Resources to Accompany Your 2026 Come Follow Me Study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Recommendations and suggestions from Wayfare editors and staff
Which translations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament are we using?
The NRSV for accuracy of translation
The HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible offers the full text of the New Revised Standard Version as well as in-depth articles, introductions, and comprehensive notes by today’s leading biblical scholars, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV with the Apocrypha offers even more scholarly depth, commentary, and appendices.
The NIV for bright language and moving interpretation
The Hebrew Bible, a three-volume translation with commentary by Robert Alter, for literary power and intellectually fun footnotes
The English-Hebrew Tanakh from the Jewish Publication Society
The Jewish Study Bible combines the entire Hebrew Bible—in the celebrated Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation—with explanatory notes, introductory materials, and essays by leading biblical scholars on virtually every aspect of the text, the world in which it was written, its interpretation, and its role in Jewish life.
How does one determine the best translation?
Let that question occupy us over a lifetime of study! If you have only the KJV now, enjoy that: it’s a classic translation that formed modern English and the canon as we know it today. If we can save up to purchase whatever our carefully checked favorite translation is (remember that not all translations bring value), we will enrich our study and our bookshelves over time: maybe add and use a new translation every four years? LDS scholar Ben Spackman’s blog has many smart recommendations. —BP
You can use a website like BibleGateway or BibleHub to look at a single verse in every English translation, or to read different translations side by side. Anne and Roger Pimentel did an episode of their podcast “And Yet We Believe” all about different translations of the Bible called “Other Bible Translations: We’ve Got Options,” and they also have an instagram post that gives a helpful overview of some popular choices. —CP
What resources can help make the Old Testament more accessible to children?
The Bible Storybook by Josh and Sarah Sabey (For Little Saints), also available as a podcast from Faith Matters called Scripture Stories for Little Saints, is a beautiful way to tell these stories to children (and bring fresh insights to adults!)
Other Bible Storybooks we use in our house include:
My preference is for gender-neutral language for God, culturally appropriate illustrations (melanated skin tones), stories that are inclusive of women and girls, and no penal substitution atonement theory, so that’s reflected in my choices here. You can often read a sample story or two online, or check them out from a public library before ordering, so you can see if a particular book will be a good fit for your family.
I also like following Meredith Miller on Instagram and Substack, and I’m looking forward to her new book coming out in March called Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love with Scripture. The description says it combines “creative Bible storytelling for kids, fun and engaging conversation prompts for families, and key contextual information for adults. … Each story is accompanied by historical, literary, and cultural background to help parents understand the original form, audience, and intention for the story. Meredith frames each story to help grown-ups talk with kids about how the story’s original audience would have understood it, so kids can understand the life-giving story the Bible invites us all into.” —CP
Scholar Ben Spackman, whose excellent recommendations have been shaping my study for over a decade, recommends The Bible Story Handbook for Primary-age teaching. —BP
What resources can help us focus on doctrines and principles with children and youth?
In Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From, Pastor Meredith Miller writes about how to use the Bible to primarily help children develop a trusting relationship with God (rather than to primarily teach children to obey.) She writes, “I think God, not humans, should be at the center of any story we tell to kids, the one around whom every other event or human action revolves. Every story includes a cast of characters made up of humans, God, and sometimes other aspects of creation, but when we tell a story, we should first look at how God feels, how God responds, and what attribute of God we see highlighted in this particular encounter.” You can read a short excerpt about this here, and find the book online or at your local public library. –CP
What resources will help us center women and women’s stories? Where can I find a feminist approach to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament?
Check out Womanist Midrash by Wilda Gafney. “Gafney uses her own translations and offers midrashic interpretations of the biblical text rooted in the African American preaching and rabbinic traditions to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Grounded in rigorous scholarship, this volume employs solid womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, expanding conversations of and about biblical interpretation.”
