The Children’s Best Bible , the first Swedish children’s Bible in more than a quarter century to have been translated from Greek and Hebrew texts, contains far-left gender and diversity ideology which, among other things, claims that God is asexual.
The researcher, editor, and writer of the new Bible, Sören Dalevi, a bishop in the ultra-liberal Lutheran Church of Sweden, researched children’s Bibles and translated texts from Greek and Hebrew before producing his own version of the book – something that hasn’t been done since the Bible for Children was published in 1995, Swedish state media reports .
Among other things, Dalevi’s book differs from previously published children’s Bibles in that it wasn’t at all translated from English.
The new children’s Bible features far-left perspectives on gender and diversity — both of which have never been featured before in Bibles for children. According to SVT Nyheter, the book has “a diversity among the characters, unlike in older versions where many are white”, and suggests that God is asexual, and claims that it’s not a given that God created man before woman.
Dalevi claims that his version is more in line with the original texts used to construct the first Bibles.
“The starting point was to make a children’s bible that has not existed in Sweden before for a very long time. Namely one that has both the stories, the hymns, the most famous prayers and the Swedish children’s book illustration style which is very unique,” Dalevi says.
In an interview on the Church of Sweden’s website, when asked why he refers to God as a ‘he’ in some parts of the book, Dalevi replied: “It is the case that the Bible calls God for him, in quite a few places, and I have started from the Greek and Hebrew basic texts. Then I have, as far as possible, called God God, who is asexual. But in some places it actually became bad Swedish if I had not called God for him or him, but it is in very few places, and it is for language reasons. But I have avoided doing it unnecessarily. I’ve really tried to work with it.”
Over the years, how the Church of Sweden has tried to relate children and what it’s tried to teach them has changed. For example, in Sunday school during the 1950s, children would learn about catechesis so as to prepare them to receive the Christian sacraments. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, the church looked to impart a more “child-friendly” message that was about being kind. These days, the Church of Sweden believes that it’s important for children to be able to independently think about stories contained within the Bible.
“If you look at the children’s Bibles that have been published recently, I think that a distinctive feature is that you have not dared to take the turns. It has been difficult for the Bible texts that we adults think are ‘difficult’. I think that children need to reflect on their lives even through tough stories,” Dalevi said.
Marcus-Gunnar Petterrson, a member of the Swedish Children’s Book Academy who is responsible for the book’s illustrations, engages in blatant revisionism of the Book of Genesis, saying: “We have been careful not to sexually say that Eve is this or that. Adam and Eve are together as well, we equate them. We do not make Eve a sinner, but it is actually something they do together. That’s something we can do differently in this bible.”
Children’s Best Bible was published by Speja publishing house and is composed of 43 bible stories.
