Beginner’s guide to Bible background

I don’t know for certain it would take that much to motivate him to read some of the Bible. All he might really need is getting washed ashore on a deserted island with a football, a Bible, and a bottle of rum.

I’m going to assume you and my most beloved relative are both on board with some curiosity about:

• what’s in the Bible
• how in the dickens it got there
• why on earth anyone should believe it.

It’s good to be a skeptic. It’s healthy. Especially when it comes to the Bible, a collection of writings that some folks come close to worshiping instead of merely reading. The Bible is a collection of ancient and revered writings that Christians say were inspired by God. But it’s not a god.

Before you dive in and start reading

Don’t dive in and start reading.

At least don’t try reading the Bible from front cover to back, like it’s a novel. It’s not.

It’s a library of books.

If you start reading the first book in the Bible’s library—Genesis—you’ll find it interesting enough: Creation, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Sons, who became the founding fathers of the Jewish nation. That’s one of the finest places to start. But think twice before you read straight through the rest of the Bible after that.

The third book is Leviticus, all you’d never want to know about how to sacrifice animals to God. That’s how some readers react to the book.

If Leviticus doesn’t derail you, the next switch might: Numbers.

The name says it. Census. Counting families and tribes by name. Yet, there are some captivating stories in there, too. One has a talking donkey, ridden by a man who complains the donkey “made me look like a jackass” (Numbers 22:29).

You might want to read those two books someday. But not today. Not if you’re a Bible newcomer dipping your toe in the holy water for the first time.

What Bible book should you read first?

Some Bible study leaders give newcomers a list of recommended Bible books to read first.

They pick the books they want you to read and tell you when it’s time to move to the next book. The schedule looks like an itinerary for a Bible bus tour.

We suggest you consider the scenic route instead. Get out of the bus, walk around, snap a few pictures, take a few notes, and pick a direction.

Pick a book that sounds interesting

Take a quick look at our overview of Bible books (“Beginner’s Guide to all 66 Bible Books”). You’re going to find something that piques your curiosity. Give it a shot. If it doesn’t hold your attention, feel free to jump somewhere else…you’re scouting the Bible for the first time. It’s okay to jump around before settling down to read one of the books from first chapter to last.

Hosea might seem interesting, for example. The prophet says God told him to marry a hooker. Yessir. But when you get past the first couple of chapters, his prophecies of doom for the Jewish nation can get confusing. Even to scholars.

The Bible bus tour would skip that stop.

Jesus is a big attraction

Perhaps most first-time Bible readers go to the books about Jesus.

You can read his story in any one of the four books about him: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The books are tagged as Gospels, an old word that means “Good News.” Jesus preached the “good news about the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 4:23).

Each Gospel approaches Jesus from a different angle. Look at the overview of Bible books, “Beginner’s Guide to all 66 Bible Books” and consider which one seems most interesting to you.

• Matthew includes the sermon of Jesus that summarizes all his main ideas in one remarkable event: the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapters 5-7.
• Luke reads like a physician wrote it. Early church writers said Luke was a physician who became an associate of the apostle Paul, a traveling preacher. This is the only Bible book that tells us the story of Jesus’ birth, which you’d expect of a doctor. Luke also reports a lot of Jesus’ healing miracles.
• Mark is the shortest and most action-packed story of Jesus. It’s like a bullet list of one Jesus story after another and one miracle after another.
• John is the most cerebral of the four. Not much for miracles. Lots of Jesus’ teachings, with deep and layered meanings.

Other popular books for newcomers

Revelation’s end of the world. Some people are curious about end times, so they go to Revelation. We don’t recommend that because the book is so explosively metaphorical that the symbolism can knock a newcomer senseless. It’s tough enough when you know the backstory. Bible scholars still debate what the symbols meant to the first readers.

Many say that the writer was mainly talking about how God was going to punish the vicious Roman Empire, which by that time had destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. But if you enjoy Roman history and mysteries, Revelation might grab you by the collar.