I also like to follow comefollowme_women on Instagram—they recommend Seeing Women in the Old Testament. —CP
Seeing Women in the Old Testament by Carli Anderson, Rebekah Call, Lori L. Denning, Amy Easton, Amy H. Fisher, and Catherine Gines Taylor is terrific. —KH
For the more scholarly inclined, start with Lynn Matthews Anderson’s Dialogue classic (1994) article “Toward a Feminist Interpretation of Latter-day Scripture.” For a broader feminist reclamation of the stories of women in the Old Testament, consider Womanist Midrash. For a useful and beautiful Deseret Books resource, check out Women of the Old Testament. In no particular order, a few scholars include Janice Merrill Allred, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Claudia Bushman, Rebekah Call, Amy Easton-Flake, Maxine Hanks, Janiece Johnson, Jennifer C. Lane, Carol Lynn Pearson, Margaret Merrill Toscano, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and, of course, the Church also offers its own course outline for studying women in the scriptures. —BP
What resources will help us understand the historical context of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament?
There are whole shelves devoted to this question: of course the commentary from the NRSV will more than satisfy most readers. But if you want more, why not start with a book that puts the context right next to the text? Consider (another Spackman recommendation) the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, a modern translation of the Bible that outlines at length the context behind each story.
Another excellent introduction comes from Deseret Book: Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. —BP
The World of the Old Testament: A Curious Kid’s Guide to the Bible’s Most Ancient Stories by Marc Olson is aimed at middle grade readers (ages 9-13) but has tons of helpful information for adults, too. You can look at the first few pages (including the table of contents) here. —CP
What additional resources can help make Bible scholarship more accessible?
Hope and Healing in the Hebrew Bible offers a gentle introduction to “Gentile” scholarship on the Old Testament for Latter-day Saints. While writing with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clearly in mind, and frequently referencing sermons and writings by General Authorities, Michael Huston introduces readers to important scholars like Walter Brueggeman, Amy-Jill Levine, Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Coogan, and Kate Bowler. This beautifully balanced approach succeeds in its aim of showing that reading the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanakh through multiple interpretive traditions deepens and enriches the ways that Latter-day Saint Christians can understand these writings. He reads some familiar sections—creation, exodus, David and Bathsheba—and some that we tend to skip over—Leviticus, the story of Huldah, the Psalms—in ways that both honor and challenge conventional LDS readings. This book will reinvigorate your Sunday School preparation or perhaps even teach you how to love the Old Testament for the first time! —KH
I love Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans – “Drawing upon recent scholarship and literary analysis, Evans creatively retells our favorite Bible stories, explaining their contexts and possible interpretations, and then connects these ancient stories to our present-day ones. … Readers are invited to fall in love with Scripture all over again without checking their intellect—or their imaginations—at the door.”
The Bible For Normal People podcast and books aim to bring the best in Biblical scholarship to everyday people. They have an “adult version” of their children’s storybook God’s Stories as told by God’s Children—it’s the same content, minus the illustrations. If you’re interested in scholarship around the composition of the Bible, you can listen to (or read a transcript of) The Bible For Normal People podcast Episode 125: Pete Enns – Big Ideas that Shaped Biblical Scholarship: Julius Wellhausen and the Pentateuch for a crash course in the documentary hypothesis/source criticism/literary criticism, and check the show notes for links to even more resources.
The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler also offers some helpful insights and context; I borrowed my copy from my public library. —CP
I love the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary series. —SMG
I’ve found the YouTube videos at BibleProject quite good, especially as a starting place (billed as nondenominational, the content has an evangelical Christian leaning, which can be great for sparking reflection—“Do I agree with that statement?”) Having accessible (animated) content as a discussion starter is very helpful. For starters, they have a YouTube playlist of short videos on “How to Read the Bible.” –LF
Bible scholar Dan McClellan’s videos have often done a wonderful job catching Latter-day Saints up on the leaps made in biblical scholarship over the past 50 years. —JO
How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel offers more scholarly/academic commentary. Blair Hodges’ Maxwell Institute interview with Kugel is also wonderful.
