What is a good book in the bible to start reading.

[G4C Chiodos]

I want to start reading my bible more, but I'm not sure what book I should start reading. I know that its a really bad idea to start in Genesis because of the ____ begat _____ over and over. So what do you think would be a good book to start with?

[Dinkleberry2010]

The book of Job

[Virgil]

Why don't you start t the beginning with Genesis?

[stlukesguild]

I'll have to agree with Virgil. Genesis is the creation stories, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Methuselah, the Covenant with Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot, Jacob, and Joseph. These are some of the central stories of the Bible and some of the central stories of Western culture... and the foundation of the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Later books such as numbers can became tedious in documenting the heredity of who begat whom... but Genesis is one of the strongest books of the Bible. That said... Job is perhaps the single greatest book of the Bible... it deals with a central issue of the existence of God and evil... and I would not challenge the idea that it is a good place to start.

[JuniperWoolf]

Just skip the stupid names. There's no point in reading that crap.

[jocky]

Just skip the stupid names. There's no point in reading that crap.

Juniper this is a serious discussion, so moderate your tone or you could end up like Jocky, unwanted and banned. :) The Book Of Mormon.

[JuniperWoolf]

Juniper this is a serious discussion, so moderate your tone or you could end up like Jocky, unwanted and banned. :) The Book Of Mormon.

:blush: Hey dude, my tone was SUPPOSED to be jovial and light-hearted, thank-you-very-much.

[jocky]

:blush: Hey dude, my tone was SUPPOSED to be jovial and light-hearted, thank-you-very-much.

No problem, everyone on Lit Net is aware that ' crap ' is a jovial and light hearted term, apart from the three thousand moderators. You are in danger of not going to heaven, even worse you could be barred from the forum. :)

[G4C Chiodos]

I've tried to read some of Genesis , But I can't really get that far into it. My brother suggested to start reading Mark, But I think I will try out Job. I've been in Romans a little bit and I fairly enjoyed it, But I got out of the habit of reading it. I used to really be into books about six years ago, and as soon as I hit high school, I just suddenly stopped reading almost altogether. I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.

[stephofthenight]

Job, psalms, and proverbs are my personal favorites. psalms is super long thou. I also like jermaiha

[G4C Chiodos]

Job, psalms, and proverbs are my personal favorites. psalms is super long thou. I also like jermaiha

I loved proverbs when I did a study on it a few summers back. I haven't really read any of Jeremiah or Psalms.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

... I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.

I believe you have uncovered the underlying problem here. It would seem that you first need to first rediscover your passion for reading, then perhaps start with something not quite so daunting as say; Genisis. I agree that Job is a must, but you might begin with a theme. Consider the Christmas season we are entering and read the prophecies of Isaiah and then to the infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke.
Regardless, you must start reading which begins with turning off this confounded computer!

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

[G4C Chiodos]

I believe you have uncovered the underlying problem here. It would seem that you first need to first rediscover your passion for reading, then perhaps start with something not quite so daunting as say; Genisis. I agree that Job is a must, but you might begin with a theme. Consider the Christmas season we are entering and read the prophecies of Isaiah and then to the infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke.
Regardless, you must start reading which begins with turning off this confounded computer!

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

Haha. Thanks for the inspiration. I have a project to do so it won't be off anytime soon. But thanks for the help. Thanks everyone!

[Rozzy]

When we really have a passion to read the Bible through from cover to cover it becomes child's play and it is over far to soon. Then we go back and pick out eras, people and places that stick in our minds. As we remember some of the events, the places and people our mind will run it through like a video.
Be aware that all the translations I know of have doctrinal biases inserted by the theologians that produced them. Once you are familiar with the existing text then do your home work and go backwards in time and weed out the translation manipulations, the additions, the deletions that the organized churches have wrought upon the sacred text. You will be surprised and maybe even shocked, but you will then know the truth.

[BienvenuJDC]

I would start with the book of John...