One tip about Revelation. When you read the word “Babylon,” don’t think of Babylon. That empire had died 500 years before some man named John wrote Revelation. Many scholars say we should read “Rome” into the word. Jews during the time of the Roman Empire used “Babylon” as a code word to talk about the Romans. The Romans earned that nickname when they leveled Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish Temple in AD 70. Babylon had done the same thing in 586 BC.

Ephesians, a happy, practical book. Ephesians is one of the happiest and most practical books in the Bible. It’s not really a book. It’s a letter. Paul wrote it to a church in one of the biggest cities in the Roman Empire: Ephesus, on Turkey’s west coast. Paul didn’t usually stay anywhere more than a few days or weeks. But he stayed at Ephesus three years. His letter to the people reflects that. It sounds like words of advice from a loving and fatherly pastor.

A book for the honeymoon

Song of Songs if you’re on your honeymoon. If you’re feeling romantic, read the Casual English Bible’s paraphrase of the Song of Songs, sometimes called the Song of Solomon. You can’t not enjoy it unless you’re a Puritan bosom.

Heads up, you’ll come away wondering what this Song is doing in the Holy Bible…just as some scholars have wondered for 2,000 years. It doesn’t mention God, but it’s big on touchy feely love. And there’s a lot of touching and feeling going on.

Man in Love:

“Sugar Lips, my bride,
I taste honey and sweet milk under your tongue…
you are my own personal garden of delight…”

Woman in Love:

“This garden is open for business.
Lover, have I got some fruit for you” (Song of Songs 4:11-12; 16).

See what we mean? This book will make you smile. But it also has one of the Bible’s most beautiful expressions of romantic love:

“Keep me close, like a necklace always near your heart,
Like a ring always near your touch.
Love outmuscles death,
It outlasts the grave.
Love is a flash fire,
Exploding in flames.
The fire of that love will never die.
Floods can’t quench it.
Rivers can’t wash it away.
Money can’t buy it” (Song of Songs 8:6-7).

On the other hand, money bought Delilah, Samson’s ex-girlfriend. She sold him out to the Philistines for a reward of what sounds like her weight in silver. That story’s in the book of Judges, chapter 16, verse 5.

History books. Which brings up one last consideration. If you love history, consider reading some of the books of history, such as Judges. The books are full of engaging stories.

If you’re curious about the oldest stories in the Bible—God creating the world, then flooding the world—jump to Genesis, first book in the Bible.

We’ve put together some Bible snippets to brief you on the Bible books, and to help you make your own decision about what to read first: “Beginner’s Guide to all 66 Bible Books.”

Scroll and dip and dive when you’re ready.

The patient died

My brother died after about a month on the vent. A torturous end.

I had to deal with the clash between my family’s tragedy and the Bible’s hopeful words, which many Christians say came from God himself.

How are those promising lyrics honest to God and relevant to me as I prepared to call my mother and tell her that I’m the last of her four sons?

Though I can find the words inspiring, they weren’t written for me. A songwriter long ago was saying thank you to God. And the writer did it with poetry.

Once we recognize that, the words can comfort us in the context of Christianity today, after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He gave those words new meaning.

“I will give you a good, long life”? What life is longer than eternal life?

“You’ll see what it’s like to be saved by God?” The Christian’s great hope is that God saves us from death and rescues us for the life to come.

Check out the video about this story: “I fought Psalm 91 while my brother fought COVID.”

There’s a cool follow-up video. It’s a little out there, but every bit of the story is true and not exaggerated or some kind of weird metaphor. It happened.

Old Testament God

Here’s what I’m talking about. If you’re reading Old Testament stories, you’re going to come across a lot harsh words attributed to God that don’t sound like they came from any good Father of Jesus. Example: Moses tells the Israelites God wants them to wipe out all the Canaanite people living in the land the Israelites were going to invade—land that later became Israel:

“After you defeat them in battle, wipe them out by killing them all. Don’t make any peace treaty with them. Don’t show them mercy” (Deuteronomy 7:2).

