Ranking the Books of the Old Testament

Now that I'm done with the Old Testament, a look back before beginning the New Testament.  Because -- it's fun! 

1. Genesis – OK, so it’s a cliché to pick Genesis as the best chapter.  But it happens to be a really good choice, too.  This gives us a litany of famous stories – the creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.  We get it all.  And it’s almost all fantastic.  Much of these characters are flawed and problematic, but that’s part of what makes it so fascinating.  The Bible is at its best when it’s at its most human, and these guys often come off as human.  Several of the Genesis stories are excellently written as well.  If you know much Biblical scholarship, it’s even more fascinating as you can know why (for example) there is an entire chapter that exists just to assassinate the character of Jacob’s fourth son, Judah.   The Bible really serves up a tremendous opening reel with Genesis. 

2. Samuel II – This book is all about David.  We met him in Samuel I, and he dies at the beginning of Kings I, but this book is all about his reign as Israel’s king.  In other words, this is a fascinating tale of a larger than life individual.  You get a real sense of the person – warts and all.  By acknowledging those warts, it makes the highlights even more notable.  This book contains my single favorite chapter in the entire Old Testament: Chapter 16.  Here, David is on the run from his usurping son Absalom.  While on the run, a personal enemy sees David fleeing and starting heckling.  And here David – a man often too vain and cocky for his own good – shows some definite character development and insight but tolerating the heckler.  (Note: much of my enjoyment of this chapter is ruined early in Kings I when David tells Solomon to have the heckler killed.  But I can pretend that part doesn’t exist when I think back to Chapter 16 of Samuel II). 

3. Ecclesiastes – This is one of the ringers in the Bible.  It basically tries to explain how people can live good lives without reference to God.  (Yeah, you wouldn’t expect something like that in the Bible).  It’s a call for balance, and frequently struck me as the unofficial Buddhist Bible book.  This is often the favorite book of non-believers, and I can see why.  It’s also terrifically written – it’s the source for the Byrds song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”  It speaks with a very distinctive voice.  Even though it’s just a dozen chapters long, it felt a little too long.  After the first half-dozen or so chapters, you’ve gotten the gist of it.

4. Samuel I – This is a great book.  While David is the big star (he is David, after all), for me this is all about Saul.  This book is the rise and fall of Saul as he really does get off to a great start, but falls to pieces once Samuel starts badgering him.  I thought Samuel came off like a real dick, but I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority on that one.  This one would rank a little higher, but there are some oddities and duplicated stories latter on.  Parts of this book are clearly taking two different versions of the same story and combing them. 

5. Ruth – This might be the most likable book in the Bible. The characters are all likable and root-for-able.  It also features one of the great speeches in the Bible, when Ruth tells her mother-in-law Naomi, “Where you go I will go.”  The plot is a bit thin at times, but it’s nice to read a story of normal, likable people leading their normal lives and overcoming their difficulties. 

6. Job – On the one hand, it’s far too long and extremely repetitive.  But you know what?  It might be the deepest book in the entire Bible.  It takes on a big question – why does God let bad things happen to good people?  Its answer can be seen as a cop out – who are we to question to ways of God?  But it struck me as the only real answer.  You can’t give a happy-feely answer to this question; that would be bullshit.  The Book of Job has a lot of guts to bring up this question and refuse to insult our intelligence with a bullshit answer. 

7. Jonah – The only famous Minor Prophet, Jonah has got to be a fictional story.  So what?  It’s a great fictional story.  The whale is the most famous part, but as it happens it might be the least interesting part.  The Bible is at its best when it’s at its most human, and Jonah – fearful and petty – comes off as a fully-formed human being.  You can get a lot of comedy out of how he reacts to God’s decision to spare the city of Nineveh.

8. Kings I – This has some really impressive highs.  Solomon’s speech dedicated the Temple is a great moment, in part because he opens up the door to God to people other than just the Children of Israel.  Later on, Elijah steals the show with his big showdown with the priests of Baal.  (And what happens next is fascinating as Elijah flees to Mt. Sinai only to be rebuffed by God).  It’s also fun to pay close attention to Solomon’s actions as king and realize he’s actually a lousy ruler. 

