This is the greatest adventure story

Okay folks, here we go. I’m going to (try) to review the Greatest Adventure Story of All Time. Also known as the Bible. While this is part of the 23 in 2023 challenge, I’ve actually been reading through the Bible for four and a half years. So strap in for an utterly inadequate summary of this amazing book.

How I came to read the Bible

Let me take you back to 2019. Like all good Catholics, my understanding of the Bible was … vague. I can’t quote you scripture or rattle off the canon in order. While the Bible makes up a significant part of the Mass, I was not someone who really read scripture, baring in high school when I read the whole thing for Religion. But I was certainly letting the team down when it came to biblical knowledge.

One day I said to my then-fiance “I’d really like to read the Bible more. I should read it all the way through again.”

And he actually took me seriously. It was one of those things you say without really meaning it. Like “I should really get up earlier on the weekends”.

But he called my bluff. He drafted a reading plan that would see us read through the entire Bible with added commentary. I was a bit overwhelmed with the thought of reading it over such a long period and with some much extra study material. But, it was kind of my idea. So, pushed on by ego and a desire to impress my soon-to-be-husband, I agreed.

At the back of my mind I thought we wouldn’t finished. I assumed we’d get married, have a baby and never have the time. Boy, was I wrong. Four and a half years later, I’ve finished the Bible and there’s so much to say that I already know this review will be entirely inadequate.

The Bible reading plan

The Bible is laid out in the following order:

We read it in the below. It gave us a mix of Old and New Testament throughout the year, so we didn’t get bogged down.

I should note that the original plan was to read the Bible in three years. However, that required a reading pace I couldn’t keep up. At one point it was getting too much, so my husband reworked the plan to add the extra 18 months. I very much appreciate the extra time. For me, it was becoming a chore that I couldn’t keep on top of and was beginning to resent. However, I would say that doing it in three years is very achievable for most people. I think I could have managed it, if it wasn’t for the fact that our reading coincided with lockdown, infertility, terminal illness and family death. Something about that combo saps your ability to concentrate on deep reading…

This way of reading is similar to the Great Adventure Bible reading plan, by Jeff Cavins and popularised by the famous Bible in a Year with Fr Mike Schmitz. It isn’t exactly the same, as we did focus on reading whole books at once, rather than sections of different books. But it does have a similar narrative approach. I think it’s a good way of doing it. You begin to see the wider narrative take place, in somewhat chronological order. Given the span of time the Bible covers, this is helpful.

How it went reading the greatest adventure story

I struggled at times to feel a connection to scripture. There is, quite honestly, a lot of the Bible that felt very boring. Long lists of names and repeated measurements are hard to get through, because they feel like a side issue to the bigger story. They’re not, but they sure feel like it, as you wade through the second telling of the temple measurements.

My husband is much more passionately interested in scripture than I am. That is a good and beautiful thing. But my sense of competitiveness often made me feel like I was failing because I didn’t have a passionate relationship with it. Over the last four years, there have been many times when this whole enterprise was a chore that I slogged through before bed with bad grace.

There were also some great moments. Something that delighted me is that whatever stage I was in over this journey, there was some book, some psalm that spoke to me. Let’s take a moment to appreciate how long four and a half years is. We got married, lost two parents, sat through a pandemic, fought with unexplained infertility and bought a fixer-upper house. That is a lot of change. But there was always something that hit home.

The first book that I felt really interested in was Genesis, which spoke to me as I prepared for marriage. New beginnings and covenants. Then there was Job which forced me to confront unexplained suffering. Jeremiah’s Lamentations got me right in the heartstrings as I sat amid the confusion of all the hard things we’d gone through. In my darkest hours there were despairing psalms that let you cry to God, while reminding you that He was still there. I relished the sweetness of Tobit and the compelling adventure of Maccabees. St Peter has a great down to earth style and St Paul is hella confusing.

This collection of books is thousands of years old but is truly timeless. People haven’t really changed that much over the millenia. We still struggle with the same weaknesses and can show the same strengths. God still has a loving heart and a sense of humour. Suffering is still with us, and the Bible can show us how to turn it into glory. Even if that means just sitting with it.

A good commentary is key for understanding the greatest adventure story

Most of our reading was done with Scott Hahn’s Ignatius Study Bible. I would highly recommend this version to anyone want to get deeper into the Bible. It was very orthodox, and easy to understand. The series also comes with a handy study guide full of questions that you can use to get deeper into your reading. We sat down most Saturday mornings to go through them together and it led to some really interesting conversations.

Unfortunately, Scott hasn’t quite finished publishing is series. (Scott, if you’re reading, please finish so we can buy the whole set!) For the books we didn’t have from the Ignatius Study Bible, we used the Navarre commentary, which is also a good resource. I didn’t find it quite as detailed as Scott’s, and it also lacked the study questions. Still, not a bad way to get deeper into the prophets.

In summary

This was a great challenge. There’s a lot that is hard to understand in the Bible. After reading it almost daily for just shy of five years, I’m still only just brushing the very surface of this great, inspired text. It feels like a great accomplishment to have finished it. But I can also see small ways in which this book has changed me. I don’t think you can read the Word of God without changing. But that’s another adventure, and another story.

Have you ever read the Bible? Would you? Let me know in the comments!