{"id":33088,"date":"2016-01-14T06:10:28","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T11:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=33088"},"modified":"2016-01-14T06:10:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T11:10:28","slug":"reading-the-bible-in-machete-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/reading-the-bible-in-machete-order.html","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Bible in Machete Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>On the first day of my class on the Bible, I ask students what order we should read the Bible in. This year I made explicit reference to \u201cmachete order\u201d \u2013 the approach to Star Wars that maximizes suspense by starting with\u00a0Episode IV and V, then jumping back to the prequels (some recommend skipping\u00a0Episode I entirely), and then jumping back to Episode VI and now beyond.<\/p>\n<p>What would the equivalent order be in which to read the Bible? Keep in mind that this isn\u2019t simply reading in the canonical order, nor just reading in the chronological order in which things were most likely written. What order of reading the Bible maximizes enjoyment of and appreciation for the collection as a whole? And which works if any are the equivalent of Star Wars Episode I, in that you would recommend skipping them in a machete order approach to the Bible?<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to reading your answers in comments. Once you\u2019ve come up with your own, you can take a look and see <a href=\"http:\/\/deadheroesdontsave.com\/2013\/01\/17\/ntmachete\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">what others have already proposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the first day of my class on the Bible, I ask students what order we should read the Bible in. This year I made explicit reference to \u201cmachete order\u201d \u2013 the approach to Star Wars that maximizes suspense by starting with\u00a0Episode IV and V, then jumping back to the prequels (some recommend skipping\u00a0Episode I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":33090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,91],"tags":[1140,1555,6819,8467,9467,11822],"class_list":["post-33088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-star-wars-science-fiction","tag-bible","tag-canon","tag-machete","tag-order","tag-prequels","tag-star-wars"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reading the Bible in Machete Order<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On the first day of my class on the Bible, I ask students what order we should read the Bible in. This year I made explicit reference to &quot;machete order&quot; -\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/reading-the-bible-in-machete-order.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reading the Bible in Machete Order\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On the first day of my class on the Bible, I ask students what order we should read the Bible in. This year I made explicit reference to &quot;machete order&quot; -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/reading-the-bible-in-machete-order.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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