9. Amos – One of the best of the Minor Prophets, Amos focuses of justice more than any other Old Testament figure.  No wonder Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Amos is both his Letter from a Birmingham Jail and the “I Have a Dream” speech.  As a non-believer, Amos is easy to relate to because you don’t have to believe in God to believe we should all treat each other justly.

10. Song of Songs – This is one of the great ringers in the Bible.  It doesn’t belong in the Bible at all.  It’s not about God, but a secular love poem.  But it’s a glorious one. Not all of it makes sense, but OK.  Maybe I’m ranking this a bit too high, but when you read all the way through the Bible, there is nothing more refreshing than to suddenly come across a writer with a fresh and different voice – and Songs has one. 

11. Judges – If you’re looking for a book full of insightful moral instruction, please stay far away from Judges.  This is a wild series of tales that are occasionally uplifting (Gideon is one of the root-for-able people in the Bible), but much of this is a moral train wreck.  You get a man sacrificing his own daughter to God, Samson starting problems with the Philistines just because he’s an ass, and the slaughter of the tribe of Benjamin at the end).  But while this isn’t any good at moral instruction – wow is it ever a memorable and enjoyable series of tales.  The last line – “In those days there were no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own sight” sums up the problems of the era. 

12. Jeremiah – He is the most misanthropic prophet in the Bible.  Ah, no wonder I liked him!  He is a truly ineffectual prophet in his own days, but without him, the Jewish religious likely dies off.  His statements that the people deserve to fall to Babylon will make it easier to interpret Jerusalem’s fall after the fact.  This is also the most plot-heavy prophet book (aside from Jonah).  You get a much stronger sense of Jeremiah as a person than any other prophet. He can be petty and lose sight of the big picture, but I always like the Bible best when it’s at it’s most human, and Jeremiah is a fully-formed human.  Added bonus: he is arguably the author of Deuteronomy and the writer (or at least compiler) of the historical books after it, making Jeremiah possibly one of the most important people in the Bible.

13. Nehemiah – This is an underrated Bible book.  Nehemiah is one of the Bible’s great problems solvers.  He’s building the walls to Jerusalem under tough circumstances and getting it done.  He is eminently practical as he goes about his job.  He’s the best problem solver since Joseph.  The two of them should go out bowling. 

14. Exodus – Wait – what the hell is Exodus doing this far low?  This is one of those books that everyone knows about.  Hell, this is a Charlton Heston movie!  It has several of the most famous stories and I’m ranking it below Nehemiah?  The hell?  Yeah – look, the highpoints of Exodus rank with the most memorable moments of the entire Bible.  But those highpoints take up the first 15 chapters in a book that last 40.  The back half of Exodus is flat-out the most boring part of the entire Bible.  Oh, it really perks up in a few places – the 10 Commandments, the golden calf – but the main focus is the construction of the ark, and that is horrible.  Leviticus may have a reputation as a very boring Bible book, but trust me, it’s actually quite the pick-me-up after the back half of Exodus.

15. Proverbs – I liked this a lot more than I thought I would.  It’s essentially a book of fortune cookie material, but a lot of those are some damn good fortune cookies they come up with. 

16. Kings II – This has its highs and has its lows. The lows: this book becomes too much a litany-of-dead-kings history where you hear a little bit about a lot of kings, but rarely get a sense of who any of them are.  That’s annoying.  But this book does have it’s real highlights, ranging from the ghastly story of two bears ripping apart 42 children when they mocked Elisha’s baldness to Hezekiah’s prayer in Chapter 20 and God’s decision to grant him an extra 15 years old life. 

17. Tobit – When I read almost all the Old Testament around age 10, this was my favorite chapter.  Looking back, I’m not really sure why I liked it that much, but it is a pleasant story about some good people and has a happy ending.  The main character Tobiah doesn’t do a heck of a lot, but the characters are likable.  It’s a poor man’s Ruth.

18. Isaiah – There is a very well written Bible book.  Any preacher worth half-a-damn ought to borrow from it freely when putting together sermons.  It has some memorable theology, and Chapter 53 sets up Christianity better than any of the other 1,000-plus chapters in the Old Testament.  But it’s also repetitious and full of plenty of generic filler, which is why it doesn’t rank higher.

