You wouldn’t let your children watch a violent film so how do you talk about Easter

I love trawling through charity shop bookshelves, hunting for obscure treasures so I was recently thrilled to discover an antique (well certainly vintage) children’s bible story book. It included all the expected stories with the usual illustrations; Noah and the ark with two giraffes on view, Daniel and the very friendly looking lions, the baby Jesus in the perfectly clean stable, surrounded by a full host of nativity characters. But towards the end of the book, I discovered something surprising. There was the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem on the back of a donkey followed immediately by his resurrection on the following page! For fear of upsetting children, the authors of this particular retelling of the Bible chose to erase one of the most fundamental stories of our faith.

A buthered Bible!