Mutable materiality: Illustrations in kenneth taylor's children's bibles

Abstract

Over the fifty years that Kenneth N. Taylor created children's Bibles, the pictures in these books changed dramatically, yet the text of the Bibles changed little. The relatively standardized text used in these books provides a neutral field where one can better observe the shifting presentation of the scriptural stories. In this essay I investigate how the changing materiality of Taylor's children's Bibles alters the story's meaning for the intended audience. Specifically, I examine the ways in which this material transformation marks a progression away from a hierarchical relationship toward a more democratic connection between parent and child. A number of paratextual adaptations work together to render this reorientation of the parent-child relationship. New illustrations tend to present children as equals to their adult counterparts. Furthermore, a remodeling of these illustrations makes them easier for children to understand, reducing the need for the parent to act as an intermediary. The changing material structure of Taylor's children's Bibles further undermines the hierarchical ritual of parent reading to child, increasing the probability that the child will autonomously engage with the text. Together, these changes position the child as decreasingly preoccupied by the "lower" senses of touch, taste, and smell and more aligned with the constructed Western ideal of a cerebral, non-sensorily oriented being. This adaptability of the Bible's non-textual elements often belies the conservative Christian understanding of a sacred text that conveys a single and immutable reading.

Sounds of Children in Worship: Materiality and Liturgical-Ritual Spaces

“…Our study on children's participation in environments of worship adds to literature in the fields of material religion and liturgical studies. Until now, child-related research in material religion has mainly focused on the production of religious objects and images for children, such as children's Bibles (Lindquist 2014), a cartoon figure used for evangelization (Bellotti 2010), and Sunday school pictures (Brewer 2005). Recent research on architecture and the arrangement of furniture for worship (Barnard et al 2014;Barnard and Post 2001;de Jonge 2002;Pons-de Wit et al 2019;Post 2010;Rijken et al 2016) hardly ever considers how children affect or are affected by worship spaces.…”