Teaching Bible? Resources to Engage New Perspectives
Why do we keep telling the story of our people from one generation to the next?
Each time we retell stories from the Bible, we learn something about ourselves and our relationships. These stories also encourage critical thinking skills in our students and help them understand important Jewish values that continue to guide us today.
There are many Bible resources that help children explore the deeper meaning and shape how they live that learning in the world.
For example, if the curriculum is focused on early Torah stories, you can use a core text such as The Explorer’s Bible or Teach Me Torah. Then engage new perspectives by layering in other elements, like a storybook about Noah living in cramped quarters, or Jonah’s adventures inside the fish, or modern children time traveling to cross the Red Sea with Moses.
Another approach is to use midrash to help learners answer their own questions about the story, to see different perspectives.
When we look at the text of Genesis 2:16-17, we see only God’s command to Adam in the Garden of Eden: “You are free to eat from every tree in the garden, except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you eat from that tree you will die.” Yet with the help of a midrashic story, like those in Maybe It Happened This Way: Bible Stories Reimagined, students can contemplate questions that might otherwise feel risky, such as “Why does it look so delicious” or “Why would God create such a tempting tree if we couldn’t eat from it?”
The approaches and options are plenty. See our full list of Bible stories.
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