A review by fatherroderick
The Life of Our Lord: Written for His Children During the Years 1846 to 1849 by Charles Dickens

4.0

Charles Dickens offers a charming narration of the life of Jesus in this book, originally written for his children. I'm quite impressed by how he manages to condense the various elements of the gospels into one coherent, easy-to-follow story. However, from a scholarly perspective, this is also its main flaw. By imposing univocality on the different gospels, Dickens merges the various perspectives into a moral retelling of Jesus' life, sacrificing much of the depth found in the original texts. Nevertheless, this approach is common in children's Bibles, and given that the book was intended as an introduction for his children, one can hardly fault Dickens for the omissions.