Bible Study for Beginners: Unlocking the Essentials with Beginner-Friendly and Easy-to-Understand Explanations (Curious Histories Collection)

Really great for Bible study

I really like this book. Not only do I struggle reading I also struggle understanding the bible. This makes sense to me it’s easy to read and explains a lot.

It is great to connect with the Lord and understand his words easier. Recommended for new Christians and non-believers to believe he is real.

At last an easy to read and comprehensive explanation to help you better understand the teachings of the Bible. Written in a positive and encouraging tone it doesn't preach at you, it guides and encourages you to look between the stories to find the truths you are seeking, to form your own opinions. A joy to read. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This book comes into a crowded marketplace with numerous guides, introductions & encyclopaedias of various formats already in existence. Did it stand out for me? Would it stand out for you? Ok, let’s get into the review. It’s a slim volume at just 165 pages but still I’d hoped to be able to recommend it as a useful concise summary. However, I did have more than a few misgivings starting with the front cover. (From now on, for brevity I’ll refer to the book title, “Bible Study for Beginners”, as BSfB.) The first thing I’d hoped to be able to do was to tell you something about the author (or authors). This disappointingly isn’t possible as none is listed. Not exactly a red flag but why wouldn’t a publisher or an author not want you to know who wrote the work you’re about to read? Many publications, in the same area, like the Collins Bible Companion, The Lion Handbook to the Bible (now in its 51st year!) and various reference Bibles – for instance, the ESV Student Reference Bible – also don’t have authors on the front cover but unlike BSfB they do include a list inside among the opening pages of contributors and their qualifications. I wonder if you were to read a scientific book, surely you’d want to know what the author or authors’ qualifications and practical experience in the field of study were? It’s at this point we need to make a slight diversion. BSfB is written in a very similar way to the Captivating History series which also falls down on these basics: we have no idea who has written them although an internet search tells me they all seem to be written by a guy called Matt Clayton. One I purchased recently, (Mesopotamian History), had 36 print book refs at the end but about 1300 internet refs. Now going through that lot would seem to be a rather lengthy process and there are tons of these very thick books out there. For BSfB, Amazon gives “Ahoy” as the author; not very helpful but another search reveals Ahoy! are collaborating with Captivating History. Lacking any names of contributors to BSfB we’ve no idea what practical qualifications or personal experiences they possess. In a book claiming to be instructive for beginners in the study of the Bible, I would expect to see at least some basic info as to who wrote it. For example, have they served in ministry or been involved in missionary work? Perhaps they are just enthusiastic Christians who want to pass on their knowledge of their own personal walk with their Saviour through His word but why not say so? We just have no author information. Why are there no peer reviews included on the back cover which is usually the case for publications of this type? Now, compare for example, the approach by the author of 71 Christian books (on Goodreads) Brian Gugas whose book has almost exactly the same title “Bible Study Guide for Beginners” (but much longer at 404 pages) which has his name on the front cover and a clear breakdown of how the chapters in the book are organised covering every one of the Bible’s 66 books. The foreword contains his personal testimony about his walk with God; there is nothing like this in BSfB. Ok, Gugas’s is a larger book but at a cost of just a couple of pounds (£2.43, when I checked) looks far more professional in its approach. Dwight L. Moody’s book “How to Study the Bible” (169 pages) is of similar length to BSfB, is free, and has many personal examples of which parts of the Bible he found helpful. It takes a subject-wise approach not treating every single Bible book individually but using methods, for instance, referred to as the telescopic view to give a wide overall picture and the microscopic view for a more detailed level study. The introduction to BSfB is barely a page and a half in print length. What is also not stipulated is who BSfB is written for. Is it just for anyone wanting to study the Bible as an academic exercise? Its opening sentence suggests that the attraction for many people is “looking for answers, a thirst for knowledge or simply a stumble-upon-by-chance situation”. Surely if you are a new Christian beginning your Christian life you are looking to deepen your knowledge of the change that has recently taken place in your life when you came to the Lord for forgiveness for your sins and put your trust in the sacrifice of Jesus upon Calvary for your salvation; you want to see how God’s word can guide you through the daily challenges you face as a Christian in a hostile world. With no personal or experiential references by the author (or authors) saying what they found helpful, in a particular book in the Bible, you get no sense of how the Bible has personally impacted their lives or even more importantly how they have interacted with it. Other than a contents page, there is no structure laid out at the beginning to show how the guide is split up. The introduction simply says the book