[Maryd.]

Are there seperate sales of each book... I mean can one get the book of John as a seperate book?

[Heathcliff]

Well, I've read the first four.
Genesis and Exodus are the books that I know best, so they were the most rewarding to me.
I personally think Numbers mostly just outlines rules, good if that's what you are interested in.
It makes more sense to read in order, I think. Particularily because it is hard to understand when you have no ideea who the people they are talking about actually are and how history has created them.
That is just what I think though.
I suggest starting from the beginning, it made sense to me like that.
I think Psalms and Revelations, Songs of Solomon, are pretty good to start with. They don't always have anything to do with any particular story in detail and can quite often just be offering praise, I think.
Maybe I should just quit while I'm here, whenever I talk about topics as religion, politics, economics, I always end up in an arguement.

[Rozzy]

You can buy the books separately but with so many inexpensive Bibles why would you?
Bibles are not all the same, the first thing to do is decide from which base text you would like to read, Alexandrian, Syriac or Byzantine. My preference is the Alexandrian Text because it is the oldest and most reliable. With all the hubbub about the different texts the Alexandrian OT matches the NT very well (They were both Greek Texts) One reason the organized church does not like the Alexandrian texts is because they contain the Intertestamental books the church has banned and it can be found and read minus the translation manipulations of later theologians.
However each to his own.

[ShoutGrace]

Threads on this and similar topics have proliferated recently. I wonder why?


I've tried to read some of Genesis , But I can't really get that far into it. My brother suggested to start reading Mark, But I think I will try out Job. I've been in Romans a little bit and I fairly enjoyed it, But I got out of the habit of reading it. I used to really be into books about six years ago, and as soon as I hit high school, I just suddenly stopped reading almost altogether. I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.

I agree with Gilliatt Gurgle that a passion for reading is fundamental.

Some books of the Bible are more enjoyable to me than others. I noticed that many respondents in this thread identified Psalms and Proverbs as favorites; for various reasons, I have a hard time reading those two.

Ecclesiastes, by contrast, hooked me immediately, and perhaps I've continued to enjoy it so much because I identify with it. Song of Songs is another that I've liked from the start. There are so many different ways to approach that book, and so much to extrapolate from it, from both literary and theological perspectives.


I believe you have uncovered the underlying problem here. It would seem that you first need to first rediscover your passion for reading, then perhaps start with something not quite so daunting as say; Genisis. I agree that Job is a must, but you might begin with a theme. Consider the Christmas season we are entering and read the prophecies of Isaiah and then to the infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke.
Regardless, you must start reading which begins with turning off this confounded computer!

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

I agree that a timely Christmas reading might be in order. My interest in the Christian religion began when I read the 4 Gospels during a Christmas week.


Are there seperate sales of each book... I mean can one get the book of John as a seperate book?


You can buy the books separately but with so many inexpensive Bibles why would you?

You can get each book of the Bible separately. The reason to do so, I think, would be the space available for textual notes and commentary. I've got a 300 page book on the Gospel of Luke that I hope to read someday.


Bibles are not all the same, the first thing to do is decide from which base text you would like to read, Alexandrian, Syriac or Byzantine. My preference is the Alexandrian Text because it is the oldest and most reliable. With all the hubbub about the different texts the Alexandrian OT matches the NT very well (They were both Greek Texts) One reason the organized church does not like the Alexandrian texts is because they contain the Intertestamental books the church has banned and it can be found and read minus the translation manipulations of later theologians.
However each to his own.

Hi Rozzy. Do you know whether modern editions/translations of the Bible include the most historically viable material from all available texts? I know well that each translation contains bias, but I'm curious as to how they are derived from the earliest copies. I get the impression, from reading skeptics and believers alike, that there is something of a consensus regarding the earliest, most viable Biblical material.

[Maryd.]

You can get each book of the Bible separately. The reason to do so, I think, would be the space available for textual notes and commentary. I've got a 300 page book on the Gospel of Luke that I hope to read someday.


