Ten year anniversary

In 2005,  Ron, one of our church members in Bathurst, encouraged us to read through the New Testament in 3 months, and gave us a pamphlet that gave you readings for each day, from September to Christmas.

Only a few of us joined in, but I enjoyed reading through the TNIV New Testament, and then decided to read through the Old Testament. That was not easy, because it is over 3 times as long as the New Testament, and has many chapters of genealogies and lists.

But I got through it, and decided that in the future I'd read a bit of the Old Testament and a bit of the New and go through them both together.

Over the next ten years, I read through four study Bibles, listened to two audio Bibles, worked through the Bible in nine different translations, and last year read through the Greek New Testament.

This has been an enriching experience.

One of the most enjoyable read-throughs, which I did once in the TNIV and once in the new NIV, was going through the unusually-named The Books of the Bible, which is a reorganised Bible, with chapters, headings and verses removed, but with judicious spacing to mark the different sections.
This version is partly thematic and partly chronological. The First Testament is more like, but not exactly the same as, the way the Hebrew Bible is organised.

Most of the Bibles I read are in the tradition of the King James Version of the Bible [which closely follows the earlier Tyndale Bible], but two of them have been translated without letting the KJV dictate the agenda. I find this refreshing, as it provides some interesting new insights into what the original authors may have intended. These two versions are the New Jerusalem Bible, available, if you scroll down, here, and the one I'm working through now, the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

The two audio Bibles were well worth listening to. I enjoyed the African American dramatic version of the TNIV called The Bible Experience. (If you purchase a copy today, it will be in the recent version of the NIV.) And I listened to a lightly-dramatised free-of-charge version of the King James Version from Faith Comes By Hearing. I think it would be hard-going to read through the King James, and if I were trying to, I think I'd use a version such as the Cambridge Paragraph version of the KJV, because its usual format of  a paragraph per verse spoils the flow of God's Word. (There is a copy of this edition available in Logos Bible software.)

I enjoyed reading the ESV through twice, in the Reformation Study Bible and in the ESV Study Bible. Both of these versions have excellent helps for understanding the message of the Bible, but  I am always left with questions they didn't answer, or questions whose answers raised more questions!

It was fascinating going through the NIV Archaeological Study Bible in the 1984 edition of the NIV. This Bible has lots of maps,photos, diagrams and articles about the historical background of the Bible. Did you know that the oldest part of the Bible that exists as an archaeological artefact is the wonderful Aaronic blessing, at the end of Numbers 6:

      The LORD bless you
         and keep you;
      the LORD make his face shine on you
         and be gracious to you;
     the LORD turn his face toward you
         and give you peace.

I enjoyed the exercise of reading through three idiomatic Bible versions: the Contemporary English Version, the Australian edition of the Good News Bible and the New Living Translation
I can see the value of the CEV for new readers of English, but found the translation of some parts of the Bible (such as Ephesians) too loose to be useful.

Having nearly been through the whole Bible thirteen times over the past ten years (after I finish reading through The Holman Christian Standard Bible in the Mission of God study Bible edition), I'm looking forward to the next part of the journey!

I'm thinking of reading through J B Phillips' version of the New Testament, and would like to tackle the New King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version.

And I'm eagerly awaiting the new Zondervan NIV Study Bible, edited by Don Carson, which is expected to be released next month.

By the way, I have devised my own Excel spreadsheet to make the read-through easier. I never read from Genesis to Revelation, but read a few chapters of the First Testament, a Psalm and a chapter or two of the New Testament, as often as I can. Sometimes every day. Sometimes I miss a day or more. Life gets in the way. Then I pick up where I left off.

And I don't begin on 1st January, which is the worst day to begin anything. Any other day is a good day to start reading the Bible!

I've just finished listening to Faith Comes By Hearing's [also known as bible.is] lightly dramatised King James Version audio Bible. It was very well done, with only a few irritations. The speakers read with meaning and very good pronunciation of Jacobean English and biblical names.