is going to “guide you through the revelations in many of the most important chapters….” While the chapters do not follow the biblical order there is no problem with that as long you explain why it’s set out the way it is. Chapter 1, Genesis is obviously first to be explained but I was left wondering why there is no mention of the flood in BSfB – I did a Kindle search for the word “flood”; it doesn’t appear anywhere in BSfB. This is a crucial event showing God’s judgement on the sin of mankind which could have ended its existence at this point. The Flood is attested in many non-Biblical sources as a fact with many early cultures having their own versions of the story. In the Biblical one, in God’s grace, He allowed Noah to build an Ark, and with his wife, their 3 sons and their wives along with an assortment of animals, to go into the completed vessel to escape that judgement. They were given the crucial task of going on to re-populate the post-flood world. Also, surely using the analogy of the Ark rescuing those on board with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (1 Peter 3:18-20 refers) being the way a Christian avoids the coming judgement of God on sin is too important and powerful to leave out? Even Jesus Himself referred to it in Luke 17:26 when He said: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man”. (Almost the same quote in Matt. 24:37.) The website biblicalspiritualitypress.org gives 6 ways in which Noah’s Ark can be viewed as a type of Christ. It’s definitely worth reading them but there is nothing in BSfB. Another major subject introduced in Genesis is the Abrahamic Covenant which, oddly, doesn’t get mentioned until near the end of BSfB (p.133 out of 165). Thinking of sin and the initial “Fall” with other areas & events which highlight the subject I was surprised to see in the whole of BSfB there are just 8 mentions of the word “sin”. There is no mention of the word sin for one continuous span of 55 pages (that’s one third of the book!) from p.8 (in the Genesis chapter) all the way through to p.63 (in the Life and Teachings of Jesus chapter). This omission is puzzling because, for example in the Bible the Book of Leviticus has almost 90 mentions of the word. That doesn’t include variations like: sins, sinned & sinning. Adding those in takes the total to over 100. Worryingly, BSfB doesn’t even mention the book of Leviticus – although it does refer to sacrifices (see below p.151) – in its text except in a list of the five books in the Torah on p.8; that is also the case for the books of Numbers & Deuteronomy. The Amazon write up says the book (BSfB) will “thoroughly explain all 66 chapters.” Apart from the fact that the Bible consists of 66 books (not chapters, there are 1189 of them!) how can an introduction “thoroughly explain” as by nature it’s not going to go into that much detail. (The publishers need to get Amazon to change that.) As an example, how can you do that for say the book of Romans with its 16 chapters containing major doctrines of the Christian faith, about which thousands of books over many centuries, have already been written, in just over one page (30 lines) of text in BSfB? BSfB seems to downplay the importance of the whole subject of sin when it says, of “The Fall in the Genesis Unveiled” chapter, that it was “due to a lack of understanding”; in my view, it was not a lack of understanding, it was straightforward disobedience as God had given a very clear understandable command (Gen 2:15-17) not to eat of that particular tree AND He told Adam & Eve exactly what would happen if they did. They had all the other trees to eat from with just one excluded. Once Genesis has been covered it’s straight into Exodus and after that, as highlighted above, no mention of any events in Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy. There is a good section on how each of the plagues in Exodus, may be viewed as specifically targeting a particular Egyptian god who was related to it in some way. While there is no direct reference to Leviticus, on p.151, in the chapter on the connection between Old & New Testaments, we do read about the sacrifices that are detailed in it: “These sacrifices were tedious as they required special rules and rituals in Mosaic Law for each of them.” Is there any justification for calling the sacrifices “tedious”? Through modern eyes perhaps some would say that but they were there for a reason and God gave that reason for each of them when the instructions were given. Some were serious enough to merit being cast out of the nation and some even death for disobedience so I'd say very important to know about them. Further on, in the Bible, we read that the prophets (both major & minor) speak about either the sin of Israel or the sin of the surrounding nations which God will judge. Although addressed to people & nations of long ago those words will have lessons for us in our day and age. There are a few spelling or reference issues: on page 9 there is a ref “Jer 10:16” but there is no key at the beginning to say what abbreviation “Jer” (or any others used in the book) are used for any of the Bible books. What is inconsistent is that later on, in many cases, the books are spelled out in full and some have longer names than Jeremiah: e.g. “1 Corinthians 5:7” on p.155. However once we finish the Exodus chapter we’re straight in to Ch3 on Psalms & Proverbs. Disappointing to see the name of Asaph, author of 12 psalms and with 14 occurrences of his name in other books of the Old Testament, has been spelled as “Aspha” on p.37. On p.95 question 6 reads “How dis it impact your faith?” On these last two I’m wondering why the proof-reader or MS Word spell