Yale University Press, $35).

"In talks, when I tell a story as it appears in the Bible and then show what has been made of it for children, people are often amazed at what I tell them is in the Bible."

Bottigheimer, whose expertise is literature rather than theology, is not arguing for a return to violent, graphic story Bibles. She was astounded at some of the material deemed fit for the spiritual edification of 18th-century children. She was appalled to find one recent edition that included the account of the gang rape, murder and dismemberment of the Levite's wife in Judges 19.

"I don't think children 8-12 years old should have to deal with that," she said.

"There is an enormous range on the market today. Some are pure kitsch. At the far other end of the spectrum are the ones that include Bible texts that I believe are inappropriate for children. But in the middle are very conscientious efforts to dole out what the Bible stories are trying to communicate."

There are no reliable sales figures for children's Bibles. In 1990, Publishers Weekly estimated sales at $40 million - not counting those produced and distributed by nonprofit Bible societies. The market has grown considerably since then, as publishers responded to a baby boomlet. In fact, the market is so hot that some of the most popular story Bibles have changed publishers amid bidding wars. For that reason, the publishers listed alongside the books in this story are as subject to change as the prices.

"A few years ago, (children's Bibles) started being sold almost by the pound," said Laura Minchew, vice president of editorial and acquisition for Tommy Nelson, the children's division of Bible publishing giant Thomas Nelson.

"They do sell more than most children's books will sell, but they are very expensive to produce. The bulk of the cost is the creation of 400 pages of artwork and color separations."

Tommy Nelson publishes several varieties of both types of books known as "children's Bibles."

What Minchew calls "true children's Bibles" contain the full biblical text, translated at a third- or fourth-grade reading level. Tommy Nelson publishes two of the best known - the International Children's Version and the Contemporary English Version.

But most biblical literature for children takes the form of "story Bibles," highly paraphrased interpretations of isolated texts. Like their "true Bible" counterparts, some include simple study questions to help parents and children discuss what they have read.

Although the best-selling children's Bibles are Christian, a similar children's renaissance has taken place in Jewish publishing, said Brad Perelman, owner of Pinsker's Judaica in Squirrel Hill, Pa.

"Read Me Beraishis" (C.I.S., $12.95) is a story Bible for preschoolers based on the Torah portions read in synagogues. Another series, "The Little Midrash Says" (Benei Yacov, 5 volumes, $15.95 each), is a child's version of the ancient rabbinical commentaries on scripture.

"Parents are looking for materials to help expose their children to this. Because, in many cases, the parents don't have the expertise themselves," Perelman said.

But the stories such books help parents to tell have changed over time.

"Everyone thinks that children's Bibles are new in their generation, or maybe their parents'. They have been saying that for 300 years," Bottigheimer said.

"But the genre is 800 years old. It came into its own with the printing press and has been going strong ever since."

In an age before immunization and antiseptics, children knew death. Adults saw no reason to omit that reality from a book intended to prepare children for life after death. Historical records show that children were petrified by some of the accounts in their Bibles.

Young Soren Kierkegaard's trauma over the story of God telling Abraham to kill his son led to the birth of existentialism. In the 17th century, some little French princes were so terrified by the same story that they hid their Bible from their father for fear it would give him ideas, Bottigheimer said.

It's also evident that politics has affected the editing of story Bibles. For example, few from Victorian England mention the Tower of Babel, a passage from Genesis in which God brings judgment against humanity for trying to build a tower up to heaven. That was unpopular in an empire that was busy building monuments to itself, she said.

The story of Jael and Sisera has an interesting history in Jewish children's Bibles, Bottigheimer said. In the Book of Judges, Jael is an Israelite woman who offers hospitality to an enemy general, then drives a tent peg through his head while he sleeps. Bottigheimer studied the treatment of the story in German Jewish children's Bibles from 1823 through the 1930s.

"Jael's position fluctuated with the position of the Jews in Germany. When they were accepted and integrated, Jael began to disappear. But when the Nazis came to power, she reappeared and was even more heroic than she is in the Bible," Bottigheimer said.

