The Bible 101
What It Is, How To Read It
What Is It?
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts that were written by
men under the inspiration of God. The very first Bibles had 80
books in them, but over the years these books were pared down to
66 books we use today. The excluded books were ultimately judged
less reliable and less provably authentic. It's just a book. It is a block of paper sewn together between
two covers. There is nothing mystical about it, nothing magic
about it. I use a bible to prop up my synthesizer sometimes when
I've set up my keyboard on an uneven surface. I see some people
clutch their chests when I do that, but I ask them, what better
foundation could there be for my music than God's Word? It isn't the book that is
holy but the words in it; the meaning and the eternal power of
those words are holy, not the paper and ink. Swearing on this
block of paper, as they do in courtrooms all over America, is
completely wrongheaded and anti-scriptural (Jesus teaches us not
to swear by anything, Matthew 5:34).
In our tradition, we tend to wrongly conflate The Word of God
with, literally, the words of God. This is where most of
American Christianity goes off of the rails. Typically, when we
refer to The Word of God, we mean the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible
is not a book, but is a collection of books. The word “bible”
means, literally, “many books.” Thus, when we say “God’s Word,”
we really are talking about the collected volume of
scripture. It does not mean every word in the bible was
literally written by God Himself. The Holy Bible indeed contains
the words of God, but it also includes words that are clearly
not God literally speaking. We believe every word in the bible
was inspired by God, which is to say every word—all
scripture—is helpful to us in some way. All scripture contains
messages God wants us to understand and lessons He wants us to
learn. However, by attributing each and every word literally to
God Himself, we strip those words of their proper context and,
thus, govern our lives along a set of misinterpretations.
For example,
Song of Solomon is, by its own testimony, not God’s literal
words. Song… is an erotic poem written, presumably, by King
Solomon or by one of his flunkies. The biggest problem with most
Christian interpretations of Song of Solomon is that they are,
in fact, Christian interpretations. We bring our modern-era
Christian mindset to a work written more than 900 years before
Christianity even existed.
The bible includes commentary, parable, poetry, and, yes,
opinion—all of it useful to us for teaching and preaching. To
simply pull scriptures out and hurl them at people—as “God said
this” and “God said that”—violates their purpose and strips
those words of their meaning and power.
The Word Was With God
Where scripture says, in John 1:1: In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, John was
not referring to Song of Solomon. He was not referring to
David’s poetry or The Apocalypse. He was certainly not referring
to the Pauline Epistles because they had not yet been written.
Where John refers to “The Word,” he is not talking about the
bible as we know it. Here John is referring to the Greek word
logos, which refers to the personification of God's Truth and
Wisdom, not the King James Bible. In our African American
tradition, however, we routinely conflate The Word in John 1:1
to mean the literal bible we hold in our hands, and many
churches form their doctrine around this preposterous
assumption.
The most damaging and wrongheaded thing the Christian church
does is conflate Paul’s teaching with the literal words of God.
This is the boat anchor keeping the church stuck in the past;
our insistence on applying an inappropriate literalism and
universality to what are, essentially, a pastor’s emails. This
is not to diminish Paul’s words or negate them but to free them
from the antiquity the church keeps them stuck in. This
Paul-as-God thing routinely overshadows the words and
biblical model set by Christ Himself in favor of Paul by heavily
weighting church doctrine on Paul’s words rather than those of
Christ.
Understanding the difference between God literally speaking to
us—unambiguously and universally, for example, as He does in The
Ten Commandments—and God teaching us through example, metaphor,
commentary, parable, and opinion through the voices of others is
critical to forming a sound doctrine (our response to God’s
word).
If you are new to the Christian experience, take care not to
become drawn into the vacuum of flawed interpretation; of people
telling you God said
women must learn in
silence [I Tim 2:11] or
slaves must obey their masters [Ephesians 6:5]. God said no such thing;
these were Paul’s words. God’s Holy Word is eternal; Paul’s
teaching was given at a specific time to specific people at a
specific place where specific behavior was going on. God speaks
to us, universally and unambiguously. Paul is always speaking to
someone about something specific at a specific time where
certain events are transpiring. In order to place Paul’s words
into proper context, we need to study what was going on and to whom he
was speaking.
Most Church Folk don’t do that. They just grab a phrase or two
from Paul and use it universally, usually to oppress women.
