How to Select Books of the Bible for Language Arts Reading Classes

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Language Arts: Reading - Book Selection

Before launching into a reading course, you must select which biblical books that you will read. See the books recommended for an individual course:

Florida's Department of Education (DOE) does not require students to read specific books nor a specific number of books or pages. The state will gladly permit students to earn credit for reading and analyzing the novel “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway or “Uncle Tom's Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. However, students must read a variety of literary forms. Thankfully, the Bible includes a large variety of literary forms, styles, and subjects by more than forty authors over several eras of time. In fact, the length of the Bible's sixty-six books far exceeds the combined length of

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens,
“Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain,
“Aesop's Fables” by Aesop,
“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll and C. L. Dodgson,
“Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne,
“Beowulf” by an anonymous author,
“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine,
“Gulliver's Travels” by Jonathan Swift,
“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare,
“Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare,
“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare,
“Peter Pan” by James M. Barrie,
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare,
“The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine,
“The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
“The Pilgrim's Progress” by John Bunyan, and
“Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The State of Florida measures your success largely as an investment of time. This means that a slower or more thorough reader will cover fewer books in one year than a faster or less thorough reader, yet both will receive the same amount of credit. (See "Limitations" in the article Get High School Credit Using the Carnegie Unit System to learn more about the incongruous nature of measuring earned credit.)

It is reasonable to read half or all the Bible and answer the BTS questions over one year, but this class will require more assignments. Furthermore, an academic year is 36 weeks, not 52 weeks. Therefore, it is reasonable to accomplish one-third to one-fourth of the entire Bible over this one-year course.

The chart below sequences the Bible's books according to a traditional Western table of contents, as is used by Balancing the Sword. I've divided the entire Bible into Reading I, Reading II, Reading III, and Advanced Reading. If you follow my recommendations, you will complete the entire Bible in three and a half years. I've also marked books with "Int." for books which I recommend for Intensive Reading.

Course	Rate	No. of Books	No. of Words
Reading 1	Base Rate	23	215,236
Reading 2	Base Rate	13	214,300
Reading 3	5% Rate Increase	18	224,722
Adv. Reading	20% Rate Increase	12	158,228
Totals		66	789,599

Int. Reading	26% Rate Decrease	19	135,341

Over a period of three and a half years, you will cover the entire Bible. However, many of you may take Reading I and Reading II, but not take Reading III and Advance Reading. Therefore, you will be using the Bible for language arts credit for two years. Thus, it bears acknowledging that the division of books in the chart below is not intended to give you an overview of the Bible in a single year as is true with the Introduction to the Bible I and Introduction to the Bible II courses. Rather, the division of the books for language arts was designed

to equalize the combined length of the recommended books per course with a 26 percent slower pace for Intensive Reading, a 5 percent faster pace for Reading III, and another 20 percent faster pace for Advanced Reading;
to mature in difficulty recognizing that Reading I and Reading II are Level 1 or basic classes; Reading III is a Level 2 or general class; Advanced Reading is a Level 3 or honors class; and, Intensive Reading is remedial in nature and does not have a level rating;
to include different writing styles for each course;
to include a variety of literary forms for each course; and,
to expose the reader to technical, dramatic, poetic, and personal content for each course.

If you are using the Bible to earn humanities credit for Introduction to the Old Testament or Introduction to the New Testament or you plan to take these course in the future, you should attempt to avoid the "primary" books recommended for those courses. See OT Book Selection or NT Book Selection for those recommendations. Biblical books used for Intensive Reading should not be used for any other reading course.

Because the focus of the language arts courses and the humanities courses are different, overlap is acceptable. However, you will experience superior intellectual growth biblically and academically if you strive for variety. If you expect to have overlap, use the other volume of Balancing the Sword. That is, use the second volume of BTS for Genesis for language arts if you already used the first volume of BTS for Genesis for humanities. The content in the two BTS books is completely unique.

This division of the biblical books is somewhat subjective. See Books of the Bible Based on Difficulty for more rationalization.

