Posted in News from Family Bookshelf, including Product Reviews

This review is long overdue, and for that I apologize.  As my readers know, this month has been crazy for our family, and not much time was left for extra writing. 

Last month, JenIg had one of her infamous contests over at her blog, Jeneric Jeneralities.  The prize was a Bible character doll from Messengers of Faith.  This company makes many different dolls, including Queen Esther, Moses, Mary, David, and others.  The one that I received to review was the Jesus doll. 

Although I LOVE the concept of these dolls, and the fact that they recite scripture with the simple push of a button on the doll's back, my family and friends were not impressed with the Jesus doll itself.  I believe that if we had received any of the other dolls in the series, this review would be quite different, because we truly believe that acting out the Bible stories, and learning the scriptures in such a fun and unique way, are both invaluable teaching aids for our children and Sunday School students. 

The Jesus doll, however, left us with very mixed feelings.  First of all, as soon as we saw the doll, the first thing that struck each person was the fact that Jesus has these piercing blue eyes and huge pectoral muscles.  People that I showed the doll to were upset to see the blue eyes due to the fact that Jesus was a Jew from the Mideast.  He most definitely would not have had blue eyes.  The muscular build also bothered nearly everyone that saw the doll.  The muscles were huge, and very noticeable, which everyone felt sidetracked the purpose of the doll, which is to learn the Bible stories by acting them out with the dolls.  Most felt that Jesus would be used as a superhero doll in all the wrong ways---more like the Incredible Hulk or GI Joe, and would be used for fight scenes due to his incredible build.

We did like the realistic clothing, which can be taken on and off.  The Bible verses were another plus, although many felt that the doll should be offered in both the NIV and the KJV for the verses.  We all felt that children would easily learn the verses from hearing them repeated by the doll as they played with it.  The story of Jesus' life that was included, the map, and the ABC Gospel presentation card were also definite pluses. The company's website offers teaching plans for parents or Sunday School teachers to use along with the dolls.  I am almost certain that the people I showed the Jesus doll to would have loved any of the other dolls in the line, but the Jesus doll in particular led to the following problems:

•  What about idolatry?  Is it right to have a doll in the form of Jesus, the Son of God?  Just the idea of Jesus in molded plastic didn't sit well with many.
• How do you explain accidentally sitting on Jesus, or stepping on him? 
• What do you do if your children mix their dolls together, and Jesus is used as another character, such as Barbie's boyfriend?
• Jesus probably was in pretty good physical condition, but do we really want his chest and shoulder muscles to be the main focus when you first see the doll?  (Nearly everyone laughed when they saw his muscles...) 
• How realistic are those big, blue eyes, light skin, and brown hair?  Shouldn't Jesus be portrayed as a MidEastern Jew? 
• Do we really want to risk our children getting into a toybox tussle and breaking Jesus?

I do want to emphasize that the doll is very well-made, and should hold up well for lots of play.  The price, at $25, seems to be very reasonable for a toy that will promote Christian values, and help our children to understand Bible stories better. The voice-chip feature will really help in scripture memorization.  

Overall, our only reservation is that of the whole idea of the Jesus doll, with the above points in particular being disturbing to most folks I shared the doll with.  We do believe that the other dolls would have been ones that we could have whole-heartedly endorsed.  Perhaps the Jesus doll would not have been such a problem if the above points were addressed. 

Thanks to JenIg, and to Josh at Messengers of Faith for giving me the opportunity to review this doll.  Although our family won't be using the Jesus doll from this collection, we will certainly consider using the others in the series, and feel they would be a better fit for our family, friends, and customers.