Rabbi David H. Wice

This edition has a warm bookplate saying that it belongs to me and was a gift from the "Easter Bunny." I remember that Easter, and I was actually thrilled to get this hefty book that made a resonant thump when I flicked it. It was the biggest book I had ever owned, and I was determined to read it. I remember laying on my brass daybed for hours on boring Sunday afternoons, those days before Nintendo moved in and there were only 36 channels on tv from which to choose. I interrupted my bouts of reading with deep inhalations of the new-book smell, nose pressed to the crease in the center of the book, imagining how it would feel to have read the entire bible. I almost made it....looking back through the stories, I can clearly remember which ones, about 3/4ths of the way in, that I skipped, thinking that they weren't really important stories anyway. The following Christmas, I asked Aunt Nancy for a new, teenaged version of the bible "The Precious Moments Bible" with cute pastel pictures in it, with real-life numbers on thin, amazingly opaque papers. Details of my first moments caressing that bible are just as vivid. Anyway, I think the replacement is why I never fully reached my ambitious goal of reading this in its entirety, but I thought that the stories were fascinating, especially because of the gaudy illustrations.

Now that it has piqued my son's curiosity and has been taken off the neglected bookshelf, I realize with a bit of shame that I never questioned the stories at all, never read with a critical eye, until I was 13. My son, on the other hand, critiqued it right away, pointing out plot holes and interpreted the stories messages with ease, even though he's only 9. Perhaps the fact that his goal was not to get through it, but to enjoy it, that led to such different experiences. Or maybe it's because it was presented to me as a history book instead of a book of myths.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book when I was young, and see it as the world's cheesiest book ever, now. But I'd probably recommend it to Christian children.… (altro)