Children embrace the passions of their parents, when those passions are wholeheartedly shared with the children. My father shared his passion for history and literature by constantly reading to me. When one considers the literature and studies to which the Puritans and later the Founding Fathers exposed their children, it is no wonder that their culture produced such a godly and literate generation of young men and women. From their earliest age, they were challenged not only to know the Word of God but to be well-read. For my part, I am convinced that even advanced literature can be made meaningful and exciting to young children when presented with the necessary enthusiasm and explanations from Dad or Mom.

This week I am reading Beowulf to all six of my children, age nine and under. We began tonight with a good one-hour reading. The experience was glorious. My children sat transfixed during the reading, and then begged me to keep reading, especially the boys who love discussions of swords, dragons, and battles. Books like Beowulf must be read with passion, clear enunciation, and regular pauses for explanation and discussion, or else you will lose the benefit of reading the story to children, half of which is found in the rich and guttural language, the metrical composition, and the descriptive phraseology. The beauty of Beowulf is not only its literary brilliance, but its rich Creationist theme, which dominates the epic from its discussion of Cain and Abel and references to the Nephilim of Genesis 7, to one of the antagonists of the story, the dragon, a clear, historic reference to dinosaurs living contemporaneous with man. For these and other reasons, it has long been my view that Beowulf is one of the ten most important works of Christian literature in history. Bill Cooper’s landmark work of scholarship, After the Flood, not only chronologically traces the lineage of Japeth directly to Anglo-Saxon Europe, but provides a brilliant overview of Beowulf from a Creationist perspective. Dr. John Morris and I both believe After the Flood is one of the most interesting and unique works of Creationist scholarship to appear in more than a decade.

The particular volume of Beowulf we are enjoying offers the poem in both the original language and a literal English translation. I like to read both to my children so they can understand the story, but also retain a sense of the power of the original language, and to familiarize them with the cadence and meter employed by the ancient bard.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: After the Flood, by Bill Cooper, published by New Wine Press. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, by Seamus Heaney, (Bilingual Edition), published by Farar, Straus and Giroux. 2000.