The Beginner's Guide to the Bible
A primer for those who are still trying to figure out Leviticus
New writer alert! Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. His debut novella, Words on the Page, and short story collection, To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction, are available now. Find him on Instagram or Bluesky.
So… you’re new to the Bible! Here’s pretty much everything you need to know to get started.
The Bible is so old that some of the people who wrote it didn’t even have access to Wikipedia. This explains the strange ideas about donkeys and talking snakes.
It is the world’s bestselling book, as well as the very first one with a fan club dedicated to decoding it.
Written over many centuries, it started as scrolls and letters—no spellcheck, just passion.
In the 4th century, a bunch of people said, “Yep, this is the canon version”—with no help from George Lucas!
The Bible is divided into two parts. The Old Testament is like the gritty first season of a show—full of chaos, rules, and righteous fury. The New Testament? It’s the softer sequel, where everything gets cleaned up with a little love, a miracle or two, and a guy who’s really into forgiveness.
The Old Testament opens with Genesis, which is full of names and genealogies. It’s like a family reunion where no one’s heard of personal space. Adam begat Seth, and Seth begat Enos, etc. Somehow, most people lived to be 800-plus years old, which seems miserable since toilets hadn’t been invented yet.
The New Testament has a guy named Jesus in it. He was really good at teaching, mostly about how to be kind to people and how money isn’t everything. You’d think that would be enough, but people still don’t seem to get it.
The Bible is full of good advice, like loving your neighbor and forgiving people even when they’re awful. This is harder than it sounds, especially when you’re stuck in traffic and someone cuts you off.
Finally, there’s the part about God becoming human. He lived like we do… hungry, tired, a little annoyed…and then, he took on all the world’s mess and said, “I’ve got this for you.” Which was a genuinely nice thing to do at the time, so let’s hope maybe he offers to do it again soon. (No Book of Revelation necessary!)
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I like to think my best 800 years are ahead of me
I grew up in a family with absolutely no religious traditions. I put God into the same category as Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny - all fantastic stories that turned out to be fake.