Bible stories for cultural literacy

May 30, 2024 5:02 AM

I am looking for a kid’s book of bible stories that would be the equivalent to a book of classic Greek mythology. Do you have any recommendations for something to help support cultural literacy in this regard? Would also be interested in the same for other major religions.
posted by chuke to Education (4 answers total)

This seems to be the current reprint of the Children's Illustrated Bible that I had as a kid alongside similar books for other world religions and myths. I liked the pictures and for the child of vaguely spiritual agnostic parents who's gone to church services approximately three times, it's given me a solid base of Christian and Jewish cultural references.
posted by wakannai at 5:28 AM on May 30

Children’s Stories of the Bible from the Old and New Testaments was the one I had growing up. (Archive.org link; Barbara Taylor Bradford, with review and advice from faith leaders.) This gave me an accessible entry to the stories (and they read like myth), while being light on dogma. YMMV, of course.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:34 AM on May 30

A humanist friend used this for her children: Christian Mythology for Kids: A Secular Family's Guide to Modern Christianity. She was mildly positive about it. I grew up in an atheist household with The Jehovah's Witness Book of Bible Studies, much loved by my sister and me and useful to me in my later Eng Lit studies.
posted by paduasoy at 8:49 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]

I had Pearl S. Buck's The Story Bible as a kid and enjoyed reading it like fiction. I haven't read it in a million years and don't remember if it's actually religious religious, but I don't think it was.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:42 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]