This is one of the most frequently discussed matters on this website, and that’s great.
We all should read scripture all our lives. The Jews read and study the Torah in their Synagogues, on a three-year cycle. That would be chiefly the first five books of the Bible, but they also study all the other Jewish books in their version of the scriptures.
Post #3 had some good advice.
You know, for beginners, you might want to start off with some of the SHORT books in the Bible – because it’s easier to get through them and a relevant commentary.
The Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute wrote a lengthly document called the Interpretation of the Bible in the church, back around 1993. They said basically the same thing I said in the previous paragraph – read the bible with a commentary nearby to help you understand more about the scripture.
The problem some say is that there are excellent Catholic commentaries, but they are for scholars and they are in Latin. So, there’s a new wave of commentaries trying to bridge the gap between those technical books and us ordinary Catholics.
Even still, you can run into a lot of commentaries which might give you the same headache they give me – they’re always talking about who wrote the book, when was it written, and otherwise discussing a lot of technical issues. That’s a problem, too. You might get discouraged because you wonder how anybody can make any sense of the scripture at all. The commentaries might talk a lot about “problems” with what’s in the scripture – apparent contradictions, translation problems, etc.
But, don’t be discouraged. You simply might not want to dwell on all those issues right now.
However old you are, get started and don’t give up. Scripture wasn’t written just for the experts, it was written for you and me.
I haven’t found all the answers in any one book. As much as my bank account and my slow reading allows, I pick up more books to look at the same scriptures, over and over.
I’m constantly learning more and more about Genesis, for example.
