The best order to read the Bible: four routes compared

The short answer

No order is required. The Bible is a library, and every route covers the same 1,189 chapters of the Protestant Bible at about 3.3 a day for a year. Read cover to cover to take each book whole, though Matthew then waits until day 286. Read the Old and New Testaments together to have a Gospel from day 1. Read in the order the books were written, or the order events happened, to follow the history. For a first read, many guides start with a Gospel.

In this guide

1. Why the Bible isn’t in chronological order
2. Four routes through the whole Bible
3. Which order is best for you?
4. The best order to read the Bible for the first time
5. Do you have to read the Bible in order?
6. The Hebrew Bible’s order: Law, Prophets, Writings
7. The best order for Catholic and Orthodox readers
8. Questions people ask
9. Sources

Your Bible’s contents page is one answer to the best order to read the Bible, and not a bad one. But its books are arranged by the kind of writing they are, not by when they were written or when their events took place, and that leaves room for other routes. Each one has a different first month, a different hard stretch and a different day on which you reach Jesus. We set those days side by side for four main routes, so you can choose with the whole year in view.

• Day 286Matthew, reading in order at a year’s pace
• Day 1a Gospel, reading both testaments together
• 78%of the Protestant Bible’s chapters are Old Testament
• 3.3chapters a day for a year, in any order

Why the Bible isn’t in chronological order

The Bible is arranged by kind of writing, not by date. In most Christian Bibles the books fall into groups by kind, and we count eight of them: in the Old Testament the Law (Genesis to Deuteronomy), History (Joshua to Esther), Wisdom (Job to the Song of Songs) and the Prophets (Isaiah to Malachi); in the New Testament the four Gospels, Acts, the Letters and the Book of Revelation. Within a division, length often decides the order. The long prophets come before the twelve short ones, and by our word count Paul’s letters to churches run from the longest, Romans, to the shortest, 2 Thessalonians, with his letters to individuals following in the same way, from 1 Timothy to Philemon.

Grouping by kind puts related books side by side, but it pulls apart things that happened together. Isaiah dates his visions to the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, the kings of 2 Kings 15 to 20, yet ten books stand between 2 Kings and Isaiah, among them Esther, Job and the Psalms. Paul wrote many of his letters during the travels Acts describes, and every one of them comes after it.

None of this makes the printed order wrong. It means the order you read in is a choice, and each choice changes what the reading feels like.

Four routes through the whole Bible

Every route below covers the same chapters. What changes is the order, and with it the day each part arrives. The day numbers are for a one-year pace through the Protestant Bible (66 books, 1,189 chapters), which is 3.26 chapters a day.

1. Start to finish, Genesis to Revelation

Reading cover to cover means following your Bible’s own order, one whole book at a time. It needs no list: the contents page is the plan, and your place is wherever the bookmark is. Each book is read as its author or editor shaped it, and the story runs forward from creation.

The cost is the shape of the year. Leviticus begins on day 28, the census lists of Numbers on day 37, and the nine chapters of genealogies that open 1 Chronicles on day 105. The Prophets run from Isaiah on day 209 to Malachi on day 285, about eleven weeks. Matthew arrives on day 286, by which point 929 of the 1,189 chapters, 78 percent, are behind you. Our guide to reading the Bible cover to cover goes through what to expect, book by book.

2. The Old and New Testaments together

Reading both testaments at once means a little of each most days, a few chapters from the Old Testament and a chapter or so from the New, so a Gospel is open from the first morning. It is a common shape for a published plan: Ligonier’s list includes two, its Bible in a Year and Tabletalk plans, with “two readings each day,” one from the Old Testament and one from the New.

A fair split is not half and half, because the Old Testament holds 78 percent of the chapters. Divided in proportion over a year, the day is about two and a half chapters of the Old Testament and three quarters of a chapter of the New, which works out to a New Testament chapter on about five days in seven. Matthew starts on day 1 and the four Gospels are finished by about day 125, a third of the way through the year. Leviticus still comes, around day 36, but a chapter of a Gospel sits beside it. Revelation begins around day 336, and both testaments end together.

The cost is small: two places to keep instead of one. Some plans keep four readings going at once, with the Psalms among them, and our guide to which Bible reading plan is best compares the classic ones side by side.

3. In the order the books were written

This route reads the books roughly in the order they were composed, which is a different thing from the order of events. Any such order is approximate: some books, such as Psalms and Proverbs, were gathered over a long period, and traditional and critical scholars date many others differently. The one we use opens with Job and then the five books of Moses, following traditional dates, and closes the Old Testament with Malachi and Chronicles.

The New Testament is where this order surprises people. Paul’s earliest letters come before any Gospel: the first New Testament book written is thought to be Galatians, from around 48 AD, or 1 Thessalonians, from around 50, while Mark is usually dated around 70. A traditional dating puts the letter of James earlier still, at about 40 to 45 AD, so at a year’s pace the New Testament begins on day 286 with James, and Mark, the first Gospel, follows on day 306. Genesis begins on day 14, after Job’s 42 chapters, most of them poetry, and Leviticus on day 41. John’s Gospel, his three letters and Revelation close the year.

This route suits a reader who already knows the story and wants to see what was written when. Our list of the books of the Bible in the order they were written gives the dates on both views.

4. In the order events happened

A chronological plan rearranges the chapters into the order of the events they describe. Blue Letter Bible’s one-year plan, for example, says it is “compiled according to recent historical research, taking into account the order in which the recorded events actually occurred.” Followed day by day, it does things your Bible’s own order never does:

• Job inside Genesis. Job’s 42 chapters are read on days 4 to 15, after Genesis 11.
• Psalms with David’s life. Groups of psalms sit between the chapters of 1 and 2 Samuel.
• Prophets beside their kings. Isaiah 1 to 4 follows 2 Kings 15, and Amos comes two days later.
• The Gospels woven together. A day might read Matthew 26 with Mark 14, the same night told twice.
• Paul’s letters inside Acts. Galatians follows Acts 15 and 16, and the letters to the Thessalonians follow Acts 17.

In that plan Leviticus begins on day 44 and the New Testament on day 274, with Luke 1 and John 1. The cost is that you follow a list rather than your Bible, many days jump between books, and the Gospels are read in pieces rather than each one whole. Deciding when Job lived, or which psalm belongs to which year, takes judgment, so plans that follow events can differ in the details. Our guide to reading the Bible chronologically sets out how the two kinds of chronological order differ.

Which order is best for you?

The best order is the one that fits why you are reading, since every route asks the same of each day: about 3.3 chapters, or 11 minutes, for a year in the Protestant Bible. The table sets them side by side.

The first three rows are our arithmetic at an even one-year pace; the last row is Blue Letter Bible’s one-year chronological plan. A few rules of thumb follow from the table:

• If the long law books are what stopped you before, read both testaments together, so a Gospel or a letter is never more than a page away.
• If you want the simplest thing to keep up, read start to finish. There is never a question of what comes next.
• If you have read the Bible through once already, one of the two historical orders shows familiar books in a new light.

The best order to read the Bible for the first time

For a first read, much of the published advice starts with a Gospel rather than with Genesis, and only then picks up the rest. Two examples from different traditions:

• Billy Graham’s answer begins with the Gospel of John, “for it tells us of Christ,” then Acts, then “perhaps the letters of John and the letter to the Philippians,” then Romans, then the rest of the New Testament, and the Old Testament as well.
• The Diocese of Brooklyn’s guide, from a Catholic diocese, begins with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and then Acts, switches to Genesis and Exodus, and goes back to read from Romans to Revelation. It suggests the Psalms and Proverbs “for an artistic change of pace.”

Both put the story of Jesus first and leave Leviticus for later. A Gospel is a short place to begin: Mark is 16 chapters, about an hour of reading in all, and John is 21, about 80 minutes. Once it is finished, the Old and New together route carries on from there without starting over. Our guide to where to start reading the Bible compares the best first books and sets out a first month.

Do you have to read the Bible in order?

You don’t have to. The Bible is a library of 66 books in a Protestant Bible and 73 in a Catholic one, and almost every one of them can be read on its own. Reading out of order breaks no rule; it only changes what you already know when you arrive at each book.

Reading in order does give one thing back: later books lean on earlier ones. Matthew’s first verse calls Jesus “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” which means more once you have met them. Hebrews spends chapters on priests, sacrifices and a high priest entering “once in the year,” all of which Leviticus sets up. Skipping around has its own gains, such as reading the book you want to read this week, or a change of pace when a long one drags.

What tends to go wrong when you skip around is not the order but the record. Without a list of what you have finished, the books you have not read are easy to keep not reading, and the Prophets, at 250 chapters the largest division by chapters, are the easiest of all to leave for later. Any record works, a ticked contents page or a sheet of paper, as long as it shows what is left.

