The Old Testament Explained for Beginners

The Old Testament explained for beginners starts with one fact that makes it far easier to read: it is not one long book, and it is not a list of rules. It is a library of many writings, and together they tell a single story. That story runs from the making of the world, through one family that became a nation, to the loss of that nation's land and the return of some of its people. If you can hold that outline in your head, almost every chapter has a place to sit.

This guide gives you the outline in order. It explains every name and custom the first time it appears, and it points you to a short article on the best-known moments along the way. You do not need any background. You only need to know that Christians call these writings the Old Testament, and that Jewish readers call most of the same writings the Hebrew Bible, or the Tanakh. Both groups read them as Scripture.

One story, not sixty-six books

Many people open the Bible at the first page, read Genesis and Exodus with interest, and then stall in the middle of the law or the lists of names. This is the most common way beginners give up. A better plan is to learn the shape first.

The Old Testament has several kinds of writing.

Story. Genesis through Esther mostly tell what happened, in order.
Law. Parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy give the rules for the nation. They sit inside the story and make most sense when you remember who is speaking and to whom.
Poetry and wisdom. Psalms are songs and prayers. Proverbs gathers short sayings. Job and Ecclesiastes wrestle with suffering and meaning.
Prophets. Prophets were people who spoke for God to the nation, often in hard times. Their books, from Isaiah to Malachi, are mostly speeches and visions.

If you read only the story books first, you can follow the plot from start to finish. The poetry and the prophets then fall into place, because you know the moment in history when each was written. Think of the story books as the road, and the other books as scenery along it.

The main idea that holds the story together is a promise. God makes a promise to Abraham and his family, that through them all the families of the earth will be blessed. Everything after that is about how the promise is kept, tested and almost lost. Christians read the whole story as leading to Jesus. Jewish readers read it as the story of their people and their covenant with God. A covenant is a binding promise between two sides. You can follow the plot without choosing between those readings.

Beginnings: creation, the flood and the tower

Genesis opens with God creating light, sky, land, plants, animals and people in an ordered pattern of days, and then resting. The chapter is written as a kind of song of order. Readers differ on how to read it, as a plain account of days, as a poem about God and order, or in other ways, and this guide does not take a side. What matters for the story is the answer it gives: the world is made on purpose, and people are made with value.

The next chapters tell of a garden, a first couple and a serpent. The couple eat the one fruit they were told not to eat, and they are sent out of the garden. The pattern is set: a good world, a wrong choice, and consequences that spread. In the next generation, Cain, the older son, kills his brother Abel out of jealousy. God marks Cain with protection and does not allow him to be killed in turn.

The wrong grows until God decides to start again with one family. Noah builds an ark, a very large boat, and brings his family and pairs of animals inside. A flood covers the earth. When the water goes down, God sets a rainbow in the sky as a sign of a promise never to flood the whole earth again. Then comes the last story of this opening section, the tower of Babel. People try to build a city and a tower to make a name for themselves, and God scatters them and mixes their language. The opening chapters of Genesis ask big questions about where the world, wrongdoing and different languages come from. The five-minute lessons in the track "Creation and the First Families" cover these stories one by one.

Abraham's family and the promise

After the tower, the story narrows sharply. Instead of the whole world, it follows one man. God calls Abraham, then called Abram, to leave his home and go to a land he will be shown. God promises him land, many descendants and a blessing for all peoples. Abraham and his wife Sarah are old and have no child, so the promise looks impossible. Their son Isaac is born late in life.

One of the hardest chapters in the Bible follows, in which God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, and stops him at the last moment. Readers have wrestled with it for a very long time. See why God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac for how the text reads and how different traditions understand it.

The promise passes to Isaac, then to his son Jacob. Jacob has twelve sons, and they become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob is also given the name Israel, which is why his descendants are called Israelites. His favourite son, Joseph, is sold by his jealous brothers and taken to Egypt. There Joseph rises to high office, and when a famine strikes, his family comes to Egypt for food. They settle there. The book of Genesis ends with the family safe and far from the land that was promised.

Egypt, the exodus and the law

Exodus opens many years later. The descendants of Jacob have grown into a large people, and a new king of Egypt makes them slaves. A baby named Moses is hidden in a basket on the river, found by the king's daughter and raised in the palace. As an adult he flees, and at a burning bush God speaks to him and sends him back to ask for the people's freedom.

The king refuses. A series of disasters, called the plagues, falls on Egypt. The last is the death of the firstborn. Israelite families are told to mark their doors and to eat a special meal that night, and the destroyer passes over their homes. This is the origin of Passover, the festival Jews keep every year and the festival that Jesus was celebrating at the Last Supper. Read more in what Passover is in the Bible.

The people leave Egypt in the exodus, which means "going out." They are pursued, and they cross the sea on dry ground. In the desert they come to Mount Sinai, where God gives the law. The best known part is the Ten Commandments. Learn them in order, with a plain meaning for each, in the Ten Commandments in order and their meaning. The rest of the law covers worship, justice, food, farming and the care of the poor and the foreigner. It is given to a people who had just been freed from slavery, and many of its rules are written with that memory in mind.

Then the people refuse to trust God and are not allowed to enter the promised land for a full generation. They wander in the desert. Moses dies within sight of the land, and Joshua leads the people across the Jordan river into it.