I'm now re-reading The Books of the Bible, which is an innovative and inviting Bible, designed to make it easy for you to read the whole thing. This version removes the chapters and verses [but does use space creatively to show logical sections].
It rearranges The First Testament to be closer to the Hebrew Bible format, re-ordering the Prophets chronologically, and dividing into large sections approximating the Hebrew Bible's Law, Prophets and Writings sections.
If the Bible seems like a book of great stories, interrupted by genealogies, this statement from the article introducing Genesis-Kings (The Covenant History) might make better sense of it:

A simple list of people or places provides a "skeleton" that an inspired author fleshes out by telling the stories of the various people or places on the list. This turns each list into a chronicle that traces the unfolding larger story of God.

The New Testament begins with Luke-Acts and Paul's letters, arranged chronologically [because of Luke's connection with Paul], then Mark and Peter's letters [because of Mark's connection with Peter], Matthew, Hebrews and James [the Jewish-flavoured New Testament writings], and ends with John's Gospel, letters and the Revelation.

If you would like to read the whole Bible, I can't think of a better one to use in your project.
But, if reading is a chore, listening to The Bible Experience, an African American presentation of the NIV, could be a good plan.

Reading through the Bible.

Which versions of the Bible have you read?

Over the past 5 years, I have enjoyed reading through the TNIV [twice, which includes "The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version"], the Zondervan NIV Archaeological Study Bible, the New Living Translation [2nd edition], The ESV Reformation Study Bible, The Good News Bible, Australian edition [which is so far the one with the most typos], the New Jerusalem Bible [I began reading the study notes, but they were so liberal, I quit the notes] and the ESV Study Bible [completed yesterday].

Today I've commenced reading through the Contemporary English Version, Australian edition.

This usually takes me about 5 months, but the last one was a massive undertaking, due to all the articles, introductions and notes. I began reading the ESVSB on 3rd Jan 09, and was going quite slowly for a while.

It is a great blessing to be able to read through and get an overview fairly quickly. You can do this by reading a psalm a day, anotehr 4 chapters of the Old Testament and 2 chapters of the New Testament, to keep things proportional.

This all started when a man in our church brought us a guide to reading through the New Testament in 91 days, which was intended to get folk reading through the New Testament before Christmas.

Only a few people took up the offer, but I got hooked!

Do you think it is too much to expect the average Christian to read through the Bible? Not many people of my acquaintance seem to do it. We read the Bible, but we read the same passages over and over. We read soem of the New Testament, some of the Psalms and not much of the rest of the Old Testament.

Do you think God should have got J K Rowling to write the text to make it an easier read?

Got two years available?

I don't mean to be boring, because I've said all this before, but the ESV Study Bible is an amazing resource. I am now 78% of the way through it and have read
Genesis-2 Samuel
Chronicles
Esther
Job
Proverbs-Lamentations
Joel-Jonah
Nahum-Haggai
Matthew
Luke-1 Corinthians
Ephesians-Jude

I appreciate the individual articles, introductions and study notes, but also the way they interrelate. The editors have done a terrific job.

Jack Collins' introduction and notes on Psalms are particularly outstanding.

Again and again the contributors show how important Deuteronomy and Exodus 34:6-7 are in the plan of the Old Testament and to the Bible as a whole.

I think every Christian person should be involved in getting to know God's Word, firstly through reading it without comments. An excellent way to do this is to read The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version, which removes chapters, verses and headings, rearranges the text to be partly chronological and partly thematic.

Then, when you have some familiarity with the Bible and have read the whole of it through, I can't think of a better guide than the ESV Study Bible. I'm finding it thrilling, though hard-going too, at times.

Halfway

Halfway down the stairs

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair where I sit:
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top:
So this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up, and isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town:
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!"
(A A Milne)

And I'm halfway through reading the ESV Study Bible, which my daughter and her husband kindly gave me for Christmas last year.

