Slate Editor reads the Bible in a year

Ok, well he clearly cheated, because he only read the Old Testament, plus he seems to have read them out of order (*), but David Plotz is Slate’s deputy editor who wondered aloud “What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?”

His introduction grabbed my attention (as if the sub-title wasn’t enough):

I have always been a proud Jew, but never a terribly observant one. Several weeks ago, I made a rare visit to synagogue for a cousin’s bat mitzvah and, as usual, found myself confused (and bored) by a Hebrew service I couldn’t understand. During the second hour of what would be a ceremony of NFL-game-plus-overtime-length, I picked up the Torah in the pew-back, opened it at random, and started reading (the English translation, that is). I was soon engrossed in a story I didn’t know, Genesis Chapter 34. It begins with the rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah by Shechem, the son of a local chief named Hamor. Shechem and Hamor visit Jacob and his brothers to resolve the mess. Hamor begs on Shechem’s behalf: Shechem loves Dinah, he says, and yearns to marry her. Hamor and Shechem offer to share their land with Jacob’s family and pay any bride price if only Dinah would be Shechem’s wife.

If you don’t know the story, you should, and what happens next is one of my favorite stories of the Bible. I knew I’d like his approach.

Slate offer a nice summary page of all the entries but I made my own of the printer friendly versions so I can read them as I have time. And what better place to store that list than on my website?

1. What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?
2. The Complete Book of Genesis: Why Joseph is my hero.
3. Reading the First Few Chapters of the Bible
4. The Complete Book of Exodus: There are 10 other commandments?
5. The Complete Book of Leviticus: Plus, page after page of divine vengeance!
6. The Complete Book of Numbers: The Bible’s most hideous war crime.
7. The Complete Book of Deuteronomy: Did Jesus crib from Moses?
8. The Complete Book of Joshua: Will the Book of Joshua make you stop believing in God?
9. The Complete Book of Judges: He’s strong, hairy, mean, and dumber than a sack of bricks.
10. The Complete Book of 1 Samuel: What the mafia learned from God’s favorite king.
11. The Complete Book of 2 Samuel: Plus, King David’s last words.
12. The Complete Book of 1 Kings: Why God loves Elijah and his mean mouth. Plus, all the miracles Jesus
13. The Complete Book of 2 Kings: God gives up on His chosen people. Do they deserve it?
14. The Complete Book of Isaiah: Plus, the toughest question in the Bible.
15. The Complete Book of Jeremiah: The first, and only, divine apology.
16. The Complete Book of Ezekiel: A fond farewell to God’s nicest prophet.
17. The Complete Book of Hosea: It’s a mixed marriage. He’s a prophet. She’s a prostitute.
18. The Complete Books of Joel, Amos, and Obadiah: Three great prophets for one low, low price!
19. The Complete Books of Jonah, Micah, and Nahum: Jonah and the whale is the Bible’s perfect story.
20. The Last Five Minor Prophets: Satan makes his Bible debut!
21. The Complete Book of Psalms: Does God believe in free will?
22. The Complete Book of Proverbs: Meet the Bible’s most extraordinary woman.
23. The Complete Book of Job: The Book of Job’s enthralling, baffling conclusion.
24. The Song of Songs: The Bible’s sexiest book.
25. The Book of Ruth: Why women love it.
26. The Complete Book of Ecclesiastes: It’s godless, weird, and beautiful.
27. The Complete Book of Esther: The first Miss Universe pageant!
28. The Complete Book of Daniel: Uh, that lion’s-den story doesn’t end how you think it does.
29. The Complete Book of Ezra: Its all-out assault on mixed marriages.
30. The Complete Book of Nehemiah: Meet the Bible’s only Arab. Guess what he and the Jews think of each
31. The Complete Book of 1 Chronicles: Meet the Bible’s Delta Force.
32. The Complete Blogging the Bible: I began a year ago with “In the beginning …” and I’m finally done.

(*) Oh and in case anyone didn’t get the joke or just thinks I’m an idiot, Mr. Plotz is Jewish, so his “Bible” of course doesn’t have an Old/New Testament, it’s just “The Bible” and Judaism has a different order to the books than Christianity’s so-called Old Testament.