Preface

To read the Bible front to back. That is the quest at hand.

St. Peter tells us, "[be] always ready to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).  When it comes to Sacred Scripture, its defense comes with an especial urgency today, as its attackers are many and fierce.  But having never read (and studied) the Bible from beginning to end, Peter's dictum is sure to be more difficult to fulfill.  This realization has motivated me to remedy the issue. 

I've read a good amount of Scripture, especially from the New Testament.  But reading the Bible in its entirety as one continuous text is a daunting task. I've had many failed attempts. I can remember being a little boy and trying several times to get through just the Book of Genesis. I can remember vividly the accounts of Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abraham. But I never made it much farther than that. I tried again as a teenager, but, again, I ran out of steam. My most earnest attempt came in 2004 at the age of 25. In April of that year (during Holy Week to be exact) I sat down to read the entire Bible with a passionate determination. And over the course of a couple months I made it to the First Book of Samuel. But then distractions began to creep up and get in the way. Soon a year went by and I hadn't read a word of the Bible. There were a few attempts here and there over the next few years to pick it back up from where I had left off, but they always came up short. I could try to justify my failed attempts over the years by saying that life just got in the way, but really there is no excuse -- it doesn't take much to simply sit down and open a book, no matter how hectic life gets.

And so here I am today, 21 April 2009, at the age of 30. I somehow feel, for whatever reason, that this time I will finally make it. As a wedding present last summer my brother Gabe gave my wife and me an extremely nice Bible -- the Haydock version of the Douay-Rheims. It includes profound and detailed commentary from some of Christianity's most notable Biblical commentators. Receiving such an awesome gift made me realize what I had been neglecting all these years. I knew I must resume my task of reading the entire Bible. During the autumn of 2008 I slowly began re-reading Genesis. I decided that, now that I had the nicest Bible I'd ever owned, I wanted to start over and read every word of commentary along with each word of Scripture. I knew that by doing it this way I would be moving at a much slower pace, but I wanted to do it as thoroughly as possible. And after several months of indeed moving at a glacial pace, I decided to accompany my reading with a blog. I thought maybe this would help to ensure that this time I would stick to it to the very end. And I am determined to do just that.

I will be posting thoughts as I go. Since I technically began this task roughly six months ago, I will be starting from Genesis 28 (when Jacob journeys to Mesopotamia).  I pray God sees me through this endeavor.


-Michael Vincent Pitassi