That’s great. What Bible audio do you listen to?I’ve been reading the Bible cover to cover and starting again from the beginning for 43 years. The past several years, I’ve been listening to the Bible while washing the supper dishes. Great way to make the most of a tedious chore.
Often you will hear people talk about reading the Bible in order to “find the answers.” If you find reading scripture confusing, how will you find the answers? During Freshman orientation, the priest who taught the theology class I never took said, “Don’t read the Bible in order to find the answers. Read it in order to find the questions.” I found his statement, the idea of allowing the Bible to question you, very freeing. It helps in clarifying passages that appear to contradict one another. It is in allowing the scriptures to question me that I have found unexpected answers. Read without any preconceived notions. Each of us takes away something different from reading the scriptures. How can you apply what you read to your own life, where you are at the moment?
Ok thank you DebChris, that DOES make sense to me, I just don’t want to take anything out of context and end up misunderstanding the whole meaning of the good book.
That was my very first Catholic Bible. I often recommend it to people who are in RCIA and to Catholics who are coming home.
I’ve been on retreats in which I have been given various scripture passages to read. My spiritual director also had me reading lectio divina and using the single scripture verse as the first sentence in my journal. The common directive was simply to not worry about where the scripture passage takes you. When you reach a point in which you feel comfortable discussing scripture, you can say, “This is what this passage says to me.” This personalization is not a statement of doctrine. Actually, from my understanding, few verses actually have a magisterial interpretation.
The RSV-CE is used for liturgical purposes in the UK, Australia, and other parts of the world such as the Middle East, where I work. The Catholic Answer Bible uses the NAB, the translation used for liturgical purposes in the US. Everybody attending the Tuesday night Bible study was encouraged to purchase the Catholic Answer Bible, which is only available in hardcover here. When I went home over the summer, I ordered the updated version in paperback from Amazon so that I would have a copy stateside.That was my very first Catholic Bible. I often recommend it to people who are in RCIA and to Catholics who are coming home.
I always recommend the paperback because it shouldn’t be your final Bible. I like the RSV-Catholic edition much better and wish we used it in Mass here in the states. If it’s good enough for the Pope it’s good enough for me.
The Catechism is also a nice place to start in finding out what we believe in what we do.
The more we read it the more we will understand. It does help if you read it in it’s entirety. Otherwise you are just jumping in the middle and having no context to what is happening because you don’t know the relationships of such things as; people or nations to the prior context. The Catholic bible, in the order of its books, does skip around; however if you do start from the beginning then you do begin to understand the middle, then you have a foundation for understanding the Old Testament being fulfilled by the New (the end).
I do agree that you want to read the Bible in its entirety. It’s one way to reconcile seemingly contradictory passages. Patterns emerge as a person reads from beginning to end. The temple in Jerusalem, for example, is only destroyed when the Israelites place greater emphasis on other things than they do on God. It is restored as they return to God.
It is good that you see the relationship between Old Testament and New Testament. I’ve known too many Christians that disregard the Old Testament for the sake of the New.
I read the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church for Lent last year. I even finished 6 days early. It was amazingly easy to read, too.
Over the years I’ve listened to several versions. I started out listening to the KJV, NASB and NIV on cassette tape, and later when MP3 CDs came out, listened to these same translations in that format when the tapes grew old and worn out (or stuck together). Since I made the transition to Catholic Bibles, I have listened to the Truth and Life New Testament (excellent!) and the Douay Rheims New Testament and part of the Old Testament (This is a new project recorded by Steve Webb, and the remainder of the Old Testament should be published within a few weeks). Lately, I’ve been listening to the Japanese Bible on MP3, and have been pleasantly surprised that the words go deeper because I have to concentrate more to get the meaning.
For what it’s worth, my Catholic neighbors who actually attend Mass are not even aware that there is an OT and NT reading let alone a connection.
St. John of the Cross wrote, at a time when few people could read, that the priest reads the Scriptures and the congregation reads the priest [as he proclaims the word].For what it’s worth, my Catholic neighbors who actually attend Mass are not even aware that there is an OT and NT reading let alone a connection.