I’ve spent a little bit of time this year with a bunch of Christians I didn’t know particularly well before now. If you’ve never been part of such a group, one thing that members often do to get to know each other better is share a bit of their life story. Specifically, how they came to be a Christian.
Something that struck me a few times was how common it is that people pick up a Bible, stone cold (for various reasons: whether in a hotel room, or an old one off the shelf, or prompted to do so by some momentous life event), and they start reading from the beginning.
Which makes sense. That’s where most books start. So too with the Bible.
Sort of.
I mean, that’s where it starts, but the stuff that I would want to point people to if they’re new to the whole reading-the-Bible thing would be the start of the New Testament – the gospels, the biographies of Jesus.
Because the ‘Christ’ bit of ‘Christianity’ is about Jesus Christ. He’s the one around whom the whole deal is centered.
Lots of people, however, when they start reading the Bible from the start, give up pretty quickly, as it seems to get irrelevant fast. If they’ve made it to Leviticus, they’re pretty committed, but they’re gone at the chapter after chapter of sacrifice offerings in ancient Israel. One can hardly blame them. I mean, if you’ve got no frame of reference, no Jesus who fulfils all this… then why is this stuff so significant?
So it got me thinking.
Why not print Bibles in a different order?
Rearrange the books inside.
Put the gospels up first. Get people reading about Jesus straight-up. That’s what we do with people if we start reading the Bible with them, so why not prompt others to do likewise?
We could do other things too, such as putting Luke and Acts together. Acts is the sequel, by the same author – why not have them together?
How about this:
- Mark
- Luke-Acts
- Matthew
- John
- Romans
- Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy)
- Hebrews
- New Testament Letters
- Prophets
- Writings
- Revelation
Something like this could present Jesus to the reader first-up, from a few different perspectives. Romans has been regarded by lots of people as laying out the fundamentals of Christian belief, so put that next.
The core of Israelite belief is fundamentally important to understanding what goes on the New Testament, so we go back and read the Law (Torah/Pentateuch), and reflect on it specifically through the letter to the Hebrews.
What do you think?
There are a few downsides, of course.
Principally, the distinction between testaments, or covenants, may be made unclear. This is especially the case if the books from the OT and NT are interspersed.
We also stand to lose a certain historical heritage. Tradition has been that certain books stand in certain positions, often for good reasons. [1] Most of us, however, don’t really know what those reasons are.
But do we stand to gain more than we lose?
This, however, is complicated. English translations have a different ordering tradition to the original Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew Bible was divided into the Law (or Torah, Genesis-Deuteronomy), the Prophets (what we would call the history books, e.g. Joshua, Samuel, Kings, etc., plus the prophets, e.g. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, etc.), and the Writings (the rest: Psalms, Proverbs, Daniel, Chronicles, etc.). Our ordering reflects a slightly different tradition, that of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which had a different, more chronological, ordering of certain books.↩
Good idea, Sam.
Perhaps an introduction could deal with some of the difficulties for the new reader, and lay out the ‘canonical’ order, so that they can see the division of the Testaments etc.
Hallo,
don’t be angry with me, but I do not think, that this is such a good idea. I don’t think, that you can understand the NT in the right way, without reading the OT. For example Genesis 1 to 3 is pointing to Jesus (see John 1; Col 1:16 etc.) and without Genesis 3 it is rather difficult to understand the cross! So I think it ist always a good idea to set an introduction at the beginning of the bible and if someone finds Leviticus boring he or she may go to the next book …
Best wishes from Germany, Johannes
Johannes,
We are in agreement. I’m not proposing to go all Marcionite and get rid of the Old Testament – by no means! It’s fundamentally important to understanding the NT.
All I’m suggesting is that just as in conversation we don’t feel the need to explain the entire Old Testament sacrificial system in order to explain Jesus’ death for us, for example, we don’t need to have people read the entire OT before they get to Jesus either.
In fact, I could push further – a right interpretation of the significance of the OT needs an understanding of its endpoint – Jesus. This means that the whole exercise is a cyclical one, of the NT interpreting the OT, and the OT informing our reading of the NT, and so on. Where do you jump into a cyclical process? Hopefully the most relevant bit.
John is a nice gospel to lead with – especially how chap 1 echoes Genesis 1. Then it can go: John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts!
Pondering the effect of non-linear narrative films like Memento, Pulp Fiction and Irreversible…
What problems / confusions would arise if the order is not (roughly) chronological?
G’day,
I really like this post Sam as I’ve had two non-Christian friends that did this very thing and gave up somewhere near the back of Exodus. I tried to get them to try again with Mark but I think once you’ve put the book down it;s much harder to pick it back up.
As I read your post I started thinking that better editorial notes could direct people to the gospels during Genesis and Exodus. They would do 80% of the work with 1% of the effort
I tend to think that ‘pick-up readers’ will typically make it through the interesting creation and early OT stories, so why not use them as the hook and then direct people from there?
For instance, a whole right hand page (preferably in colour) just after the fall saying:
“Wnat to know how to get back into the garden?
The next 350 pages deal with God’s historical relationships with humanity. For a first time readers we recommend finding out how to get back into the Garden by turning to Mark and finding out about Jesus Christ.
Once you’ve read about Jesus come back to these histories to see how all along God has been planning for Jesus to come into the world”
Or one after the flood along the lines of “God kept that promise not to send another flood by finding a better way to beat sin – his name is Jesus. Read more about him now in John’s Gospel on p.XXXX”
You could even do a non-contextual version like “Ever use a text book where they put the answers at the back and the questions at the front? If the quesiton for you is ‘How do I get right with God?’, you will find the answer at the back of the book. Turn to p.XX to read the Gospel of Matthew and learn how to beat the system of sin using Grace”
To Johannes’ point this keeps the importance of early Genessis to your points Sam it keeps the OT/NT distinction and historcal linearity of the OT. It’s also much more likely to get through the ‘establishment’ and into mass circulaiton. Mass circulation is important as many ‘pick-up’ readers will be reading a mass circulated Bible (i.e. hotel Bibles).
The biggest stumbling block I see is getting balance in the editorial redirection between implying that the OT is dull and not worth reading and the imperative to turn to the Gospels?
ed