Through a Child’s Eyes

The most important commandment: “Thou shalt not lie. Your mother and God will find out the truth anyways.”

The overriding message of the Old Testament: “Don’t be a bad boy or girl. You should listen to God or you might end up in a whale.”

And when God asked Cain what happened to Abel, Cain’s reply: “I want to see my lawyer before I answer any more questions, God.”

Ask elementary school children about some of the best-known figures and stories of the Bible, and the responses are refreshingly honest, personal and lighthearted.

In a book due soon in paperback, “Just Build the Ark and the Animals Will Come: Kids Talk About Those Amazing Bible Stories” (Kensington Books, $11), children reveal a theological perspective of a God who is familiar, not remote in the heavens.

“For kids, it has meaning to them in the sense it is a personal God who is a figure in their lives,” said author David Heller, a Boston-based psychotherapist.

Heller, whose other books include “Talking to Your Child About God” and “The Children’s God,” interviewed about 200 children from various faiths in public and parochial schools for his latest book.

Their responses showed not only a degree of biblical literacy but also a blend of humor and deep spirituality. “In the same breath, children may entertain us and still teach us about the nature of our existence and about the nature of God,” Heller said.

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Moving through the Bible, from Genesis to Job, the children offer a range of insights, from how Moses looked (“long hair and a headband that said ‘Freedom for the People’ on it”) to the Old Testament’s advice (“Love God 365 days a year. . . . Be careful not to take many days off.”).

Throughout, children are preeminently practical. For example, 7-year-old Ethan speculates why Samson would not cut his hair: “Samson probably hated going to the barber like I do, and that’s what got him into so much trouble.”

Jenny, 12, probes the moral of the story of Samson and Delilah: “Bad relationships can be murder on your hair.” And Austin, 8, explains the relationship between God and Satan: “God is like my mother and the devil is like my brother.”

Pity the religious education teacher who has 7-year-old Carey in her class when the subject is Adam and Eve. “I’m not sure they even got married, but nobody ever talks about that,” Carey says.

One of the children’s favorite Biblical stories is Noah’s Ark.

Heller said children will tackle the tough question of why there had to be a flood. But they find themselves drawn to the comforting idea that all creatures are preserved in the boat.

“Everyone has a partner, and they’re not alone in the world,” Heller said.

Another favorite is David and Goliath, in which the boy with a slingshot defeats the Philistine hero. Ten-year-old Ross says the epic account shows that “young people are good at things, too. . . . You can tell that God picked David because He was going with a youth movement at the time.”

Sometimes, the mix of simple and profound truths from a child’s perspective can be striking. Of creation, 11-year-old Nancy says, “Love was created on the first day, and the rest is history.”

Seeing the Bible through the eyes of a child reminds people of a down-to-earth wisdom that is universal. Their eyes, Heller said, are “brimming with hope and faith and love for a God that is beyond the scope of our imaginations and yet can be readily found in a child’s heart, and in our own hearts as well.”