Why the Bible Can Be Hard to Read

A library, not a book

The Bible is not a single book written by one author at one time. It is a collection of writings composed and developed over many centuries.

It contains history, law, poetry, prophecy, wisdom, letters, genealogies, visions, and stories. People and events appear in different books, and customs familiar to ancient readers may be unfamiliar to us.

Many people begin reading the Bible and discover that reading it straight through is harder than they expected. The difficulty is partly a result of its size, variety, structure, and distance from the world in which it was written.

Not one continuous story

Another source of confusion is the order of the books.

The Bible does not always move from beginning to end as one continuous timeline. Some books cover the same historical periods from different viewpoints.

Prophets may address events described elsewhere. The four Gospels overlap extensively in their accounts of Jesus but differ in selection, wording, arrangement, and emphasis. New Testament letters step away from the narrative to address the circumstances of particular early Christian communities.

Names can also be confusing. Different people sometimes share the same name, and a person or place may have more than one name. Kingdoms rise and disappear, borders change, and political circumstances shift.

Ancient readers also understood customs, institutions, and religious practices that may be unfamiliar today. A little context can make a significant difference.

Same story multiple places

Some biblical events are described in more than one place, and the accounts do not always use the same words or include exactly the same details.

One writer may emphasize something another leaves out. Sometimes the sequence or arrangement differs. Readers and religious traditions interpret these differences in different ways.

When differences matter, OBG attempts to acknowledge them. The purpose is to explain what the biblical texts say rather than force them into agreement where questions remain.

Highly interconnected

The books of the Bible are often connected to one another.

Later writers quote, echo, interpret, or build upon earlier writings. Ideas such as creation, covenant, sacrifice, kingship, exile, restoration, the Messiah, and resurrection develop across many books.

This is especially important in the New Testament. Jesus and the New Testament writers lived in a Jewish world shaped by the scriptures of Israel, and their words frequently assume that background.

People in the first century, for example, held different expectations about what a Messiah would be and do. Knowing something about those expectations helps explain why people responded to Jesus in different ways.

It is not necessary to understand every connection before beginning. Start with who is involved? What happens? What does the text say? The larger connections can be followed as they appear in later explanations.