Bible Basics
The bible is a big book. Actually it’s a collection of 73 books, many of which are big in their own right. In today’s fast-paced world most of us don’t have the time to read voluminous tomes like the bible (though it wouldn’t hurt to!), and we’d much rather have the condensed version.
Well, there’s no substitute for reading the bible, and if you’re willing to put it at least 10 minutes a day, you can read the entire bible over the course of a year. Even if you don’t have that much time, you could also just read one part of it, like a gospel or the Book of Genesis – which would only take you a couple of hours.
Still, it’s nice to have a summary version so we can know the basics about the bible. Being able to see the bigger picture at a glance is helpful before diving into particular books. That way we can see how everything fits together. We can also see which parts of the bible we’d be most interested in or would like to learn more about. You don’t have to read the books of the bible in sequence, and if some books appear less interesting than others (e.g. Numbers, 1-2 Chronicles), then skip over them to read books that do interest you. You don’t have to force yourself to read these books, as if you’re gulping down bad-tasting medicine. This experience should be enjoyable.
There’s a lot to cover here, but let’s go over the basics parts of each testament. In the following pages you’ll find summaries of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each is broken down into sections to make the summaries more manageable. It’s also important to point out that the Old Testament is much larger than the New Testament (386,000 words vs. 138,000 words), so the condensed version of the Old Testament will be longer than the New Testament.
