Daily Life in Bible Times:

What Archaeology Tells Us.

By Dr. Pamela Gaber, author, and Valerie Woelfel, illustrator

This is a book that brings the life of the Bible alive for children (aimed at 6-10 years old.) Daily Life in Bible Times is packed with opportunites for getting children to think about the people in the Bible stories as real people. Those of us who love the Bible tend to wax poetic about the stories. It is easy to forget that the child's-eye view is different. Children want to picture themselves in the stories. Daily Life in Bible Times is the ideal way to give them that opportunity.

The book starts with pictures of nomads. What did Abraham and Sarah look like? When Isaac was little, how would he look? Right away children ask about the clothing and belongings of the characters in the pictures. These are the things children want to know. Take a minute and pore over the pictures with your child. If you have an infant in the family, it's a great opportunity to show your older child all the special gear we have for babies. Ask your child whether she or he thinks they had diapers in the olden days? Did they have plastic baby bottles? Did they have plastic anything? You can see where this discussion can lead. Get up and walk around the house with the book in your hand. Look in the closet at your clothes and your child's clothes. Then look at the pictures in the book. What is different? Is anything the same?

All of the illustrations in Daily Life in Bible Times are based on archaeological and anthropological research. You can assure your child that these are what the "real" patriarchs wore, used, rode, and ate. In fact, children are most interested in what people ate.

There are glorious pictures of the food and drink that people had in Bible days. Why not take your children on a Bible shopping trip to the grocery store? Make a list from the book of what people might eat on a given day, then go and purchase the items you've chosen. Lentils and cracked wheat (usually market as "bulgar" wheat, or "wheat pilaf") scallions and radishes, and lamb are all available in most grocery stores. It is a good opportunity to talk about seasons for fruits and vegetables as well. It's possible to talke about the rasing of food with older children.

Kids of all ages love to think about cooking. Ask them whether the Bible people had gas or electric stoves. Have them find the pictures of the clay ovens and think about how they worked. Explain that a wood and dried dung fire would be laid eary in the morning and left to burn to red-hot coals. When the coals were ready lentils and grain with onion for flavor and a bit of lamb would be put in a large ceramic dish with a little water and placed inside the oven. The oven would be sealed with clay and the food left to cook for 3 hours or more. You can duplicate this in your own kitchen with a ceramic casserole dish in a low oven or a slow-cooker. When the food is ready, compare it to the pictures and talk about having a "Bible meal" at the table.

In the section about Isrelite houses in the period of the Judges and the Israelite kingdoms there are wonderful illustrations showing what archaeology has revealed about everyday life in ancient Israel. There is a picture of a little boy with an oil lamp. This is an opportunity to get your child to imagine being there. It is best to do this activity at night, but it can be done in a darkened room in the daytime as well. Take a candle in a class like a yahrzeit or other candle that is manufactured within a glass (it's not advisable to use tea lites or other small, portable candles that can be dislodged from the glass container). Darken the room as completely as possible. Sit cross-legged on the floor with your children placing the candle on the floor in front of you. Light the candle. Show the children the picture in the book and explain that this is exactly how much light they would have indoors at night.

Now's your chance to get your children to imagine themselves back into the Bible. "What would you be doing," you can ask them. "Would you be watching television? Listening to an ipod? Playing video games? Playing any kind of games?" Since the answer to any question you can ask that involves modern inventions-or sight at all is "No," you have your chance to ask the children what they would be doing. "What are we doing now?" yound can ask if they really can't imagine (but in my experience they always can). The answer, of course, is that they told stories and sang songs. Especially remind them a) that people couldn't read, b)that the nights are much longer in winter, and c) that people in those days were up at dawn and worked as long as it was light. So people would have spent long evenings talking, telling stories that would become the Bible traditions.

There are lots of opportunities for this kind of imagination in Daily Life in Bible Times. There are pictures of digging up skeletons, and lice that have been found in ancient Jerusalem. Children are fascintated by all these things. There are picture of Roman armor and weapon and aqueducts. Children always want to know how things looked in the time of Jesus.

Parents and teachers, scout leaders and grandparents will find hours of inter-active fun with this book. Kids will love learning how it felt to live in Bible Times.