Starting off on our journey to read the Bible through in a year, I decided it was a good idea to understand a little bit about the Bible before diving into it. A good friend of mine provided me with a Christmas Present this year that is titled “Halley’s Bible Handbook.” This book has provided me some significant insight into the Bible and how it was written which has greatly enhanced my ability to understand what I have begun to read. As of today, we were to have read three days worth of the Bible. Though I am on the plan that will have me read the Old Testament once, the Psalms twice, and the New Testament twice, for the purposes of this blog, I will post in the order of reading the Bible from beginning to end rather than jumping around.

With all of that being said, let’s get into what the Bible is, how it was written and organized, who wrote it, and all the generic background that is helpful in understanding the Bible:

First and foremost it is essential to understand that the Bible is the word of God. Now many people understand that the Bible was written by men here on the Earth and have issue with this statement. Additionally, there are many debates over just how accurate the Bible is having been subject to numerous translations, editors, copyists, and the like that bring us this day to our current edition – The English Standard Version. Additionally, many people believe that the Bible is a conglomeration of stories depicting philosophies and that we must merely look at these figuratively and not literally. Let us begin, however, by assuming that the Bible is just that – the word of God. By doing so, we will approach the writings with an open mind and not one of which we strive to find that it is contradictory and confusing and in cases unimaginable the writings that we read. I believe that we will find the Bible to contain such a common thread that there is no explanation other than one author, using the hands of others. With this presumption we take the Bible at its Word. When it states that God said – God really did say. When it states God created – God did create.

So what is the Bible?
The Bible is a compilation of 66 recordings (some call them books, others call them accounts, the term is irrelevant so long as we understand there is separation between them). These “books” were written by more than forty different people (whom we’ll discuss as we encounter them) and vary in length from less than 1 page to ~100 pages. Over the course of two thousand years these authors, ranging from fishermen to farmers to philosophers to kings, wrote from palaces and jail cells the very words we read today.

These 66 books are split up into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains 39 books and was written before the birth of Jesus Christ. Scholars agree that the Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and was (and still is) the Bible of the Jewish. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of the Messiah (Christ) who will save us from our sinful nature and reconcile our relationship with God. The New Testament contains 27 books and shares with us the new covenant (the word testament is synonymous with covenant in this context) that God made with all people through the work of Jesus Christ. The New Testament documents the story of Jesus and is largely comprised of writings by His early followers.

Out of all the books in the Bible (Old and New Testament) there are three major groups that each will fit into. There are historical books which comprise 22 of the 66 books and are arranged in chronological order (though separated between the Old and New Testament which contain 17 and 5 historical books respectively). There are then 26 books which fall within two categories: Poetic Books (Old Testament) of which there are 5 and Letters (also known as epistles) of which there are 21 in the New Testament. Lastly the Bible contains 18 Prophetic Books in which 17 are in the Old Testament and only 1 in the New Testament. I’ll go into a little more detail as to what these groups are as we begin each section.

As stated above, the Bible is composed of 66 books which are known as the canonical books. Canon in this sense means rule or standard and the canonical books are those accepted by the church as the ones inspired by God. Of course, there are other books that are not considered part of the canonical books. These books are believed to have been written but not inspired by God and are called the Apocrypha – meaning obscure or secret. A key point is that these books (nor writing within them) were ever recorded as being quoted by Jesus nor any of the writings of the New Testament. Though this disparity has not been clearly defined/explained to me, I am interested in finding out a little more information regarding the Apocrypha. The Canonical books are believed to have been stories shared throughout the ages by word of mouth until the development of writing which is believed to have occurred around 3150 B.C. which was more than 1000 years before Abraham and more than 1500 years before Moses (this is important to know later). Each of these books were documented and written over the course of 2000 years and then through subsequent translations beginning with the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made in ~250 B.C. This translation changed the order of the books to the order we now have in our Bible and became the basis for the Latin Bible – the Vulgate. It was noted by the Protestant church that the Greek translation was a rather poor translation and they therefore opted to use the Hebrew Bible but maintained the order of the books created by the Greek translation. The New Testament is comprised of sections that appeared in various areas of the now known Middle East (Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, Crete, Rome). Because of the environment during these days, many of the New Testament books had to be hand written to be copied and hidden. This invariably caused for variations in the New Testament books based upon region and the process of uniting these was extremely slow. Ultimately, the criteria for inclusion as Scripture hinged on whether it was of apostolic origin.

Over the years, there will be diverse interpretations and much debate over the Bible. In our journey, we take these historical notes as an added benefit to the understanding of the Bible. Of course, the teachings of the Bible can weigh on our hearts without this knowledge and ultimately it relies on the work of God within our Hearts and Souls. In my next blog post, I will begin the journey with the book of Genesis. May you open your heart to the Lord and entrust Him with your life that He speaks through you and your deeds as you read through the Bible with me.

ESV Daily Reading Bible Halley’s Bible Handbook