The Bible in a year?

In which the author attempts to do it 12X as fast

I'm attempting to read through the entire Bible in 40 days. I've done it before in a month's time. It seems like a good way to start out the year. This year, the Bible I'm using is the One Year Chronological Bible, New Living Translation. It has the Bible divided up into "365 daily readings arranged in the order the events actually happened." The theory is that if I read about 12 of these per day, I will be done in about a month.

I read the Bible through in a month because it's easier than reading it through in a year. I can take all of my normal reading time (and some internet time) and devote it exclusively to reading the Bible. You hardly even notice the boring parts of the Bible when you're reading it through so fast. Leviticus is done in a day. In a normal year's reading, you'd be in Leviticus for ten whole days. Who could abide that???

Another advantage to reading the Bible through in a month is that you start to see recurring patterns and themes. You get the bigger picture. Granted, you can't spend the same amount of quality time deciphering certain passages, but you see the forrest, not just the trees.

This is my first time through a "chronological" Bible. So far it is quite interesting. We started in Genesis (duh!), had some Chronicles interspersed, and then went directly to Job. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Getting directly to Job was a nice addition to the pain and suffering book set that I just completed. Now there's a book that really tells you where pain comes from. You see, there's this great conflict between God and Satan. And Satan demands the right to inflict pain and suffering even on people devoted to God. If all your pain and suffering left when you became a Christian, it would basically be God bribing the entire world to follow Him, whether it made sense or not. God wants us to love Him out of fairness and freedom of choice, not because we're bribed.

Anyway. I'm in Leviticus now. It's actually quite interesting. We'll see where I land at my next posting.