I had the opportunity to review Apologia Educational Ministries books: iWitness Biblical Archaeology, Old Testament iWitness and New Testament iWitness. These books are for all ages but reading level is 11 and up. They run $14 each and are approximately 60 pages. The books are full color and heavy paper (so they are meant to last!). The size of each book is 6 x 9. The front cover of each book has a “score mark” which helps the heavy cover and other pages to bend as you are reading through the book – something “minor” but very nice to have.
Our family has loved Apologia items since the beginning of our homeschool journey. We have had the pleasure of using and/or reviewing many of their items! We have used their Science books for YEARS, we have also enjoyed some of their Bible studies. In case you aren’t aware, Apologia formed as a way to help homeschool families learn and share the Scriptures with others through the books they publish. The Lord is heavily shared in everything they produce ~ this is one of the reasons we love their items so much!
I originally planned on using these as a family read aloud, however, they are not really set up as something that works for that. They are more fact based and they are not something you can easily read through like a story. They have a lot of pictures and have more of a scrapbook look to each page.
The first book I read was iWitness Biblical Archaeology. This book has a lot of information about the many different items archaeologists have found that “back up” the Scriptures. It talks about discoveries that have to do with The Flood, Noah’s Ark, Dead Sea Scroll’s, Judges, YHWH inscriptions and just a lot of general history stuff that connects with what the Bible says.
The next book was New Testament iWitness. It is also very fact based and covers more of how we got the New Testament covering things like: Manuscript Families, Numbers of Copies, Rejected Books. It covers the Ages and the rulers and shows again how Scripture lines up with history.
And finally I read Old Testament iWitness which was very similiar to the New Testament iWitness. I would have to say I enjoyed this one the most. It talked a lot about the different books of the Old Testament and how different religions accept different books and why that is. It shares the popular names for the different sections as well as those I have never seen but have heard about.
All in all I really enjoyed each of these books. They are extremely informative. The only “issue” I have with them is that some of the fonts used are a bit difficult to read. I know they used the fonts they did to help with the “scrapbook look” and it looks really neat, but I did find myself getting a little frustrated at times that I had to really concentrate to understand what some to figure out some of the words.
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Read more Apologia Educational Ministries reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew!
Here’s praying you have fun learning!
Tagged: Homeschooling, Schoolhouse Review
Guiding Light Homeschool 
I was expecting a story, too, but also appreciate the straightforward facts.
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