After just a couple of weeks, Disney’s Maleficent has already made around $130 million. The reason the film has been a box office hit—besides the star wattage of Angelina Jolie and the power of Disney’s branding muscle—is because people familiar with the Sleeping Beauty saga wanted to get the backstory of the evil, witchy woman who cursed baby Aurora (Sleeping Beauty).
Of course, taking a familiar story and expanding it or reimagining it is nothing new. Most of the biggest hits today are prequels, sequels and reboots. We’ve seen that with almost every superhero film. The Star Wars franchise has made billions doing the same. Even stories like Despicable Me and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs serve up second helpings by filling in the details we didn’t even know we needed to know.
While it makes sense to expand upon fiction, what about when this same literacy device is used to further a Bible story? Admittedly, there’s no consensus among believers on this. Take the movie Son of God (which, by the way, was just released on DVD). There are a number of well-meaning people of faith who just aren’t comfortable with any action or dialogue that can’t be traced back to the Bible. I, however, don’t see it that way. Providing extra-biblical material doesn’t cross into anti-biblical.
For instance, take when Jesus miraculously helps Peter catch hundreds of fish, then mentions how this fisher of fish would become a fisher of men. The movie version has Jesus commenting about the pair changing the world together. Well, you won’t find those words in the Gospels. But I don’t have a problem with this fictional addition because the words are consistent with the character of Christ. Since Peter did help change the world, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn (in heaven someday) that Jesus actually made a similar remark. [However, I’m positive we won’t find out that Noah actually used rock monsters to build the ark!]
Which brings me to two new books from Focus on the Family that you may enjoying knowing about: Bible KidVentures, New Testament Stories and Bible KidVentures, Old Testament Stories. Each book contains four historical fiction stories based on very real accounts from the Bible. Extra-biblical material, if you will.
We all know that Jesus once crossed the Sea of Galilee, encountered a demon-possessed man and cast the foul spirits into a herd of pigs. The Bible actually gives us quite a bit of detail regarding this event. After the man was totally set free and requested to travel with Jesus and His disciples, the Lord wouldn’t allow it and instead said to him, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you…” (Mark 5:19). One of the stories in Bible KidVentures, New Testament Stories imagines just what this family was like and what could have happened before, during and after this New Testament miracle.
As evil as Maleficent sometimes comes across on the big screen, she comes across as your everyday Girl Scout compared with this “demoniac” (named Jacob in Bible KidVentures) before Jesus sets him free. And I’m not talking about the fictional version just yet; I’m strictly talking about the facts as we know them. Here’s what I mean: Fictional Maleficent always wears clothes. Real person [perhaps named] Jacob is a prime candidate to get ticketed for indecency. Maleficent needs a touch of magic to do her evil work. Jacob breaks metal chains with nothing but his muscles. Maleficent has crooked horns on her head. Jacob has A LOT of demons in his.
It’s here that Bible KidVentures departs from Mark and Luke and imagines a backstory. We learn that before becoming possessed, Jacob was a boat builder, married with two children. His oldest child, Andrew, was apprenticing as a boat builder himself. For most of Andrew’s 11 years, the family had been your run-of-the-mill, blue-collar, er, tunic family. Until one day Jacob and Andrew were forced to take shelter in a cave-tomb during a storm. This was the first time that Andrew heard his father babbling utter nonsense. Not long after, things go from bad to worse. Jacob leaves the family and begins to wander around in his birthday suit. Not exactly father-of-the-year material!
With Dad pretty much out of the picture, Mom becomes the sole bread winner, choosing to make and sell cloth. But Mom’s business doesn’t fare well on their side of the lake. The Jewish side, however, is more lucrative. And while there on a sales trip, Andrew encounters a man he’s only heard of—the man Jesus. He sees him heal a paralyzed man. Could Jesus help Andrew’s father? More importantly, would He? And if He did, what would it mean for Andrew and his family?
Anyway, you get the idea. If you have someone in your life that’s between 10-14 and loves great story telling, be sure to get them a copy of one or both volumes. You can do that by simply clicking here and here.
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