Sounds like a great idea. However I don't own a bible at home... Except the children's one, that they had to purchase for school. May have to consider getting one. :nod:

[ShoutGrace]

Sounds like a great idea. However I don't own a bible at home... Except the children's one, that they had to purchase for school. May have to consider getting one. :nod:

I think it will be a great addition to your life. :) If read and contemplated at all (even from a skeptical point of view), I think think the Bible contributes greatly to a liberal education generally, and an understanding of the world at large.

I have a couple dozen Bibles, and these translations seem to always be hanging around:

ESV
KJV
NLT
NAB
NASB
RSV
HCSB
NKJV

Let me know if you ever want help picking a translation. :)

[Rozzy]

Hi Rozzy. Do you know whether modern editions/translations of the Bible include the most historically viable material from all available texts? I know well that each translation contains bias, but I'm curious as to how they are derived from the earliest copies. I get the impression, from reading skeptics and believers alike, that there is something of a consensus regarding the earliest, most viable Biblical material.


Shoutgrace

I can see what you mean by the convenience of using individual books with lots of room for notes.

Bible versions and the texts they are based on is always a controversial subject because of intense indoctrination to a particular view or set of doctrines. My personal conclusions are drawn on a very long time of research and discovery.
I do not know of one modern Bible version, edition or publication that is true to the text it is drawn on. Even on the Bibles I do use I am also aware of the translation manipulations in them and recognize them as I read them. Although I can teach out of any version there is, there is a lot I do not like about a lot of them. Key and main doctrines of the christian church have steadily morphed since the late 1800's through to now. There are key points in history in which major change has taken place, controversial at the time but soon forgotten by the next generation, much of which is hidden and even denied today even though there are many smoking guns from the past showing up all over.

[Rozzy]

A good example of what I mean concerning Bible translations, the new publication of scriptures called "The NETS Bible" claims to be a fresh and timely translation of the Septuagint. You would expect this Bible to then be faithful to the original Greek MS and in a more modern English, right?
What the NETS Bible actually is is an attempt to bring the ancient Greek text closer to the Masoretic text there by artificially harmonizing scripture from two completely different sources.

The following is a public comment I made on the comment part of a sales page for NETS.

Though the NETS Bible calls itself a new translation of the Septuagint it is really a publication designed to draw the Septuagint closer to the Hebrew text. The NETS translators consider the Septuagint subservient to the Hebrew (Masoretic Text) while not taking into consideration that the Septuagint and Masoretic texts are from two separate and distinct sets of MSS. The idea that the Septuagint is an inferior text has always plagued translators when in fact this is not the case. The publication of the DSS proved the existance of two separate and distinct MSS of the Hebrew scriptures though the proof was withheld until 1991 when outside pressure forced their release. All this monkey business in churchdom..............

[BienvenuJDC]

Are there seperate sales of each book... I mean can one get the book of John as a seperate book?

Typically you can get the New Testament by itself, but it usually isn't broken down any more than that. Some of the books are really books at all. Philemon is only a page long...a partial page at that. It was a letter written by Paul to Philemon.

Check out...

www.biblegateway.com

I use the NKJ, but the ESV is another accurate modern day translation. There is a difference between translations (word for word translations), and those that are merely version (some are paraphrases).

[Virgil]

Hi Rozzy. Do you know whether modern editions/translations of the Bible include the most historically viable material from all available texts? I know well that each translation contains bias, but I'm curious as to how they are derived from the earliest copies. I get the impression, from reading skeptics and believers alike, that there is something of a consensus regarding the earliest, most viable Biblical material.

