Digging Up the Past: Genesis 3-11 (Discover 4 Yourself Inductive Bible Studies for Kids)

Rating:
Summary: Good inductive study/Poor science
Review: Ms. Arthur and Ms. Ardnt are to be highly commended for their efforts to teach children how to study the Bible inductively. They don't insult the child's intelligence with an abundance of shallow statements about God and "just be nice" theology. Rather, they attempt to take the child by the hand and actually teach him or her how to interpret the Bible using some foundational tools that will allow the child to discover the meaning of the text on his or her own. They even do a careful job tacking the thorny theological issue of the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately, this book also contains typical young-earth "science" -- teaching children that there were dinosaurs on Noah's ark, that the entire fossil record was laid down in a global flood a few thousand years ago, and other equally bogus "scientific" (and biblical) claims. It's sad that this approach is so commonly used in children's books written by conservative Christians. Although it's taught under the banner of "critical thinking" what it really does is set the child up for a crisis of faith later on when he or she learns about the MOUNTAIN of physical and biblical evidence standing against this paradigm.

And the REALLY sad part is that it's completely unnecessary to impose such a paradigm on the biblical text itself. If the authors would consistenly apply the tools they are teaching the children, they would realize that the text does not demand a view that the earth was created in six 24-hour days a few thousand years ago. A literal, grammatical and historical hermeneutic allows for an day-age approach or a framework apporach -- both of which allow both of God's revelations to man (the words of the Bible AND the record of nature) to inform one another on the issue of how and when God created.

The theme of this book is discovery -- teaching children how to discover the Word of God for themselves. Unfortunately, the authors do not thoroughly delve into either the biblical text or the record of nature. Instead they treath both revelations in a shallow manner and end up misleading children away from the methods of true discovery.