Uncool Bible Report - Bible in Chronological Order

I've learned that it's one of the pillars of Uncool here to actually go to church on Sunday's and it's even uncooler to actually read the Bible. But I decided that this year I am going to read the Bible from front to back in chronological order and try and get every word through me at least once in my life. I used to pick up the Bible every so often but have never been able to read more than a little bit without someone having to explain the passage to me.

Being in Hollywood, I've had WAY more people than I care to admit start talking to me about this issue or that issue and it is clear they hadn't read or researched any of it. Someone told them about it and they repeated it. I was thinking that I was kind of doing the same thing with my own religious beliefs. So I decided to buckle down and just read it.

I started reading at the top of the year and have been pretty consistent. Page-wise, the book isn't that long. However the writing is very dense, very old timey, and full of unusual terminology. It's hard to just read it fast. The first thing you realize is the Bible is not really in chronological order. Things skip around quite a bit. I've gone to a couple of websites to try and figure out the proper order and they are all a little different so it's quite obvious there isn't a definitive order. HERE is a nice article on Bible chronology as well.

Early review: lots of repeating, lots of funny names, and reading Job is a lot like watching Schindler's List.

I almost started this on a lark, but the thing I like about it is how much I've learned. I'm still in the old Testament so a lot of it is admittedly very rough reading. Lots of laws, suffering, sacrifices, slavery, etc. But it has given me some nice perspective on the church sermons.

Examples: The Day of Jubilee, the Tabernacle, the early laws.

I feel kind of like the guy who tries to put together his child's toy without reading the directions, then goes back and reads the directions and realizes how much simpler it would have been to read the directions in the first place. I'm reading the directions.