Bible Reading, more notes

Yesterday a colleague told me about visiting the new Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. He allowed that he was pleasantly surprised at 1) the high quality of the design displays and 2) the wide (or wider than expected) views about the bible that are depicted. Those of us from more progressive traditions have been skeptical, considering the museum's source of funding and inspiration. Since our LTWABM is reading the bible this year, I'm hoping to organize a trip and see for myself.
Reading the bible is always a daunting task. The last time our church attempted this, we went straight through, from Genesis to Revelation. This time, we're following a more divided reading plan, and it may be more disconnected than what we are used to. Peoples from aural and oral cultures were much more used to memorization and keeping large amounts of text in their heads. With modern-day reliance on printed material, always available, we don't use our brains that way.  When we read something in one part of the bible, it's not immediately apparent that we can remember another part and make a connection. I'm hoping that be reading different selections in the bible over time, people can see the relationships between the different parts of the text.
However, the reading plan we're following is designed for pacing, not necessarily content. The stories of the patriarchs in Genesis do come up again and again in later books of the OT, as well as the gospels and the rest of the NT. However, the reading schedule is not designed to match those passages. I'll be doing that in the Adult Sunday morning class at 9:45am. Stay tuned.

Back to the Bible - starting observations

Some folks at LCWBM [Little Church With a Big Mission] are going to read the bible in a year. New Year resolutions or no, reading the bible is always a good practice. I hope to encourage us all, and have each encourage each to be stewards of our brains and hearts for bible reading.
Here are some of my notes from nearly two weeks into task.
The schedule has us reading a gospel passage, another NT passage, a couple of psalms (or other wisdom literature) and then something from the rest of the Old Testament each day. Just because of the volume of words in each category, we have to read gobs from the OT, while we read just little bits from the NT. I find myself racing through Genesis and just chewing on Matthew.
Genesis stories are familiar but I always find something new. Did I remember that Abraham passed off poor Sarah as his sister twice?  Sarah could have her own say in #MeToo. This is why I object to reading the bible as a handbook for behavior. On what basis could one look at Abraham as exemplary in everything he does? Yes, he is held up as faithful, but consistently righteous?  Yet, God counts him as righteous, as Paul remembers in his letter to the Romans.
I'm now reading the Psalms with more sympathy for the way the psalmists zero in on righteousness as a defining characteristic of this God we worship. They are constantly (at least in this first section of the Psalms) contrasting God's righteousness with peoples' lack of righteousness. Psalm 1 has it right--there are two ways to be oriented in the world--one way leads to a flourishing life and one way leads to death. Judgement, meaning the ability to exercise discernment about which is which--is the characteristic that the psalmists seem to want to impart. Paying attention to the bedrock characteristics of Israel's God--justice and mercy--is the way that leads to life.
Those Acts passages we read last year in the Tuesday bible study group, are now getting another pass through, too.
I want to start reading with a hyperlink button so that I can annotate passages with a link to where they are re-iterated or re-interpreted in another part of the bible. It's fascinating!
Matthew, the thoroughly Jewish gospel, is the gospel to start making those NT - OT connections. That opening geneology? A connection to the patriarch Abraham, so that we will know that the NT is a continuation of the OT story.