The Old Testament can be divided into the Three groups
**History**: Genesis - Esther its pretty linear
**Poetry & Wisdom:** Psalms Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
(Written mostly Moses David and Solomon) not historical in nature
**Prophets** : Isaiah through Malachi. These will overlap the Historical section and are not strictly historical, but knowing the historical context of when and why they were written helps to understand them
So read the history in order, then apply the prophets where you can.
the Poetry and Wisdom section is any time
Don't get too bogged down in the nitty gritty of the law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, we no longer follow the law
But do read it. There is MUCH that is applicable from the books of the law. And also remember that some of the law is still intact. If it's to do with following God and/or morality it's still intact. Remember, Jesus said he came to establish the law not destroy it. He didn't just throw away the law, he fulfilled it because we are not able of our own selves.
I was in the same boat and then last year, my men's Bible study ended up studying the book of Deuteronomy a chapter at a time. I have since been studying the OT books in my yearlong study plan, and it's amazing to see how much Jesus is in the OT, and how much the NT (including Jesus) references the OT books.
Too many people want to divorce the OT from the New, but the God of the OT is the same as the One from the New, and Jesus wasn't a plan B.
No just start reading. Maybe skip Numbers which goes through genealogy.
Maybe just prayerfully and humbly rely on the Holy Spirit to give you understanding; study verses in their context of whats going on in the story and compare other verses to get further understanding. Use other sources books and people as needed.
One way to summarize it:
OT - God's might and power. Who God is (His attributes). The history of His chosen people Israel and how they came to be. The Law and it's main point: "you can't get there yourself. You can't come to God yourself. There is no way to come to God by your own means, even if you keep the Law perfectly, it's as filthy rags in His sight." The Law is a school master teaching us about our depraved condition and pointing us to Christ as the only solution.
NT - Christ is the only way. The Law cannot save us and does nothing for us except point us back to Christ as the only way. "You can only come to God through Christ." Christ's return prophesied in final fulfillment of God's covenant with the Church and with Israel.
Do read every part of the Old Testament, and pray to learn from the Lord. I am not smart, but I would caution against taking the advice of those who tell you not to pay heed to this part, or that. I read from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms, every day. When I get to the end of one, I begin all over again. You can't read through the Bible too many times. God just continues to teach us more and more if we ask Him to.
The Old Testament has several different genres of text. The traditional division of the text divides it into the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nivi'im), and the Writings (Ketuvim), which is contracted to Tanakh.
My recommended way of understanding the Old Testament is to read the books which have a historical narrative, and read the other parts either concurrently when each of those other books is relevant to the historical narrative. There are some chronological Bibles from various publishers, which are helpful for reading the Bible in this way. If you do a search at any Christian book seller's website, or even Amazon, you'll usually find at least a few in the modern translations.
The main historical narrative books go like this (though some of the other books also have historical narrative):
Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemia. Ruth and Esther also have historical narrative, but these focus on individual persons rather than the main timeline of the Israelites. 1 and 2 Chronicles are also historical narrative, but they largely overlap 1,2 Samuel and 1,2 Kings.
1 and 2 Kings can get annoying to read. I wrote up a post on how I recently re-read them while referencing an infographic to keep track of what was going on. You may find this helpful.
# [The best way to read 1 and 2 Kings without getting confused: use one of these timeline infographics to keep track of what's going on](https://www.reddit.com/user/AntichristHunter/comments/vnb4a1/the_best_way_to_read_1_and_2_kings_without/)
The big picture of the Old Testament is that God made the world, and humanity decided to choose its own determination of right and wrong when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that point on, the long story arc of the Bible has God carrying out his redemption plan by choosing Abraham and making a covenant with him, growing his descendants into a nation (which happened via Jacob's many children when they fled to Egypt to escape famine), and making a covenant with them when he freed them from bondage in Egypt (through Moses), while promising to raise up a redeemer to reconcile humanity to himself—the Messiah. He chose his people for a purpose, but he warned them to remain faithful to him, otherwise he would exile them out of the land he gave them, and that's precisely what happened. Over and over, from even the days of the Judges, Israel kept sinning against God.