You’re allowed to say, “That doesn’t sound like my kind of God.” Christians should be able to talk about that and agree to disagree, because they will disagree.

Some will make a case for what others would call genocide.

But folks on the flipside of tradition-minded Christianity would start quoting Jesus, the 10 Commandments, and their sweet Aunt Bertha. And they might wonder out loud if the Bible story got a little too juiced in the retelling generation after generation, before someone finally wrote it down and captured a version of it.

Open your head to new ideas. Lay down the welcome mat instead of oppressive fire. When we take a defensive posture, it’s hard to hear the other side because we’re on a mission to protect the king. And we’re the king.

It’s normal to defend our position. But it’s wise to listen, too.

Chase the truth. Truth has taken a hit in recent years. We’ve had a lot of national leaders obsessed with “controlling the narrative,” as they put it. That means lying. Good journalists, by nature, by calling, and by job description, chase the truth. Some money-minded publishers might order them to do otherwise, but most journalists I’ve known chose their career because they wanted honest answers. I did the same as a young news journalist.

Christians chase the truth, too. Jesus called himself the Truth. “I am the way…the truth…the life. If you want to get to the Father, I’m the one who’ll take you there” (John 14:6).

It seems a waste of time to debate whether the Bible was ever infallible, some say, because all we have are the fallible copies of today. They are not the originals. Or the second generation. Or the third. Only God would know how many generations we’re removed from the originals.

We do, however, have an old copy of the entire Book of Isaiah, found in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and dated to the 100s BC. But even that is 500 years after the prophet Isaiah’s time.

Oldest piece of the New Testament

The oldest copy of anything surviving from the New Testament is a tiny piece of the Gospel of John, from roughly AD 125, about 100 years after Jesus. There are many other fragments and larger pieces of John and other New Testament books dated from the AD 200s.

So, we’re counting on some accuracy from scribes, writers, and editors copying worn-out scrolls, generation after generation.

Here’s the surprise: those people entrusted with protecting the accuracy of the Bible documents proved their worth.

When we compare ancient Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament and Greek copies of the New Testament spanning centuries, there’s very little deviation. Occasional extra verses or chapters. But the core message is solid.

The Isaiah scroll from 100+BC is the same as other Isaiah scrolls copied generation after generation throughout the ancient Middle East, with minor exceptions.

We might not know how accurate the storytellers were before the words were written, but once written, the words stood like some kind of never-eroding Rock of Ages.

Scholars theorize that those ancient ancestors of today’s Jewish people passed the stories and teachings along mostly by word of mouth. But then King David came along. And he finally secured the boundaries of Israel, for the first time in history. So, leaders started thinking about their nation’s legacy. And, they started writing the story of their nation.

Jews didn’t sit down one day and decide to compile all these stories and teachings into a sacred Jewish Bible of 39 different books. That process took centuries, most scholars agree.

Books of Law came first

Genesis: stories of Creation, Noah and the Flood, and the founders of the Jewish nation: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Exodus: Moses leads Israelite ancestors of Jews to freedom from slavery in Egypt.

Leviticus: Laws about how to worship God with sacrifices and obedience to his rules.

Numbers: Israelites disobey God one too many times, and he sentences them to 40 years in the badlands.

Deuteronomy: The disobedient generation of Israelites dies. Moses will die, too. But first he teaches the laws to the new generation.

Prophecy books came next, then Writings like Psalms

As the centuries rolled on, Jews continued passing along their stories and teachings. Prophets came along with messages from God in visions and dreams. And the Jews later added songs, poems, parables, fresh stories, and the wisdom one-liners of Proverbs, many of which would nicely fit in a fortune cookie.

