So, if you were to think of adjectives to describe me, I'm pretty sure that religious probably wouldn't appear until somewhere after adjective no. 100. (BTW, hopefully, adjective no. 1 would be humble; hahaha...yeah right!).
Don't get me wrong...I'm not agnostic or athiest or anything, I'm just not the kinda girl who will be citing you Bible verses. In fact, the four years I spent in my high school Sunday school class consisted of walking to the McDonald's and Bojangles or playing Bible Baseball. And let me just tell you, no one wanted me on his or her team for Bible Baseball because everyone realized I knew jack about Bible trivia. In fact, there was only one kid that knew anything about Bible trivia, so everyone wanted to be on his team. By about the middle of my sophomore year, we all pretty much figured out we were screwed if that kid wasn't on our team, so we just said to heck with the teams and read questions out loud while this other kid answered the questions. This probably explains why I suck with religion. :-)
So anyway, I have to say that I was a little concerned when I realized that one of the books on my reading list was the Bible. I knew that there wasn't anyway that I was going to sit down and read it cover to cover, so I sought out my friend Google for help. (The last 15 times I tried to read the Bible cover-to-cover the furthest I got was God smiting Cain.) Mr. Google informed me that there were many ways to read the Bible: cover-to-cover; chronologically in the order that the books were written; or thematically (i.e., pairing an Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalm reading). The English major in me (who firmly believes in how the author's lifetime has an effect on the narrative) led me to decide to go with the chronological order and I'm using the following reading plan:
www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/Bible_Reading_One_Year.pdf
I should be finished with the whole thing by February 14, 2011. The readings only take about 10 minutes each day, but I'm also reading all of the supplementary material in my Catholic Study Bible as I go (that is, front matter, footnotes, reading guides, and so on). These supplements are really critical to my understanding of everything. It's fascinating to see how different books became part of the canon and how nuances in the Hebrew affect the meaning of the English translation. I'm also particularly struck how each book was formed. Most of the books are pieced together from various sources (down to the verse level), which is incredibly impressive as a literary and historical piece.
One of my history electives at N.C. State was the History of the Old Testament. A lot of what I did in that class is starting to come back to me. I just wish I had kept my notes and essays.
Spiritually, I'm very much enjoying it. It's definitely healthier than Bo-berry biscuits and cajun fries.
BTW, I'm doing all this concurrently with reading Nineteen Eighty Four. And once that's done, I'll be moving on to Vanity Fair.
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