The Kingdom Files (book series) - Who was Esther? and Who was David? by Matt Koceich

These books are intended to teach kids about various biblical characters.  I read the ones on David and Esther.  The books are made up of various "files" for kids to investigate the particular characters in any of the given books. Starting out with a "Fact file", which gives a few facts about the person you are looking into, including a tiny timeline with about three events selected.  Next comes the "Action File", giving a summary of the person's life, along with various illustrations.  Lastly comes the "Power File" which gives you some ideas of what you can learn from the life of the person you are studying, and also provides you with memory verses from various books of the Bible.

I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed with these books. First of all, they seem more like books for kids younger than 8, not 8-12. The biographies skip too much, it doesn't mention that Jonathan's father tried to kill Jonathan when Jonathan defended David, it doesn't mention that David's wives were taken when the city he was living in was raided, it just said that they recovered everything that was plundered.  There is no mention of David's sin with Bathsheba, or his having her husband killed, it just says later on that David made mistakes in his life.  When David's son Absalom is chasing David, it has a "Clue" on the side: "David was being chased by someone close to him.  He was being hunted even though he hadn't done anything wrong." But, don't we know from the Bible that this was a part of the consequence of his sin with Bathsheba (See 2 Samuel 12:11)? That was certainly something that was very wrong.

Also, the "Clues" scattered throughout their book don't make much sense to me.  The introduction to the books says that the "Clue Boxes will offer applications to help you keep track of your thoughts as you make your way through the files." Okay, fine.  But look at one of the "Clues" "Crags of the Wild Goats is located in the Judean wilderness. It's made up of rocky cliffs.  The ibex mountain goat is found in this area".  What kind of application is that?   How does that help me keep track of my thoughts? It helps me keep track of the story, but doesn't keep me an application to anything.  They should have just been called "Fact Boxes" or "Investigating Further".  Their purpose as "Clues" just didn't make sense.

Speaking of facts, in the "Fact File" there is information that is not so factual.  For instance in the fact file in the Kingdom File on David, after talking about the temple and that it was mainly used for sacrifices to God, it says, "Once a year, the high priest would go into the holy of holies, pray to God and ask God to forgive the people of Israel's sins."  And so God just forgave their sins on the merit of the prayers of the high priest? I'm not sure that the High Priest prayed at all. The High Priest had to go in to the holy of holies with the blood of an animal, he couldn't just pray for the sins of the people to be forgiven, there had to be a sacrifice of an animal on their behalf.  "but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the people"(Heb 9:7)ASV

In the "Kingdom File" on Esther, "On the surface, Esther's story is very similar to our spiritual life stories because she was taken from a faraway place into the presence of a king, just as Jesus saves us from our sins and brings us into His Father's house."  Ummm… Esther probably wasn't the most excited when she was taken away from her home to be one of a bunch of other candidates to have a chance to be the King's replacement Queen…failing that, she would definitely become one of his concubines.  She would probably rather have stayed with Mordecai, where her life surroundings were more likely to be moral. This part of Esther's story is hardly an accurate comparison to Jesus saving us from our sins.

And now for the illustrations…the cover images are pretty neat, ones I would have liked examining as a kid, but the ones on the inside would have disappointed me.  Especially the ones in the David book, where, unlike on the cover, he looks very blond; so much so that when they depict him as a young man and give him a beard he actually looks old.  And at least one of the pictures is biblically inaccurate.  The book tells about where Saul goes into a cave and, unknown to him, David's men are there hiding and David cuts off the corner of Saul's robe.  It doesn't tell WHY Saul went into the cave…but I can live with that.  My problem is that this part is illustrated and has Saul wrapped up in his robe sleeping in the cave and David cutting off the corner of his robe.  That's false.  Not that I think that part should be illustrated in the first place, but don't illustrate it wrong!

All in all, these books just weren't accurate enough for me to like them.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.

These books may be found at Amazon.com 

Who Was David?

Who Was Esther?

My Rating: 1 out of 5 Stars
*

The Murderous History of Bible Translations - by Harry Freedman

I often sense a tendency in myself to take having an English translation of the Old and New Testaments for granted.  But, as Harry Freedman demonstrates in his book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict, and the Quest for Meaning, I shouldn't take it for granted and should appreciate all the more the effort and sacrifice that went in to getting the written Word of God into a book that ordinary people could read. 

In this book Freedman does an excellent job at writing, he grasps and keeps one's attention, and it flows nicely.  He takes you through history, beginning with the translation of the Old Testament and then including the New in the focus as well.   Translating God's Word into the common vernacular of any people was often very tumultuous and controversial, and we see this down the passage of time that the author examines, and through many different translators who often took many risks to make the translation. 

Though I really like the book, I feel the need to mention that there were several things that I did not like, for instance, statements like:  ""…even to this day, radical fundamentalism hasn't gone away.  And religious extremism relies upon a revealed, unmediated, literal reading of Scripture, one which rejects the prism of human interpretation."(pg.139)  Perhaps I am misunderstanding what the author is saying, but I think that' religious extremism' is that which focuses upon the "prism of human interpretation" without interpreting the Word of God with a literal/grammatical-historical hermeneutic. To be extreme is to not take the Bible for what it says, to not interpret it literally.  Interpreting the Bible "literally" in my view is to interpret it correctly in context: taking allegory as allegory, historical narrative as narrative, prophecy as prophecy, …etc. But again, perhaps I  misunderstand what he meant by that statement.

This book seemed more or less secular look at the history of Bible translation, but Freedman did a very good job at giving the perspective of the translators (whether Christian or Jewish) whose lives he recounts.  All in all, despite statements that I disagreed with, I really liked the history given, it is very, very interesting and an informative read.  Knowing this history should drive Christians more to reading this Holy Book that people in the past translated and read in secret, suffered and died for, many considered the Words it contains as much more valuable than their lives or comfort in this earth.  Shouldn't we do the same and do God the honor of reading it?

Many thanks to the folks at Bloomsbury Press for sending me a free advance review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

This book is slated for release on November 15, 2016

You may preorder it at Amazon and on the Bloomsbury website  (and probably from other sites as well)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars *****