Introducing Project One Hundred

I recently mentioned that I was setting a goal to read The SBL Study Bible cover to cover. I’ve since started so it’s a good time to share a little bit about my motivation, my plan, and how I’ll track progress.

Why?

I grew up in a Catholic family and attended Catholic school. Religious education was part of my daily routine for 12 years. Unlike some ardent Christians, however, we did not study the Bible obsessively. So while I have a passing familiarity with the Bible, I don’t have a “chapter and verse” command of scripture.

As it turns out, I parted ways with the Church back in the 1990s, and with faith altogether some time not very long after that. Today I consider myself an atheist, according to this simple definition:

Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.^[1]

That said, my goal is not to quote the Bible from memory or to win arguments with believers. It is simply this: to experience and better understand the Bible as a complete work.

The Text

I chose The SBL Study Bible because it is a scholarly (rather than devotional) edition of The Bible that includes the full text of the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue). The NRSVue attempts to balance the best possible literal translation with readability in modern English.

The NRSVue, like the NRSV and the Revised Standard Version (RSV), follows in the tradition of the King James Bible, making changes that were warranted on the basis of accuracy, clarity, euphony, and current English usage. The SBL applied recent scholarship to ancient texts to help readers explore the meanings of these texts in light of the cultures that produced them. The NRSVue is as free as possible from the gender bias inherent in the English language, which can obscure earlier oral and written renditions.^[2]

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is a membership organization “devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from a variety of academic disciplines.” This particular version of the Bible includes not only the NSRVue footnotes, but numerous introductory essays, sidebars, and commentary on the text.

The Plan

It’s a big book, clocking in at 2,234 pages, so it’s gonna take me some time to get through it. And it’s not like I’m reading some dime novel either, I have to give it my full attention. I’m not setting a specific weekly goal, but I hope to get through approximately one book every week.

Progress

It turns out that, when accounting for all the books, introductory essays, and front/back matter, there are exactly 100 ”parts” of varying length—thus the name ”Project 100.” I’ll track my progress on this page.

Notes

I’m also planning to make notes—just a short blurb with a few thoughts and observations—along the way. I’ll publish those every week or so as blog posts. Look for those under the Project100 tag.

So that’s it, here I go. Wish me luck!