Reading Bible stories to children is never an innocent act. It is useless to pretend that the Bible is simply another collection of tales, that Abraham, Noah and Moses are only another group of heroes, different from but equal to Achilles, Rama or Thor. One proof is that nursery school classes are replete with Jacobs and Joshuas, but now that the sixties are over one would be hard pressed to find a tiny Alcibiades or Krishna in the sandbox. We in the West are formed by or against the stories of the Bible, and when we read them to our children we are really saying, "This is how you and I inhabit the world."