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: 

Everlasting Father,

All time belongs to you, and all the ages. In signs, in songs, in words of promise, you reassured your chosen ones, “I am with you; fear not.” You taught them through the prophets to trust that your saving deeds were not limited to the past.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled “all that was written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

The Church has found him everywhere in these same holy books.

Help me to find Jesus in my reading today, to listen to him, and to follow him with all my heart.

Amen.

Today's chapters are Baruch 5-6 and Ezekiel 1. 

The entirety of Baruch 6 is presented as the Letter of Jeremiah to the exiles. We already read one such letter in Jeremiah 29, but this one is much longer, and the contents are very different, except for the assurance that the exile will last a long time ("seven generations") before the people return.

And so we begin Ezekiel! (You might remember that when we started this, I was not particularly enthusiastic about rereading all of Ezekiel again.) Ezekiel is one of the great prophets, and he will be presenting some truly significant signs and wonders to us with apocalyptic images that have entered into art and literature. If you've ever seen the Four Evangelists depicted as a winged youth (Matthew), a winged bull (Mark), a winged ox (Luke) and an eagle (John), you were looking at imagery derived from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. (Ezekiel was the Salvador Dali of prophecy.) It is also from Ezekiel (and Daniel) that Jesus will take his preferred title, "Son of Man."

Start reading Baruch here and Ezekiel 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.