When Owen was about 4, I bought a really lovely hardcover children's Bible, with decent illustrations (no Jesuses with blond locks and blue eyes) and nice renditions of the stories. The idea was to conclude our nightly reading time with a Bible story and a prayer. So we started at the beginning--Creation--no problems. But Owen's response to the Fall hinted at what was to come. He couldn't understand why God was being so hardline, why he didn't give Adam and Eve a second chance; after all, it wasn't so bad to be curious, was it? I was startled, to say the least.
Then we got to Cain and Abel. Oh dear. Owen was appalled. Why wouldn't God like Cain's gift? It just wasn't fair. Thankfully, Cain rescued me by slaying Abel. Clearly that was bad, so ok, Cain was a Bad Guy. At 4, little boys understand about Bad Guys. At 4, little boys tend to be obsessed with Bad Guys.
But things just got worse. The Tower of Babel story reduced him to tears. "They couldn't talk to each other any more?! But what if they were friends? Why didn't God just tell them not to build the tower?" We muddled through.
Until we got to Abraham and Isaac. Sobbing in fury, Owen cried, "He killed the ram? He just killed it? And God thought that was ok??" Not that he wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac instead. He rejected the whole deal.
We stuck to the Gospels after that.
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