Bible Review: NIV Investigators

This kids’ study Bible uses a detective theme to introduce readers to textual facts and background, but also a touch of textual criticism.

NIV Investigator’s Holy Bible: Uncover the Truth of the Bible. Zondervan, 2017, 1792 pages.

Recommended for: ages 6-10

Mateo and Isabella are our “investigators,” popping up throughout the text to explain meanings and evaluate clues. In the introduction, they admit to having a lot of questions about the Bible, “so we decided to put our detective skills to use.” The in-text features are similar to other children’s Bibles, such as NIV Adventure, but with a detective instead of an explorer’s theme. Book introductions are presented as “Evidence”: genre, author, overview of contents, and key passages. “Breakthroughs” are questions answered, “Witnesses” are names and meanings, “The Scene” illuminates places and geography, “Case Closed: summarizes each book at the end, and “Check the Facts” offers short quizzes for readers to test themselves on what they remember.

There’s a lot of “we” here: what we think is the best part, we try to help you, we tell you how we feel, etc. It’s a bit much—better to present the facts and let readers determine how they feel and what they think. One Amazon reviewer thought the book introductions tended to undermine scriptural authority by questioning the authorship and composition of certain books.  I didn’t notice this in my brief overview, but it’s worth considering. Other features seem informative and helpful for the most part—I especially like the quiz feature as a way of helping readers focus on and review the material. The appendix includes a decent concordance plus maps. There are no glossy full-color pages and no pictures of Bible characters or stories.  Mystery lovers will be attracted to the Investigator angle, though it may seem to put too much emphasis on imposing our views on the Bible rather than letting it speak to us.

Value: 3.5 (out of 5)

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