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 Daniel 2-3.

Only two chapters today: Chapter 3 is pretty long (it doesn't even appear in some Protestant Bibles!). 

Chapter 2 has an interesting story of a dream interpretation that might remind you a bit of Joseph in Egypt. But this king's dream contains what the early Church recognized as a significant prophecy. The stone hewn from a mountain without any human hand or tool is Christ and the kingdom that would supplant all others, spread throughout the world and last forever is the Church.

Chapter 3 is one of the parts of Daniel that has a contested history in itself. More than half of it can't be found in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts, but only in the Greek versions. It also contains a canticle that is so significant for the liturgical tradition that it has its own name, the Benedicite. 

In this chapter, three faithful young Jews who had been hand-picked from among the exiles to serve in the royal court are thrown into the famous "fiery furnace" because they refused to worship a golden idol. Amid the flames, they call on every creature in the universe to praise ("benedire") the Creator: Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord! 

By St Jerome's time, the Benedicite (also called the Song of the Hebrew Children) was a standard part of prayer at dawn "at churches all over the world" (according to Jerome's onetime friend, Rufinus). It is still the central canticle for Morning Prayer on Sundays of Week 1 of the Four-Week Psalter and most if not all Solemnities and Feasts. St Francis of Assisi would later sing his own Benedicite in the form of the "Canticle of the Sun."

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.