Who all has read the entire Bible?

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the bible and being catholic are one in the same. as the catholic church teaches truthfully ,“being ignorant of scripture is to be ignorant of Jesus.” read the bible, go to church. neither excludes the other.

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My wife and I read one chapter together every night. We’ve read the New Testament together and are now near the end of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament.

Before we got married, I already had read the entire Bible, but my wife’s Bible knowledge was pretty much restricted to “In the beginning …” so we’re taking it slowly.
 
And how many times? And what do you get out of it?

I’m on my fourth reading- started in Genesis and I’m up to Luke 19, though I usually break it up by reading from the historical books, wisdom/prophets, and NT, a few chapters of each every day.

I find that I’m generally calmer and more charitable when I’m reading the Scriptures daily than during periods of my life when I’m not reading the scriptures. It really does bring me closer to God.
Not in one sitting. But at least two or three times (the Jerusalem Bible). I have used this for study purposes (Masters Theol). I absolutely love Scripture as a whole but love OT. The NT is glory is words. Jesus in Word.
God Bless
GraceAngel.
 
the average protestant is more versed in the scriptures than the average catholic.
The average evangelical is shockingly poorly read in Scripture, aside from St Paul’s Epistles and a few selected parts of the Gospels. I tried discussing the Old Testament with an evangelical Theology graduate and he said he didn’t know much of it. I’d read more of the Bible books within 3 months of becoming Christian than most of the evangelicals I know and had read it cover to cover within 6, though that doesn’t mean that the average Catholic is any different (and in fact probably worse, with the exception of the Gospels) and I do know some evangelicals that know the Bible impressively well (and some Catholics). Though in all fairness I don’t read the Bible as consistently as evangelicals, who tend to read maybe a chapter a day, whereas I probably read 10 chapters each on two days a week on average, though go through phases of reading it more and less and maybe the little but often is better.
 
I read it thru once a few years ago. I am on my second go round. This time I am “taking my time”
Kathy
 
The average evangelical is shockingly poorly read in Scripture, aside from St Paul’s Epistles and a few selected parts of the Gospels. I tried discussing the Old Testament with an evangelical Theology graduate and he said he didn’t know much of it. I’d read more of the Bible books within 3 months of becoming Christian than most of the evangelicals I know and had read it cover to cover within 6, though that doesn’t mean that the average Catholic is any different (and in fact probably worse, with the exception of the Gospels) and I do know some evangelicals that know the Bible impressively well (and some Catholics). Though in all fairness I don’t read the Bible as consistently as evangelicals, who tend to read maybe a chapter a day, whereas I probably read 10 chapters each on two days a week on average, though go through phases of reading it more and less and maybe the little but often is better.
I think it sounds impressive when a fundamentalist quotes chapter and verse, like, “Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Their citation of chapter and verse numbers makes us jump to the conclusion that they’ve memorized huge chunks of Scripture, when in fact it may be only 10 or 12 verses. Verses outside their worldview don’t get memorized — just think about that poster here who said that holy water was “unbiblical,” even though “holy water” is mentioned by name in Numbers 5:17. I feel certain there isn’t a fundamentalist pastor anywhere on earth telling his congregation to memorize Numbers 5:17 … or John 20:23 …
 
My wife and I read one chapter together every night. We’ve read the New Testament together and are now near the end of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament.
That is SO COOL!!! :cool:

And the fact that you’ve read it already means that you could help her put the picture together as you read it.

BTW, I take it Leviticus was a “testament in patience” for her?
 
😦
That is SO COOL!!! :cool:

And the fact that you’ve read it already means that you could help her put the picture together as you read it.

BTW, I take it Leviticus was a “testament in patience” for her?
Nothing like the first 9 chapters of 1 Chronicles though
 
Though in all fairness I don’t read the Bible as consistently as evangelicals, who tend to read maybe a chapter a day, whereas I probably read 10 chapters each on two days a week on average, though go through phases of reading it more and less and maybe the little but often is better.
I think in reality, evangelicals “talk about” reading the bible a lot more than they do, and really, very few percentage-wise actually do read it every day. Or maybe they’ll read the verse on their calendar page and call it good. That was my experience as an evangelical. While I did read my bible on most days, only a handful of my friends from Church did, on a consistent basis over time. If I was in a bible study, usually all the folks in the bible study read every day. But on a given Sunday, I don’t think more than a third read their bibles consistently during the week.

The trend seemed to be that once in a while, people would get “on-fire” and read a lot for a while, then slack off.

It sounds judgmental of me, but that was what I experienced. I was in a pastor’s family, too. I left my evangelical church almost 4 yrs ago.

Even being married to the pastor’s son, I felt a need to “hide” my scripture reading, so he wouldn’t think I was “holier art than him.” And his dad would preach on Sundays, but not spend regular time in prayer and in the Word, as I thought would be regular for evangelicals.
 
