Illustrated Family Bible: Understanding the Greatest Story Ever Told (DK Bibles and Bible Guides)

This book provides an excellent presentation because it smoothes out the Bible and provides a coherent, easily comprehensible, linear framework of understanding. The most helpful aspect of this arrangement of material is that in the section covering the Gospel books, it presents selected chapters in chronological order (Sunday School materials might have set a precedent here). It's like an ideally arranged compendium of Sunday School booklets, with helpful background sections introducing major parts of the Bible. It uses a classic style of graphics, combined with various types of art as DK Publishing excels in. Everyone who is studying Christianity should read this first, to set up a basic framework of understanding. This book portrays clearly and efficiently a point of reference to answer "What is the orthodox conventional reading of the Bible?" This book reveals the anti-Semitism that builds up in the book of Acts; the Jews who supposedly persecuted the Christians are always shown in a two-dimensional, cardboard way, with mean expressions on their faces. This book clearly portrays the conventional Christian reading of this material. It's a good, clear portrayal of the standard orthodox way of reading the Bible. There is an appendix of people's names in the back. The book lacks, most of all, a set of genealogy diagrams. It has a fairly good map in front, but could use more maps or at least a guide to the little maps that are dispersed throughout. It has a great index. After reading the book cover-to-cover, I highlighted the 50% of the index entries that are least clear to me, to do a 2nd, review pass. I played a Bible trivia game and was inspired to read this book because I lacked too many of the standard Bible stories. I can tell that I'll do much better in that Bible trivia game, and will do even better after reviewing more of the unfamiliar entries I found in this book's index. I felt that getting through this book required the most perseverance when wading through the section about the kings who did or didn't worship God, and the section about Jesus' parables -- these are covered well, but these weren't the sections of the Bible I was most interested in. My favorite sections of the book -- the subjects I was already most curious about -- were the stories between Eden and the later kings, and the stories between the Crucifixion and Revelation. The book has a nice treatment of Revelation and explains its political context. In the middle of the book, the parables and wisdom literature is covered. I treasure this book and am glad to have read the Bible in this clear and understandable form. Next, I may read the Bible Handbook by DK Publishing (John Bowker). I'm reading Bowker's 2002 book from DK Publishing, God: A Brief History. I've also read the pocket-size Bible handbook from DK Publishing, which isn't very enlightening -- it's a tiny, somewhat random subset of the Illustrated Family Bible. I also recommend the books by DK Publishing, which I have read, covering Christianity, Myth, World Religions, and Philosophy.

I just received this Bible today. It is absolutely beautiful! I am very happy that I got it. The layout is gorgeous. The pictures are divine.

I think this bible is for anyone, child to older adult. This inspired word from God is written in an informative way and all the true biblical people come to life. It is beautifully illustrated plus there is informative sidebars that explain the period of time with photos, art, maps, and graphs. This book, which is another lovely DK book, covers from Creation to Revelation. Then an index of who's who is in the back. I love reading it and learning. A good addition to any family (or singles) library.

My husband and I bought this for my dad who has dementia. He had a birthday and was turning 91. He has been a Christian since has was a young man and still, even with dementia, is very strong in his faith. However, reading the Bible now would be a little bit more difficult for him. So my husband and I decided to get him this. It is not the complete Bible, but has several of the well-known Bible stories in the correct order starting in Genesis with the creation of the world, and stays in the correct order through the Bible till Revelation. It has BEAUTIFUL drawings of the stories as well as archeology pictures of things that have been discovered, history about the region, and in some places, picture of what that area looks like now. It is an amazing Bible. I am so glad we bought this for my dad. He LOVES it.

I've owned many Bibles over the years, with different translations. This is my favorite version because it encapsulates the Biblical message with beautiful illustrations, and excellent reference materials in the margins. It's not a replacement for exegetes reading the full text, but it's really good way for anyone approaching the Bible for the first time, or those of us who want more background details. This makes a great gift for teens or for special occasions. I highly recommend it.

BEAUTIFUL AND WELL ILLUSTRATED. WE LOVE IT.

This is NOT for young children. This would be a five star review, but the illustrator showed some of the stories a little too well. Each story has several illustrations on the page. The more violent stories unfortunately leave nothing much to the imagination. (Example: Instead of just seeing Goliath downed from David’s sling shot, we also see David cutting off Goliath’s head.) I’m sure it’s challenging to know how to illustrate for these particular stories, but I wish a little more discretion had been used. We need the history and the context of these stories, not to feel like we are reliving the trauma of the actual events. I also find it interesting that when I reached the page with the crucifixion, it was surprisingly minimal compared to the violent Old Testament illustrations. I really enjoy all the educational pages in this, but the amount of violent illustrations means I can’t have it where my children can easily access it. Anyone with young children knows their natural tendency to want to act out what they see! An older child may have an easier time seeing these images. I’m including pictures so that you can make the best decision for your own family. It really is a wonderful resource. However, this flaw makes it unusable for me until my children are older. I may have to return this, which is really disappointing.

The pictures and notes are very helpful for engaging the family in thoughtful conversation. We appreciate this book in enhancing the stories of the Bible.

Paper quality is good and well illustrated

The Bible has been marketed to kids in so many ways. While I won't comment on the vicious nature of Christian publishers endlessly marketing the Bible, suffice it to say that there is a plethora of choices. But are they choices when most of them either (a) do not have the text of the Bible (but summary stories), or (b) if they do, drastically reduce the text into a "bible storybook" format. What's worse is that these "Bibles" are full of interpretation, morals of the stories, and the like. These are catechism books under the moniker of the Bible. I looked for a long time for a Bible meant for families that would be interesting for kids of any age, and, especially, that had actual biblical text. While this illustrated family Bible is not a complete Bible, the dozens and dozens of stories--covering every section of every book of the Bible--are full page spreads consisting *only* of Bible text for the story (sometimes, a paragraph in italics summarizes narrative sections that are cut out). Flanking the text are informative margins that DK readers will recognize, and the illustrations on every page engage our three year old as much as our six year old, as much as mom and dad! This really is the best illustrated Bible for a family with kids. Skip Crossway, Zondervan, or whatever big Christian publisher is marketing a family Bible to you (that you apparently must have, over the one they released last year). Sure, they have a lot of money behind them, but what you want is the Bible, right? Not the endless summaries with flashy art by some celebrity pastor or "scholar" who can never seem to let the text be. Pick up the this DK one.

Für uns als Familie ist es genau das was wir gesucht haben, um gemeinsam über die Bibel zu reden. Die Illustrationen sind super, sie helfen um die Aufmerksamkeit der Kinder zu erhöhen.

Perfect

Good Read