For the person who wants to get to grips with a large and ancient book that has been read by millions of people over thousands of years, there must be a better way than just starting at the beginning and reading to the end. A better way, that is, of getting the main message, before you read it right through.
The Bible is not just a ‘book’. It is a collection of 66 separate documents. Some we’d call books today. Others are collections of songs, there are letters, some to groups of people, others to friends, and some unusual forms of literature that are most like ‘calls to action’ that sometimes might be made today in speeches or pamphlets.
Some of the more book-like ‘books’ in the Bible are historical accounts, or compilations. These are not like our modern history books, where an author looks back to the past and composes his work, but they are more usually reports prepared at or near the time of the events of interest and brought together into the form in which we now have them.
With a conventional book, one tends to read from start to finish, because this is how the author would expect it to be read. As the Bible was not written by one author at one time (it has dozens of authors who wrote over a period of more than a thousand year), it was arranged according to a general historical logic: the first few books are in rough historical order of their subject, but then there are other books that don’t fit this: Psalms, Proverbs, the prophets, for example. In some cases the books are simply arranged in order of size, with the larger first. The letters of Paul in the New Testament are the best example.
There are two major divisions in the Bible: the Old Testament, with 39 works written BC, or before the birth of Christ (BCE, or ‘before common era’ as some people say), and the New Testament, which is 27 works written AD, or after the birth of Christ, in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar was the Roman emperor just before this period, with these documents written during the first decades of the era (CE, or ‘common era’).
The whole set of books in the Bible is listed and described here. [link]
2. Reading in 5 Easy Steps
It first occurred to me that a ‘method’ of reading the Bible for a new reader could be helpful when I had read a guide by Thomas Merton to reading Augustine’s “The City of God”. Not that I used the guide, I’m a ‘start to finish’ reader myself. But I liked Merton’s idea.
So, here’s how I’d suggest a newcomer read the Bible, so as to get the overall feel.
Before you start, there’s one more thing to know about the Bible’s organisation. Each book is broken into chapters, which are not always logical divisions, and each chapter is divided into verses, again, not always logically. The verses roughly equate to short paragraphs. These divisions were assigned in the Middle Ages as a means of easily referencing specific passages, and are still used for that today. However, when they were written, the books of the Bible were written as continuous prose (or songs) to be read as such. For instance, no one writes a letter and expects people to read a couple of sentences each day. No, the normal thing is to read right through the letter, usually in one sitting.
I’ve set out three alternative reading plans for people with (a) little, (b) some, and (c) more time that they can devote to reading.
1. The Beginning
The reader’s normal instinct, to start at the beginning, is sound here, as it mostly is. The opening of the Bible sets the scene for all that unfolds, showing us the ‘realness’ of the created universe, which is the setting of God’s relationship with us, both as creature, and as friend (the friendship was rapidly betrayed by humanity; the rest of the Bible tells of God restoring the friendship).
(a) Genesis chapters 1-11
The first eleven chapters provide the foundation for the Bible’s entire history, taking us up to the formation of the people of Israel, with Abram’s ‘call’. They also provide the foundation for our universal history and relate the events that underpin all human culture and its physical setting.
(b) Genesis complete
Genesis is the ‘book of beginnings’ and thus the book of orientation: it orients us to our world and relationships with each other and God. It also orients us to the commencement of God’s saving us from alienation from himself. On the historical level, it reads as a great saga (not undercutting its historicity) with a magnificent narrative sweep of huge scope: from the creation of all that is, to the formation of the people through whom God will bring re-creation and restoration of harmony between us and him.
(c) Genesis-Deuteronomy (the entire Pentateuch, or Torah, being the first five books.)
These books include long lists (Numbers) and law codes (Leviticus) which can get dull for a modern reader, but the information is important to allow you to understand the structure of Israel’s society and politico-religious system.
2. Troubles
After its great start, Israel, like most other human groups, had a tendency to run off the rails. People came along speaking for God. They were called prophets, and their job was to warn Israel of the danger and difficulty they were courting, urging them to turn from that path to one that would return them to companionship with God.
(a) Hosea and Joel
As a pair these books show God’s efforts to lead his people back to relationship with him, and the ultimate result of restoration, in Joel.
(b) Isaiah
Isaiah is a great prophesy that points to the messiah, the rescuer appointed by God to retrieve his people, and open the way to the new creation.
(c) Isaiah and Joel.
3. Israel’s contemplative life
The ‘devotional’ works form a set of books that consists of ‘wisdom’ literature, songs (referred to as ‘poetry’ today) and related works. It provides an insight into the devotional life of Israel, and the frankness with which God is approached.
(a) A selection from the ‘messianic’ Psalms: 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 89, 110, 118, 132 and 23.
(b) Add to (a) Psalms 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14; add 119, to go a little further.
(c) Add the Song of Solomon and Proverbs chapters 2-6; to go further add the book of Job.
4. The Beginning of the New
The Old Testament shows us the long path from the Fall, where God’s creatures rejected his friendship, to God’s restoration of that relationship through his entering our world in Jesus of Nazareth (it is important to note, for Old Testament symbolism, that ‘Jesus’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew name we usually translate as ‘Joshua’). Jesus heralds the new relationship between God and man, and its culmination in the “new creation” which is introduced through the New Testament and given final unveiling in the book of Revelation.
(a) Mark’s account of Jesus’ work.
Mark gives the shortest and most directly written account of Jesus work. Not a biography in our sense, as it is less about the person, and concentrates on his mission.
(b) Luke’s account of Jesus’ work.
Luke’s is probably the most historically rigorous of the four gospels, written to a gentile, and so probably more in tune with our Western mind set than the others.
(c) Luke’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’ work.
Together these two accounts give both historical and spiritual perspectives to the work of Jesus. John’s account is regarded as more the philosophical, or spiritual of the gospels.
5. Into the New
The next readings cover the history of the foundation of the Christian community from the end of Jesus’ mission with his ascension to heaven to the conclusion of the great missionary efforts of Paul the apostle (which means ‘messenger’). They show the significance for us of Jesus’ work in that we now can approach God, because God has ‘stooped’ down to us to re-found the relationships between him and us.
(a) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letter to the Galatians
Acts is an historical sketch of the foundation of the Christian community, and Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians is a summary of the profoundly radical Christian theology that Paul brought to the ancient world.
(b) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Ephesians
Adding Ephesians to the selection at 5(a) provides additional spiritual material with its practical outworking in our everyday lives
(c) Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letter to the Romans
Romans, as it is usually called, is Paul’s ‘tour de force’ and sets out his theology in its full force and its grand cosmic and eternal scope, running from the brokenness of this world, the source of that brokenness, and its being made good in the world to come. It is unparalleled.
Conclusion
The final book, Revelation, shows us, in sometimes extravagant picture language for us moderns, the culmination of God’s restoration in the ‘new creation’ despite all the adversity that can be thrown at his plan.
(a) Revelation 19-22
The end of it all is not the end, but the new beginning; the new creation where there is renewed relationship with God, the creator.
(b) Revelation 5 and 6, then 19-22.
(c) Revelation complete.
Summary Table of the three reading plans