I made a simple Excel file to track my progress and was amazed this morning to find that I was further through the Old Testament than New Testament, because, mostly, it is easier to read the New Testament and it is also much shorter. [There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament, but only 260 in the New.]

So I read Titus to bring me up to 50% with the NT so that the two testaments would match.

I recommend reading through the ESV Study Bible, but I think reading through the Bible alone in a version such as The Books of The Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version before you read a version with notes and introductions is a good plan.

The best study Bible?

The ESV Study Bible is the best I have used so far. I highly recommend it, but advise that if you want to understand the Bible, read it firstly without notes and guides.

If you read the Bible prayerfully, as if it is the Word of God, I believe you will find that

it seems to be,
clearly claims to be
and ultimately proves to be indeed from God himself, though written by men.

Over the past 3 years or so I have read through the Bible seven times in seven different versions, including the TNIV [updated NIV Bible], a special presentation of the TNIV called "The Books of the Bible", The New Living Translation, 2nd edition and the Good News Bible, Australian edition. Each of these is well worth reading, and better if you read it alongside other Bibles.

I have also read the ESV Reformation Study Bible, the NIV Archaeological Study Bible and the New Jerusalem Study Bible and have found each of them worth reading.

The Reformation Study Bible is useful for coming to grips with Reformed Theology and some Bible background.

Zondervan's Archaeological Study Bible is a great help in digging into the Bible's background [whoops!], but fairly light on theology.

I like the way The New Jerusalem Study Bible uses the Hebrew words for God, such as Yahweh, Shaddai and El Elyon, though mercifully it does not use Elohim, but renders it as "God." It also has many interesting renderings of words that you have become familiar with in the many Bible versions which seek to follow in the Wyclif-Tyndale-KJV tradition. But its study notes are written from a critical position which assumes that the Bible is fallible and not God's inerrant Word, and these notes did not help me to get to know the divine author any better.

The ESV Study Bible has 2 million words, 750,000 of which is the biblical text itself. It has a wealth of useful articles, resources, many terrific maps, introductions to each section of the Bible and each Bible book and extensive study notes on the ESV text.

It has taken me from 3 to 6 months to read through each of the other seven versions, but be warned: if you really want to read this whole Bible through [which I enthusiastically urge you to do AFTER you've read the Bible without study note help], it may take you about three years, based on my experience so far. This would be well worth doing, but you will need to plan it. There are excellent Bible reading plans available from the producers of the Bible on their website, which also contains the complete text of the Study Bible and makes ploughing through the many Bible references in the articles much easier to do.

What are you waiting for?

Out with the old, in with the new

Today I finished reading the New Jerusalem Study Bible, reading Revelation chapters 7 to 22. This Bible is well worth reading through, though I am not particularly enamoured of the study notes, which often cast doubt on the Bible as coming to us from God, and embrace discredited theories such as the documentary hypothesis concerning the composition of the Pentateuch.

But I do like many things about the translation, including the use of Hebrew names for God and especially the use of Yahweh, instead of the convention of rendering the
tetragrammaton as LORD.

There are many interesting renderings in this translation, which, unlike so many others, is not tied to the Wyclif-Tyndale-King James tradition.

And today I began reading through my Christmas present from Cathy and Philip [my daughter and son-in-law], which is the ESV Study Bible. I would like to read through the whole book, including the 750,000 word biblical text and the 1 and a quarter million word study notes, resources and articles.

Over the past three years, prompted by Ron McCarthy, I've been reading rapidly through these Bible versions, taking three to five months to do so:
The TNIV
The ESV Reformation Study Bible
The NIV Archaeological Study Bible
The New Living Translation, second edition
The Good News Bible, Australian edition
The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version
and
The New Jerusalem Study Bible [including the Roman Catholic additions, which are not holy Scripture, but are well worth every Christian reading].

I have read most of the study notes in most of these, with the exception of the NJSB.