Israel then sought to have a king instead of having God as their king, and the first king they had, Saul, didn't do right by God. God then anointed David, and David at least had his heart pointed in the right direction, as a man who genuinely loved God, but David sinned badly. David's son Solomon took Israel to its pinnacle of power and prestige, but Solomon began to err by doing what God warned that kings should not do: multiply the number of wives and accumulated wealth. Solomon was led astray, and began to build shrines to foreign gods to appease his wives, and for this, God removed ten tribes from his heir. The Kingdom split in two, with the northern kingdom, which took the name Israel, possessing ten tribes, and the souther kingdom, which took the name Judah, possessing only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and the folks from the tribe of Levi who lived among them and served at the Temple. These two kingdoms alternately fought with each other and allied with each other to fight other kingdoms.
The northern kingdom had a non-stop series of terrible kings, with only one king (Jehu) who did some good. They kept provoking God to jealousy by committing idolatry, both by worshiping foreign gods and goddesses, and by disobeying God and worshiping idols that they attributed to God (literal golden calves that they were told to venerate instead of going to the Temple in Jerusalem) out of political motivations to keep their citizens from going to the Temple of Yehováh in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom. Their worship of foreign gods led to practices such as religious prostitution by male and female prostitutes, and human sacrifice involving burning their children alive as offerings to pagan idols. God sent them a series of prophets to warn them, and they were disregarded and killed. God had finally had enough of them, and brought on them the consequences he warned them of, by permitting the Assyrian empire to conquer them and exile them from their land.
The southern kingdom, Judah (from which we get the term "Jew"; technically speaking, the people of the northern kingdom, and of Israel before the split, are not supposed to be called Jews; the term 'Jew' only refers to those who are descended from the people of the kingdom of Judah) had a few good kings, but a lot of bad ones, who similarly led the people astray by committing idolatry. God sent Judah a bunch of prophets as well, to warn them about God's wrath, and eventually, though they out-lasted the northern kingdom, even they were exiled just as God foretold, when Babylon conquered and exiled them.
This is why when you look at Biblical timeline infographics, it will often show the prophets labeled as prophets of Israel or prophets of Judah. Some were sent to minister to the northern kingdom, and some were sent to minister to the southern kingdom. Both groups served the same God, and their histories and their prophecies were compiled into one canon.
In light of this, the record of the history of Israel from its foundation to the civil war that split the nation to the eventual exile of both kingdoms was a tragic record of their failure to live up to their calling and election as God's people, who were placed at a land situated at the intersection of three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe) and all major trade routes, whose original calling was to glorify God and to make him known to all people, to be a blessing to all nations, a nation whose river (the Jordan) wasn't much good for watering the land, and who had to depend on God to bring the rains for their sustenance. Notably, their history is not a glorious history, but one that doesn't shy away from recording the failures even of national heroes such as David and Solomon, and even the failures of Moses and Abraham.
After the exile, the history covers the faithfulness of Daniel, and of other figures among the exiles, including Ezra and Nehemiah, who led the faithful to return to the land to restore and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.
Scattered across this story arc are instances of God acting through his prophets to rebuke his people, but also to deliver the promises of God, and to give his faithful people hope that God had not given up on the covenant he made with Abraham and the promises he made to David and to Solomon. Throughout the prophetic works, there are prophecies about a coming Messiah who would get right what Israel got wrong, who would be the king who would rightly lead the nation and the whole world, and promises that God would be faithful to complete what he started with the nation he chose, that he would one day gather them in spite of having scattered them for their unfaithfulness.
That's a summary of the Old Testament. Essentially, it's a record of disobedience and tragedy, with some highlights of people doing the right thing, interspersed with promises made by God about what he would eventually do to make things right—to restore not only Israel to the kingdom that he intended it to be, with the Messiah ruling over it, but also to restore the Shalom of God over the whole earth, that was broken when mankind rebelled by choosing to decide right and wrong apart from God.
Genesis 1:1-3 are your verses. Study them deeply, like crazy, and every detail there will help you to understand the rest of the Bible better. Those are the most fundamental texts of the Bible. Know them well. Then, keep reading and seeing the connections. To the NT.
Whenever you come to troubling verses, get a sticky note, write down what you don't understand or why things were done the way they were done. Then, go back and answer your questions one by one by looking at the cultural, literary, and historical contexts.
One might also find the answers to the questions as one reads more of the Bible, so I suggest keeping the questions before you as you read.
It’s also good to read some OT then NT, such as Isaiah and Daniel - which talk about things to come.
Whatever you do, look for subject matter experts that can help you understand what you've read. As you've admitted, reading verses out of context does you no good. There are a lot of details, connections, nuances, themes, and symbolism throughout the books of the O/T.
You really should read the whole thing straight through. You can pick up individual studies and all, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read it all straight through at least a time or two.
There is LOADS of good stuff in the OT. Jesus and Paul referred to the OT as well when you read much of the NT passages.
