Old Testament

With a lot of trepidation, I've decided to try to tackle the Old Testament. I've read the New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. So, all I'm missing is the Old Testament to have made it through all the scriptures (for a first time). That being said, the Old Testament is about as long as all the rest of those scriptures put together. I've also heard that it has some parts that are ... well .. slow ... and sometimes a bit confusing. That's where the trepidation comes in. But, if you're going to claim to believe in something (such as the Holy Bible), I think it's important to be familiar with everything in there and have actually read it.

I have a slight twist on this. About two and a half years ago, I signed up for a Hebrew Scriptures class (see prior post). The text book for that course was The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. I'm planning to read that book as I'm going along to help me understand the material. And, rather than read the whole Old Testament, I'm planning to listen to most of it in the car while driving to and from work. I figure that will put my 90 minutes of commuting each day to better use than it is right now. As part of that, I just downloaded 64 hours, 44 minutes, and 36 seconds of audio from the LDS MP3 site (link) and I bought a portable MP3 player (link) that I can plug into my new car stereo (link) through the auxillary jack.

We'll see how it all goes. I've listened to books on tape before but not scriptures. I'm curious to see how much of the material I can retain that way. Assuming 90 minutes of commuting per day, in theory, I could get through the entire Old Testament in 43 working days (or about two months). I suspect it will take longer than that but hopefully I can get it done by my birthday in June. If nothing else, it will be an interesting experiment.

Wish me luck. And let me know if you have any favorite parts of the Old Testament or if you want to do this with me. I'll understand if I don't get any volunteers. =)