A pet peeve of mine

I know that pet peeves can be silly, and this one is.  This really bugs me though.  Children’s bible stories:

The cartoon style to appeal to children, while at the same time including rape, murder, homosexual relations as a condemnation of God, the concept that God would murder everyone on Earth, etc.  But even more so is right there, in the front on the right.

No no, not the burley Sampson guy who’s barber-job was hated by God so much God let him die.  No the puppy.

You see that dog there by the kid?  And puppies are always placed next to children in these books.  Dogs were unclean under jewish law:

“27 And whatsoever goeth upon its paws, among all beasts that go on all fours, they are unclean unto you; whoso toucheth their carcass shall be unclean until the even. 28 And he that beareth the carcass of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even; they are unclean unto you.”

Which means not to eat dogs.  Simple enough.

Out of the 40 references (in English Bibles) to dogs, most are decidedly uncomplimentary. Dogs are generally described as licking blood, eating vomitus, or consuming a carcass. When not doing these activities, they are described as being outside of God’s city, or dumb (as in “unable to speak”) or greedy. Ecclesiastes 9.4 (“a living dog is better than a dead lion”) is the only passage that might even conceivably be complimentary to dogs, and that’s a stretch.

Modern Jews have often extended this to include a prohibition of touching even a living dog. The question I’m posing is whether Jews in Palestine in the time of Christ would have felt that such touching was forbidden. http://thewittenbergdoor.blogspot.com/2006/03/its-dog-eat-dog-world-jews-dogs-and.html

So these kids bible stories are very definitely “Modern Christian” and often depict kids and dogs together like we have them today.  Something that would be mildly offensive, I imagine to the modern Jew.

I know small stuff, but it’s one of those things that I think the artist could take a few minutes to study and be accurate, rather than to sell to the audience.  “See, Jesus loved puppies just like you!”

Regardless of that, there is also the overly-young characterization of David.

or other characters to sell the idea to children.  I get that the idea is that David was a young man during the story; but they tend to go all out to where he looks 1st or 2nd grade.  And when little Johny gets into a fight with a 5th grader and gets the tar beat out of him without God coming down and guiding his fighting ability, this over-sell is partially to blame.

Selling death, sexually explicit situations, and historical inaccuracy to children, all in the name of the modern concept of God.