But there are so many in the ESV Study Bible, it is going to probably take at least twice as long as the other journeys. I'm looking forward to a more leisurely ride, which I began today using the one year Daily Bible Reading Plan included in this book. I always modify these and today did begin with Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, but then read Hebrews 1, Psalm 104 [referred to in the study notes for Hebrews 1] and Hebrews 13, on which I'm preaching tomorrow.

David Chapman's notes on Hebrews are excellent. I hope to find the rest of the study notes equally as worthwhile.

A de-versified Bible

This is a helpful article about the advantages of a Bible that doesn't look like a reference manual.

Why is the Bible so hard to read? For all the energies Bible publishers spend on manipulating the look and feel so that the Bible will go down easy, part of the problem is, well, the look and feel.

Over the last few centuries, we’ve come to believe that the key to better Bible reading is to add more and more stuff to the text. Modern Bibles are cut into two columns and laced with chapters and verses, cross references, footnotes, section headings, commentary and all manner of what-not and hooha. We’ve split books that were originally whole and severed natural connections within big sections. Our Bibles are a complicated mess.

Bible additives like these left philosopher John Locke complaining that the scriptures “are so chop’d and minc’d, and as they are now Printed, stand so broken and divided, that...the Common People take the Verses usually for distinct Aphorisms,” and “even Men of more advanc’d Knowledge in reading them, lose very much of the strength and force of the Coherence, and the Light that depends on it.” In other words: we’ve adapted the Bible to the point that it’s nearly impossible to understand.

Locke was right. The modern form of the Bible has compelled us to read it in bits and pieces. But the Bible is not made up of these bits and pieces. It’s really a collection of whole books. There are lots of books in the Bible and they are quite different from each other. There are letters and short stories, historical narratives and apocalyptic visions. Collections of song lyrics are included alongside prophetic oracles. The Bible’s wisdom literature includes books of short, pithy sayings as well as longer, ponderous explorations of life’s quandaries.

All in all, the Bible is a remarkable gathering of ancient writings combining many literary forms. These things are actual books! Who knew?

Today, readers who want to encounter Bible books as they were intended have work against our fancy formatting. It turns out that fewer people are making that effort. The research tells us that biblical literacy is low across our land. Apparently folks do not willingly, eagerly dive into giant reference books, holy or otherwise, for times of extended reading.

The time has come to reverse the old “Let’s add more!” approach. It’s time for an additive-free, organic Bible.

What would happen if Bible publishers acted on the belief that less is more? Bible formats have not been mandated by early creeds, church councils or denominational boards. Publishers are free to lead the way here. If they will do so, the Bible could be simplified, its text rediscovered.

Some attempts have already been made in this direction. Probably the most far-reaching is The Books of The Bible, a project I’ve been a part of for the last five years. Here’s what we decided to do in our attempt to uncover the books hidden by centuries of accumulated additives:

• Ditch the inserted chapter and verse numbers along with the artificial divisions they create, and look for natural literary breaks instead;
• Scrap the multiple columns which typically ruin the literary flow;
• Take all the footnotes, cross-references, section headings and commentary off the page of scripture text;
• Restore divided books to their original wholeness;
• Arrange the books in an order that makes more sense for literary type and historical order.
It’s pretty simple, really. It is pure text. This is a Bible that is simple, and remarkably (and unfamiliarly) readable. This returns it to a collection of unique, literary writings. As one reader told us, “Not having the clutter of chapters, verses and headings means I’m no longer conscious of ‘getting my Bible reading done.’ I just read and enjoy the book, and tend to read more." Welcome to the Good Books!

What about the objection that, minus the modern navigation equipment, no one will be able to find their way around? Well, that shows just how much our grasp of Bible “reading” (to use the term lightly) is tied to Bible additives. One especially sorry consequence of this is verse-jacking, the yanking of selected words out of their natural context to make them mean things they manifestly don’t mean.