The Hebrew Bible’s order: Law, Prophets, Writings

The Hebrew Bible holds the same books as the Protestant Old Testament, arranged in three parts: the Torah (instruction, or the Law), the Nevi’im (the Prophets) and the Ketuvim (the Writings). It counts them as 24 books rather than 39, treating 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and the twelve minor prophets as one book each.

Read in this order, the histories from Joshua to Kings run straight into the prophets, many of whom spoke during them, and the Old Testament ends with Chronicles, which begins its retelling with Adam and closes with the decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. That is the order of most printed Hebrew Bibles, though Jewish tradition never finalized the order of the Writings. Some reading plans follow it: Ligonier’s Historical plan orders its Old Testament readings “similarly to Israel’s Hebrew Bible.” In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus names the Scriptures in a three-part shape much like it:

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms concerning me must be fulfilled.”

Luke 24:44, World English Bible

The best order for Catholic and Orthodox readers

Every route works in every canon. The wider Bibles, as we count them, add books only to the Old Testament, so the four Gospels, Acts and the letters are the same in all of them, and reading in order simply reaches Matthew a little later.

In a Catholic Bible (73 books), Tobit and Judith come after Nehemiah, followed by Esther and then 1 and 2 Maccabees. Wisdom and Sirach come after the Song of Songs, and Baruch after Lamentations, with longer forms of Esther and Daniel as well. Catholics call these books deuterocanonical, and Protestants usually call them the Apocrypha. The Orthodox Bible, as we count it, has 78 books, adding 1 and 2 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151; the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, at 80 books in our count, includes Enoch and Jubilees.

Reading both testaments together still puts a Gospel on day 1 in every canon; the Old Testament share of each day just grows a little, to about 80 percent in a Catholic Bible. In the order written, as we list it, the deuterocanonical books fall between Chronicles and the New Testament. The Catholic Bible reading plan works through all 73 books at any pace.

Pick the route whose first month you can picture yourself reading. If it stops suiting you, change it: a chapter read in any order still counts.

Questions people ask

Should I read the Bible in order?

You can, and it is the simplest route to follow, because your Bible's contents page is the whole plan. Nothing requires it, though. The books are grouped by kind of writing rather than by date, and many reading plans rearrange them. Read in order at a year's pace and Leviticus arrives on day 28, Isaiah on day 209, and Matthew not until day 286.

Is it okay to read the Bible out of order?

Yes. Almost every book of the Bible can be read on its own, and many published plans move between the testaments every day. What you give up is some of the build-up from one book to the next, as when Matthew opens by calling Jesus “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Keep a list of the books you finish and skipping around never loses your place.

Should I read the Bible chronologically or canonically?

Canonically, in your Bible's own order, if you want each book whole and no list to follow. Chronologically, in the order events happened, if you want the timeline. A chronological plan reads the prophets beside the kings they spoke to and Paul's letters inside Acts, but it breaks books into pieces and needs a list to follow. Both cover the same chapters at the same daily pace.

What order should a new believer read the Bible in?

Much of the advice to new Christians starts with a Gospel. Billy Graham's published answer suggests John, then Acts, then the letters of John and Philippians, then Romans and the rest of the New Testament, and the Old Testament as well. Mark, the shortest Gospel at 16 chapters, takes about an hour to read in all. After the Gospels, reading both testaments side by side keeps the New Testament going while the Old begins.

What is the best order to read the Bible in a year?

Any order fits a year. The Protestant Bible's 1,189 chapters come to about 3.3 a day, or 11 minutes, however they are arranged. Reading both testaments together puts a Gospel beside Leviticus around day 36 and finishes all four Gospels by about day 125. Reading cover to cover is simpler to follow but saves the whole New Testament for the last eleven weeks.

What is the best order to read the Catholic Bible?

The same routes work for the 73-book Catholic Bible. Its seven deuterocanonical books, which Protestants usually call the Apocrypha, all sit in the Old Testament, among the histories, the wisdom books and the prophets. A year is about 3.7 chapters a day, and reading in order reaches Matthew on day 295, nine days later than in a Protestant Bible.

Sources

1. Blue Letter Bible, Daily Bible Reading Program, Chronological Plan (1-Year Plan), PDF
2. Ligonier Ministries, Bible Reading Plans
3. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Where should I begin in my Bible reading?
4. Diocese of Brooklyn, Where to start reading the Bible
5. Ketuvim, Wikipedia
6. Hebrew Bible, Wikipedia
7. Dating the Bible, Wikipedia
8. Introduction to James, ESV Global Study Bible (Crossway)
9. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New American Bible (Revised Edition), books of the Bible
10. Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
11. World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
12. King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org