Read the Bible

I was just confirmed in the catholic church and decided I needed to do more in my spiritual life. I thought one way to do this is to read the bible. I’m not sure how long this will take, but I am determined to read the whole thing.

twice,actually.

Finally got started on this.

I’m quite ignorant when it comes to religion. And decided I owe it to myself to at least read it to understand what it’s all about.

I think I’ll start with James tonight.

I just Finished 1 Chronicles and I hope to finish 2 Chronicles tomorrow, I can really notice some progress…

Now I’m going at snail’s pace. I’m officially 100 pages behind where I should be. What I find interesting at this point is that we are seeing how the Jewish society develops. It is inevitable that as a society becomes larger, more complex systems of government and politics have to develop. David’s reign doesn’t have much to do with God, but more with how the various factions are struggling for power and the natural consequences that develop. Character development is now much more multi-dimensional now that the storytelling is getting more modern. Joab is a stone cold killer and David goes back and forth between being admirable and being a nitwit, much like all of us. The most interesting part of this book is the last chapter with the Monty Hall style pick yer poison challenge that God gives David. Says a lot about David, says a lot about God. Also I’m beginning to wonder why some Biblical names make it in everyday life and why some have died. It’s cool seeing the etymology of David, Saul, Abigail, Benjamin, etc. But I wonder why names like Zadok didn’t make it. How cool is that name? It’s easy to pronounce, and it seems like an Martian prince.

So this is a bit of a cheat since I finished Genesis just before joining this site. But I wanted to make a record of my progress and technically my finish date for this book is 04/25/08.

I’m on to Exodus which I’ve read before but always enjoy.

I haven’t been doing it and I will later today when everyone else is gone and it is nice and quiet. I am learning more about Christianity from wikipedia right now. I always claimed to be a Christian, but I really don’t know a lot about it so I am trying to educate myself. I still don’t believe some of it =/

It took me almost three months to get all the way through it. Confusing, sometimes very hard to get through [hello temple measurements].. but I really did learn a lot, and I’m really glad I took the time to read through it completely.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get more mind-numbing, this book proved me wrong… I just hope Deuteronomy is an improvement.

I don’t have it in me to give a long-winded description of how boring and useless this book seems, as I have done with the first three, but suffice it to say, I’m still not seeing much of a moral guide here. Someone does something that God doesn’t want them to do, then smite them down. So much for leaving us to it with free will after Adam and Eve screwed it all up!

On to Deuteronomy…