checker didn’t pick them up as you can add specialist subject names and words to the standard dictionary for a particular subject area not covered by it. Then it’s on to the New Testament for chapters 4,5,6 with ch7 on the Book of Revelation. Then we jump back to the Old Testament for the prophets for ch8 and the historical books from Joshua to Esther in ch9 – this title seems to have been lifted straight from one of the internet references quoted at the end of the book - and then how to link the OT and NT in ch10. I found it somewhat strange that the author (or authors) adopted the year dating abbreviations CE & BCE in the text. Why use a very “unchristian” system referring to year dates in the Bible? Remember, in this admittedly old alternative scheme - which the World History Encyclopaedia dates to a 1708 publication by H. Rhodes - Christ’s name has been taken out and replaced by the word “common”. How is that respectful to God replacing the divine with “common”? The book literally quotes on p.83 “around the time of Jesus which is 4 BCE”. “Before Christ” (BC) has been replaced with “before the common era”; again, it has to be asked, why would you do that? When did the “common era” begin? Yep, that’s right when Christ was born but the author(s) thinks it’s ok to completely take His name out of a book about Him; one internet site says this system is used for the purpose “religious neutrality” but that is just a convenient excuse for a deeper agenda. Makes no difference whether it came in recently, or 300 years ago as some claim, the effect is the same: Christ’s name is removed. And then there is AD (Anno Domini) which is the Latin abbreviation for “the year of the Lord” now becomes “common era” (CE). It adds nothing to our understanding and in fact takes Jesus (the “Domini”), the central character in the Bible and the story of salvation, out of the narrative. That’s why I cannot endorse the book’s use of this newer system. Reading this book on a Kindle of course means all pictures are just in black and white. If you want colour you’ll have to use your phone or tablet. There isn’t a single map in the whole book, why not? Surely being able to see an overview of where the Bible history took place would be valuable for any beginner. While it is a more expensive publication, if any readers want a good book for maps I’d suggest the Paul Lawrence book, “The Lion Atlas of Bible History”. In that, as in a number of others, you can see maps covering each of the historical periods right from Genesis through to Revelation and onto the spread of the Gospel through Paul’s ministry during his three missionary journeys. I’ll also mention the BSfB’s idea of using questions & reflections at the end of each chapter is a good one to make sure people are understanding what they’ve read but some of them read like A-level essay questions not “introductory” level ones; my own feeling is that overall there are just too many of them: 9 on ch1, 4 on ch2, 4 on ch3, 4 on ch4, 7 on ch5, 12 on ch6, 6 on ch7, 8 on ch8, 5 on ch9, 7 on ch10, total 66 (co-incidence?). For these reasons I would not recommend this book (by authors unknown) despite it being free as there is at least one other free one that I found mentioned above by a very famous Christian evangelist. His name and at least some of his life story are well known by most Christians but are also given in the book. For just a couple of pounds comprising a far more detailed work over twice as long I would suggest folks buy the Brian Gugas book or one of the similar titles in the field which are within their affordable price range. In conclusion, I have to say that for me the book didn’t deliver what I thought it had the opportunity to do. It lacked a number of basic things: a proper introduction (and foreword) to the work, a clearly laid out structure but crucially though an index (so you could find a specific book or subject if you needed to) and a treatment of all 66 books which the write up gives the impression it does but it doesn’t. It almost reads like someone has looked around for some bite-size chunks of information culled from a number of different internet sources – nearly every reference at the end of the book is an internet site as are all the picture attributions which are from the “creative commons” (via Wikimedia commons”) – and then just put together with no focus on what to look for in the Bible or any real personal experience of the subject matter. Sorry but not a book I would use, hence the One Star rating. Also would point out that my page number references come from the Kindle edition not the hard copy which seems to have around 30 pages fewer.

I appreciated how it broke down each chapter with beginner-friendly explanations, especially for complex books like Genesis and Revelation. However, some sections felt a bit repetitive, and I would have liked more real-life applications to connect scripture with everyday life. The chapter summaries and questions for reflection were particularly helpful for deepening my understanding and sparking meaningful discussions. Overall, it’s a solid starting point for anyone new to studying the Bible, though a bit more variety in presentation could make it more engaging.

126 pages! Easy to understand explanations of each chapter of the Bible and of significant people and events that occurred! I am very happy with this book!

A helpful tool when reading the Bible. Has easy to understand explanations.

We love our Bible study books

Very helpful

It looks as though it's going to be an enjoyable book, however, I am finding that with the exception of words written in bold, the ink in the regular print is light and hard on the eyes.