Secondly, the belief that modern additives are essential to Bible interaction shows a lack of historical awareness of the church’s history with the Bible. The church has read, studied, taught and preached a Bible without all the numbers for much longer than the modern version has been in existence. Plus, the “additives are necessary” objection reveals a disturbing lack of interest in recovering older, different practices, or for imagining new ways to use and reference the Bible in more holistic and contextual ways.

It is not impossible to use a Bible like this. We are simply out of practice. For all the helps and tools brought to us by Bible publishers, we don’t know our Bibles well enough to actually know how to read them.

Eugene Peterson warns us that “[t]he form in which language comes to us is as important as its content. If we mistake its form, we will almost certainly respond wrongly to its content.” The modern Bible forces its literature into unnatural contortions, making it easier for us to mistake the form of the language and thus misinterpret the content. For the sake of the Bible, for the sake of our own reading, let’s go organic and learn again how to read whole books.

How many books in the Bible?

Protestants and Roman Catholics share the whole of the New Testament and 39 books of the Old Testament, though Esther and Daniel have a few additions in the Roman Catholic Bible, and their Bible includes 6 extra books
Tobit
Judith
Wisdom
Sirach
Baruch
and First and Second Maccabees

The Catholic Encyclopedia says that they have 45 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New, making a total of 72 books.

Protestants will tell you that we have 66 books in our Bibles: the same 27 in our New Testaments and 39 in our Old Testament.
But several of these books should really be grouped together. Exodus-Numbers is really one continuous narrative, Samuel-Kings is really one book [and divided in illogical places in our Bibles], Chronicles is also one book, as are Ezra and Nehemiah. So our Old Testament is really a collection of 31 books. The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version also joins Chronicles with Ezra-Nehemiah, but this is not done in the Tenach [the Jewish Old Testament].

There is also one modification to make in the New Testament, because Luke-Acts is really one work in two volumes, thus reducing the New Testament to 26 books, giving us a total of 57 books in a Protestant Bible.

End of one project, beginning of a new

Yesterday I completed my project of reading through the Bible in the innovative The Books of the Bible - a presentation of Today's New International Version, which is a Bible without chapters, verses or headings, organised more logically than the standard form in which Protestant Bibles are printed.

I found the introductions to books very helpful, and the lack of references and footnotes enticing, and completed this project faster than my previous read-throughs.

I've now begun reading The New Jerusalem Bible using a plan called Read the Bible and the Catechism in a Year, which I got from Felix Just's Ways of Reading the Bible webpage.

As always, I am adapting the chart to my own purposes. I'm not planning to read the catechism at this stage, but may do so later. This morning I read the first chapters of Genesis, Matthew, Proverbs and Tobit, as well as reading two Psalms and 1 Thessalonians.

One thing I've noticed so far is that God has three different names in the first four chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 1 he is God, Genesis 2 and 3 he is Yahweh God and in Genesis 4 he is Yahweh.

I also noticed that the NJB translates wrath as retribution.

Reading through "The Books of the Bible"

I'm now about 70% of the way through The Books of the Bible: a presentation of Today's New International Version which is not the snappiest title for a Bible, is it?

I'm finding it easier and more motivating than my other read-throughs, in other versions and formats, thus far.

It is interesting to read something from the First Testament History, something from the Prophets, something from the Writings and something from the New Testament each day, as I've been attempting to do.

This Bible version omits chapters, verses and headings, but does use spacing helpfully. It is intended to be more-or-less chronological, and so the Prophets are grouped by century of writing, mostly, and Paul's letters are also presented in one possible chronological order.

When you read a few pages from several different parts of the Bible each day interesting connections appear. Reading through Jeremiah and Psalms, for example shows how much of what Jeremiah wrote harmonises beautifully with the concerns of the various psalmists.

And reading Jeremiah through for the sixth or seventh time now is beginning to open up that great book for me. It may be one of the hardest Bible books to read, especially if you haven't engaged with the Bible's teaching about God's holiness, wrath and justice.

But when you embrace these, God's love, grace, forgiveness and mercy are all the sweeter.