Picture Stories From the Bible: Complete Old Testament Edition (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

In 1942, Max Gaines teamed with 10 religious leaders of Christianity, Catholicism and the Jewish faith to produce comic books presenting stories and scriptures from The Bible to young readers nationwide. Perhaps the most famous person on the advisory board was the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, who would be known to both Christian and secular readers for his motivational work, 1952's The Power of Positive Thinking.

The first series approved by the panel was titled Picture Stories From the Bible: Old Testament Edition. It was a 4-issue series that covers the creation story from Genesis, through the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, through the life of King David to the many prophets whom arose during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. Also included in the series was an account of the Life of Judas Maccabeus, whose rebellion against Antiochus lead to the miracle of the restored Temple's altar lights burning for 8 nights, later inspiring the Jewish festival of lights known as Hanukkah. 

The miracle itself is barely mentioned at all; reduced to just a single panel. The inspirational story of Job is also not included. Sex, such as King David's affair with Bathsheba is omitted. However, murder and war are certainly explored in great detail and clearly presented to appeal to young male readers. The first issue shows an unknown man in Egyptian garb punching out another man. Later editions, such as the one this reviewer read, would caption this scene as 'Moses Battles the Egyptians'. Yes, Moses did kill an Egyptian for abusing a fellow Israelite. But he never took on Pharaoh like John Wayne in a saloon on a busy Saturday night.

Before being bought out of his ownership shares of All-American, Gaines and his advisory board completed two follow ups: a 3-issue account of the complete New Testament and a one-shot collection of issues #1 and 2 titled Picture Stories From the Bible: Complete Life of Christ Edition. Both books were released under the National Comics banner, which had absorbed All-American's line under a single publishing house. 

Using his proceeds from the buyout, Max Gaines created a new publishing company: Educational Comics. It was soon know by just it's initials: EC. As the Bible books were Gaines' baby, he was able to eventually retain the rights to those titles, along with the 'Picture Stories' franchise title. Building on his company's promise to promote wholesome, informative comics to children, Educational Comics released Picture Stories titles featuring American history, world history, and science. A pair of massive collected editions of the Old Testament and New Testament series were released. The first couple of prints were published by National. All subsequent prints were from EC Comics. 

Illustrations for The Complete Old Testament Edition were attributed solely to Don Cameron. Although, many chapters look like they were illustrated or inked by others.

Scripts were written by Montgomery Mulford who used the King James version of The Bible, the Catholic Duoay edition of scriptures and the Jewish Publication Society volume of the Torah and Hebrew Bible.

Completing this review completes Task #1 (Comic from the Golden Age (1938-1955)) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.