I've started reading The Bible... 

I would legit enjoy a Bible chapter update, just saying

I was involved in a Bible Study Group in a Quaker meeting and the assistant warden of the building was an orthodox Jew and asked to join the group so we while he was assistant warden focused on the Hebrew Scriptures and it was very interesting to hear the traditional Jewish interpretation of the texts and we learnt a lot about the prophets They were the most interesting for me.

I literally just bought that exact edition this month to read the gospels for the first time... that is too freaky. I read Jane Eyre because of you! Love your channel

13:27-13:33 😭😭 cant wait for the update once you've finished reading

Wow! I'm glad you're trying to improve your foundation to understand literature -- especially classical literature. Currently I'm studying literature at university and I ran into a girl recently who refused, categorically, to read the Bible. I tried to explain to her, as she later said one of her teachers had said, that such a refusal would make many, many, many books inaccessible to her. (Russian literature, Dostoevsky for example, relies heavily on religious metaphors.) She just didn't want to. It was a point of pride. In addition, I have a focus on Japanese literature and language and if I refused to read many of Japanese foundational texts (many of which are religious to a certain degree) I would not be able to understand the beauty in many of those works. (Also, many recent works of literature contain certain religious metaphors that would also go over her head, such as 'Sula' by Toni Morrison. Chock-full of biblical allusions once you know what you're looking for!) Sorry for the rant -- but I'm just so glad that you're not doing what my fellow student did! I hope you get a lot out of your first full read through of the Bible.

This immensely helps to understand Dostoyevsky's allusions in his works

Hello!! that's amazing! I am reading the Bible as well after coming to Christ and Him saving my life two years ago from near su"cide. I deeply encourage to read any of the Gospels before reading the Old Testament (John, Matthew, Luke or Mark) and ask God to help you understand who truly Jesus is. This is the most important part. Without knowing who Jesus is by personal revelation from God, you won't understand His word. I encourage you to ask God to send you His Holy Spirit , to reveal Himself to you. Don't be ashamed of asking Him anything. Be open in heart for Him to show you who He is. You will need to also keep asking God to help you understand WHY. If you come across any difficult passage, ask God: Why? Why this? There is no question God can't answer you, His word is alive, Trust in His guidance. Psalms and Proverbs are books that I also recommend to read and meditate on. There is so much revelation in His word. God bless you dear friend.

You bring all of this to life Ben. Very interesting

OK - you've inspired me to do this as well. Approaching it as foundational text of literature, as you say, makes it way more appealing for me. Thank you for the inspiration, and I love your channel so much!

Fabulous video!!! As a catholic I've never read the Bible from a literature perspective, but your comments on the Genesis and the "In the beginning" opening quote have made me want to read the Genesis as literature! (Especially with my perspective as a fantasy reader haha!) That is a beautiful opening quote for world-building and I'd never thought it like that 🤯🤓 I'll look forward to your Old Testament video, I'm more familiar with the New Testament, but I feel like the Old is more beautiful literature-wise.

As someone raised Catholic (though these days I don’t think I’d consider myself catholic) it’s so interesting to listen to you speak on your Bible reading experience. Definitely looking forward to more videos you make about it!

I bought both The Bible and the Qur'an recently for the same reason as well as social impact. I am interested in both as they have shaped so much of the current world. Absolutely fascinating!

It's great that you're using supplemental resources for context on the various writers, translations, and genres within the text. Thanks for walking viewers through that and how you're reading it as a foundational historical text of English literature. Some university-level scripture teachers start students with Exodus first, as it was likely written first and sets the tone of cultural context, then alternate between the old testament and the new testament depending on the themes, historical context, or difficulty with the text.

i love the idea of being well-versed in foundational texts but would not have the patience for the bible, excited to hear your thoughts as you go! would love to hear from a literature standpoint anything you learn and how it might enrich your reading of other works (its such an endlessly referenced text haha)

I got Bibliotheca (the fancy readers edition of the bible) a few years back for my birthday but i never got the chance to actually read it 😶 seeing this makes me want to start checking on it though.. 🤔🤔

I’m so glad this is your project because your journey will be very interesting for us!,

Hi Ben. By the way, I have a short video coming out that’s the Re Reading tag. Someone tagged me. In it, I tag a few Booktubers, including you. No pressure. I just wanted you to be aware. I’m not a re-reader but somehow talked for 6 min about that….😊😊. It’s a fun topic.

