From Genesis to Revelation, I read the Bible in its entirety. Small disclaimer, however, this is a Protestant bible, meaning it has the fewest books of the Christian bibles out there, so less than if I'd gone with a bible from one of the older churches with a larger canon (Catholic or Orthodox). I went with this particular one because it was the one I had... I bought it at Chapters when I was 14 or 15 after having gone to a bible camp and my main criteria at the time was to find a bible that didn't use antiquated language and that had study notes. Hadn't really cracked it open until my 30s...

I have many thoughts to share. First, the contents were not what I expected. If you think you know the bible, but haven't read it, I challenge you to actually read it. Second, I believe that it needs to be studied. This may go for many other ancient religious texts as well. This is not pop spirituality where you can crack open the book and get an inspirational feel-good quote. It is deep. It's a whole story. Lots of metaphors and symbolism that connect to various other parts of the bible. Over the course of my time reading it, I listened to various scholars, theologians, and laymen commentators to help illumine the text. I do believe that if one reads it in the most superficial, surface way, they will come away with little but ridicule for the text. However, if one digs deeper, there is quite a wealth of treasure in it. I wouldn't have thought this. Unfortunately, many fundamentalist bible thumpers out there are not the best showcase for the bible and give it a bad reputation. I should say with relation to biblical fundamentalists that contrary to what they may portray, much of the bible can be interpreted in many different ways.

I learned also a lot about bible translations in my journey through this copy of the bible. One is that this is a Protestant bible... since the Protestant religion rejects a number of books that were part of the Greek Septuagint (the Greek Septuagint was the Jewish scriptures translated to Greek for Jews living in diaspora in the centuries prior to Christ- Greek at the time was the common default language of the whole general area). When the Christian religion formed, the Jews removed a number of the books more supportive to the Christian claim that this man Jesus was the messiah. The Protestants in their reformation chose to only include in their canon the books that the Jews chose in their updated canon and not the additional books that were in the Septuagint.

I also learned about translation bias and commentary bias. Commentary bias is obvious to me. Most of the notes were helpful setting the context so that I could better understand. That said, occasionally they'd have somewhat off-putting comments reflective of the denomination that this translation supports (evangelical) such as what type of music do you like to worship to.Translation bias is something I'm just starting to learn about. These are the biases of the translators reflected in some way through the chosen ways to translate words, expressions, etc.. I'm not a scholar nor am I well versed in the various denominations of Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter) or the various translations to be able to say much about this, but I find this area interesting. All I can say, as an NIV translation, I found it very readable.

I don't believe in a concept that I came to learn in my research that accompanied my reading of the bible and that is the concept of "sola scriptura". This means viewing the bible as the sole source and informant on spirituality and God. It rejects that there were accompanying traditions that both were the impetus to forming the bible and the christian religion itself. In itself it also rejects the notion that anything is missing from the bible. I also reject the notion that the bible is inerrant. I know some people that have parents that follow some form of fundamentalist religion where they actually view the bible in a literal way. In reading the text these friends became atheist or agnostic because they couldn't relate to the bible in a literal way and found it ridiculous. But like their parents, I guess, couldn't see a spiritual life outside of that limited view hence they became atheists (or agnostic). What a pity. The bible has a lot to offer if viewed in a more symbolic manner. To reject it because it doesn't follow science doesn't make sense. It clearly is not a scientific text. Parts of it corroborate with history and those parts may be considered as historical texts (but not all are to be considered historical). It needs to be viewed in a spiritual light. Christians will argue that the Holy Spirit is needed to illuminate and bring meaning to the bible.

I have decided to continue pouring over the bible in different translations and commentaries as I continue on my spiritual journey. 

I'd like to mention some highlights. I particularly liked Genesis, Job, a number of Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Jonah, the Gospels, some of the Epistles. Honestly, this is off the top of my head, I might be missing some others that I liked.

My favourite fully human character (lol) is probably John the Baptist. Anyway, he sticks out for his humility. I don't remember everyone obviously... and I just read the bible, I didn't study it, so I can't say I have a very meaningful or deep relationship with the characters, the stories, and their meanings.

I'm uncertain how to rate this. Do I rate based on the quality of the translation and the notes? Do I rate the bible on its story and how I relate to it? The writing itself is done by a whole bunch of different authors... different styles are reflected throughout some of which I liked and some of which I didn't really like at all. So for now I'll leave it unrated with this review of my current reflections on this first read-through of the bible.