Many people make it an annual goal to read the Bible all the way through. Most who attempt this do so literally, starting at page one and reading the books in the order they appear in the table of contents. There is nothing wrong with that approach but is it the best way to read it?

Reading the Bible, regardless of the order, is better than not reading it. Still, there is nothing wrong with exploring different approaches to how we read Scripture, especially if those approaches might help us better understand what we are reading.

Many years ago, I put together a New Testament “machete” reading order, inspired by the suggestion on the best way to watch the Star Wars movies. You can find this NT reading plan at this link. Putting that reading plan together was fairly straightforward. The NT is a small corpus that covers a short period of history.

Attempting something similar with the Old Testament has always been a bit more daunting. It has been over a decade and I am just getting to it now. What makes it a more difficult project? There are a few things. For starters, the story of Israel occurs over a span of at least two millennia stretching across the Bronze and Iron Ages. Since the order of books are not arranged chronologically it can be difficult for a reader to follow Israel’s story as it moves from Abraham to Malachi. Long genealogies and extended sections of legal material can also make it hard for the reader to follow the story as they interrupt the narrative flow.