What does the Bible really say?

Find out for yourself - take the challenge to read, or listen to, the Bible this year.

Just 15 minutes a day (less if only reading the Tanakh (Old Testament), slightly more to include the Apocryphal writings, a lot less if only reading the New Testament).

Tried it before, but got bogged down by genealogies and other lists and quit?  Then choose a plan that has multiple readings per day - variety - so that the entire time isn't spent in a part that you find boring or incomprehensible.

Choose a plan, a translation, and a format.  The internet makes it easy.  You could print out a chart to use while reading your hard-copy (or electronic) bible; read online, use an RSS feed, use your mobile device, have it e-mailed to you; or even listen online or download a podcast.  Or you could buy a "Bible in a Year" format bible that is organized by date (Jan 1, Jan 2, ...) with readings from different scriptures each day.

Here are a few starting places.

• ESV Bible Reading Plans (http://www.esv.org/biblereadingplans) has links for 8* different plans, each in 6 different formats (Web, RSS, Email, iCal, Mobile, Print).  (One plan is just for the New Testament.)  This web site (http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/) has a bit more detail about most of the plans. Remember - you can choose one of these plans but read in a different bible translation.
• Crosswalk.com Bible in a Year plans (http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/readingplan/).  3 different plans, many different translations including some Spanish ones.  Start any day of the year and chart your progress online.
• Crosswalk.com Bible in a Year - Classic plan (http://classicbst.crosswalk.com/BibleInAYear/).  Log in and chart your progress, or remain anonymous.  Choose from many different translations.  Audio is available for some including New Living Translation and King James Version.
• Bible in a Year Podcast (http://www.thebibleinayear.com/) - readings from 3 books each day.
• Daily Audio Bible (http://dailyaudiobible.com/) - readings from 4 books each day.  Uses a different translation each week.  Available in English, Spanish, and Hindi.  Also a Kids version that just goes through the New Testament.

For the Bible including Apocryphal (Deuterocanonical) writings:

• Read the Bible and the Catechism in a Year as outlined in http://www.chnetwork.org/journals/readguide04.pdf.  If you're not interested in reading the Catholic catechism then skip that part of the daily reading.  (This post (http://www.chnetwork.org/forums/forum59/556.html) provided the link to the PDF.)
• One-year NRSV Bible Reading Plans (http://www.bombaxo.com/nrsvplan.html).  

Or, for just the Tanakh:

• Choose any of the above plans but only read the scriptures found in the Tanakh.  (This won't work so well if the plan has days where no readings are from the Tanakh - unless you decide to forge on ahead those days and finish early.)  
• http://www.becomingjewish.org/5769tanachinayear.pdf

Some plans have a reading every day.  Other plans have only a set number of readings per month (e.g. 24) so that there are built-in catch-up days.  No plans (that I know of) have a reading for February 29th, so leap years also have a built-in catch-up day.

Certain plans go through some scriptures (e.g. the book of Psalms, the New Testament) more than once in a year.  For a shorter daily reading, choose a plan that covers everything exactly once.

I took this challenge a few years ago, and now I try to every year because I benefit each time and make new connections.  Usually I switch to a different translation or a different plan every year or two.  I used the Classic Plan (readings from 3 different books each day) from crosswalk.com the first few years, often listening online.  Then I purchased an ESV Bible containing the "Every Day in the Word" plan, which is also available at the first link, and used it for a couple of years.  This year I downloaded a (PDF) copy of the Daily Bible Reading Plan from the ESV Study Bible (see also the first link) and will be using it.

Good luck!  I encourage you to keep with it this time and not be discouraged if you fall behind.  Even if you do, that's ok, you can either catch up later or take a little more than a year.  A hard-copy where you tick off the days you've completed can help you to keep track - and keep in mind what you've already accomplished!  Or keep track online at a site like crosswalk.com (see full link earlier).

* The ESV Study Bible and the Literary Study Bible appear to contain the same plan even though they are listed separately.  The Book of Common Prayer plan doesn't cover the whole Bible in a year so I wouldn't recommend it if your goal is to read the entire Bible.

