Letter to the Reader

Beautiful morning to you.
It was a heck of a night.

So last night I read the Bible's equivalent of a forward. The Letter to the Reader. I'll be honest I'm always a super keener in the beginning and I am praying I can sustain this feeling of really wanting to do this. The 'forward' is often something I find tedious to read. I read this because I had no idea what it might say and was curious, and I am so glad I did. I am sure that the history of the Bible will be among the topics to study for my M Div.and that this little 3 1/2 page letter barely scratches the surface, but I am grateful for even this much of an introduction.

I had to look up 3 words: Consonantal, Euphony and Tetragrammaton (which spell check didn't know either)

I found out that the first published Bible, King James Version, isn't as old or as young as I thought. That the Bible we are reading right now is very young. Mostly though I find the fact that the scholars who are responsible for writing this Bible, consider it to still be a work in progress, a reassuring thought. There are continual investigations in to new manuscripts found. Constant work on translations and understanding. I think that there is also frustration at the fact that the English language has limitations that can change the tone of a message just based on the lack of a third person singular pronoun and therefore the necessity of using Him or Her.

I think that knowing this will alter how I read this book, and that is good.

Be