On February 27, 2015 I finished reading the Old Testament. I began this journey about two years ago (taking breaks to study other materials intermittently), and it has been an uphill battle all the way. In my copy, the Old Testament is 1184 pages long, and I read the last 526 pages in about 60 days. I wrote this post, followed by this one. The frustrations I posed in those posts aren't gone, but I have learned some things about the Bible, and about myself and my faith, as I've read.
When I got to Psalms, I was excited to enjoy the beautiful poetic language and faithful sentiments of the book. But 150 chapters of roughly the same thing got tedious. Proverbs follows directly after, and I jived way better with the life lessons that Solomon spells out. After thinking about why I was able to enjoy one more than the other, I came to the conclusion that it was the culture of our church. As Latter-day Saints, we are heavily focused on becoming more Christ-like, which means we constantly look for the lessons that life and God can teach us to change from our natural man selves into the Christ-centered person that He wants us to be. I'm glad this is the case, but I feel like we don't do enough pure and simple praise to God, which is what Psalms is all about. He is amazing, not because of what He does or can do for us, but because of what He is- an incredible, perfect Being. I'm glad Psalms gave me a chance to ponder that.
And then a few books later came Isaiah. It's sort of a running gag that Isaiah is difficult to read and understand. "A missionary was walking down the street, when a shady man sticks a gun in his chest and says, 'give me your wallet.' When the missionary doesn't move fast enough, the man shoots him and runs. The missionary gets up unharmed, and pulls the pocket Bible from his jacket. The bullet had hit the book. The missionary opens it up to see where the bullet stopped. 'Ah-ha, Isaiah,' he said. 'Nothing gets through Isaiah.'"
It's a terrible joke terribly told, but I couldn't resist. Despite the stigma, I loved Isaiah. The footnotes are amazing, and the chapter headings were invaluable. I'm excited to dive back into that book and really study it instead of speed read.
Daniel is probably my favorite book. There are several well known stories in that book, and no one does anything too crazy. I was surprised at how many times unexpected things happened in the Old Testament. Good guys doing bad things, people getting punished for things I didn't think were sins, people getting blessed even though they were jerks,
When I began this project of reading the Old Testament, I wanted to figure out what was so great about it, and why so many people across the world take such stock in it. I have said that I believe in the Bible, but I felt hypocritical saying it, because I had never read it through completely. Yes, I believed the truthfulness of the passages that people would quote on Sunday, or the applicable one's I would find in topical studies, but how could I say I believed in the Bible if I'd never experienced it as a whole?
Now I can honestly say I have read the whole thing. But as I read, the thought kept popping into my mind, "these stories are crazy! How can I have a testimony in what is happening in this story?"But now that I've reached the end, and I can look at it as a whole, it's easier for me to swallow. The stories in the Old Testament were from a time so different from now, and meant for a people so long ago, that I don't feel bad shrugging off a lot of the stuff I think is weird. And for the hundreds of pages of prophesy telling of destruction of peoples and cities that have already happened, I try to glean the message behind it: keep the commandments.
Reading the Bible has made me so much more thankful for other revelation handed down from God. If I have a question and can't find my answer in the Bible, I have the Book of Mormon to look to, plus modern revelation from our current prophets. And it's exciting to know that God will bless me with my own revelation to questions I have, and influence me with the Holy Ghost.
So the conclusion I draw from reading the Old Testament is: I believe it is of God. I don't think there was a time that I read it and thought, God had no part in this. There were definitely times where I thought, I don't understand how God has a part in this, but I always tried to puzzle it out. And as a whole, I know the Bible has been so important to Christianity, and has been a building block in so much good in the world. I would feel so lost if all I had was the Bible,and people's interpretations of it, but I'm glad that it's a part of my arsenal of scriptures.
