A lot of blogs/websites/podcasts promote the idea that they are “reading the Bible so you don’t have to”. This type of thing is found in skeptical/atheist material as well as other material. I think it’s a great idea: like it or not, the Bible is one of the most influential books in the history of the world. If you want to be at a level of basic literacy for literature, history, religion, politics, current events and so forth, you need to know about the Bible. But, it’s no easy read and unless your reading is coloured by the belief that these are the words of a god, it’s not that pleasant.
I also noticed that while most of these sites/blogs usually do a good job, they don’t actually provide an extensive summary of the Bible that someone can read through in an hour and get most of the info. Also, a while ago my girlfriend mentioned that although she liked my old blogging-the-bible posts, she didn’t have enough background knowledge to get the most out of them.
So I thought, why not do a proper summary of the Bible? This little project is aimed at people in this situation: who want to know more but don’t want to wade through BS. The aim is to go for super-abridgement, with each book taking up just 1 post. I’ll start with the narrative books from the Hebrew Bible only, then see how I go. It might be hard to summarise Psalms if you know what I mean. Of course this cannot be an “objective” project: you’ll be able to see my editorialising and I make no apology for it. But to be concise, I try to limit this to the way I tell the story — asides take up too much space.
I’ve tried to keep every story unless it’s very short (eg. 1-2 verses) in which case I needed to make a judgement call. All genealogies and other boring lists will go — that alone should make the Bible much more accessible to you, Dearest Reader. As to how I’ll deal with the law parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, I’ll decide when I get there. I’ll probably have to summarise as best I can because unlike the genealogies, the actual content of the law is important to literature-history-religion-politics-and-all-that.
This is an index post so I’ll add links to each book below as I finish:
- Genesis (3427 words)
- Exodus (2408 words)
- Leviticus (2067 words)
- Numbers (2720 words)
- Deuteronomy (2193 words)
- Joshua (1196 words)
- Judges (2116 words)
- 1 Samuel (2520 words)
- 2 Samuel (2442 words)
- 1 Kings (2009 words)
- 2 Kings (2171 words)
- Isaiah (2942 words)
- 12 Minor Prophets (Part 1) (2288 words)
- 12 Minor Prophets (Part 2) (1954 words)
- Song of Songs (671 words)
- Ruth (415 words)
6 comments ↓
I like it, and I also think an even better project would be an annotated bible with every verse/collection of verses historically and logically explained. Of course this would be too much work for one person, so how about a wiki-bible. I mean, shit, the bible is just the oldest wiki anyway – but with no one to make sure BS doesn’t get in.
Terrific. Awaiting Exodus.
Kevin, sounds like the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible that you are thinking about (incept it is not a wiki), I want to see leviticus, I’ve read about three chapters of it, I am not sure how your going to deal with that, the first 12 chapters are about sacrifice rules and I can’t wait to see you summarizing that (as you mention Psalms too).
William, That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. I haven’t read the bible for over a decade. I will enjoy the re-read with a little science and reason added.
Yep, I was going to recommend the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
As for books like Leviticus I’ll make a decision based on how relevant I think it is to a modern person’s understanding. For instance, I can summarise all the sacrifice laws into a very short space since knowing the exact details won’t really give a better understanding of the Bible (for each kind of sacrifice it’s essentially more of the same). But for laws like civil laws I’ll have to be more brief.
Perhaps I might need to skip over books like Psalms altogether, or just include a few paragraphs on the major themes since again spelling out the more detailed poetry won’t add much to a person’s top-level understanding of what the Bible is about.
I agree with you about the super abridged accounts. I am working this year to go through the stories of the Bible that we all should know. Everyone is enjoying the series. They are learning and remembering. I may use some of your summaries. they are good. I have also used some of Rob Lacey’s Word On The Street. The problem with that is that it is a little far out there for some of my older folks. Keep up the good work.
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