Where do I start with the bible? Just got mine today

Where do I start with the bible? Just got mine today

The beginning

The Gospels, beginning with Mark as he is easiest to understand. John should always be last. From there you will learn what is necessary to live your life. Then Genesis, and the historical books describing the prologue to salvation.

Genesis and exodux

I fucking hate when people ask this. It's not even that long. I'm pretty sure the Harry Potter series is longer than the Bible. Just fucking read the book. The worst thing is that it's usually a fucking Christian asking. Why would you even join a religion if you hadn't read the core text? It's like signing a contract without reading it, except the only part you're entirely convinced of is that your immortal consciousness is at stake.

>KJV
Start at the Gospels, go back to the OT here and there.

>modern translations
Start at Genesis; read a Psalm and Proverb every once in a while.

>modern translations with paragraph format
Start at Genesis and continue on straight. Be glad that you have one of the more readable versions of the Bible.

Worst place to start. You start with the gospels. Reading numbers and deuteronomy first will just make you an atheist because "muh humanism"

Start by reading Paradise Lost or East of Eden

Much more interesting

Nothing wrong with starting with Genesis and Exodus, so long as you skip ahead after that before you get yourself caught up in the tedious Jewish histories that follows.

Because the basis of Christianity is the new covenant. Starting at the beginning as a Christian means starting with Jesus. Common sense.

Christ's sacrifice is meaningless if you don't know what the Father was up to beforehand and why Jesus needed to come down to redeem humanity in the first place.

The histories are great, it's stuff like Leviticus you want to skip for a first time read.

As for OP, depends what you're reading for. For a christian devotional reading, I'd do this:

Jesus and the apostles
>Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Acts

Intro to Jesus' purpose
>Ephesians, 1 Peter

Devotional prayers
>Psalms

Some Old Testament wisdom
>Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Jonah

If you're reading for historical interest, I find that a narrative read-through really helps understand where everything else fits into the traditional jewish history:

Genesis (skip over the name lists)
Exodus 1-24, 32-40
Numbers 9-36
Deuteronomy 34
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings (can skip chapter 7)
2 Kings
Daniel 1-6
Ezra
Nehemiah (can skip chapter 12)
1 Maccabees (not in Protestant bibles)
Luke
Acts

Well you can find out afterwards even though its entirely evident when you look around at the degeneracy today and throughout all of time.

>John should always be last.

John should be the first. John is the easiest and most important book for someone new to the Bible to read. As John writes in 20:30-31

>30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

>31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

OP, you're getting some bad advice in this thread.

Read John's Gospel. Then read Luke, followed by Acts. Acts was written by Luke as a followup to his Gospel. It mostly covers the spread of the gospel following Christ's Resurrection.

After that, I would highly recommend reading Paul's epistles (Romans to Hebrews). But honestly, it would be fine to just read Romans and then start choosing books as they interest you.

If you've just recently left atheism, you'll probably find a lot that hits home in Ecclesiastes.

The Bible is the deepest, most intricate, book in existence. The more you read, the more you get out of it. If you're a native English speaker, you should read the King James.

SEND IT BACK

Just read this op and you will find the truth

Gospels > Pentateuch > Acts > Historical Books > Wisdom Books > Epistles > Prophetic Books > Revelation

>John is the easiest
It is also the most difficult and rich of all the Gospels. Reading the synoptics first, and taking good measure of them will serve him best in understand the depth of John.

>Hebrews
>Written by Paul
El oh el

I rate the opinions of St John Chrysostom, St Athanasius, and Eusebius over yours.

John was written last, and Mark is the first and easiest. Mark goes first.

The Gospel of Mark.

I'll the people saying to start at a specific book are retarded, unless that book is Matthew or Genesis. Read the entire New Testament except Revelation, then go back and read the entire Old Testament, then read Revelation.

>It is also the most difficult and rich of all the Gospels

That's what makes it great to return to. None of us should only ever read the Bible once. John's explicit purpose was to get people to believe that Jesus is the Christ.

Don't mistake depth for difficulty. John's is the easiest gospel to read and understand (literally, the grammar and vocabulary are the simplest of all the gospels). However, it reveals mysteries which we may always return to, which will only be fully revealed when we are with God.

That's an arbitrary way of determining it. The reason I'm recommending John to people new to the Bible is that it's the only Gospel that was written with the express purpose of helping people to believe that Jesus is the Christ.

Books in brackets are apocryphal books, or books that aren't in The Bible but are good reading.
John, 1 John, Mark, Romans, Matthew, Luke, Acts (of the Apostles), (Mere Christianity by CS Lewis) 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians, Genesis, Job, Exodus, Psalms, (Enoch), Galatians, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Titus, Philemon, (The Way of the Pilgrim), Ephesians, 1 Chronicles, (Lives of the Prophets), 2 Chronicles, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Jude, Philippians, Hebrews, Colossians, Leviticus, Revelation, Isiaiah, Lamentations, Jonah, Jeremiah, Ruth, (The Gospel of the Holy 12), Judges, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Proverbs, Hosea, Daniel, Ezekiel, (The Republic by Plato) Psalms, Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, James, 3 John, 2 John, 2 Peter, (Thomas, Secret Mark), 1 Peter, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, (The Quran), Malachi, Numbers, Joshua, (Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace) Deuteronomy, Song of Solomon, (Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler), Ecclesiastes, (Apocalypse of Peter), Jeremiah, Nahum, Zechariah, Haggai, (Industrial Society and It's Future by Theodore Kaczynski) and Zephaniah

Or you could just read it in order

How about Eusebius, Origen, and all of scholarship since the 1800s which doubt Pauline authorship.

>all these people recommend skipping books
this is a literature board, read all of it you turboplebs.