christianity.
What’s the name of that book about Christianity and God and Jesus and stuff?
The Bible.
It seems super long. What’s it about and how can I break it up and skip the boring parts?
There are two main parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament is about the earth getting created and how the Jewish people came to be. It’s very exciting and has a lot of violence, intrigue, betrayal, and cool history and geography. There’s also some less exciting stuff about who was the son of who and about four million laws and the penalties for breaking them. There’s thirty-nine books that cover a period of two thousand years.
The New Testament starts with the birth of Christ and goes through his life, his teachings, his death, and the teachings of his disciples that led to the formation of Christianity. There’s twenty-seven books that cover a period of one hundred years, give or take.
If you don’t feel like doing math, there’s a total of 66 books in the Bible. As far as skipping the boring parts, well, the easiest thing might be for you to read the whole thing and then decide which parts are the most dull so you don’t have to re-read them. That would probably be the easiest.
Can you list all 66 books for me?
No. You can Google it yourself. But here’s a couple freebies: the first book is Genesis and the last book is Revelation. They’re both pretty exciting.
So the Old Testament is about a bunch of laws and stuff?
Let’s break the 39 Old Testament books down into three categories.
The first seventeen books, Genesis through Esther, are about history.
The next five books, Job through Song of Solomon, are poetry.
The last seventeen, Daniel through Malachi, are prophetical.
Note: there is plenty of overlap, and the the Old Testament is not entirely chronological.
And the New Testament is about Jesus and love and stuff?
Let’s break the 27 books of the New Testament down into three categories.
The first five books, Matthew through Acts, are about history. Specifically, the Gospels, life of Jesus, and the early days of Christianity.
The next thirteen books, Romans through Philemon, are the Pauline Epistles. These are letters to churches and folks written by Paul.
The next nine books, Hebrews through Revelation, are General Epistles. These are letters to churches and people written by a bunch of different authors.
Where does the Bible take place?
Mostly on Earth.
Can you be more specific?
Okay. Mostly in the region of the world we call the Middle East. Here are some geographic features that are good to know.
Dead Sea. The lowest point on earth at 3000 feet below sea level. The Jordan River empties into it, but nothing flows out of it. Nothing living lives here, which might be a clue as to its name.
Jordan River. An important river that is surprisingly small, considering its significance throughout the Bible. It flows south from the Sea of Galilee and empties 65 miles later into the Dead Sea.
Mediterranean Sea. Most of the stories take place not too far away from this lovely and large body of water.
Nile River. The longest river in the world (over 4000 miles!). It flows through Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean.
Persian Gulf. One of the eastern boundaries (along with Tigres and Euphrates Rivers) for Old Testament lands. Iran (formerly Persia) and Saudi Arabia lie on opposite sides of the Gulf.
Sea of Galilee. A freshwater lake that’s less than 40 miles from the Mediterranean. A lot of stories involving Jesus take place around this region.
Tigres and Euphrates Rivers. “The Cradle of Civilization.” They meander along together, through (present-day) Iraq in parallel for almost a thousand miles before emptying into the Persian Gulf.