There are places where I believe Paul was simply wrong. To many
Christian conservatives, that sounds like blasphemy. To them,
Paul is infallible--even though he himself repeatedly says he is
not. Paul says men should remain single and only marry if they
can’t control themselves [I Cor 7:9]. Well, that’s just stupid.
First: it reduces women to merely a means for men to sexually
relieve themselves. Second, it implies all married men are weak
and are of less use to God than single men, which is obviously
not true. Third: a man who can’t control himself outside of
marriage won’t control himself within marriage. He is a sex
addict who needs treatment.
Therefore, those cannot be literally God's words but the pastoral
advice of His servant. I speak this by
permission, Paul said, and not of
commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But
every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner,
and another after that. [v. 6-7] He is not claiming to be
God or even to speaking for God. But Church Folk will tell you
disagreeing with Paul is disagreeing with God. It is not.
In 2 Timothy, where Paul says: All
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all good works, he is talking about the
Old Testament. The New Testament, as we know it, did not exist
until The Muratorian canon, written a minimum of a century after Paul's death.
Paul is not referring to his own words. I believe Paul would be
outraged to discover men had twisted his words into the literal
words of God. I believe Paul would denounce such a practice as
outright blasphemy.
What's It About?
The Bible tells us The Story of Jesus. From Genesis, the very
first book, to Revelation, the very last book, everything in the
Bible fits together, like divine Lego bricks, to tell a larger
story: the story of Jesus. Jesus represents mankind's
reconciliation with a divine God, and the Bible has but one
purpose: to bring us closer to God.
The Bible is set up into sections: Law, Prophecy, The Writings,
The Gospels, and Letters, which we call Epistles. 90% of what we
do in church on Sundays is based on the Gospels and the
Epistles, letters written by early church leaders that form the
basis of how we express our faith in God (what we call
“doctrine”).
There's a lot of ways to tackle this book. But if you are new to
it, the worst way to do this is to try and comb through Genesis
to Revelation without being familiar with the book and how it is
designed to speak to you.
How Is It Organized?
LeeAnn Bonds,
BellaOnline's Bible Basics Editor,
put it this way:
The part God wrote begins at Genesis 1:1, and ends at Revelation
22:21. You probably know that the chapter and verse numbers were
added by people. They make it easy to find a certain section of
Scripture, but the divisions created by the numbers are often
arbitrary, and sometimes do the reader a real disservice. So,
use them to find your way, but don’t place any importance on how
they chunk up the message.
The Bible comprises two main sections: The Old Testament and the
New Testament. Testament means a covenant between God and
the human race. The Old Testament tells about God’s covenant
with the Jews, and the New Testament tells about Jesus, and the
new covenant He put in place. That’s an enormous
oversimplification, of course, but we have to start somewhere.
The Old Testament contains 39 books. They’re arranged in groups
according to type of content: History, Poetry, and Prophecy.
These are general descriptions, with types of content
overlapping in all the groups. You might like to memorize the
books in the order they occur. To make this easier, you can
divide them into sets of five and twelve, thus:
History (17 books)
-
5 Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Also known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. These present God’s laws, but also contain lots of history.)
-
12 Historical: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (These tell the story of the Jews and Israel, mainly.)
Poetry (5 books)
-
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Poems, songs, and wisdom literature.)
Prophecy (17 books)
-
5 Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel
-
12 Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
The New Testament has 27 books. They are organized like this:
Gospels (4)
-
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (These tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection)
History (1)
-
Acts (The Acts of the Apostles is the long name, describing the beginning of the Church)
Epistles (21)
-
Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude (Letters to and from leaders and churches, mostly)
Prophecy (1)
-
Revelation (The Revelation of Jesus Christ, telling about the end of the world as we know it, and then the happily ever after part)
Where Do I Start?
In terms of what we do on Sunday mornings and how we should be
living our lives, I suggest you read at least two chapters a
night. Two chapters is a cake walk. I could train a monkey to
read two chapters a night. I know we can all do that.
Start with the Gospel of Mark. Mark is what we call a Synoptic
Gospel, a reliable text that summarizes the story of Jesus. Mark
was likely written as a missionary book, what we call a tract,
for new converts to Christianity. It is simple and easy to
understand, fast paced and straightforward. And, at 16 chapters,
you'll get through it in a week.