	Book	BTS Page	Guidance	General Literary Form
	Book	BTS Page	Guidance	General Literary Form
The Law
Before National Israel
1	Genesis	1	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative and Genealogy
Israelite Wandering before Their Settlement
2	Exodus	21	Reading 1	Historical Narrative and Statutory Code
3	Leviticus	39	Adv. Reading	Historical Narrative and Statutory Code
4	Numbers	52	Reading 2	Historical Narrative and Enumeration
5	Deuteronomy	70	Reading 3	Historical Narrative and Statutory Code
The Writings
Era of the Judges
6	Joshua	84	Reading 3	Historical Narrative and Enumeration
7	Judges	97	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
8	Ruth	107	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
Era of the Monarchies – Preexilic Focus
9	1 Samuel	109	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
10	2 Samuel	125	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
11	1 Kings	137	Reading 2	Historical Narrative
12	2 Kings	153	Reading 2	Historical Narrative
Era of the Monarchies – Preexilic Focus – Summation of Genesis to Exile
13	1 Chronicles	166	Reading 3	Historical Narrative and Genealogy
14	2 Chronicles	176	Reading 3	Historical Narrative
Era of the Governors – Postexilic Focus
15	Ezra	191	Reading 1	Historical Narrative and Enumeration
16	Nehemiah	196	Reading 2	Historical Narrative and Enumeration
17	Esther	201	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
Poetic Prose
18	Job	206	Adv. Reading	Poetic Dialogue
19	Psalms	216	Reading 2	Lyrical Poetry
20	Proverbs	245	Reading 1	Proverbial Poetry
21	Ecclesiastes	253	Reading 2 or Int.	Proverbial Poetry
22	Song of Solomon	257	Reading 3 or Int.	Lyrical Poetry
The Prophets
Preexilic Major Prophets
23	Isaiah	261	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
24	Jeremiah	282	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles and Historical Narrative
Postexilic Major Prophets
25	Lamentations	304	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
26	Ezekiel	306	Adv. Reading	Poetic Oracles and Historical Narrative
27	Daniel	327	Reading 2	Historical Narrative
Preexilic Minor Prophets
28	Hosea	335	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
29	Joel	338	Reading 2	Poetic Oracles
30	Amos	340	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
31	Obadiah	342	Adv. Reading	Poetic Oracles
32	Jonah	344	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative
33	Micah	346	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
34	Nahum	349	Adv. Reading	Poetic Oracles
35	Habakkuk	350	Reading 3 or Int.	Poetic Oracles and Lyrical Prophetic Poetry
36	Zephaniah	351	Adv. Reading	Poetic Oracles
Postexilic Minor Prophets
37	Haggai	352	Reading 3	Historical Narrative
38	Zechariah	353	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
39	Malachi	358	Reading 3	Poetic Oracles
The Gospels
40	Matthew	360	Adv. Reading	Historical Narrative as Limited Biography
41	Mark	378	Reading 1 or Int.	Historical Narrative as Limited Biography
42	Luke	390	Reading 2	Historical Narrative as Limited Biography
43	John	410	Reading 3	Historical Narrative as Private Epistle
The Early 1st Century History
44	The Acts	421	Reading 2	Historical Narrative as Private Epistle
The Epistles
Paul's Congregational Epistles
45	Romans	441	Adv. Reading	Congregational Epistle
46	1 Corinthians	446	Reading 1 or Int.	Congregational Epistle
47	2 Corinthians	451	Reading 1	Congregational Epistle
48	Galatians	455	Reading 1 or Int.	Congregational Epistle
49	Ephesians	458	Reading 2	Congregational Epistle
50	Philippians	460	Reading 1	Congregational Epistle
51	Colossians	462	Reading 1 or Int.	Congregational Epistle
52	1 Thessalonians	463	Reading 3	Congregational Epistle
53	2 Thessalonians	464	Reading 3	Congregational Epistle
54	1 Timothy	465	Reading 1	Pastoral Epistle
55	2 Timothy	467	Reading 1	Pastoral Epistle
56	Titus	468	Reading 2 or Int.	Pastoral Epistle
57	Philemon	469	Reading 1 or Int.	Private Epistle
Unknown
58	Hebrews	470	Reading 2	Catholic or General Epistle
James
59	James	475	Reading 1 or Int.	Catholic or General Epistle
Peter
60	1 Peter	477	Adv. Reading	Catholic or General Epistle
61	2 Peter	479	Adv. Reading	Catholic or General Epistle
John
62	1 John	480	Reading 1 or Int.	Catholic or General Epistle
63	2 John	482	Reading 1 or Int.	Private Epistle
64	3 John	483	Reading 1	Private Epistle
Jude
65	Jude	484	Adv. Reading	Catholic or General Epistle
The Prophet
John
66	Revelation	485	Adv. Reading	Apocalyptic Congregational Epistle

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