I think the major contemporary editions are all quite good. From what I've read (upfront, I'm no biblical scholar) they tend to reach a consensus position on the meaning from various sources of "original" texts. I put original in quotations because there are no original texts. For instance when it comes to the New Testament we certainly don't have the ortiginal texts, we don't have copies of the original texts, we don't have copies of the copies of the original texts. What we have is probably at least four copies removed. At best we have fragments of a page from the Gospel of John from the middle of the 2nd century, and that wasn't an original either. I don't think we have a full text of a single book or epistle prior to the third century. That's three hundred years from when the events were reported to have happened. And just think of all the errors that handscribing accumulates, from one to the other to the other. Things are inserted in some that are not in others; things are left out in some and not in others. What scholars do is compare the early surviving texts and come to some assumption as to what the original was like, based on a comparison of the surviving texts. It's not different at all from what scholars do with ancient classical texts. Same issues there too. If you look across the good translations, they seem to agree for the most part. You can find all the translations on the internet (just google or yahoo it) and have side by side comparison.

Since I'm Catholic I usually go to the NAB, but I do like the NIV also. For me, I go by the sound of the English rather than accuracy, simply because I have no idea which is most accurate. If accuracy is important to me for any particular verse I'm looking up, I will compare across the various translations. I prefer the modern language translations, because I'm usually more interested in clarity.

[OrphanPip]

For the more frugal amongst you, you can always track down a Gideon and get a free Bible! I have like 5 Gideon New Testament Bibles hanging around my house, and I'm an atheist.

[papayahed]

For the more frugal amongst you, you can always track down a Gideon and get a free Bible! I have like 5 Gideon New Testament Bibles hanging around my house, and I'm an atheist.


I shop for mine in hotel rooms, I even scored a book of Mormon once.

[Rozzy]

Virgil

Most people think the translators have played it straight with them, to bad they have not.

Simple and easy to spot, where your bible says "end of the world" the real text says end of the age, that is no little difference. Where your bible says "eternal punishment" the real text says age of correction or you can even go age of punishment if you like but no where does the real text say eternal punishment for any one. If you think I am off my rocker all you have to do is check it out. That is only a sample but it gives you an idea what they have done.
The entire OT has been switched from the original text, sounds preposterous doesn't it? Well all you have to do is go into the NT in about any English translation you like and then find verses that are quoting OT verses, comments by the Disciples or even Christ Himself. Then match them to the appropriate scriptures in the OT of the very Bible you got them out of, they do not match. Then take the very same quotes and match them to a Septuagint OT and they match perfectly.
Odd how theologians denigrate the Septuagint and called it inferior when all the time knowing full well it is the Bible of the Apostles and Christ Himself.

Feel free to test the text against what I have posted and see if it is right. Do not be to surprised at what you will find when you do because there is a whole lot more.

[MarkBastable]

If, as believers believe, it's a story, I'd suggest starting at the beginning.

Failing that, do it by your preferred genre.

Biography - Luke or Matthew

Sword and Sorcery - Revelations

Sex - Song of Solomon

Travelogue - Paul's letters

Talking animals and Fantasy - Genesis

War and tribal myth - Exodus

Heroic adventure - Samuel, and the middle books of the Old Testament

Growing a new business - Acts of the Apostles

[G4C Chiodos]

So many people are telling me to try different books, and I still don't know which one to start with. I think I'll either try to start from Genesis or Randomly place my finger on the list of all of the books. But thanks for all of the help and advice on the translations.

[Rozzy]

Start with Daniel, kewl stories, prophecy and there is some short books in the Apocrypha of the KJV, Brentons and others that are a real kewl read to go along with it.

[Maryd.]

I think it will be a great addition to your life. :) If read and contemplated at all (even from a skeptical point of view), I think think the Bible contributes greatly to a liberal education generally, and an understanding of the world at large.

I have a couple dozen Bibles, and these translations seem to always be hanging around:

ESV
KJV
NLT
NAB
NASB
RSV
HCSB
NKJV

Let me know if you ever want help picking a translation. :)

Thanks Shoutgrace, will do... (Have to go out and buy one first :thumbs_up)

[mal4mac]

I've tried to read some of Genesis , But I can't really get that far into it. My brother suggested to start reading Mark, But I think I will try out Job. I've been in Romans a little bit and I fairly enjoyed it, But I got out of the habit of reading it. I used to really be into books about six years ago, and as soon as I hit high school, I just suddenly stopped reading almost altogether. I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.