Not more than this catholic. And I’ve been catholic for 46 years and I have never heard one priest give a homily on anything than what the readings are for that day. You are mistaken.
no i’m not because i HAVE heard priests give homilies on things other than the scripture for the day. that’s great that your experience is different than mine, but my experience is not mistaken.
 
I think in reality, evangelicals “talk about” reading the bible a lot more than they do, and really, very few percentage-wise actually do read it every day…
well, i will stick with the poll data on the subject that protestants read the bible more than catholics read it. that the average protestant is more versed in the bible than the average catholic.

if this were not true (why would the polls show it to be true for one) why would there be books and tape series and speakers and teachers dedicated to get catholics to read the bible?

i am not saying that catholics don’t get the bible. i fully acknowledge the superiority of the liturgy in that regard and think protestant services are lacking because of the abandonment of liturgy and organized scripture. i am just going by the data that shows protestants do read the bible more often.

as for the person who made the comment that protestants only memorize verses that fit their worldview and ignore the rest… that is an ignorant comment. first, you have no idea what verses they memorize. are there some out there that do that… yes, especially the hate preachers (like westboro baptist church). but the comment lacks the knowledge that protestants don’t ignore parts of scripture that doesn’t fit their theology (from a catholic point of view) but have a different interpretation than catholics do. also, to say that protestants only memorize a few verses might be true about some, but there are many others who memorize a verse a day. i know because i am one of them as are a number of my friends and acquaintances. i keep a little notecard holder in my pocket with a verse written out on it and memorize it and meditate on it everyday. i keep 10 little cards with me at a time. 7 of them are the verses for the week. 1 is the verse from 1 month ago. 1 is the verse from 1 year ago. and 1 is the verse from 3 years ago. i keep them all organized in a rolodex by date. it started with the TMS (topical memory system put out by the navigators) when i was 18 and has continued through to today. have i missed days? yes, but i can count them all if i use both hands and both feet (meaning less than 20 days in 14 years). how do i know that? because i have the dates for them all.

yes, many catholics know the bible well. yes, many protestants don’t read it and barely memorize. but if you take the average of each, the polls show that protestants read and memorize the bible much more than catholics.
 
I have read the Bible between 10 & 15 times. Each time I read it, which is ongoing, I gain more insights as to the wonders of God’s Word and his caring love for us, his children.
Deacon Ed B
 
Six times for me front to back, I’m not sure how valuable it is. Perhaps it would be helpful to reorder the books into the Jewish OT. Or I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to read in the order they were written, historically. That I thought would be meaningful in terms of putting the events in a more chronological order. At least the Jewish OT has them in some better chronological order. The NT can be dated I think fairly well as to which was written first, second. It’s important to remember that Paul has the oldest writings in the NT. It helps I think in seeing the progression of theological thought as time went on.
 
I have read the Bible between 10 & 15 times. Each time I read it, which is ongoing, I gain more insights as to the wonders of God’s Word and his caring love for us, his children.
Deacon Ed B
Deacon Ed, have you ever noticed that each time you read the Bible, there’s something there that wasn’t there before? I’m always finding something new that I missed the last trip through.
 
Deacon Ed, have you ever noticed that each time you read the Bible, there’s something there that wasn’t there before? I’m always finding something new that I missed the last trip through.
Every time I have read it. I guess each time we read it, depending where we are on our spiritual journey, we absorb something different, something we are needing. But, yes, each time, I get something different. I even find thoughts resurfacing that I in my weak humanness forgot.
Deacon Ed B
 
I have only read it through once.

That is because I have only read it through once as a Catholics, therefore the two times I did before, I missed seven books.

One more thing, I read different translations each time.
 
One more thing, I read different translations each time.
So do I. I have at least 8 different translations. I also have a parallel bible that shows 4 different translations in columns, side by side, so we can compare the different translations to get a fuller meaning. I do find it very helpful.

I also have at least 6 different commentaries, including one protestant commentary by Barclay. He is really good, except where he disputes Catholic teaching and interpretation. He is not even in the ball park on these and its most obvious where he is giving the protestant point of view. That helps when trying to answer some of their objections. You know where they will be coming from before hand.
Deacon Ed B.
 
I have only read it through once.

That is because I have only read it through once as a Catholics, therefore the two times I did before, I missed seven books.

One more thing, I read different translations each time.
I have read it all the way through 5 times so far, and I am working on 6 now.

Do I get extra credit for reading all of the ecumenical RSV, which contains books recognized by the Orthodox Churches but considered to be apocrypha by the Catholic Church? 😉
 
Sure, I’ll give extra credit for extra books. I have an NRSV with all of those books, too. Haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. The NRSV is not my favorite translation.
 
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