Welcome to the Bible Study Man website where I hope we can learn together what The Bible has to teach us. My aim is to bring this amazing book alive in a fresh, interesting and sometimes challenging way!

I have divided the site into four main sections detailed below. Feel free to explore and if there's anything you can't find or understand - get in touch!

Carl Nielsen, January 2018

P.S. If you'd be happy to sign up for the monthly newsletter I'll keep in touch with you once a month (no more, I promise!) via email to let you know my progress.

The Four Main Sections

The Bible

Do you know the difference between The Lord and The Lord?

Well, in English there isn't much! Especially if you're dyslexic like me, you might have missed that the first one is in small caps and the second one isn't. But in the original Hebrew, the difference is huge. ‘The Lord’ (small caps) is Yahweh - The special name of God which he revealed to Moses in the famous I AM passage in Exodus 3:14-16. The other ‘The Lord’ is Adonai which is a title of respect rather than a name. I believe God wants his name to be revealed and not hidden behind one of his titles.

And then there are the Greek words for love, most often agape (selfless love) and phileo (deep friendship), usually treated the same in English, though they carry very different meanings.

I wanted a translation that brought out these nuances, but existing interlinear texts were too clumsy for daily use. So I created a minor adaptation of the public-domain World English Bible. My version highlights these distinctions - divine names, place names, and other key terms.

That's why I now render YHWH as ForeverOne and Adonai as LordOfMine. So the words can breathe again, as they were first spoken.

Bible Reading Plan

Have you ever tried to read The Bible from cover to cover?

If not and you'd like to, then this day-by-day plan will help you to read the entire Bible in one year. It takes less than half an hour a day, even if you're a slow reader like me!

The plan is based around four traditional sections - The Law (Torah or Pentateuch); The Prophets (Neviim); The Writings or Poetry (Ktuviim) and The New Testament.

As a sample, today's sections to read are Deuteronomy Chapter 28 verses 15 to 29. Follow that by reading from Habakkuk Chapter 2 verse 12 to Chapter 3 verse 19. Follow that by reading Daniel Chapter 4 verses 24 to 37; and lastly from Revelation Chapter 8 verse 12 to Chapter 9 verse 16. Enjoy!

Dramatic Bible Readings

Have you noticed that people often read The Bible without emotion?

There'll be none of that here! If you read the texts it is sometimes clear that the speaker is angry or sad, other times not so much. For example was Peter saying “If YOU say so...” or “IF you SAY so...” in Luke 5:5? We can't know for sure. But I feel that a little conjecture can help throw some light, providing we know we're guessing!

So what I'm attempting is to bring The Bible to life with very expressive readings. I doubt my interpretation always accurately reflects the mood or emotional tone of the original, but I think it's an interesting and sometimes enlightening alternative to the usual formal reading style.

Online Teaching Sessions

Would you think I've learnt anything by reading The Bible from-cover-to-cover many times over several years? I certainly hope I have! I also learnt from my time wrestling with clinical depression.

What I've come to call The Nielsen Creed has it's roots in that time:

God is God

God is Good

I am His

and He is mine

I unpack this and other subjects in this growing library of video and audio sessions.

On the live sessions interaction is encouraged.