Commentary: 5 things everyone should know about the Bible

RICHMOND, Va. — Some weeks ago, I floated a list to online readers of five things that I think everyone should know about the Bible. The items seemed to me at the time to be quite innocuous — important but not earth-shattering or even particularly challenging.

As a matter of fact, while I promised that they would change the way readers look at the Good Book, I apologized for their banality — likening them to clunky corrective eyewear rather than sexy kitten glasses.

Yet within a few days, more than 4,000 people had commented on the post. The spirited response reminded me that as much as I treasure them, paradox and mystery — the stuff of Easter after all — can be off-putting and even threatening. Back to that in a minute. Here's my list for everyone, no matter what a person believes and no matter what their personal history with the Bible is. See what you think:

1. Every Bible is actually a collection of books. The word itself means something like "little library." Many of the Bible's books developed over a long period of time and include the input of a lot of people (ancient Israelites, Babylonian Jews and Greek pastors, to name a few), reflecting particular places (urban Jerusalem, the northern Galilee, rural Judah, and ancient Persia, for example) and times (spanning as much as a thousand years for the Old Testament and a couple of centuries for the New Testament). Plus, the collection as a whole developed over centuries. This helps to explain the tremendous variety of theological perspectives, literary styles and sometimes perplexing preoccupations (which animal parts go to which parties in which categories of sacrifices, for example) as well as why some texts disagree with others.

2. Not everyone who believes in it has the same Bible. There are actually different bibles, though they all started with Jews (but before Judaism, per se). The Christian bible includes and depends upon the Jewish bible — the Protestant Christian Old Testament is composed of the same books as the Jewish Hebrew Bible, arranged in a different order; and non-Protestant Christians include a few more books and parts of books (which also originated in Jewish circles) in their Old Testaments. The books of the Christian New Testament reflect the process of Jesus' followers gradually distinguishing themselves from his religion, Judaism.