Jews make final selections for their Bible

It’s unclear when the Jews settled on what writings to include in their Bible. Some scholars guess the Jews settled on the books sometime after AD 70. That’s when the Roman Empire crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the Temple and much of Jerusalem. That ended the Jewish sacrificial system. Jewish law limited sacrifices to the Temple. No Temple, no sacrifices. Priests were out of a job.

Decades later, they began worshiping together by reading their Bible as sacrificial gifts to God in the form of prayers.

New Testament
300 years in the making

It took about 300 years before a majority of church leaders agreed on which writings deserved a place in the Christian’s Holy Bible. Qualifications: written by apostles or their close associates; widely recognized among churches as messages from God; in line with traditional Christian teachings.

How did we get the New Testament?

Old Testament prophets predicted there was coming a time when God would tear up his agreement with the Jewish people and start over.

“The Lord said: The time will surely come when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and Judah. It will be different from the agreement I made with their ancestors when I led them out of Egypt. Although I was their God, they broke that agreement.

Here is the new agreement that I, the Lord, will make with the people of Israel

I will write my laws
    on their hearts and minds.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

At the time of Jesus, many Jews seemed to believe that this radical change would take place when God sent a Messiah, a champion King much like King David. They expected him to chase off the Romans who were occupying their homeland and restore Israel’s freedom and sovereignty.

Yet when Jesus came, with his power to heal and his fresh and more compassionate way of understanding Jewish teachings, crowds began to believe he was that Messiah.

Jesus, the surprising Messiah

Jesus surprised them with his brand of “Messiah.” Jews wanted a warrior king, but they got a pacifist rabbi. That’s called a curveball.

The Bible teaches that Jesus was the Messiah, but his kingdom was not of this world. Instead, Jesus came to prepare people for his kingdom in life after death.

He taught that God’s spirit can live within us as part of who we are. He told his followers:

“I’m going to ask the Father to send you another Spiritual Guide who will be with you all the time. The Father will do this. You’ll have this Spirit to teach you the truth…He will live inside you as part of you” (John 14:16-17).

Jesus ministered perhaps only three years, starting in about A.D. 27. Many believed in him because of his teachings and his miracles. But it wasn’t until his death and resurrection that his disciples finally realized he did not intend to become a king like David.

Fearless, after seeing Jesus rise from the dead, they began teaching people what Jesus had taught them. Most of them died as martyrs because of it, according to early Christian writers.

How stories and letters made the cut to the New Testament

No one sat down to write the New Testament. Instead, writers decided to compile the stories and teachings of Jesus while there were still eyewitnesses of Jesus alive. Church leaders wanted to preserve the stories so people wouldn’t forget them. The stories of Jesus reported in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were quickly embraced by churches, copied, and passed along to read in worship services.

Leaders like Peter and Paul wrote letters to churches throughout the Roman Empire, teaching them about how to live the Christian life.

Those letters were cherished by the churches, copied, and circulated to other churches everywhere. In time, those writings grew to become revered. People recognized them as exceptional and inspired by God.

The Roman Empire opposed Christianity at first and slaughtered many Christians in the Coliseum and arenas throughout the empire. But in the early 300s, Emperor Constantine had some kind of spiritual experience. He adopted Christianity as the empire’s preferred religion.

The church organizes

Christians became organized and church leaders met periodically to talk about the Christian movement. They sometimes hotly debated what writings should be considered authoritative and inspired.

So, church councils eventually agreed that everything in the New Testament needed to meet these minimum qualifications:

• written by apostles or their close associates
• widely recognized among churches as messages from God
• in line with traditional Christian teachings.

They agreed on the 27 books that make up the library of the New Testament.

Eastertime in AD 367 was the first time those 27 books showed up in any kind of a list, as far as historians are able to discover. A Bishop named Athanasius included them in a letter he sent to church leaders.

A majority of church leaders and later councils agreed. But some church leaders debated the matter and wanted to include other writings. And some still do.