19. Ben Sira – This is one of those books only Catholics have in their Bible.  I liked this one more than I expected.  Yeah, it’s more random bits of wisdom, like Proverbs or Wisdom.  But I got a definite sense of who Ben Sira must’ve been.  He was a guy who got screwed over in some business dealings and never quite got over it. 

20. Daniel – I don’t know where to rank this one.  It’s all over the map.  It has some pretty memorable images and stories, but they are all randomly thrown together.  It also has a series of visions, and Biblical visionaries never did too much for me. 

21. Hosea  - Here is a memorable Minor Prophet.  Others compare the relationship between the Hebrew and God and declare the Hebrew are wanting – but Hosea takes it quite a bit further.  He marries a prostitute to symbolize the relationship. 

22. Ezra – It’s the first of the two books about rebuilding the Temple (Nehemiah is the second) that end the historical section.  On the one hand, Ezra is a bit nasty as he degrees that the Jews must abandon all the non-Jewish wives they have.  On the other hand, without Ezra, the Jews might melt into the surroundings as a separate people.  He’s the right man at the right place at the right time.  Speaking of being the right man at the right place at the right time, Biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman makes a good argument that Ezra is the editor/creator of the first recognizable Hebrew Bible.  He even comes after pretty much all the prophets.  Once Ezra has arrived, the religion is done with its formative years and won’t need prophets because they have the Bible.  That said, Ezra is more interesting to discuss for his Biblical importance than to read.

23. Numbers – The final three chapters of the Torah (Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) aren’t known for being terribly exciting.  They are mostly about giving laws.  This is the one with the most action of that trio. 

24. Leviticus – It’s not as boring as you think.  (It’s like Canada that way).  It’s known as the most law-heavy book in the Bible – and it surely is – but it can be interesting if you think about what purpose these laws serve and how they impact people’s notions then and now. 

25. Deuteronomy – This is just a series of speeches Moses supposedly gave.  It’s his final words to the Hebrew before they kill everything that moves in Canaan.  It’s a bit redundant of previous books, but it sure has some memorable imagery as Moses lays out his final curses and threats. Also, pretty much all Biblical scholars agree that this is the book discovered during the reign of Josiah noted in Kings II (giving Deuteronomy the reputation as the “pious fraud” of the Bible – a forgery put out by the Josiah-era priests to justify their desired religious reforms). 

26. Maccabees II – The two Maccabees books are less than the sum of their parts.  They overlap, telling much of the same story, which can be annoying.  But they don’t fully overlap, and have a different focus. This one is more religiously geared and is a little easier to follow, hence the slightly higher rank.

27. Maccabees I – This Maccabee focuses more on the political/military efforts of the mid-second century BC.  Normally, that would make it a better read, but it becomes wearying.  There is a nice since of momentum early on, as there is a clear bad guy who is oppressing the Jews, but then he dies and you get an array of names coming-and-going and it’s hard to care about any of them.  It’s like a litany-of-dead-kings history.  This book still has its moments and its best parts might be better than the best parts of Maccabees II, but it’s still a littler lower than it overall. 

28. Ezekiel – He’s not my kind of prophet.  He’s the Bible’s weird and wild visionary prophet.  That doesn’t do much for me.  He does have his moments, though – especially the chapter that inspires the “Dem Bones” song. 

29. Psalms – Many people consider Psalms to be one of the highlights of the Bible.  I don’t get those people.  Actually, I think I do.  Psalms is supposed to go best if you graze, just wander around reading one or two psalms when you’re feeling blue.  It’s not really meant to be read all the way through.  I read them all the way through. It’s the Bataan Death March of Bible reading.  There are a lot of nice psalms here, but you see the same sort of psalm repeated a dozen times each.  And there are some nasty psalms, too – and they also get repeated a bunch. 

30. Nahum – Purely on moral grounds, this one should rank lower, a lot lower; near the bottom in fact.  This one is just a big conga line dance on the grave of Assyria.  Yeah, but: 1) Assyria really was the biggest bully on the block in the ancient Near East, and 2) this is a really well done grave dance.  The doomsday imagery is like something out of a Michael Bay movie – except that Nahum is actually enjoyable. 

