Jen Reads the Bible

What Bible Are You Reading Anyway?

Thought you might want to know what version of the Bible I'm reading, in case you want to follow along... I'm tackling the "Good News Bible: Catholic Study Edition" for three reasons:

1. It was in my apartment
2. This weekend, my husband, who was once an altar boy, saw me reading the King James version, he laughed and asked, "So, how are you finding that?" "Pretty difficult," I replied (of course my thinking was that ANY edition of the Bible would be incredibly inaccessible, so I soldiered on). Then he told me to try this one, which is considerably easier for me to digest.
3. It's purple, and thus considerably more stylish than the beat up King James version I had that I bought for a class in college and that still has an orange "Used" sticker on the binding.

Sweet! 

I also went ahead and re-read the first two chapters of Genesis to make sure that I had got it right.  All good so far...

Genesis 2: The Garden of Eden

God's first test, I suppose. (From what I've heard, there will be many, many more.)

Make a man, put him in a beautiful garden full of food and fresh water, but as always in life, there's a catch: "He told him [Adam], "You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day." (Genesis 2:16-17)

Bummer. Don't eat from the tree, Adam!

Also key in this verse, God decides Adam needs a lady to help him pass the time, so to speak, so he creates the lovely Eve out of one of Adam's ribs (making the title of the 1949 Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn movie make a bit more sense).

"The man and the woman were both naked, but they were not embarrassed." (Genesis 2:25)

Perhaps they were both just very confident?

Genesis 1: The Story of Creation

It's nice to start with a story I know. Day, night, land, sea, heaven and earth. God certainly does more in a week than most of us do in a year. Good for him. Of course, I'd like to know what He does on his day of rest... catch a flick? Get some angels to give Him a massage?

Now, I'm feeling a little lazy since this week all I've really done is read the first chapter of Genesis, go to work and watch television.  Perhaps my expedition through the bible will inspire me to get a little more done each week? 

I probably can't expect to create the universe, but getting through a few household chores seems doable.

What is Jen Reads the Bible?

Well, it's exactly what it sounds like.

I'm here to chronicle my experience reading the Bible for the first time. Okay, that's a slight fib, I read parts of Genesis and Revelations as a kid (especially after the movie The Seventh Sign came out, which my eight-year-old self totally believed was actually happening) and I read some of the Gospels for a Medieval history class I took in college, but I've never read the whole thing and I'm painfully ignorant when it comes to even the most basic stories from the Bible. Noah who? Ark what?

You get the point. Anyway, as an avid reader, I know that I'm missing out on a lot of the subtext in most of the literature that I read by not being familiar with these stories. So, here I am, embarking on a mission to read the entire thing. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

I think it will be tough, but I also think it will be worth it. Not only will I be more culturally literate, I'll make less of a fool out of myself when Jeopardy has its Bible categories (my current method of play involves screaming "Deuteronomy!" for each answer, yielding me approximately one correct out of every ten tries. A hint for other ignorant Jeopardy home players: the answer is never "Jesus" which is what I used to yell).