I spent last year reading a Chronological Bible.
It was amazing how different Scripture looked!
The subtitle on the cover explains why.
“The entire New International Version in 365 daily readings arranged in the order the events actually occurred.”
The readings told the Biblical story in an arc, not piecemeal, or divided by book or author.
I knew these stories, of course, but they looked different.
I read them differently.
Why not try a Chronological Bible yourself?
How is a Chronological Bible different from a “regular” Bible?
Using only the Bible, the story is told in the order it happened.
We start at Genesis 1:1, of course, because that’s from the beginning.
The first three days were passages from the beginning, Genesis.
We read about creation, the fall of man, and Noah.
But on January 4, other passages from the Bible join the timeline.
It started with Japheth’s descendants in Genesis 10:1-5.
The next reading was 1 Chronicles 1:5-7, “The sons of Japheth.”
Back to Genesis for Ham’s descendants.
Then to 1 Chronicles 1:8-16, to parallel the list of Ham’s sons.
From there, we switched back to Genesis 10-11:26, and the Tower of Babel story.
Back to Shem’s sons in 1 Chronicles 1:17:27.
This helps the reader figure out what happened when.
Then surprise! On January 5, we get Job 1:1-3:26.
SO?
Did you realize Job took place so early in the story?
Scholars believe Moses wrote the book around 1440 BC. Solomon also is a possibility, writing about 950 BC. It’s considered the earliest story in the Bible.
Most of us don’t find it until #18 on the list of Bible books in order. For that reason, we can lose track of when the events occurred.
Does it make a difference?
It might. Satan still had access to God’s throne room at the beginning of Job’s story.
With the list of names in two sections of the Bible, did you consider what that meant?
1 Chronicles lists itself as “Historical Records from Adam to Abraham.”
1 Chronicles is attributed to Ezra the priest, writing circa 450 BC, after the fall of Solomon’s Temple.
If Ezra was the author, he was trying to remind the newly returned to Jerusalem Israelites of where their ancestry.
(It was also necessary to determine who was eligible to be a priest during Ezra’s days.)
I loved spending time in the Old Testament this way.
Who decided on the order?
Bible Study Tools explained:
“Scholars believe the Bible isn’t arranged in chronological order because the Bible wasn’t written in one sitting, from start to finish. Many different writers over many, many centuries contributed to the Bible, each one of them inspired by God.”
The Bible books are arranged by genre: books of the Law, historical books, wisdom literature, the prophets.
The New Testament, of course, starts with Jesus’s life in the Gospels and Acts. It then moves into the Epistles and ends with the Prophetic book of Revelation.
What did I learn from reading the Bible in the order events took place?
Events made more sense.
I saw patterns.
Closer inspection of parallel passages showed me who was missing or added.
It made me read all those names more closely. I recognized similar names and asked why.
It was particularly important in the historical books–to understand how closely events occurred.
It sent me to a Bible atlas to follow the stories, locations, and then marvel at them.
Biblical fiction helped make me sensitive to these ideas.
(See my blog posts here: Biblical Fiction and Bible Study Prep. Cities of Refuge and Fiction.)
Would I do it again?
Absolutely.
I’ll be reading Genesis 1:1 come January 1.
I was surprised at how engrossed I got in the Bible when I read events in the order they occurred.
And, of course, by December 31, I’ll have finished reading the Bible in one year.
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?