My first attempt to read the Bible cover to cover failed miserably. Genesis was pretty easy, after all I knew most of the stories it contained. Exodus... I saw the movie THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, so that was a breeze too. But then I came upon Leviticus...and it all started to come to a grinding halt....Holocausts, cereal offerings, peace offerings, guilt offerings, sin offerings...that was enough for me.
I found that my failure to accomplish my reading of the Bible was that I knew very little about it. I had little knowledge of the types of books in the Bible and how those books related to each other. I never did a Bible study before so I never had the really big picture of the complete work. I knew that I needed to get a fundamental idea of how the various books of the Bible were organized, as it surely wasn't chronologically. The Bible seemed to jump around and I had no idea what the prophets were talking about and what time period they were referring to. I began to limit myself to the New Testament as that made more sense....but I knew that I was missing a very important part by not reading the Old Testament...after all I kept hearing St. Augustine's words "The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New." ...I needed the whole story of salvation!
Fortunately I found a great Bible study "The Little Rock Scripture Study" Series. My parish brought that in as one of its ongoing adult faith formation classes and I was eager to give it a try. After a few years, I was so enthralled with it all that I took over as the Facilitator and have been running the group for fourteen years and in my class I have a core group that have been with me from the beginning and new members trying it out and staying with us as we revel in God's word. So my first recommendation, if you want to read the Greatest Stories Ever Told... join a Bible Study Group. But if that is not possible for whatever reasons, let my try to give you some basic knowledge in understanding the Bible and how to read it for the first time.
The Bible is not just one book, it is not just two books either (Old Testament and New Testament), rather it is a collection of many books of varying literary styles.
The books of the Bible and the Hebrew Scriptures, in large part, are grouped by literary style. First are the Historical books, then Poetry, Wisdom literature, Prophecy and finally The Letters. Unfortunately by grouping the books in this way (by type) the Bible does not follow a strict chronology which can make reading the Bible from cover to cover difficult. In order to follow the "history of the Bible", to get an overall picture, it would be best to read these books first: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Maccabees, The Gospel of Luke and finally The Acts of the Apostles.
To help understand the history of the Bible it can be divided into 12 Periods of Biblical History:
1. The Early World--From Creation to the Tower of Babel (Genesis chapters 1-11)
2. The Patriarchs--From Abraham to Jacob/Joseph (Genesis chapters 12-50)
3. Egypt and the Exodus (Book of Exodus)
4. Desert Wanderings (Book of Numbers)
5. Conquest and Judges (Joshua and Judges)
6. Royal Kingdom (1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings chapters 1-11)
7. Divided Kingdom (1 Kings chapters 12-22; 2 Kings)
8. Exile (2 Kings)
9. Return from Exile (Ezra and Nehemiah)
10. Maccabean Revolt (1 Maccabees)
11. Messianic Fulfillment (Luke)
12. The Church (Acts)
If you are determined to read the Bible cover to cover try ordering your reading by the above historical timeline, and also add the Supplemental books that pertain to that era. Supplemental Books of each era:
Early World (none); Patriarchs (Job); Egypt and Exodus (Leviticus); Desert Wanderings (Deuteronomy); Conquest and Judges (Ruth); Royal Kingdom (Psalms, 1-2 Chronicles, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon [Songs]) ; Divided Kingdom (2 Chronicles, Obadiah, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah); Exile (Tobit, Nahum, Habakkuk, Daniel, Ezekiel, Judith, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Baruch); Return from Exile (Zechariah, Haggai, Esther, Malachi); Maccabean Revolt (2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach); Messianic Fulfillment (Matthew, Mark John); The Church (Paul's Letters, Other New Testament Letters, Revelation).
Hopefully this way of reading the Bible will help to give you the overall picture of Biblical and Salvation history. And I hope that you will soon be as enthralled as I was with the Bible that you will seek out a Bible Study near you where you can grow and share your faith with others.
Now that you are ready to embark on your Biblical Journey your next choice....which Bible to choose... yes, there are many versions, There is the Catholic Bible which has more books in it than a Protestant Bible. Why is that? And if that perks your interest, did you know that the Hebrew Scriptures of today are not what they use to be at the time of Jesus? How could this be? I will get into that in my next posting in Part 2 of the BIBLE BASICS.
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