Apologia iWitness Books (TOS Review)

I enjoy coming across books that take information that can be boring and presenting it in a way that makes the topic interesting and exciting. Apologia Educational Ministries has done that with their new iWitness series, which we were able to review. They include iWitness Biblical Archaeology, Old Testament iWitness, and New Testament iWitness, written and designed by Doug Powell.
iWitness Biblical Archaeology shows how different archaeological discoveries reveal the accuracy of the Bible. It starts at the Flood from there covers such topics as the Noah's Ark, Egypt, House of David and YHWH inscriptions, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus' world, New Testament locations, and much more.
Old Testament iWitness explores such questions as Who wrote the ancient books?, Is the Old Testament mythology or history?, and How is the Old Testament Different from the Hebrew Bible? The book starts with examining Old Testament manuscripts, how they were copied, the criteria for being in the canon, the Torah, the prophets, and so many more topics pertaining to the Old Testament.
Similar to the Old Testament iWitness book, the New Testament iWitness books explores similar questions such as Who wrote the New Testament?, How was it handed down?, What was the criteria for being included? The reader will follow the history and formation of the New Testament by letting you read through the evidence presented. Topics included are Church Fathers, Apostolic Age and Fathers, rejected books, copying methods, textual criticism, and much more.

The iWitness books are presented from a Christian worldview and recommended for ages 11 and up, though they can be read together as a family or to children. The three books all have the same format and set-up. A colorful background with pictures pertaining to the subjects covered, a title in the top corner, and the text is written in a font that looks like handwriting. They are sturdy books and the pages are printed on a nice heavy paper. Though you can read these books in one sitting, they seemed to be set up to just slowly read through the information while looking at the pictures in the background.

I read these with my older kids and found that they went very well together, though iWitness Biblical Archaeology was a favorite. Because of how the author writes these books like an investigation, my kids found several parts confusing and not too sure how to interpret the information that was presented to them. This opened the door for many discussions. If I had any complaints it would be that a couple of the handwritten fonts were hard to read, though I loved the look of the fonts and felt they added to the whole appeal of the books.

We are currently reading about the Ancients in our history readings and I found that these books dovetailed nicely with what we were learning. Again the iWitness Biblical Archaeology book added a lot to our current study. It also caused us to get out the map and find where the places were listed.

Though we made reading it together work, it was hard to share the book so they could see the pictures. To get the full benefit of these books placing them on a coffee table, side table books, reading one-on-one, or placing them in the bathroom, since they can be easily read in short snippets and look at the pictures to their hearts content. Overall, we found the iWitness books interesting and fun reading.

iWitness Biblical Archaeology, Old Testament iWitness, and New Testament iWitness are available from Apologia Educational Ministries for $14.00 per book.

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