Nice work Ben, now you've made me want to add The Bible to my TBR. And that's not something I ever thought I'd say! Whether I end up taking a look at the text myself or not, I'm definitely here for updates on your reading of it, very interested in hearing more about your experience. Fascinating stuff, mate. Great video 🙂

My friends and I planned to read the Bible for a discussion however we are putting it off for months now, finding it hard to commit. Maybe this is the sign for us to start reading hahaha.

I studied religious history and tackled some of the origins of the Bible. I recall having to shade different sections in different colours to delineate the likely different sources. I also learned koine Greek to read the New Testament. Back in the day the Bible was not one book but a collection of many texts, and I became fascinated by the texts that were ultimately omitted from the collection. I ended up studying heretics for my theses (which if you knew me would make perfect sense) . I think the KJV was also included in my literature course.

I too have thought of doing this! And really wanted the King James - inspiring as always!

omg I started reading the Bible like 15 years ago and just sort of abandoned it after a little bit, but maybe I should give it a go again, you got me curious, as always :D

I also started reading The Bible (despite not being religious) for academic reasons. I'm currently doing a PhD and I study a lot of medieval texts so it's interesting to see where a lot of ideas (specially regarding women's bodies) have come from. I'm enjoying some books better than others (Numbers was a pain to go through but books like Tobias or Samuel are super interesting). I'm also annotating a lot and writing a very short review after reading each book so I don't forget what each one is about. It's honestly more interesting than I was expecting and like you said, it's really important, because it influenced so much of the world we live in today.

Quite a few years ago, a theologian friend gave me a massive Catholic study Bible, which was fascinating (and overwhelming) because each book was followed by deep scholarly texts about the historical background for that particular book -- the politics, the various versions and revisions of the text to fit certain political or cultural moments, who added what, etc. I don't know where my copy ever ended up, but it was an eye-opener for this cranky atheist into the workaday development of such a massively influential tome.

I have just started watching the Yale Open Courses channel's 'Introduction to the Old Testament' and it's fascinating! In the first episode she recommends which Bible is the best for academic purposes: The Jewish Study Bible. And in the first episode of the New Testament course they also have the lecturer recommends The New Oxford Annotated NRSV with Apocrypha. So yeah, check out the courses! I think you'll enjoy them. The OT one even goes into the Epic of Gilgamesh as well. Happy reading! Edit: spelling

I read the NIV in full a few years ago for the same reason of wanting to go back over key foundational texts but also because despite having gone to Catholic Church every Sunday for the first 18 years of my existence I realised how little I actually knew the Bible. And yep, so many parts where you're like "This is WILD! No wonder we never covered this bit on Sundays!" 😂 One day I'd quite like to read the King James Bible too but I probably need to give it a few years! Also, I've not read it myself but I'd heard good things about The History of the Bible by John Barton for some non-fiction on the creation of the Bible.

I read / skipped through the Bible for basically exactly the same reason as yourself (see my comment on your Penguin collection video) and being myself not religious, all I will say is I’m praying for you 😅

A classical direct translation of the complete Bible texts (from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) is the Bible of Jerusalem (a very fulfilling reading experience), so I recommended it for your purposes, Ben. Warm greetings form Yucatan, Mexico.

Great project, and as a catholic I really appreciate your respectful take. One note: the books included in the KJ bible are the “protestant” books, which means the books that Martin Luther accepted (the ones that HE thought were originally written in Hebrew). In the catholic Bible, there are a few more books that are amazing, like the Book of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon, that are not included in the protestant Bible. Ironically, the Book of Sirach was discovered in its original Hebrew version about 120 years ago, so Luther should have included that one as well.

this is so interesting..please please do more frequent updates than you're planning on at least one more and see how it feels and then if it feels right do another!!!