Until about 1750, most children's Bibles were written for the aristocracy. They tended to be faithful to the biblical text in all of its sometimes troubling complexity, Bottigheimer said. Later, when church groups began to distribute Bibles to poor children, the stories became more moralistic and paternalistic.

Strong female characters, such as the Israelite judge Deborah, began to disappear. So did patriarchs' flaws.

The story of David and Bathsheba underwent a series of changes.

In the biblical account from 2 Samuel 11-12, King David impregnates Bathsheba, the wife of one of his army officers. Hoping to hide his adultery, David recalls her husband from the battle front on a pretext, then urges him to spend the night with Bathsheba. When the officer refuses out of loyalty to his troops, David sends him back to the front with sealed orders for his general to dispatch him on a suicide mission.

Children's Bibles before the 18th century told the whole story of adultery and murder. Later, Bibles began to polish David's image. They first omitted the adultery, saying only that David killed Bathsheba's husband so that he could marry her.

"Then slowly, over the decades, they got rid of the murder. And they sort of got rid of Bathsheba, too. They say only that she was Solomon's mother," Bottigheimer said.

Contemporary children's Bibles vary widely in their treatment of this story. "My First Bible in Pictures" (Tyndale House, $9.99), which is aimed at toddlers and young preschoolers, summarizes it opposite a picture of Bathsheba bathing as David spies on her:

"This beautiful woman is Bathsheba. King David did something very wrong. He killed Bathsheba's husband so he could marry her. When he did this, David broke some of God's most important rules. This made God very angry, so he punished David."

But "The Beginners Bible" (Zondervan, $17.99), which is intended for preschool to early grade school, omits the entire story. So does "The Early Reader's Bible" (Gold'n'Honey, $16.99), which is targeted at 5- to 8-year-olds.

Lynn and John Schrott of Mt. Lebanon, Pa., have read the story of David and Bathsheba to their children, ages 6, 5 and 2. They used the version in "The Children's Bible in 365 Stories" (Lion Publishing, $16.95).

"We didn't go into the sexual issues, but we talked about the essence of it, which was that he wanted someone else's wife for his own. This version doesn't skip the issues of sin and consequences. But it doesn't give a lot of detail that children of that age don't need to be burdened with," Lynn Schrott said.

Every night before bedtime, the couple reads Bible stories to their children. Lynn Schrott examined 10 to 15 story Bibles before choosing three to use regularly.

She looked for simple language, lots of attractive pictures and biblical accuracy.

"I want something that holds close to the essence of scripture. There are some I looked at that are more like stories about nice people. That is the kind of thing that we have chosen not to use," she said.

She is fond of "The Beginners Bible," with its colorful, multi-ethnic illustrations. "Read Aloud Bible Stories" (Moody Press, $18.99) is good for holding the attention of her 2-year-old. And "The Children's Bible in 365 Stories" gives a sense of the full sweep of biblical history.

"My husband and I believe firmly that scripture is truth and that the essence of what is important in life can be taught through it - character building, right and wrong, salvation," she said of their commitment to teach these stories to their children.

Alan Jacobs, an associate professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois, gave up trying to find a story Bible that didn't distort scripture. He now reads to his 5-year-old son from an edition of an adult translation, the New International Version, illustrated for children by artist Tomie de Paola.

Jacobs simplifies difficult language as he reads.

While he would not want to inflict the grisly tale of Jael and Sisera on his son, Jacobs believes it would be wrong to present a sanitized David. The story of David and Bathsheba is critical to understanding both the horror of sin and the depth of God's love, he said.

"David was a murderer, for God's sake. He could be such a horrible figure. Yet at the same time, he was said to be a man after God's own heart who really sought after and pursued the Lord."

Jacobs, an evangelical who has written about this issue in the neo-conservative journal First Things, suspects that a century of Bible stories in which the faithful don't sin and God doesn't judge have helped create a situation in which many Protestants no longer consider themselves in need of salvation.

"Protestants know that they are supposed to say, 'I am a sinner, saved by grace.' But then they turn around and say, 'I do bad things, but that doesn't make me a bad person,' " he said.

