The Christian Bible in a few paragraphs...

​The Bible is actually a collection of books, which originally had no chapter or page numbers. Imagine trying to read a book without chapters or page numbers! Chapters and numbers were added around 1200 AD to facilitate sharing of insights. This process continued for hundreds of years and was finalized in the 1500's.  So when you hear someone say "Mark 10:45", that means the Book of Mark, chapter 10, verse 45.

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While I encourage everyone to read the Bible cover to cover, you're probably here because you haven't read it yet, so allow me to attempt to summarize the Bible in just a few paragraphs...

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The Old Testament (prior to Jesus arrival) books basically chronicle God's creation and His covenant with Israel, detailing humanity's fall into sin, Israel's repeated disobedience, and God's steadfast efforts through laws, prophets, and promises to guide them back toward His kingdom, foreshadowing a coming Messiah to fully restore His rule. Under the old laws, the Jewish people regularly made animal sacrifices to God and looked forward to having an all powerful King.

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The New Testament books chronicle Jesus Christ's life, teachings, death, and resurrection, presenting Him as the promised Messiah who established a "new covenant" for humanity's salvation and forgiveness. Far from being the King the Jews were hoping for, Jesus became the "Lamb of God", sacrificing himself for our sins, and ending old laws and the tradition of animal sacrifices.

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The most important part of the New Testament is the testimony by the disciples and subsequently by Paul, of Jesus death and resurrection three days later. He originally appeared to his disciples (who were fearing for their life at the time), then a crowd of 500 people. The disciples went from a scared group that were living in fear for their lives (their leader had just been slain) to becoming leaders of a new broad, fearless movement that spread Christianity throught the region.

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Years later Jesus also appeared to Paul (then Saul) who at the time was supporting the persecution of Christians. After Paul's conversion, he went on to write approximately 25% of what is now the New Testament.

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Many of the original apostles were Jewish and were executed for spreading Christianity (including Paul), and none of them recanted their beliefs. You can still visit their tombs to this day, with many having tombs and Roman Catholic cathedrals in Rome Italy.

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Lastly, I should add that there are many different versions of the Bible. So if you see NIV (New International Version), NKJV (New King James Version), ESV (English Standard Version), just know that they are modern adaptions to the same Bible with mostly minor changes for readibility - with the exception of the number of books contained in the Protestant vs. Catholic adopted versions of the Bible, but that's for another day!