OK, I’ve basically finished the Old Testament. I did not read every single word, I really don’t have the patience. Many of the books (especially the prophets) were simply the warnings about the judgement of God on Israel and Judah. They talk about how the people and kings of Israel and Judah worshiped other gods and how angry God was over and over and over. Seriously, I estimate that 3/4 of the Old Testament can be paraphrased with, “You have sinned against God, you and your descendants will be punished by marauding armies from other nations. You will mostly be wiped out, but the people that survive will come back from exile and enjoy a great life as long as they do what they are supposed to.” If idol worship isn’t a problem, you can pretty much ignore the vast majority of the Old Testament if you’re a Christian. I also did not have the patience to read about the judgement on the other nations like Babylon and Edom. What are we supposed to do with prophecies that have already come to pass? Why should we care about these particular passages when those nations and gods are long gone? There were a few opaque references to what I assume is the Messiah. Most of them are pretty vague, and there is more than a little reaching needed in order to think that the Messiah is involved at all. On top of that, for every sentence about the Messiah, there are probably 100-150 about Babylon or the Philistines. I also couldn’t help but notice the complete lack of prophecies about the Romans, Islam, or the Nazis. Sure, maybe God expected everyone to follow Jesus, but there are zero prophecies about Christians and their troubles with the aforementioned groups. The signal to noise ratio is pretty low in most of the books. I really had to search for anything of value that I could take away from most books.
There are exceptions of course. Jonah was illuminating, and mercifully short. Job is, in my mind, the standout in the Old Testament. It asks some pretty direct, critical questions of God, about faith, and the payout we should expect. Some of those questions are answered, sort of. It’s complicated, but at least it deals with some real religious issues and isn’t mostly irrelevant history like the rest of the Old Testament. Read Job, maybe Jonah, but don’t bother with the rest unless you need to know every prophecy against those good for nothing Israelites…