I read a lot, but every time I start to read the Bible, I stop. All those begats are too much of a pain however much you read! Try reading Dickens or Tolstoy, they should get you reading. Then try Shakespeare.

[Heathcliff]

I read a lot, but every time I start to read the Bible, I stop. All those begats are too much of a pain however much you read! Try reading Dickens or Tolstoy, they should get you reading. Then try Shakespeare.

Woohoo Shakespeare!!
I suppose there are a few different types of bibles.
The one I got for school made it all sound light and fluffy, and a lot shorter than it could be.

[Nick Capozzoli]

I would start with the book of John...

I agree, and vote for the Gospel of John. Job, Ecclesiates, the Psalms, and all the rest are great, but as a Christian I look to the New Testament for inspiration, and the Gospel of John affects me the most. I think that his portrayal of he Life of Christ is the most compelling.

[Virgil]

I agree, and vote for the Gospel of John. Job, Ecclesiates, the Psalms, and all the rest are great, but as a Christian I look to the New Testament for inspiration, and the Gospel of John affects me the most. I think that his portrayal of he Life of Christ is the most compelling.

Add me to those that think the Gospel of John is the most compelling. But let's put in a good word for Luke for this time of year.

[Heathcliff]

Add me to those that think the Gospel of John is the most compelling. But let's put in a good word for Luke for this time of year.

My favourite Evangelist. Or maybe I shouldn't pick favourites. There is more, I think, to say about women and children. I like.

[stlukesguild]

Most people think the translators have played it straight with them, to bad they have not.

Simple and easy to spot, where your bible says "end of the world" the real text says end of the age, that is no little difference. Where your bible says "eternal punishment" the real text says age of correction or you can even go age of punishment...

The entire OT has been switched from the original text, sounds preposterous doesn't it?

Odd how theologians denigrate the Septuagint and called it inferior when all the time knowing full well it is the Bible of the Apostles and Christ Himself.

I think that most educated readers who approach the Bible as a work of literature (whether they believe it to be something more or not) realize that translation always entails a certain degree of loss... especially when dealing with a work that is thousands of years old and has no single undisputed "original" text. You speak of the "original" text? What is the original text. With the exception of the fragments discovered recently (ie. the "Dead Sea Scrolls") there is no extant Hebrew Bible in existence which can be dated to anything earlier than the 9th or 10 century AD. The Septuagint may indeed be the closest we get as it provided a Greek translation for the Greek-speaking Jewish communities... and "Old Testament" portions of the Septuagint may date from the 3rd c. BC.

The Masoretic Text is the oldest known Hebrew version of the Hebrew Bible dating to the Rabbinical council dating around 100 AD in which the Septuagint was set aside and the "official" Hebrew text was established... almost certainly through a great deal of translation back into Hebrew from the Greek of the Setuagint and other sources. The Masoretic Text had the advantage over most of the Christian translations of maintaining a strict consistency over the centuries.

And then there is the "Vulgate"... or skipping over the tainted translations in Old Latin... there is Jerome's Bible which employed sources that may predate... or have greater claim to being the "original" text than does the Septuagint. Jerome documents having employed originally a range of Greek translations. Later he speaks of employing a manuscript known as the Hexapla which was prepared by the Greek theologian, Origen (c. 185-254). This was a six-columned text including the "original" Hebrew, the same Hebrew transliterated into the Greek alphabet, and four different Greek translations. This book, unfortunately, is lost to us. Still... considering Jerome's scrupulous editorial nature it is quite likely that the Hebrew texts he employed were quite sound.

