My Primary class is currently learning about Joseph, the son of Israel who was sold into Egypt. As we talked about him last Sunday, it became apparent that some of the Primary kids got much of their information about this story from a movie titled Joseph, Prince of Dreams. I've never seen that movie, but I'd be surprised if it was 100% accurate. Still, I myself am not much better, since my most recent experience with this story was watching Veggietales' The Ballad of Little Joe, which most certainly had several gaps in its accuracy. I think that, this time, summarizing the well-known story isn't going to be the best idea. There are too many false, removed, altered, and exaggerated ideas involved with the modern retellings of Joseph's story. It can be hard to know which elements of the story are Biblical and which ones are apocryphal, unless, of course, we go to the source.
What this means for me is that I'm going to plan on spending most of my lesson time having the children read directly from the scriptures that first told this tale, perhaps after I warn them about the folly of trusting an entertaining film to give them factual information. A lot of good can come from such retellings, but a lot of misinformation can come from them, too. If we want the truth about what happened, we had better stick to the authoritative source.
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