The Family Illustrated Bible {Review}


The Family Illustrated Bible
From Masters Books a division of New Leaf Publishing Group
Price: $24.99 {Available on Amazon right now for $16.49}
Take a look inside!

The Family Illustrated Bible is a story bible full of interesting facts, colorful photos, illustrations of people and places, detailed maps, photos of lands of the Bible, and more. If you are familiar with DK's Children's Bible, then this will be familiar - it is the same book.

As with any story bible, you will not get all of the Word - just a paraphrase. I don't like paraphrased versions of Scripture because they leave out vital information.  One common mistake is in the story of Noah - it says he took two of every animal onto the ark, when in fact Noah took two of every unclean animal onto the ark (1 male and 1 female), and 14 of each clean animal (7 males and 7 females). They entered the ark two by two, in pairs.
Then YHVH (the LORD) said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. “You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female; also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth. Genesis 7:1-3. (emphasis mine)
This is important because Noah had knowledge of clean and unclean animals before the laws of clean and unclean animals were written down by Moses.

There were a few other common discrepancies that I didn't like, but I found plenty of reasons to like this book. The photos and illustrations bring Ancient and Biblical History to life.




Note: the book does go into detail about foreign gods and worship ~ both graphically and informationally. 



It also includes a little about church history - notably that Constantine changed the Sabbath to Sunday and declared Christ's birthday to be on the birthday of the sun (December 25th), because he worshiped the Sun god, Sol Invictus. (See photo below).



This is fundamental church history but this is the first time I have seen it in a mainstream Christian book.

I could go on about things I both liked and disliked. I think it will serve a purpose to bring history alive and also to spark conversation. . . I think I'll keep it around to find out.


Disclosure: I received this book for free as a part of the New Leaf Publishing Group Book review program in exchange for an honest review. 

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