Review of "The What's in the Bible?" DVD Series
Overall Rating: Good 
This series is being widely distributed.
The What's in the Bible? Series of DVDs comes from Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales, but unlike Veggie Tales, these DVDs are distinctly and overtly Christian, and about the Bible.
There are 14 DVDs covering all the books of the Bible. Rotation.org has published individual OUTLINES with study materials for each DVD in the seires. Supporting Members can find and print there HERE.
These are wonderful teaching DVDs with a cast of muppet-quality puppets, humor, songs, animations, and graphics. Hosted by Phil Vischer, the content is very ecumenical and kid-friendly. A golden theme runs throughout each: God's Plan for Redemption.
Each DVD consists of TWO twenty-five minute packed episodes.
You will not be able to play the entire DVD's two episodes in one class. There's simply too much good content that needs unpacked.
The Challenge with this series is knowing what's in each DVD that will match your lesson. The Genesis DVD, for example, spends a lot of time talking about theological concepts of Sin and Redemption (very appropriate) and hardly touches the stories of Abraham or Joseph. Whereas, the "Exiles" DVD #7 has 26 minutes on Esther.
You would not want to use each DVD's two episodes one after the other in the same class. The content is fast-paced and sometimes comes at firehose speed. (Remember: the pause control is your friend).
Age: This is a slippery one. Some material K-8th. Some material K-5th. Some material 3rd-7th. Depends on which DVD, which episode of which DVD, and which SECTION of that episode you are using. In general, I would NOT use most of the segments in these DVDs with my preschoolers or early readers up through 2nd grade.
For Sunday School? A typical Rotation lesson covers ONE story, whereas, the DVDs in this series cover an entire Book of the Bible. Thus, for example, you might find yourself using the DVD with Daniel in it to introduce the Story of Daniel, but not using a much of the rest of the DVD because it covers other minor prophets as well. So you might only get 10 minutes of Daniel out of the Minor Prophets DVD in this series. Whereas, you could get 15-25 minutes easily out of the Exodus DVD (#2).
Check out the outlines to see whether your specific story is covered in the DVD and how much content (how long) it has.
The only DVD in this series which I don't really like -- isn't actually one of the 1-14 DVDs. They produced a special "Christmas DVD" separate from this series that uses the same characters. I showed it to a group of kids and they got bored. It had some good stuff but it was too long and a little preachy.
<>< Neil