Deseret Book recently published BYU Professor Joshua Sear’s short, accessible LDS faithful reorientation, A Modern Guide to the Old Testament. (Don’t let the title fool you: it, like much of Ben Spackman’s work, helps reorient us to read the Old Testament through nonmodern eyes.)
There are many titles that promise to make the Old Testament simpler, and I understand the instinct here but consider the opposite for a second: what if, instead of looking for simpler, we could make our approach to the Old Testament harder and healthier, more plain and more reflective? What if, instead of seeking simple answers from experts, we prayerfully asked ourselves plain and simple questions and then let our own study provide the drip-drip-drip of insights, even revelation? For that, in my opinion, we have exactly the right book, one that has probably shaped my study of the Old Testament more than any other than the text itself, BYU philosopher James Faulconer’s The Old Testament Made Harder. Its conceit is rather brilliant: it only asks questions (well informed and framed questions) and it gives no answers. Published in 2014 (before the Come Follow Me manuals), this book may be, yes, the simplest shortcut to deepening and more reflective scripture study. Recommending especially for teachers looking to prompt inspiring questions and more reflective discussion. —BP
The Maxwell Institute is also starting a weekly series where scholars reflect on the Old Testament as Latter-day Saints study it in Come, Follow Me called Old Testament Reflections.
Where can I find a timeline or graphic showing when everything happened and where to find it?
The Church has issued several resources: here’s a linear overview (without dates) for the Old Testament at the start of Come Follow Me; here’s an at-a-glance timeline as well as a more detailed chronology. All dates should be understood as approximate (especially around the mythological stories). —BP
What resources can help me understand Isaiah?
The LDS tradition offers a distinct approach to Isaiah and its relationship to restored scripture: namely, BYU religion professor and LDS philosopher Joseph Spencer has helped renew and restore understanding of Isaiah through two (of his many) scholarly books A Word in Season and The Vision of All, both of which reinterpret the words of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. How does the Book of Mormon read Isaiah? Start with a YouTube interview with the author. —BP
How to read the Bible: The Changing Cosmos and Tuesday Afternoon Tests
Beyond what to read, there is also how to read—and Wayfare editors recommend reading the actual text and then finding inspiration in it.
A good study of scripture slowly stretches us in two directions simultaneously. Our study should both (1) estrange (or defamiliarize) and (2) connect (or refamiliarize) ourselves with the meanings in scripture text.
In other words, a next-step understanding of scripture should, first, involve reading the actual text. That means not knowing all the Sunday School answers (especially in Sunday School!), actually letting the text challenge our understanding, and taking a bit more risk, curiosity, and awe in interpreting the text as our understanding of the gap animating past and present grows.
Whatever else we conclude, a close reading of the Old Testament will remind us again and again that ancient Hebrews lived more differently than Latter-day Saints do (and should). (How many Semitic-speaking Canaanite nomadic pastoralists originally from Mesopotamia enduring enslavement, conquest, and exile have you met at Cafe Rio recently?) Call this first test “the changing cosmos test”: does our approach to scripture study help us find inspiration across worlds of difference between the worlds that produced ancient scriptures and our world now reading it?
And, then, just as importantly, our study aims, second, to reconnect us back more firmly to the present world; in other words, our study succeeds when it passes what we might call “the Tuesday afternoon test”: how does our study of scripture reanimate or color how we live, say, the coming Tuesday afternoon? (We might just meet plenty of folks suffering discrimination at Cafe Rio!)
These two tests stretch us in both directions on purpose: the changing cosmos test defamiliarizes (or estranges) us from the world that produced the text because we are actually reading and understanding the text in its context, and the Tuesday afternoon test refamiliarizes (or connects) the insights from reading the text to our everyday lives here and now.
No less than heaven on earth can be found and rebuilt in the spaces opened up in such soul-stretching saving readings.
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