What’s this LibraryThing?

Ever feel like your book collection is getting out of hand?  Buy a book you already had?

Want a single, easily accessible place to keep track of what you own, what you’ve read and what you thought of it, what you’d like to read, and what you’d like to own?

Nosy and want to know what’s in other people’s collections?  Get ideas and feedback from people with similar interests and eclectic tastes?

If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, you may be interested in LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/).

Books can be entered by providing an ISBN, or part of the title or author; whatever is easiest for you.  LibraryThing can automatically search the Library of Congress or any of 100’s of other libraries for your book.  Just click on the right one to add it.  If it’s not already catalogued, either in one of the online libraries, or by a fellow LibraryThing user, you can add it manually.

You can also enter newer books by using an inexpensive scanner to read the bar code.  Or import a whole list of ISBNs from another online site or web application, or from your current library software, a database, or a list in a text file.

For each book, you can also add your own “tags” to help you organize, a rating, a review, private comments, and public comments.

You can choose from various customizable “views” in which to peruse your library.

You can also find out which other users own that book.  If you don’t want your own collection shared with other users, you can keep it private.  Or if you want to share it with the world, you can link to it from your blog or any web pages you control.  Or add a LibraryThing widget that shows a random sampling of books, or ones you’ve given a specific tag.  Or include a LibraryThing search widget so people can search your collection.

No surprise, you can also create or join groups, public and private.  And there’s even a facility that lists book-related events (by geographic area).  Or you might want to sign up to be an early reviewer for a soon-to-be-released book and get a free copy.

Book authors take note – LibraryThing can be used as another tool to connect to your readers.  (And you get a nice yellow “LT Author” button added to your profile.)

Currently a basic account, which you can use to store up to 200 books, is free.  If you want to store more, it’s $10/year or $25/life.  (Assuming they stick around, life membership is a bargain!)

Want to join but hide your identity?  No problem.  All you need to provide is a username and password.  (However if you don’t provide an e-mail address then it will be difficult to have your password reset if you forget it.)  Need a way to store more than 200 books but still remain anonymous?  Then rather than paying directly for your membership, give yourself a gift membership.  The purchaser can send the gift info to themselves (instead of providing your e-mail address) and then hand-deliver it to you.

Yes, it’s available in other languages, too, and translations are ongoing – they welcome help!

Time to take a break from writing and start cataloguing!

My Foray into Blogging

I joined PNN because a friend of mine was trying to get one of their featured author positions.  Joining allowed me to vote for her articles.

I’m a bit wary of sharing my identity online, but all that was required to create an account was username and password, of course, and first name, e-mail address, and zip code.  That much I could handle – especially since I have an out-of-town PO Box. 

So I created an account, but I wasn’t planning to start blogging.  That would be too much personal information online.

But Ravelry (http://www.ravelry.com, described in my post) has this neat feature where you can link to a blog and it will show your latest articles and also let you link specific articles to specific projects.  It would be nice to track my new hobby this way … and does it really matter if people know I crochet?

So I wrote my first post and then linked the blog to Ravelry.  And it worked almost immediately.  My article showed up in Ravelry.  Except that the link to my article was wrong – it linked back to a Ravelry page. 

Now, even though I’m a techie, I knew next to nothing about RSS feeds; I had avoided them.  I posted a question on Ravelry to ask whether the bug was with Ravelry or PNN, and a kind soul informed me that PNN’s RSS feed was not providing a proper link to the entry.  I figured I’d better look at it myself to better understand the problem before contacting PNN, so I looked at the RSS feed in a web browser, and viewed the page source, and sure enough there was no tag for individual articles.

I e-mailed Jaime at PNN.  Within less than 2 business days she replied to my e-mail and IT fixed the problem. :)

Blogging is taking more time than I intended, though.  While writing this article I was also writing 5 other articles to follow the first crochet-related article.  I guess since everything is new, there’s a lot to record.  Once I get caught up to the present it shouldn’t be so bad.