Video Review: What's in the Bible? Vol. 7 - Exhile and Return!

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Great history told in entertaining and relevant ways

Cons: Songs still a weakness (but only a handful this time)

The Bottom Line:

Wrapping up section

Of history with a full

Disc of facts and fun

What’s in the Bible? Finishes Up the Old Testament Histories in Exile and Return

Phil Vischer is now officially half way through his new project.  Best known as the creator of VeggieTales, for the last few years he’s been focusing on What’s in the Bible?  This straight to DVD series features Phil and a range of puppets are we get an overview of the Bible and why each section matters.  The series will run 13 videos, and Exile and Return! is volume 7 in the series.

This DVD looks at the final three books of the “histories,” the Old Testament books that chronicle Israel’s history.  Specifically, that means Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

Each video in the series is an hour in length, and that’s further broken down roughly in two.  The first half hour, then, looks at Ezra and Nehemiah.  First, there’s a brief recap of where we are in Israel’s history (both kingdoms have been conquered).  As we delve into the story of the return to Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple and later the walls of the city, we also learn about the rulers who allowed the Israelites to return and rebuild their land.  I must admit I am fairly shaky on this time in Israel’s history, so I found the program interesting and learned a lot from it.

The second half focuses on the story of Esther.  It’s one of the longest retellings of a Bible story we’ve seen to date on the series, but even then they leave out a few of the details.  But the entire point of the videos isn’t to retell Bible stories but to give a broad overview of what is in each book of the Bible and how that fits into the overall story God is telling.

Toward that end, they actually spend the last 10 minutes of this video asking what we’ve learned from the History section of the Old Testament, that starts with Joshua and covers twelve books.  The answer, of course, is about God’s love and patience but ultimately his holiness and justice when faced with continual sin.  It also shows that, no matter how we try, we cannot follow God’s laws on our own, so we need a Savior.

Speaking of learning, there is also a discussion of why some numbers in the Bible are rounded or why some names are spelled differently by different authors.  They also discuss would Judah became for the basis for the ethnic term Jews that we still use today.  (And I felt so foolish for not figuring that out myself years ago.  See, even adults can learn something from these videos.)

Of course, this isn’t just dry facts.  Our host Buck Denver is trying to host despite a caffeine overload.  Clive and Ian are still in a plane, and Captain Pete is still trying to join them for the songs.  The back and forth between the characters can create some fun jokes and keeps this from being boring lectures but something that kids will actually learn from.  I know I laughed along the way.  And if a really serious point needs to be made, Phil is standing by in person to make it, although he doesn’t say much until the last few minutes as he’s trying to wrap things up.

The one downfall to this series has been the songs.  They can be enjoyable or they can be painful.  There are only a handful here, and they are okay, so that didn’t distract me too much from the information I was supposed to be learning.

So Exile and Return! becomes a stronger entry in this fun series.  Considering the books we’ll be tackling in the next couple of videos, I can’t wait to see how Phil makes them interesting as we learn What’s in the Bible?