Now for a Taste of Different Things to Come
The challenge has changed.
My blog buddy d10 has another method that is probably alot better than mine. His daily readings are based on a per page basis. It would be easy to do it this way, but people with different Bibles would have to independantly figure out thier page per day rate, and the reading selections could vary greatly by Bible. I'm still going to read by a per chapter basis so those of us who are reading together will be able to talk about the same passages and keep up with one another more easily, but I would like to incorporate one idea that d10 has that seems perfect to me.
Instead of reading the OT straight through and then getting to the NT, I would like to split the reading between the OT and NT. After some calculating, it seems that a 6/3 split would be perfect.
Following that plan we should read through the old testament once every 155 Days, and the New Testament once every 87 days. That puts us at Two OT reads and 3.5 NT Reads at 310 Days, which will mean meeting our goal a full 55 days before the original deadline =). By day 326 we should have finished the remaining half of our final NT read (at 8 chapters a day) putting us at 2 times through the bible with an additional 2 reads in the NT for a grand total of 2OT 4NT.
And, by following such a rigorous reading plan we will have 5 and a half weeks (39 days) of grace as well. Which would be great for those finals week study-a-thons.
So that means today is Genesis 1-6 and Matthew 1-3. I am interested to see what kind of awesome things will come from this! Go get your read on!
Now for a Taste of Things to Come
Responses to the Challenge are in, and It begins today. So far four of us are going to try and make it through the entire Bible, Genesis to Revalation, two times from August 1st '06 to August 1st '07. Today we begin with the first 7.5 chapters of genesis (which we should round off to a nice 8 
).
I was talking to one of my fellow guitar nerds about this challenge and he brought up an interesting point. People usually don't read alot of the Bible in one sitting because the point is to meditate on what you read. The first eight chapters of Genesis spans from creation to the very end of the Great Flood. Reading all of that in one sitting doesn't really give you a chance to mull over random verses like:
"God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." Genesis 1:16
That is truely a cool verse, and I am sure there are many messages that you could take from meditating on it for a week or so--but there are also wider parallels in the Bible that can span stories and chapters. So during this challenge, I am going to attempt to meditate on the bigger picture instead of being honed in on the individual grains. Granted, once we reach the Paulean books of the New Testament that could get tough, but it's still an interesting way of reading the Bible that trancends the typical quiet time or one-verse devotional.
Wish us luck as we begin something that I have never done before, and pray that God would speak to us as we look at the Word from a wider lense.
Thanx to E for the Bible Gatewayage. I pimped you.
Oh, and name the movie, character, and describe the scene that the title to this post comes from for some extra cool points. It's scary and sad that I can do all three. I rule y00!