The Kingdom Files (book series) - Who was Esther? and Who was David? by Matt Koceich
These books are
intended to teach kids about various biblical characters. I read the ones on David and Esther. The books are made up of various
"files" for kids to investigate the particular characters in any of
the given books. Starting out with a "Fact file", which gives a few
facts about the person you are looking into, including a tiny timeline with
about three events selected. Next comes
the "Action File", giving a summary of the person's life, along with
various illustrations. Lastly comes the
"Power File" which gives you some ideas of what you can learn from
the life of the person you are studying, and also provides you with memory
verses from various books of the Bible.
I'm sorry to say
that I was disappointed with these books. First of all, they seem more like
books for kids younger than 8, not 8-12. The biographies skip too much, it
doesn't mention that Jonathan's father tried to kill Jonathan when Jonathan
defended David, it doesn't mention that David's wives were taken when the city
he was living in was raided, it just said that they recovered everything that
was plundered. There is no mention of
David's sin with Bathsheba, or his having her husband killed, it just says
later on that David made mistakes in his life.
When David's son Absalom is chasing David, it has a "Clue" on
the side: "David was being chased by
someone close to him. He was being
hunted even though he hadn't done anything wrong." But, don't we
know from the Bible that this was a part of the consequence of his sin with
Bathsheba (See 2 Samuel 12:11)? That was certainly something that was very
wrong.
Also, the
"Clues" scattered throughout their book don't make much sense to
me. The introduction to the books says
that the "Clue Boxes will offer
applications to help you keep track of your thoughts as you make your way
through the files." Okay, fine.
But look at one of the "Clues" "Crags
of the Wild Goats is located in the Judean wilderness. It's made up of rocky
cliffs. The ibex mountain goat is found
in this area". What kind of
application is that? How does that help
me keep track of my thoughts? It helps me keep track of the story, but doesn't
keep me an application to anything. They
should have just been called "Fact Boxes" or "Investigating
Further". Their purpose as
"Clues" just didn't make sense.
Speaking of facts,
in the "Fact File" there is information that is not so factual. For instance in the fact file in the Kingdom
File on David, after talking about the temple and that it was mainly used for
sacrifices to God, it says, "Once a year, the high priest would go into
the holy of holies, pray to God and ask God to forgive the people of Israel's
sins." And so God just forgave
their sins on the merit of the prayers of the high priest? I'm not sure that
the High Priest prayed at all. The High Priest had to go in to the holy of
holies with the blood of an animal, he couldn't just pray for the sins of the
people to be forgiven, there had to be a sacrifice of an animal on their
behalf. "but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without
blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the people"(Heb
9:7)ASV
In the "Kingdom
File" on Esther, "On the surface,
Esther's story is very similar to our spiritual life stories because she was
taken from a faraway place into the presence of a king, just as Jesus saves us
from our sins and brings us into His Father's house." Ummm… Esther probably wasn't the most
excited when she was taken away from her home to be one of a bunch of other
candidates to have a chance to be the King's replacement Queen…failing that,
she would definitely become one of his concubines. She would probably rather have stayed with
Mordecai, where her life surroundings were more likely to be moral. This part
of Esther's story is hardly an accurate comparison to Jesus saving us from our
sins.
And now for the
illustrations…the cover images are pretty neat, ones I would have liked
examining as a kid, but the ones on the inside would have disappointed me. Especially the ones in the David book, where,
unlike on the cover, he looks very blond; so much so that when they depict him
as a young man and give him a beard he actually looks old. And at least one of the pictures is
biblically inaccurate. The book tells
about where Saul goes into a cave and, unknown to him, David's men are there
hiding and David cuts off the corner of Saul's robe. It doesn't tell WHY Saul went into the
cave…but I can live with that. My
problem is that this part is illustrated and has Saul wrapped up in his robe
sleeping in the cave and David cutting off the corner of his robe. That's false.
Not that I think that part should be illustrated in the first place, but
don't illustrate it wrong!
All in all, these
books just weren't accurate enough for me to like them.
I received a
complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no
obligation to post a review.
These books may be found at Amazon.com
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