Video Review: What's in the Bible? Vol. 2 - Let My People Go

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Entertaining look at the Bible, its history, and doctrine

Cons: Don't cover much of the Bible itself

The Bottom Line:

Big picture tour through

Genesis and Exodus

With fun background, too

Let My People Finish Genesis and Exodus

Let My People Go is the second volume in Phil Vischer's new series What's in the Bible?  This DVD is just under an hour long and continues to inform and entertain kids and adults.

The primary idea behind the series is to give an overview of the Bible in 13 DVDs.  As you might expect, we don't get into too many specifics.  This is a broad stroke outline of the Bible.  Giant puppets are used to covey the lessons, with news reporter Buck Denver as our master of ceremonies.  Most of the content comes from Sunday School Lady with other characters like a priest and a pastor showing up to help explain things and a few other characters to ask questions.  Even Phil spends some time in front of the camera to explain the really important things.

The first video covered the first 11 chapters of Genesis, so we pick up here with the rest of Genesis and all of Exodus.  The video breaks the hour length into two shorter episodes, and the first of those finishes off Genesis.   We get God calling Abram to the Promised Land, a very brief mention of Isaac, and enough of Joseph's story to learn why the Children of Israel went down to Egypt.  I told you it was brief.

Episode two covers Exodus, focusing most of the time on Moses' early life and the plagues on Egypt.  When we get to the story of Israel building and worshipping the Golden Calf, the parallel is made to things we make idols in our lives today.

The videos are also trying to show how these stories fit into the big picture of the Bible, the story of God's plan to free us from sin.  These aren't just some dry stories out of context but shown to be part of something greater.

The secondary purpose of these videos is to give the audience some basic knowledge about how we got the Bible and theology.  To do that, the first episode talks about how the books of the Bible were chosen, both Old and New Testament.  They even take some pretty serious swipes at The Da Vinci Code here.  While the second episode was supposed to talk about Salvation and Redemption, most of that was in episode one as well.  They do a great job of explaining the terms and then give us examples of a brother and sister in a boat to fully illustrate them.

None of this is done in a dry manner.  With so many characters popping in and out, there are plenty of interruptions for humor or questions.  Naturally, things keep moving, but it is well thought through enough that you get the information you need without being bored once.

Of course, these aren't intended to be a complete course in every detail of the Bible.  They do make a great foundation for further family devotions and discussion.  I highly suggest that parents watch them at least once with their kids.  You'll learn a thing or two and know how to work what your kids learn into your discussions.

Personally, I am loving What's In the Bible?  Now that I've watched Let My People Go, I'll be impatiently waiting for disc 3 in this highly entertaining and informative series.