Time and again, as a Catholic priest, I have been approached by my friends and parishioners – particularly the distaff side – and asked to recommend to them what (and in what order) I deemed the most absorbing, or interesting, or exciting, or “relevant” (as if scriptures could ever be anything less than “relevant” to our lives) book in the Bible. Depending on the person asking I had to say this or that or those books in the Catholic canon was best or were best in combination, for study and reflection or just plain enjoyment. Having choices is all very good, but different folks need different strokes, so the most sensible thing for such a servant in the Lord’s vineyard like me to do was to go through the entire corpus and comment to the best of my judgement what I thought of each of these. There’s quite a wide choice here. Thirty-nine books in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament (not counting the Apocrypha – a Greek word that I take mean “hidden things”, hence uncanonical books in the Old Testament. This spans the continuum from “In the beginning” (from Genesis) to “Alpha and Omega”, the beginning and the end” (from Revelation. In between, well, as many as the Academy Awards presentation: II Samuel for best film (David and Batsheba); The Gospel according to St. Matthew for best language film; Ecclesiastes for best song lyric (Turn, Turn, Turn).
Let us quickly set aside some books as hopeless nonstarters: the minor prophets and obscurer epistles. (Quiz question: Distinguish between Zephaniah and Zechariah, or between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. For some reason perhaps we should rule out books with only one chapter (Obadiah, Jude), or even those with less than five, as lacking in variety.
Psalms may be the popular favourite: not merely quotable but singable as well. But of course it’s too obvious a choice. Other front-runners might include EXODUS – ten plagues and the parting of the Red sea and the ten commandments; such reading won’t put you to sleep. (The rest of the Pentateuch – Greek for five books – pale in comparison with the Exodus. Leviticus is too full of rules for burnt offerings, cleansing of menstruating women, cleansing of lepers. Numbers as the name honestly states is too numerical. Deuteronomy is shockful of different laws and ordinances.
When we come to the seventh book of the OT, namely judges, we get a bracing dose of antiquity’s board of women’s movement with likes of Deborah, Jael, and Delilah all in one book, whereas Ruth, Judith, and Esther manage heroine apiece. For those with rose-tinted spectacles, that’s to say, for the optimists, there’s Isaiah; for his opposite number the lugubrious Jeremiah. For the admirers of such far out mavericks as Von Daniken, Immanuel Velikousky and too many UFO-buffs to mention here, there’s Ezekiel
The book of Samuel is a good read. Did you know that King David sent for Batheba once he saw her bathing because he got so besotted with her as soon as she was in his presence he had intercourse with her and who happened just then to have finished her purification rituals after her menses and lo, when she got home she found out she was pregnant with David’s seed. So David sent for her Hitite husband, a general name Uriah. David despatched Uriah to the warfront against the Ammonites and conveniently died there so David had his way with Bathsheba henceforth without any qualms.
But let’s go back to king David’s youth. In this great book we see his iconic battle with Goliath. Also, in the aftermath of David’s underhanded way with Uriah, the Lord sent the prophet Nathan who told David a roundabout story about a rich man who dispossessed a poor man of his lamb in order to feed his guest with it, not bothering to pick one sheep from his own teeming fold. At first David got so angry with rich man in the story told by Nathan. But the prophet caught David short with the words, THAT MAN YOU ARE! And we all know what transpired next. God Almighty was so enraged at David’s sneaking ways He made the child begot in this shameful manner die soon after its birth. But it all has a happy ending for in consoling Bathsheba for her first son’s death, she got pregnant with Solomon (named Jedidiah, for God was with the boy.). Kings, that is the book of Kings is no less enjoyable to read, with many wise lessons to learn.
The Acts are likewise very good reading. Luke’s gospel is much more human than John’s which is rather profound.
1 Corinthians contains the beautiful chapter about love, but also unbeautiful chapter about Paul’s sexual hang-ups, in contrast to which there’s the song of Solomon, a real heart-stopper: “By night on my bed, I sought Him whom my soul loveth.” Despite attempts to “sanitize” it as God’s love for mankind or Christ’s love for His Church, it remains on convincing as a purely religious text.
But now we came to the best book in the Scriptures: the book of Job. It furnishes variety whilst retaining structural unity: a unity in variety: E PLURIBUS UNUM, as it were. No, it’s not as exciting as Exodus or Acts but it has a dramatic Faustian scenario and some of the grandest, loveliest poetic outburst in Scriptures. It has got the obligatory famous quotes: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Lord.” “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” It presents the view of nature that should gladden the heart of any ecologist/conservationist, including a plea for varnishing (endangered) species like the eagle and the whale. Above all, it sets man firmly in his place in the scheme of things, as the gloss in our Bible says: “it convinceth, him of ignorance and imbecility.” Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” enquired God, providing an unprovable but to the faithful an acceptable alternative Best theory of the universe.
P.S.
Finally, a word to the reader (pause here for the modest cough) more serious scribblings who may look askance to find treating Holy Scriptures’ selected books and passages there of seemingly tongue-in-cheek or at least light-heartedly after my earlier, more “serious” treatment of biblical matters and such. Well, my only excuse is, that for some years I’ve been disgruntled and even put on edge or irritated by those who should have known better, who keep yapping that Scriptures and humour can never be bedfellows. Well, now they have a chance to show or to prove it and shot up.
