Jesus stories for non Christians

[Marimami]

<mods, please keep this here rather than Spirituality because this is covered in our homeschooling, not in our family's spiritual growth/development>

I need some recommendations, if anyone has any. Mari (age 6) has become interested in learning more about baby/child Jesus. It's evolved from her fascination with the Spanish artist Murillo, and she is often looking through one of our art books about his works asking me questions to which I have no answers. Tonight she was looking at a painting that showed Mary, Joseph, and toddler Jesus in a lovely family scene. She started asking me more about Joseph, and I said he was kind of like Jesus's adoptive dad who raised him.

She latched on to that (we are an adoptive family and I think that caught her attention) and asked me to find some stories about baby/child Jesus. Well, I'm not Christian. I was raised Methodist (Christmas and Easter only church-goers) but was atheist for a good chunk of my life and am most identified with nature-based Pagan religions.

We talk about world religions off/on in our homeschooling, and I've found it much easier to talk to her about other religions than to talk about Christianity (because of my own personal baggage). I'd like to overcome that inequity and honor her request. (I have shared the very basics of Christmas, Easter, son-of-God Christian stories, but she is really interested in Jesus the child.)

But, I have no idea where to look. We honestly do not own a bible, and I really would prefer to find just a collections of stories about Jesus's life, appropriate for children. I really do not want a proselytizing message or devotional. I just want stories that would be appropriate for comparative religion...for a child. We already have several good books that cover Christianity in general (Kids Book of World Religions, One World, Many Religions, etc.) But, she wants to focus just on Jesus's younger years.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Holli

[WhaleinGaloshes]

There isn't a ton recorded in the Bible of Jesus as a growing boy. We have the story of his birth, obviously, and a few chapters and then the 3 years he spent before his death.

My daughter a 4 wanted to read about Christian creation and Old Testament stories, and I used this ebook with her from Baldwin Project:

Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

You have specifically The Manger of Bethlehem and next chapter, A Boy in His Father's House and then maybe Jesus in the Desert, A Net Full of Fishes? If my DD came to me with the request, that's where I'd start.

Originally Posted by Marimami

I really would prefer to find just a collections of stories about Jesus's life, appropriate for children. I really do not want a proselytizing message or devotional. I just want stories that would be appropriate for comparative religion...for a child.
Holli

I believe I understand you completely and was looking for the same thing, and those passages fit the bill for me.

[Marimami]

Oh, the "Boy in His Father's House" seems just what she would like! Reading through all these, it just occurred to me that I had no idea that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Do you happen to have references to learn about them?

This is also giving me an idea... Murillo painted 100s of images of Jesus as a boy/child and if there are so few stories about that period, we can use those works to try to piece together some of our understanding too and to talk more about artists' interpretations, etc.

Thank you so much!
Holli

[425lisamarie]

Thanks for this info. This is something I want to teach also. My inlaws are Catholic and I don't know how to explain Christianity without scaring them like I was as a child. We learn about other religions while learning about culture in other countries, but for some reason it's really hard for me to know how to approach Christianity.

[PGTlatte]

I would like to find something like this too. Stories about what Christians believe, told in 3rd person. I've decided this is the year I need to explain the Christian religion to DS1, so he can understand some of the religious things he is exposed to around the winter holidays.

I have a copy of the Golden Children's Bible. I also have a book called Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories.

[LuxPerpetua]

Originally Posted by Marimami

Oh, the "Boy in His Father's House" seems just what she would like! Reading through all these, it just occurred to me that I had no idea that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Do you happen to have references to learn about them?

This is also giving me an idea... Murillo painted 100s of images of Jesus as a boy/child and if there are so few stories about that period, we can use those works to try to piece together some of our understanding too and to talk more about artists' interpretations, etc.

Thank you so much!
Holli

Re: Jesus' brothers and sisters. We are Christians, and I have a deep interest in theology and ecclesiology, so I thought I'd point out that the actual Hebrew word used in the Bible that is oft translated as "brothers and sisters" is actually the same word that means close relations or step-siblings. The only reason I'm saying this is because Protestants and Catholics/Eastern Orthodox have differing interpretations. Protestants interpret this to mean that Mary and Joseph had natural children after Jesus' birth, whereas RC and EO believe that Mary and Joseph never had sex and so these were either step-siblings from a previous marriage of Joseph or were cousins. The Gospels only mention them in passing. Most likely these relations were not close to Jesus because when He died on the cross some of His last words were to ensure that His disciple and friend, John, would take care of Mary after His death, which would most likely have been unnecessary if He had blood siblings that were still living.

One thing that might be interesting is that after Jesus was born and the Magi came to see Him (probably around 2 years old), Mary and Joseph have to take Jesus and flee because Herod has ordered a pogrom against all infant boys 2 and under in order to kill Jesus (I wouldn't tell this to a child, but I'm just mentioning it here for background). The family flees to Egypt. I have heard stories from Egypt surrounding their lives while they lived there before returning to Judea. You might want to explore Google and see if anything pulls up. It may be a dry run but other than what's already been offered, that's all I can think of. There are some non-canonical works that were written well after Jesus lived that supposedly claim to "fill in" His childhood but these are not considered Scriptural or even valid by Christians and so if you want your dd to have an accurate picture of Jesus then I'd avoid those. However, if you don't mind mixing in fantasy, then they might be interesting. http://www.gnosis.org/library/inftoma.htm

[WhaleinGaloshes]

I have the Pearson/Core Knowledge level 1 unit on Three World Religions, and I give it a good review as a nice secular handling of Christianity (and Judaism and Islam.)

You can get it here...they have the teacher guide marked as 'school purchase only' and I don't know what it would take to convince them to sell it to a homeschool but I would like to think they would. I have the binder and they sold it to me.

http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.c...ProgramID=2339

The teacher guide does offer a lot of material over and above the student book...the set up for these programs is: the child holds the small reader and reads his page and then for each page, the teacher has a read-aloud that adds content and discussion.

Anyway, I think it's a nice unit. It's 1st grade level, and I think that's about fair, give or take a 'grade' or two either way.

I'm a fan of these, and I think they're kind of un-assessable because of the way they are packaged/marketed. They highlight vocabulary and familiar/famous artwork...I dug that unit out and could post lesson objectives or something if someone wanted to learn more...they are hard to get information about IMO.

[MamaMonica]

Here is one we have:
http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Jesus-Les.../dp/1558965246