With the finality of Revelations, my quest to
read the entire Bible (cover to cover) has been a success. It only took
me a month, as well.
And by the 'entire' Bible, I mean
the 66 books and Epistles one normally finds in most versions; none of
the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. I should correct that after a
break.
Yes,
much of the Old Testament is basically painfully detailed descriptions
of the Ark of the Covenant, and the Tabernacle, and of the tedious
rituals the priests were meant to perform. This lasts from about halfway
through Exodus, all the way through Leviticus and Numbers, until he end
of Deuteronomy. Joshua and Judges were a bit more interesting, but they
get a bit repetitive after a while. There are good bits in Kings
1&2, but again it gets repetitive, and Chronicles was just a
summing-up, as far as I could see, because there was very little new
material. Ezra and Nehemiah I really enjoyed; maybe because
King Artaxerxes of Persia has a guest appearance, and Ruth was short and
sweet, so I liked that one. I found Job quite interesting, Psalms to be
a little drab, but pleasant nonetheless, and Proverbs was quite good,
if that's how you like your literature, and Ecclesiastes was an
unexpectedly amazing find. It is, as far as can work out, a Nihilistic essay on the meaning of life, something I never expected to find
in the Bible of all places.
The
rest of the prophets I found difficult to understand, except for
Daniel; I quite enjoyed that one. I'm still trying to make up my mind on
the new testament. The Gospel of Matthew was my least favourite, I'll
reveal that much. I think Luke or John were the better ones, and I found
Revelations to be quite 'trippy', if I could use that expression for
any bit of the Bible. Lots of weird imagery That Could Be Interpreted In A Number of Different Ways.
Anyway, this was my trail of thoughts after reading through the Bible for the first time. Parts of it are worthy of re-reading, but I'll move onto less theologically-laden stuff for the immediate future.
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