The Marginal Christian: Old Testament A

This is just going to be a summary of the contents of the Bible. I'll expand it, and break it into chunks, as I go along. I've decided to construct it by doing Chapter 1 of every book first, then slotting in every chapter 2, then 3, and so on. Maybe I'll alternate between OT and NT—Genesis 1, Matthew 1, Exodus 1, Mark 1, and so on.

How to read the Bible

There is no single best way to go about reading the Bible. Books that are mainly narrative may be read in large blocks like novels. Books suited to this approach are Genesis, the first half of Exodus, parts of Numbers [and Deuteronomy?], all the books from Joshua to Esther (apart from 1 Chronicles 1 to 9), parts of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Daniel, Jonah and the Book of Acts. Others can be read a chapter or part of a chapter, or even a verse or two at a time. In some cases, you may want to apply two such approaches to a particular passage. For example, you may read all of the Beatitudes (Mt 5.xxx-yyy) together in a single reading, and then go through them again, one at a time.

The Bible in a year

This is a popular approach. Many programmes aimed at achieving this have an Old Testament and a New Testament reading each day. I believe a gospel passage should be read every day. For this purpose, Acts 1 should be counted as the end of Luke's gospel, giving a total of 90 gospel chapters, requiring about a quarter of a chapter a day to complete them in a year.

With the Old Testament prophetic books, I believe it is good to read them in conjunction with the historical books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, to which they are closely connected.

Psalms and the other poetical books can be spread out over the year, possibly alternating between Psalms and other books.