Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

I praise you, my God, with all people.
May they thank and adore you!
You have written your greatness in creation,
your Law in consciences,
your eternal promises in the Bible.
You are eternally faithful and always lovable!
As I read Sacred Scripture today, open my mind to hear your voice and understand your loving message.
Amen.

Today's three chapters are Leviticus 11-13.

If there's one thing most people know about Judaism, it is the Kosher law. Jews who "keep Kosher" will not eat pork and certain other animal products, avoid having meat and dairy at the same meal (and may keep them in separate refrigerators, as well), certify that butchering is carried out according to Kosher prescriptions, etc. 

Faithfulness to the laws we read about in Leviticus 11 preserved the descendants of Jacob as a people, but also set them up for intense suffering through the ages. The rules did what they were supposed to do: set apart the people God had chosen as his own, keeping them from adopting not only menu items of their neighbors, but the lifestyles, mentality, and worship systems that would have quickly made Israel just another variation of local culture. 

When Jews today "keep Kosher," they do not do it in a spirit of drudgery, but in joyful recognition of God's special favor and faithfulness: the grace that has preserved them as a people for millennia. 

The question of whether or not followers of Jesus should observe the prescriptions of Leviticus concerning food was a controversial topic in the first generation Church. Within the first decades after the Resurrection, however, the Apostles realized that Jesus' death and Resurrection meant that the dietary laws that kept Jew and Gentile separate could not be maintained in a Church that brought both together as one Body of Christ. (St Paul wrote about this in several of his letters. It is the focus of Romans, chapters 14-15.)

Start reading here.

If you are looking for a solid but approachable companion to the Bible, I can wholeheartedly recommend A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. Although the authors are top-level Scripture scholars, they write for "real" readers. Notes include recent findings from archaeology and ancient manuscripts, and how each book of the Bible has been understood by the Church Fathers and used in Liturgy.