I’ve been reading to my five-year-old the Children’s Everyday Bible published by Dorling Kindersley. In general, I consider DK’s books for children, especially picture books, to be of almost universal high quality and appeal. (For an example, see Children Just Like Me, a collection of photo essays of children from all over the world and living in all kinds of conditions).
I chose the Children’s Everyday Bible because the text was engaging and also because it is arranged in a daily-reading format: there is one page and a short reading, arranged in the order of the Scriptural books, for each day of the year. I thought that taking a year to get through the whole Bible was a good pace, and that it would sort of automatically remove the "what should we read about next?" problem. Indeed, we found that this works well. Once a week we read a week’s worth of pages, and that’s our Bible story for "schoolwork" (note: one day a week we work on memorization from the catechism, and a third day we read a saint’s life; so Bible reading is one-third of the religion curriculum, as well as a fair part of our informal reading.
I expect a certain amount of simplification and textual interpretation in a children’s Bible, of course. And I knew when I bought it that it would be a Protestant Bible—I have yet to find a Catholic children’s Bible that I really love—and I checked a few key places for problems. I forgot to check this one, slated for August 4:
When John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he knew immediately who he was. "This man is the Son of God," John told his disciples. Two of them followed Jesus and spent the day with him. That evening, one of the men, Andrew, went to find his brother. "Simon, we have found the Savior!" cried Andrew.
So far, so good. Then:
When Jesus saw Simon, he told him, "From now on, your name will be Peter, which means ‘rock.’ "
So far, so good. Then immediately afterward, Jesus finishes with the famous line:
"One day, you will be as strong and solid as a rock."
That’s it. Huh? When I hit this, reading it aloud to my son, I caught myself in time. This line, of course, does not appear in John 1, on which this vignette is based, nor anywhere else. I suppose the reteller, Deborah Chancellor, felt that the children needed some explanation of why Simon was renamed "Rock." But if so, why not take it from Matthew 16:18?
"…you are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (NIV)
It would be one thing if the explanation of Peter’s name was simply left out. In a children’s Bible, you can’t include absolutely everything. But including an explanation that is, in fact, not Biblical smacks a little bit of revisionism.
Because, of course, Catholics base a lot of our beliefs on the information Jesus imparts to Peter in this episode (as described in Matthew 16; John 1 just sort of leaves it at "your name is Rock" and doesn’t explain why). Jesus goes on:
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (KJV)
I’m picking Protestant translations here, incidentally, to make my point.
Jesus says in Scripture, essentially, I call you Rock, and on this rock I will build my church. We look at history, and we trace a particular line of bishops all the way back to Peter: first there was Peter, and then Linus, and then Cletus (no slack-jawed yokel, he), and then Clement, and then Evaristus, and so on. Tradition? Legend? No, plain old history, like you’ll find in any random encyclopedia. (Compare the table at that link to another historical one, like rulers of England and Great Britain, or for something a little more contemporary to the current topic, rulers of the Roman Empire.)
Given that it’s a matter of record that Linus succeeded Peter, and Cletus succeeded Linus, and Clement succeeded Cletus, and so on, down to where Benedict XVI succeeded John Paul II, it’s pretty important that Scripture tells us that on Peter Jesus will build—in fact did build—his Church.
I do own a children’s Catholic Bible, the New Catholic Picture Bible, [UPDATE: Try this link instead, to the "library-binding" edition] and it says in the equivalent passage,
"And I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Maybe it is a mistake to look for engaging, childlike text. Maybe I should be looking for mature text quoted directly from the real Bible (in the above case, the Douay-Rheims translation).
UPDATE: The first link to the New Catholic Picture Bible seemed to have some errors. I got it from the ISBN off the back of the book. The link to the library-bound edition is the same book, although a different binding, of course. We own one copy of each edition. One’s in the "Mass Bag" and one’s in the school stuff.
UPDATE AGAIN: This, the Children’s Illustrated Bible, is the sort of thing I’d like to find in a Catholic version.
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