always look forward to your videos! for like the last year i've been thinking of reading the bible, or at least starting it, or let's be real, just get a copy. my latest inspiration has been east of eden and connecting it to the bible for obvious reasons. i'm so mad at my younger english major self who thought she was "too cool" to take the bible as literature course in college. now i see i really missed out: 20/20 hindsight

tbh it's so impressive how different translations of the bible completely change the reading experience! I've read the new testaments and the genesis for a course I did in uni some years ago, I've read in Brazilian Portuguese the Bíblia de Jerusalém version, recommended by the bible studies professors (it's the most "academic accurate" if you can say so?), and what stroke me the most is how AWFUL is the writing!! lol I was so hyped for the genesis, but I found it quite boring. Like, they had so much to do with it, it's the beginning of times!!!, and the second page we already have Adam and Eve! They've lost a great opportunity here hahaha But, yeah, my biggest complain's that it's badly written. So just fascinating to listen to your experience with another translation for another language!

Very interesting!!!! I absolutely LUV all your book reviews!!!!! 🤗 I have/like the NIV....

Fun undertaking! As a supplement, I recommend watching YaleCourses' Introduction to the Old Testament here on RU-vid. Dr. Christine Hayes gives an excellent series of lectures covering the breadth and context of the Hebrew Bible. Yale also have a series on the New Testament whenever you get to that half of the text.

This is a great discussion. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It seems like the Weatern canon alludes to the Bible all the time and reading it really helps. (The flippin’ Bible…). Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

I listened to an audio version of the whole bible which had daily readings from both testaments and the psalms. Some parts of it were extremely dull, such as parts of the Old Testament which go into great detail about the measurments of temples, the clothing priests should wear, etc. I struggled through those sections even as an audiobook.

When you read it, think about chakras (number 7) and symbols.. enjoy

So curious. I just added this version of the bible to my “to buy list” as well as Ovid Metamorphosis to get some background info for reading Dante’s Inferno. Does this version have notes? (As all Penguin Classics do but for some reason I perceive this one might not.)

I used to read the RSV (really silly version ) and now I read the NIV (nearly infallible version). 😄Actually I hadn't heard of the collaborative one you mentioned .was it NRSV? That sounds interesting.

I've read a substantial chunk of the so-called good book, but it's... difficult. I've read the NT three times (King James, William Tyndale and David Bentley Hart translations), but the OT is another matter. I did try a few years ago to read through the whole thing (KJV) in order and got bogged in the bits of the Pentateuch where all the rules are being handed down, and having pulled through that I got stuck somewhere in first Chronicles. I mean, having slogged through both Kings only to have to read the same stuff again from the northern (or was it southern?) kingdom perspective... oof. I've read some of the prophets separately from this.

I had no idea The Bible was inspired by Cats the musical!

As a translation The KJV is very out of date but as english literature a must read. I use the NRSV as it is a more current and accurate translation. That being said, the original OT was written in ancient Hebrew which has no vowels, no punctuation and no paragraph markers. Its a block of consonants written from right to left. Consequently all translations differ.

66 books or 82 if you include the Apocrapha

This is freaky I have been wanting to read the Bible recently. Been looking for a similar copy of the KJV

forgot to say i'm also a tori amos fan, at least of her earlier work. she knows her bible haha

If you are doing it as literature I would try to read it in chronological order (not the way it is put together) just so it feels more cohesive.

What translation of Homer?!?!?!

Don't forget the part where Yahweh vaporizes Aaron's sons.

*Promosm* 🎶

I read the Bible and became an atheist

Ah yes, the digital revelation that was The Prince of Egypt. A very millennial reminiscence.

spoiler alert: Guy gets nailed to a cross

that is not a good antidote for doom, especially when you think of all the children being taught that the bible is the literal word of god.

The "other" translations are not more accurate. That is a "bill of goods." You have the authorized version (KJV). All others are just in it for profit and or confusion. Take care.

KJV is one of the worst interpretations. NRSV is far better.

I was about to congratulate you for making it through Leviticus; instead I'll congratulate you on skipping it. 😀. The reading experience should be relatively smooth sailing after that. BibleGateway website boasts 150 translations you can compare. Switching to NKJV might be worthwhile.