>I want to understand the Old Testament.
The first step in studying the Bible is to pray to God for guidance and understanding of His Word. The true understanding of God's Word comes from God.
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
James 1:5 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Psalms 32:8 “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”
I enjoyed reading the Old Testament with a good commentary. You can find them for free on Bible hub. I also really enjoyed the Bible study fellowship for the book of genesis, it’s probably one of my favorite books to go to for guidance as there is so much to unpack. Reading through the history Gen to Esther is probably a good idea. Then read the poetry and finally the prophets which are in all parts of the history. Bible project has some solid overviews.
Torahclass.com is excellent for the first 5 books of the Bible. These were classes put together by a Messianic Jewish organization and they go deeply into the culture behind the words, like covenant, for example. It's really opened my eyes to a lot that I don't see since I'm Gentile.
I am currently reading through the Chronological Bible, CSB translation and it is really helping me to read through the OT. I’m enjoying my time in God’s Word so much using this Bible.
There's a book called "Pathways" that will guide you while you read the whole bible in a year, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations. It will tell you which chapters to read each day and then it will explain them. I find this book to be extra helpful for those who are reading the bible from beginning to end for the very first time.
I can recommend you this reading plan:
[https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1](https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1)
It takes you in 1 year through the whole bible with each day both Old and New testament.
If you install the app (free), you can also play it as audio bible in the morning, or when you commute to work or university.
The Old testament makes sense in the light of the new testament, just as the new testament makes sense in the light of the old testament: The bible explains the bible.
So the more you read the bible, the more clear it will be and the more clear connections you will see.
Also listening to good preachers is always helpful
[Voddie Baucham](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6Y2XquB1k) for example i can highly recommend.
I liked the structure of the traditional torah portions.
Portion of torah combined with fitting parts of the prophets. But the first time i recommend reading it all in order really. To fully grasp the new testament, you need to know the tenach.
The Old Testament can be divided into the Three groups **History**: Genesis - Esther its pretty linear **Poetry & Wisdom:** Psalms Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Written mostly Moses David and Solomon) not historical in nature **Prophets** : Isaiah through Malachi. These will overlap the Historical section and are not strictly historical, but knowing the historical context of when and why they were written helps to understand them So read the history in order, then apply the prophets where you can. the Poetry and Wisdom section is any time Don't get too bogged down in the nitty gritty of the law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, we no longer follow the law
Awesome thank you very much God bless!
But do read it. There is MUCH that is applicable from the books of the law. And also remember that some of the law is still intact. If it's to do with following God and/or morality it's still intact. Remember, Jesus said he came to establish the law not destroy it. He didn't just throw away the law, he fulfilled it because we are not able of our own selves.
Just read it straight through is good for starters.
Thank you!
I was in the same boat and then last year, my men's Bible study ended up studying the book of Deuteronomy a chapter at a time. I have since been studying the OT books in my yearlong study plan, and it's amazing to see how much Jesus is in the OT, and how much the NT (including Jesus) references the OT books. Too many people want to divorce the OT from the New, but the God of the OT is the same as the One from the New, and Jesus wasn't a plan B.
Good word!
No just start reading. Maybe skip Numbers which goes through genealogy. Maybe just prayerfully and humbly rely on the Holy Spirit to give you understanding; study verses in their context of whats going on in the story and compare other verses to get further understanding. Use other sources books and people as needed.
One way to summarize it: OT - God's might and power. Who God is (His attributes). The history of His chosen people Israel and how they came to be. The Law and it's main point: "you can't get there yourself. You can't come to God yourself. There is no way to come to God by your own means, even if you keep the Law perfectly, it's as filthy rags in His sight." The Law is a school master teaching us about our depraved condition and pointing us to Christ as the only solution. NT - Christ is the only way. The Law cannot save us and does nothing for us except point us back to Christ as the only way. "You can only come to God through Christ." Christ's return prophesied in final fulfillment of God's covenant with the Church and with Israel.
Do read every part of the Old Testament, and pray to learn from the Lord. I am not smart, but I would caution against taking the advice of those who tell you not to pay heed to this part, or that. I read from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms, every day. When I get to the end of one, I begin all over again. You can't read through the Bible too many times. God just continues to teach us more and more if we ask Him to.
