Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Satellite Bible Pictures?

Crossing the Red Sea
While I was doing some research in connection with the last picture for our children's Bible, which is the 'Crossing of the Red Sea', I came across an interesting online article titled 'The Bible according to Google Earth' on the 'Creative Review' blog.

Have no ever wondered what all the well known biblical events would have looked like if photographed from space? Er....no, probably not! But, if for some strange reason you had, wonder no longer, because a creative company called the 'Glue Society' based in Sydney, Australia has produced a set of pictures showing what these biblical events might have looked like if photographed at the time by satellite.

A pointless exercise? The Glue Society's James Dive's comments as to why they produced the pictures are revealing. I'll let you decide.
Picture © The Glue Society 2007

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Your Favorite Children's Bible!

Children's BiblesI received a very nice email a few weeks ago from Grant and Tara in New Zealand. Tara asked if I was familiar with the work of Herbert Rudeen who illustrated the 10 volume set of the Bible story by Arthur S. Maxwell. I have tried to get hold of this set in the past but most of them are on sale in the U.S. and so the postage, on 10 volumes, makes them expensive! From what I've seen though the illustrations are very nice. I will comment more if I can get hold of a set.

Tara also asked the question "what would be your top children's Bible for authentic pictures?"
This is a very good question, and one which I thought I would throw open to readers of the blog. It's not so easy to pick one children's Bible as 'The Most Authentic' so I would probably select a top five! I'm not sure if the Bible pictures by Elsie Anna Wood have appeared in a children's Bible as yet, although I have it on good authority that one is in the pipeline. That would certainly appear in my top five, as would the 'Copping Bible' illustrated by Harold Copping. I would also include 'The Testimony', which is the 3 volume children's Bible in Hebrew illustrated by Diana Shimon. Diana spent over fifteen years researching this one! I would also include the 24 volume 'Great Bible Discovery Series' in my top five although technically you wouldn't really class it as a children's Bible, being 24 volumes in size. That leaves me with one more choice for my top five, but I would like more time to think about this, also I want to look at some of your suggestions too!

Grant and Tara's choice was the 'The Children's Bible Story Book' (pictured bottom left) illustrated by José Pérez Montero. José Pérez Montero is also one of my favorite Bible illustrators too, and I have intended adding him to my Favorite Bible artist list for some time only, up until very recently, there has been very little information about him on the net, and even now there's still not enough for a decent article. Montero also has a nice cartoon style too, but I wouldn't say that his Bible pictures were the most researched or historically accurate.

I'm pretty sure that there are many other children's Bibles out there that I've never seen, and so I would like to ask the readers of the blog the same question:
Which children's bible do you consider contains the most historically accurate pictures? Or, if you prefer, Which is your favorite children's Bible?"
Looking forward to reading your comments!