Judges, Ruth and the first kings

The book of Judges describes a hard period. The tribes are settled in the land but have no central ruler. A judge was a leader raised up in a crisis, such as Deborah, Gideon or Samson. The book repeats a cycle: the people forget God, an enemy oppresses them, they cry out, a judge rescues them, and then it begins again. It closes with the line that everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Set in the same time is the short book of Ruth, which is a gentle contrast. Ruth is a woman from the neighbouring country of Moab who stays with her mother-in-law Naomi after both are widowed. She gleans grain in the field of a man named Boaz, and he marries her. She becomes the great-grandmother of King David. If you only read one short Old Testament story, this is a very good one: who Ruth was in the Bible.

At the end of this period the people ask for a king like the nations around them. The prophet Samuel anoints Saul, a tall man from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul begins well and then disobeys God, and Samuel anoints a shepherd boy named David in secret.

David, Solomon and the temple

David becomes famous when he faces the giant Goliath and wins with a sling and a stone. After years of danger from Saul, he becomes king and makes Jerusalem the capital. He is remembered as Israel's great king and as the writer of many psalms. He also does a great wrong, taking another man's wife and arranging the man's death, and the prophet Nathan confronts him. David's repentance is recorded in Psalm 51. The Bible does not hide the faults of its heroes.

His son Solomon is known for wisdom and builds the temple in Jerusalem. The temple is the central place of worship, where sacrifices are offered and where God is said to dwell among his people. Solomon's reign is rich, but in his later years he turns toward other gods, and after his death the kingdom splits in two. The northern kingdom keeps the name Israel. The southern kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital, is called Judah.

The prophets and the fall of Jerusalem

For the next centuries, the story follows a long line of kings in both kingdoms, most of them poor leaders. The prophets speak up. They warn the kings and the people against idolatry, which means worshipping other gods, and against injustice, such as cheating the poor and ignoring widows and orphans. They also promise hope and renewal. Isaiah speaks of a coming king and of a servant who suffers. Amos speaks of justice flowing like a river. Hosea compares God's love to a husband who will not give up on his wife.

The warnings come true. The northern kingdom is conquered by the Assyrian empire and its people are scattered. Later the southern kingdom faces Babylon, a rising power. Babylon defeats Judah, burns the temple and Jerusalem, and takes many of the people away to Babylon. This event is the great low point of the Old Testament. Many psalms, the book of Lamentations and many of the prophets are written in its shadow.

Exile, Babylon and the return

The years in Babylon are called the exile. The people are far from the land, with no temple and no king. They ask whether God has left them. The prophets of the exile answer in different ways. Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles telling them to build houses, plant gardens and seek the good of the city where they live. The line from that letter, "I know the plans I have for you," is one of the most quoted and most misunderstood verses in the Bible. See Jeremiah 29:11 in context before you put it on a card.

Ezekiel, who was among the exiles, sees a vision of a valley full of dry bones that come to life, as a picture of a people who are given new life. It is explained in the valley of dry bones and what Ezekiel 37 means. The book of Daniel tells of faithful people in a foreign court. The book of Esther is set among Jews who stayed in Persia, the empire that later ruled the region. Its famous line is explained in for such a time as this, what Esther 4 means.

In time, Persia defeats Babylon, and its king allows the exiles to return. Ezra and Nehemiah lead the return and the rebuilding: first the temple, then the walls of Jerusalem. The people gather and hear the law read aloud, and they weep. The story of the Old Testament ends not in triumph but in a quiet hope. The people are back in the land, but they are still waiting for the promises to be kept in full. The last prophets, such as Malachi, point forward. This waiting is the setting in which the Gospels begin.

Common mistakes readers make

Starting at Leviticus. Read Genesis, Exodus 1 to 20, then jump to Joshua, Ruth, 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. Return to the law once you know the story.
Reading a verse alone. Always read the verses before and after. Many popular verses were written to a particular people in a particular crisis.
Reading it as a list of rules. The law matters, but the story comes first. The rules were given to a freed people.
Expecting every story to be an example. Some stories are warnings, some are plain history, and some record bad behaviour without approving it.
Ignoring the order. The books are not arranged by date in every Bible. The prophets and the poetry make better sense when you place them in the timeline above.
Forgetting that the text was first read by Jews. The Old Testament is Jewish Scripture before it is anything else. Christian readers can read it with respect for that.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

The Old Testament tells of the world, Israel and the promises, up to the return from exile. The second part of the Christian Bible begins with the life of Jesus and the early church. Christians read the two together as one story.

Is the Old Testament the same as the Hebrew Bible?

Mostly. The books are largely the same, but they are ordered differently, and some Christian traditions include a few extra books that Jewish and many Protestant readers do not.

Does the Old Testament contradict the New?

Many readers see growth and fulfilment, not contradiction, but there are real debates. The best habit is to ask what each passage meant to its first readers before asking how later writers used it.

Which Old Testament books should I read first?

Genesis 1 to 12, Exodus 1 to 20, Ruth, 1 Samuel 16 to 17, some Psalms, then Jonah. That gives you a feel for story, poetry and prophecy in a few hours.

How long does it take to read it all?

Reading a few chapters a day, most people finish in under a year. A map and a timeline help more than speed does.

Learn this in five minutes

The track "Creation and the First Families" follows Moses through the opening chapters of Genesis: light and creation, the garden, Cain and Abel, the ark and the flood, and the rainbow and the tower. Each lesson takes five minutes and gives you the passage, the setting and what it meant to its first readers.