31. Joel – This Minor Prophet has some memorable imagery of doom and all that as he talks of a coming apocalypse.  A lot of prophets talk about apocalyptic stuff, but Joel is one of the better ones at it. 

32. Habakkuk – This brief book from the Minor Prophets poses a moral dilemma for God: if you are good, why do bad people prosper?  I give Habakkuk credit for directly taking on that big question, but the execution wasn’t too good, so this one still ranks a bit low.

33. Malachi – This is the last book of the Bible, and I liked it more than most of the Minor Prophets.  I can’t really say why, but I did. 

34. Lamentations – It’s a bunch of poems weeping over the loss of Jerusalem.  They’re basically psalms that aren’t in Psalms.  Lamentations it the breakaway Confederate Republic of Psalms. 

35. Haggai – This is a very short book of prophecy that just tells people to rebuild the temple after the Babylonian Captivity.  It isn’t bad, but it sure is slight. 

36. Zechariah – This is a weak book of prophecy.  The first half are a serious of odd visions, and the second half a bunch of prophesies about how God will be with the Jews. 

37. Micah –I originally had this book a little higher – but then I couldn’t figure out what justified ranking this 35^th.   At seven chapters, he’s one of the longer Minor Prophets.  And there is nothing really bad about it, but there isn’t anything that memorable either.  I guess this is a replacement level Bible book.

38. Baruch – There isn’t much new here.  It rehashes themes that other books have already gone over.  It’s only in the Catholic Bible, and it doesn’t look like Protestants and Jews are missing much by its absence.

39. Wisdom – The only one of the wisdom books to actually use the word “Wisdom” in its name is also easily the worst of the wisdom books.  There are a few interesting parts early on, but most of it is just rehashing (in far too much details) points made previously about why idolatry is wrong.

40. Judith – This is just a dumb story.  Judith kills the head of an enemy army, and all the members of it fall to pieces, stabbing each other.  Sure, losing their leader would cause problems, but this takes it past the point of reasonableness, to put it mildly. 

41. Esther – I couldn’t stand this book.  There is a story and it can be exciting, but I just couldn’t get past the emperor character.  He is both a moral midget and a mental midget.  He isn’t the villain – an underling is – but the emperor is revolting.  His underlying tells him to kill all Jews, so he says OK.  Then his wife says don’t – instead he should kill the underling and all his friends.  So the emperor says OK.  There is no awareness on his part that he’s done anything wrong.  There is just something revolting about this.

42. Chronicles II – The two books of Chronicles are pretty worthless.  They largely just retell the stories of the kings of Israel and Judah.  They almost never add anything new to the story, and are also a more boring read.  Chronicles II bothers to contain at least a few original stories, so it ranks a little higher.

43. Chronicles I – This is the story of David.  It’s mostly the same story as Samuel II, the best part of the Bible.  Not only is almost nothing new added, but plenty of interesting parts are left out, such as Bathsheba.  It’s a whitewashing of the story of David, and that robs the story of its humanity and power. 

44. Zephaniah – There are a dozen books of Minor Prophets in the Bible, but none are as fungible as Zephaniah. It’s short and contains nothing new at all.

45. Obadiah – I just said Zephaniah is the most fungible of all the Minor Prophets, yet I still rank fellow Minor Prophet Obadiah below him.  Yeah, Zephaniah is totally unremarkable, but what is remarkable about Obadiah is negative.  This book – which at one chapter is the shortest in the Old Testament – can be summarized like this: The people of Edom all deserve to die.  Obadiah is just a short, mean-spirited book wishing ill on the Edomites. 

46. Joshua – This book is horrible.  The first half repeatedly, and openly endorses genocide.  Time and time again, we’re told how a city is taken and all people – men, women, and children – are slaughtered to the last person.  The second half of Joshua is among the most boring parts of the Bible.  It’s just a bunch of land distribution, noting a bunch of places and territories that might’ve been familiar to the ancient Hebrew, but aren’t to us now.