"We are very contradictory. I think that may be in part because we don't see the full range of sin and evil as depicted in the Bible."

Perhaps no children's Bible standard has undergone a more pronounced shift in interpretation than that of Noah and the flood. Early versions even included the account of Noah passed out, drunk and naked, in his tent.

The frightening 1625 woodcut of drowning people, which illustrated the story for more than a century, was likely inspired by images of disastrous floods that struck western Europe around 1600.

"It is very, very graphic, just filled with terror. You are left with the sense of the tremendous punishment that comes to evil people," Bottigheimer said.

"That image died out in the late 1700s, when the image of God changed from that of a vengeful God to the Enlightenment view of a loving, just God. That is when the emphasis changed from the drowning people to the animals."

A luminously illustrated Bible story book by a Pittsburgh-area writer and artist takes two different approaches to its treatment of judgment and death in the stories of Noah and of Moses. "God Speaks to Us in Water Stories" (Liturgical Press, $17.95) was written by Mary Ann Getty-Sullivan, associate professor of theology at St. Vincent College, and illustrated by Lawrenceville artist Marygrace Dulski Antkowski.

On one hand, it offers a highly euphemistic account of the flood:

"God decided to renew the whole world. So God told the man, Noah, and his wife to build a huge boat, called an Ark. ... They built the Ark the way God instructed them to. When it was finished, they all set out together on a grand adventure."

On the other hand, its account of the crossing of the Red Sea features a riveting picture of drowning Egyptian soldiers. An officer raises his fist in rage as water rushes over him.

Deciding how much of each biblical account was appropriate for children 10 and under was difficult, Getty-Sullivan said.

"We talked a lot about not scaring them to death. We also made an editorial decision that most of the stories should end on an upbeat note, a celebration," she said.

Her grandchildren, who serve as test readers, were disturbed by the Red Sea account. But that became an entry point for discussion.

"They don't think it was fair that the Egyptians were drowned," she said.

Perhaps the most popular children's story Bible on the market today is "The Beginners' Bible." It has inspired more than 200 items of ancillary merchandise from videos to bedclothes. Don and Chris Wise, the Nashville couple who produce "The Beginners' Bible," even dream of a theme park based on the book's colorful and often amusing illustrations.

This Bible is candid about the flood as God's judgment against humanity. But it omits the lines in which God declares his intention to destroy everything that isn't on the ark.

"Many years passed after Adam and Eve left the garden. People began to forget about God. They began to do bad things. There was only one good man. His name was Noah.

"God said, 'I am sorry that I made people. I will start all over again.' God told Noah to build a big boat called an ark."

The Wises are not biblical scholars, although Don Wise, 45, studied Bible at Abilene Christian University. They employ children's authors to write the stories under their supervision. Only later do theologians screen the text for accuracy and denominational bias.

One of the biggest challenges for Bible story writers is the Book of Revelation, the enigmatic and apocalyptic end to the New Testament. Different Christians interpret it in many different ways. Some children's Bibles omit it. Others say that Jesus' friend John had a vision about heaven, but provide no details.

It was important to the Wises that "The Beginners' Bible" end the way the Bible does. They chose to skip all the debated symbols - such as the four horsemen and the whore of Babylon - to focus on the vision of glory.

"Then John saw an open door in heaven. He saw God's throne with a rainbow around it. All day and night creatures with wings kept saying 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.' John saw what was going to happen. He saw the devil and his helpers being thrown into a lake of fire.

"He saw a new Heaven and a new earth. He saw a new city of God. A loud voice said, 'God's people will live with God now. They will not need the sun or moon. God's glory will give them light. There will be no more dying or crying or hurting. God's people will live with Him for ever and ever.' Then Jesus said, 'I am coming soon.' And John said, 'YES, JESUS, COME."

"I don't know of any scholar anywhere who knows how to handle (Revelation). Everyone looks at it in a different way," Don Wise said.

"But at the end of the day you go to the end of the book and it says, 'This is what is waiting for you.' "

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)