It would seem that all three of these elder translations may lay similar claim to the title of the "original text"... at least prior to the discovery of the "dead Sea Scrolls". The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 BCE. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and are most commonly identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic Text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.

The Authorized King James Version of the Bible was translated employing a variety of sources. The Old Testament was largely translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha were translated from the Greek Septuagint, except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate. At the same time, instructions were given to avoid the Puritan or Protestant elements... retaining terms such as "the church" rather than the Protestant "congregation". The text of the Bishops' Bible would serve as the primary guide for the translators. The translators were permitted to consult other translations from a pre-approved list: the Tyndale Bible (from which such a large portion of the KJV comes that some have credited him along with Shakespeare as the inventors of the Modern English language), the Coverdale Bible, Matthew's Bible, the Great Bible, and the Geneva Bible. In addition, later scholars have detected an influence on the Authorized Version from the translations of Taverner's Bible and the New Testament of the Douai-Rheims Bible.

Personally, of any complete Bible translation in English. I prefer the King James Version. There may be more recent translations that lay greater claim to literal clarity... but I don't see literal clarity as a key element of the Bible. It is quite often a poetic text laden with symbols and metaphors. There may be more recent translations that draw more clearly upon a single "original text"... yet the question still remains as to which "original text" is the most valid. And certainly there are translations of individual books that I find are of equal or greater merit to the same within the KJV. I quite admire Chana and Ariel Bloch's translations of the Song of Songs, Stephen Mitchell's thought-provoking translation of Job, Robert Alter's Five Books of Moses and Book of Psalms (to say nothing of the endless magnificent translations of various Psalms by British poets ranging from Milton to Sidney to Smart to Coleridge.)

[Heathcliff]

Aha. Yer... Now that's what I meant... I think.

I'd get one of those ultra-short childrens editions if you only want something brief to start off with.
Then maybe I'd move onto some other religions, I'm interested in all of that stuff.
As long as you take it all with a grain of salt, probably that is where I think Revelations can be a bit interesting.

[chrissy613]

I've tried to read some of Genesis , But I can't really get that far into it. My brother suggested to start reading Mark, But I think I will try out Job. I've been in Romans a little bit and I fairly enjoyed it, But I got out of the habit of reading it. I used to really be into books about six years ago, and as soon as I hit high school, I just suddenly stopped reading almost altogether. I think not being in the habit of reading is what has hindered me from reading my bible.

Well maybe you should start with some of the smaller readings first. Keeping you "captivated" seems to be a little bit of an issue.:) I don't reccomend reading most of the new testament. (Except John and Revelation) It's good to dabble, if you will, in the old testament to see what God's personality is like. Anyhow, I mean books like Jonah, Ruth, Nahum, Obadiah and so forth. Small readings with much wisdom and information. Once you read these testimonies and relate them to each other it's quite fascinating. Just a suggestion. Always favourites of mine were Psalms and Proverbs and I think this falls true with most individuals because they are "easy" to read books. Take care!!

[Lynne Fees]

I would have to agree on John. It show Jesus as He really is - true God and true man. Can't beat it. Next I'd pick Psalms.

[puppyshoes]

The book of St John is the best to start with. It starts off telling you exactly who Jesus Is. He's the divine Logos. Unfortunanetly most English translations of the Bible says "Word." From there we go to John the Baptist. The best thing to do is to find an Orthodox Church. Most places have at least one. Find an English speaking Church. I respect all belief systems But it's impossible for one church to sprinkle, another pour. Some have infant Baptism while another adult. Everyone can't be right. Go to www.ancientfaithradio.com I grew up in the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ. I studied and prayed until I couldn't stand it any longer. Then I decided to go back to the beginning, the very beginning. A Church that never made any changes in faith or morals.

[applepie]

I'm partial to the book of Genesis myself. I like creation stories, though, so I suppose it is a bit fitting that this is the one I favor.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Not that I know anything, but having read the Bible cover to cover over half-a-dozen times (and studied for 35 years), I would definitely recommend as a beginning place the book of Mark.

