Marketing Fraud!

I love this book!

Anyone who has been at Christ Covenant for more than a few weeks knows how I love the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  I love it for myself and am glad to share it with everyone – including the intended audience: children.  You can see it on your left here.

But look at the book on the right.  Look similar?  Indeed?  Is it at all similar?  Absolutely NOT!  Think that is a mistake?  Don’t bet on it!

The book to the right - A Jesus Storybook You’ve Never

I wouldn't even put this book in an outhouse!

Heard About: 20 Extra-Biblical Tales From the Untold Story of Jesus’ Childhood – is a marketing fraud of the first order.

It is a “child’s edition” of stories from Gospel of Thomas.  The Gospel of Thomas has been known and been around for centuries.  Most scholars would place it centuries AFTER the life of Jesus and the four Gospels in the New Testament.  It is widely reputed as of no historical reliability.  It was rejected by the early church and the people closest to Jesus not because it was different, but because it was untrue and unreliable.  That happens with other stories to this day!
For example, have you heard about the 1996 story of Hillary Clinton marrying a space alien?  It was certainly published in those grocery-store-checkout-aisle tabloids during that time.  But they are now “unheard” for a very simple reason: they are baloney.  They are unheard, because they are untrue and worthless.  This book would find a home on those same grocery store aisles

Still, the Gospel of Thomas – and similar Gnostic writings – keep making the rounds as “new” information and “suppressed-by-the-church” truth.  Hogwash!  Dan Brown may weave them into a best-selling work on fiction – aka The DaVinci Code – but it is all FICTION!

What offends me most – and energizes this rant – is the obvious marketing play of the cover.  The text is an “updated” translation from a 1929 compilation of Gospel of Thomas stories intended for children.  But the cover is clearly intended to “pass” for Sally Lloyd-Jones’ Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name.  For those who purchase this book because they loved the Lloyd-Jones book, there is a rude disappointment in store.  For those who go looking for the Jesus Storybook Bible but end up buying the Jesus Storybook You’ve Never Heard About, they are subject to a cruel “bait-and-switch.”