Then jump over to Philippians. The church at Philippi was one of
Paul's favorites, and he wrote this simple and straightforward
letter to them while he was in prison. Philippians encourages
the new believers to know we can do all things through Christ
(Philippians 4:13), and places the responsibility for our
salvation squarely on us (2:12).
Then try the Epistle of James. James was Jesus' biological
brother, a leader in the Jerusalem church. His epistle is,
likely, the most important to (and, often, the most ignored by)
the Black church as it deals almost exclusively with Christian
conduct, mainly with how we use our tongue and how we treat one
another.
Despite the legalistic do's and don'ts you've grown up hearing
from here and there, if you actually read the Bible, you will
see the main thrust of Jesus' ministry was to get us to become,
well, better people than what we are. For us to learn how to
love one another the way God loves us. James deals with issues
of genuine faith as opposed to a practiced religion, and this
book is vital to understanding what church and Christianity is
supposed to be about.
After James, swing back to Acts. Acts is like The Gospels Part
II. The Disciple Luke, a historian with a great attention to
detail, picks up the story of Jesus from where it leaves off in
the Gospels, and tells the story of the early Church and,
notably, Paul.
Paul
Next to Jesus Himself, Paul is the dominating figure of the New
Testament. Much of our understanding of doctrine comes from his
letters, what we call The Pauline Epistles. To understand what
we do and why we do it, you have to get an idea of who Paul was,
both before his conversion and after. He was, in many ways, the
first pastor (though the Disciple Peter is, officially, the
first pastor, Matthew 16:18).
What makes Paul interesting is how deeply flawed an individual
he was. The more you read about him and the more you read his
words, a consistent theme emerges: Paul never sets himself up as
being better than you. Or better than anybody. He is far from
perfect. Even after conversion, Paul is still very legalistic (a
guy who enforces The Rules, whatever they are). He and his best
bud Barnabas parted ways because Paul didn't like this guy
Johnmark that Barnabas was partnering with.
There was a lot of things wrong with Paul, a lot of
imperfections. Which is what makes his writing all the more
credible because he is not some perfect holy man. He is a human
being, just like you. Struggling to make sense of things, just
like you. The Book of Acts tells his story and completes the
historical tale begun in the Gospel of Mark.
Then, finish up with Paul's letter to the Romans. This was a
letter of introduction Paul sent ahead of his visit to the new
church in Rome. Romans provides the meat of our doctrinal
belief: of how we express our faith in Christ. Romans teaches us
how to be saved and how to stay saved and why that's important.
Which Version Do I Read?
As for which version to read: please don't let yourself get
caught up in arguments over which version of The Bible is legit.
Church people love to squab about things, and this has
traditionally been a heated argument. Most Black Church Folk
believe the King James Bible is the only reliable version of the
Bible. But, if you ask them why they believe that, most couldn't
tell you. They know absolutely nothing about the KJV or where it
came from or why it is more reliable than, say, the New
International Version, The New Living Translation, The New
American Standard Version, or many other versions.
I've actually been told the KJV is the most reliable because,
“That's the Bible the Disciples carried!” The New Testament did
not exist in the days of the Disciples, and the average person
was not allowed to carry a copy of the Old Testament, called The
Torah, around with them (remember, this was long before printing
presses: each copy of the Torah had to be written out by hand).
Nobody carried a Bible in those days.
Just find yourself a version you can read. A version that you
WILL read. It's a good idea to read an official translation as
opposed to a paraphrase. A paraphrase is a version based on the
King James and translated into modern language. A reliable
translation is a version derived from the original Greek and
Hebrew manuscripts.
I strongly recommend The NIV Student Bible by Zondervan. This
wonderful, easy-to-read translation contains hundreds of study
helps and explanations along the way, written by award-winning
Youth Bible Scholars Philip Yancy and Tim Stafford. Years ago
these men edited a tremendous youth bible called The Way, and
the NIV Student Bible is a successor to that work. Our column,
Love, Sex & The Whole Person, is derived from Campus Life
Magazine, a teen and young adult Christian life magazine founded
by Yancey and Stafford and published by Christianity Today
International.
However you do it, just dive in. The Bible is a rich and vibrant
record that speaks directly to your heart and brings you closer
to God. The more you pick it up, the closer you get to God. Skip
a TV show (or even half a TV show) and give yourself two
chapters a day. You'll be amazed at the difference it will make.
Christopher J. Priest
7 September 2003
editor@praisenet.org
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Related: Is The Bible Reliable?