Why? Well, it's short and direct.

A scholar I follow has suggested that the four Gospel narratives were written with a view towards the four types of peoples of the day, viz., Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Arabs.

(There is a numerology system in the Scriptures e.g., 3, 4, 7, 12, etc.).

By this understanding, Matthew is directed towards the Jews; Luke towards the Greeks; John towards the Arabs; and Mark towards the Romans.

And since we as Western cultural folk are in the Roman cultural train, Mark would likely make a more direct appeal.

You could easily read it in one sitting in probably not more than an hour.

Caveat: There is one textual problem: the book of Mark ends with Mark 16:8.
So-called Mark 16:9-20 is spurious: most early manuscripts and witnesses do not include those 12 verses.

[malaya]

I'd start with Matthew or Mark , they're both about Jesus' life here on earth , it's easy to understand . you can also read Isaiah to refer to his prophecies that refer to the birth of Jesus.
.

[Lynne Fees]

I like Psalms for Old Testament.

[LMK]

Yes, it is difficult to begin reading the Bible at the beginning with the droning on of names and lists, but that will happen throughout the first several books, you can skim that part, or bite the bullet and read it all.

Without knowing your religious preference, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest starting with the book of John, then perhaps Proverbs, Kings, Samuel, but eventually, I think you will be led to read from the beginning to understand the parallels and references.

[El Viejo]

I want to start reading my bible more, but I'm not sure what book I should start reading. I know that its a really bad idea to start in Genesis because of the ____ begat _____ over and over. So what do you think would be a good book to start with?

Just tough it out and start at the beginning. Do it in short spurts, if you must. It'll make the 'good' parts that much sweeter.

[romeyblack]

Proverbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ariella]

lol should read this http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/index.htm
biblical quotes are interesting to say the least

[Abras]

Sine the OP, and indeed other posters on this thread, seem to find the Book of Genesis so difficult to read, may I suggest R. Crumb's wonderful graphic novel version of it? I know. I know. I'm sure some people feel that a guy with the history that Crumb has should never be allowed to touch such sacred work -- but, c'mon, give the guy credit. He illustrated the entire, unabridged book of Genesis, making everything, in my opinion, a lot easier to read -- yes even the infamous begets -- without ever lapsing into anything anyone could consider offensive.

[ladderandbucket]

Ecclesiastes for me. Surely the most philosophical book in the Bible.

[byquist]

Philemon is one page I think, so you can feel like you are making progress on your goal very fast.

[YesNo]

Were I re-reading the Christian Bible, I would do Genesis first. Next I would skip to Revelation (Apocalypse), the last book. The third stop would be Samuel I, II and Kings I which talks about David and Solomon.

The translation you read is not critical, but you will likely miss the points and the controversies without commentaries from various perspectives.

For Genesis, an excellent Protestant evangelical commentary is the one by Kent Hughes, Genesis Beginning & Blessing. That will give you, in the most positive light, the Christian perspective. And I find that perspective awe-inspiring and not one you will likely catch by just reading Genesis alone.

An alternate perspective comes from Harold Bloom in his introduction to The Book of J. What is amazing here is Bloom's perspective that Genesis was written by a female, specifically Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. You will not be able to read the adultery of Sarah with Pharoah or the other female activities described in Genesis in the same way again.

A general account of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic beliefs would help with Revelation. Specifically, Albert Schweitzer's discussions of early Christianity are helpful. Schweitzer seems to have claimed that Jesus expected to return very soon. When that didn't happen a crisis occurred in early Christianity.

To read Kings and Samuel, Baruch Halpern provides a scholarly commentary in David's Secret Demons that describes these documents as early pieces of propaganda by Solomon's court to prove that he actually was David's son when in fact he was not.

If you add the Gospels, especially John, there is the controversy over their anti-Semitism, but I hope I have motivated you to read the Bible enough already and to explore other commentaries as well.