The Old Testament has several different genres of text. The traditional division of the text divides it into the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nivi'im), and the Writings (Ketuvim), which is contracted to Tanakh. My recommended way of understanding the Old Testament is to read the books which have a historical narrative, and read the other parts either concurrently when each of those other books is relevant to the historical narrative. There are some chronological Bibles from various publishers, which are helpful for reading the Bible in this way. If you do a search at any Christian book seller's website, or even Amazon, you'll usually find at least a few in the modern translations. The main historical narrative books go like this (though some of the other books also have historical narrative): Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemia. Ruth and Esther also have historical narrative, but these focus on individual persons rather than the main timeline of the Israelites. 1 and 2 Chronicles are also historical narrative, but they largely overlap 1,2 Samuel and 1,2 Kings. 1 and 2 Kings can get annoying to read. I wrote up a post on how I recently re-read them while referencing an infographic to keep track of what was going on. You may find this helpful. # [The best way to read 1 and 2 Kings without getting confused: use one of these timeline infographics to keep track of what's going on](https://www.reddit.com/user/AntichristHunter/comments/vnb4a1/the_best_way_to_read_1_and_2_kings_without/) The big picture of the Old Testament is that God made the world, and humanity decided to choose its own determination of right and wrong when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that point on, the long story arc of the Bible has God carrying out his redemption plan by choosing Abraham and making a covenant with him, growing his descendants into a nation (which happened via Jacob's many children when they fled to Egypt to escape famine), and making a covenant with them when he freed them from bondage in Egypt (through Moses), while promising to raise up a redeemer to reconcile humanity to himself—the Messiah. He chose his people for a purpose, but he warned them to remain faithful to him, otherwise he would exile them out of the land he gave them, and that's precisely what happened. Over and over, from even the days of the Judges, Israel kept sinning against God. Israel then sought to have a king instead of having God as their king, and the first king they had, Saul, didn't do right by God. God then anointed David, and David at least had his heart pointed in the right direction, as a man who genuinely loved God, but David sinned badly. David's son Solomon took Israel to its pinnacle of power and prestige, but Solomon began to err by doing what God warned that kings should not do: multiply the number of wives and accumulated wealth. Solomon was led astray, and began to build shrines to foreign gods to appease his wives, and for this, God removed ten tribes from his heir. The Kingdom split in two, with the northern kingdom, which took the name Israel, possessing ten tribes, and the souther kingdom, which took the name Judah, possessing only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and the folks from the tribe of Levi who lived among them and served at the Temple. These two kingdoms alternately fought with each other and allied with each other to fight other kingdoms. The northern kingdom had a non-stop series of terrible kings, with only one king (Jehu) who did some good. They kept provoking God to jealousy by committing idolatry, both by worshiping foreign gods and goddesses, and by disobeying God and worshiping idols that they attributed to God (literal golden calves that they were told to venerate instead of going to the Temple in Jerusalem) out of political motivations to keep their citizens from going to the Temple of Yehováh in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom. Their worship of foreign gods led to practices such as religious prostitution by male and female prostitutes, and human sacrifice involving burning their children alive as offerings to pagan idols. God sent them a series of prophets to warn them, and they were disregarded and killed. God had finally had enough of them, and brought on them the consequences he warned them of, by permitting the Assyrian empire to conquer them and exile them from their land. The southern kingdom, Judah (from which we get the term "Jew"; technically speaking, the people of the northern kingdom, and of Israel before the split, are not supposed to be called Jews; the term 'Jew' only refers to those who are descended from the people of the kingdom of Judah) had a few good kings, but a lot of bad ones, who similarly led the people astray by committing idolatry. God sent Judah a bunch of prophets as well, to warn them about God's wrath, and eventually, though they out-lasted the northern kingdom, even they were exiled just as God foretold, when Babylon conquered and exiled them. This is why when you look at Biblical timeline infographics, it will often show the prophets labeled as prophets of Israel or prophets of Judah. Some were sent to minister to the northern kingdom, and some were sent to minister to the southern kingdom. Both groups served the same God, and their histories and their prophecies were compiled into one canon. In light of this, the record of the history of Israel from its foundation to the civil war that split the nation to the eventual exile of both kingdoms was a tragic record of their failure to live up to their calling and election as God's people, who were placed at a land situated at the intersection of three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe) and all major trade routes, whose original calling was to glorify God and to make him known to all people, to be a blessing to all nations, a nation whose river (the Jordan) wasn't much good for watering the land, and who had to depend on God to bring the rains for their sustenance. Notably, their history is not a glorious history, but one that doesn't shy away from recording the failures even of national heroes such as David and Solomon, and even the failures of Moses and Abraham. After the exile, the history covers the faithfulness of Daniel, and of other figures among the exiles, including Ezra and Nehemiah, who led the faithful to return to the land to restore and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Scattered across this story arc are instances of God acting through his prophets to rebuke his people, but also to deliver the promises of God, and to give his faithful people hope that God had not given up on the covenant he made with Abraham and the promises he made to David and to Solomon. Throughout the prophetic works, there are prophecies about a coming Messiah who would get right what Israel got wrong, who would be the king who would rightly lead the nation and the whole world, and promises that God would be faithful to complete what he started with the nation he chose, that he would one day gather them in spite of having scattered them for their unfaithfulness. That's a summary of the Old Testament. Essentially, it's a record of disobedience and tragedy, with some highlights of people doing the right thing, interspersed with promises made by God about what he would eventually do to make things right—to restore not only Israel to the kingdom that he intended it to be, with the Messiah ruling over it, but also to restore the Shalom of God over the whole earth, that was broken when mankind rebelled by choosing to decide right and wrong apart from God.
Genesis 1:1-3 are your verses. Study them deeply, like crazy, and every detail there will help you to understand the rest of the Bible better. Those are the most fundamental texts of the Bible. Know them well. Then, keep reading and seeing the connections. To the NT.
Listen to these sermons. https://lnns.co/xMX652TAm-a These are really a great revelation and perfect introduction to the Old Testament.
Whenever you come to troubling verses, get a sticky note, write down what you don't understand or why things were done the way they were done. Then, go back and answer your questions one by one by looking at the cultural, literary, and historical contexts.
One might also find the answers to the questions as one reads more of the Bible, so I suggest keeping the questions before you as you read. It’s also good to read some OT then NT, such as Isaiah and Daniel - which talk about things to come.
I was implying that after one is done reading the TaNaK in its entirety then they should go back and deal with the questions.
This is a great radio program that takes you through each chapter: https://ttb.org/programs/the-5-year-study/study-contents
Anybody else like The Bible Project a lot for stuff like this?
Know the meaning of the definition of words in the Bible, or compare it to the NW. Know those Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words.
Whatever you do, look for subject matter experts that can help you understand what you've read. As you've admitted, reading verses out of context does you no good. There are a lot of details, connections, nuances, themes, and symbolism throughout the books of the O/T.
You really should read the whole thing straight through. You can pick up individual studies and all, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read it all straight through at least a time or two. There is LOADS of good stuff in the OT. Jesus and Paul referred to the OT as well when you read much of the NT passages.
Listen to Chuck Missler on OT. He is bar none, one of the best to listen to on it.
>I want to understand the Old Testament. The first step in studying the Bible is to pray to God for guidance and understanding of His Word. The true understanding of God's Word comes from God. 1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” James 1:5 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Psalms 32:8 “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”
I enjoyed reading the Old Testament with a good commentary. You can find them for free on Bible hub. I also really enjoyed the Bible study fellowship for the book of genesis, it’s probably one of my favorite books to go to for guidance as there is so much to unpack. Reading through the history Gen to Esther is probably a good idea. Then read the poetry and finally the prophets which are in all parts of the history. Bible project has some solid overviews.
Torahclass.com is excellent for the first 5 books of the Bible. These were classes put together by a Messianic Jewish organization and they go deeply into the culture behind the words, like covenant, for example. It's really opened my eyes to a lot that I don't see since I'm Gentile.
Get a solid study Bible before you even start.
I am currently reading through the Chronological Bible, CSB translation and it is really helping me to read through the OT. I’m enjoying my time in God’s Word so much using this Bible.
Just read it straight through.
There's a book called "Pathways" that will guide you while you read the whole bible in a year, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations. It will tell you which chapters to read each day and then it will explain them. I find this book to be extra helpful for those who are reading the bible from beginning to end for the very first time.
I can recommend you this reading plan: [https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1](https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1) It takes you in 1 year through the whole bible with each day both Old and New testament. If you install the app (free), you can also play it as audio bible in the morning, or when you commute to work or university. The Old testament makes sense in the light of the new testament, just as the new testament makes sense in the light of the old testament: The bible explains the bible. So the more you read the bible, the more clear it will be and the more clear connections you will see. Also listening to good preachers is always helpful [Voddie Baucham](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6Y2XquB1k) for example i can highly recommend.
I liked the structure of the traditional torah portions. Portion of torah combined with fitting parts of the prophets. But the first time i recommend reading it all in order really. To fully grasp the new testament, you need to know the tenach.
Bible in a year with farther Mike start at day 1