Notes on Reading the Full Bible with the BCP Office

What readings are missed if following the Book of Common Prayer (BCP, or prayer book) reading cycle (e.g. divine services)?

Please email me with any corrections identified, or work that is done elsewhere. This is a work in-progress.

Introduction

I was raised with the Cambridge King James Bible, without the Aprocrypha. I read the Bible regularly, but would start at page 1 of Genesis and read as-is to the end. I lived in England and Wales, where I ultimately became enamored of the Church of England.

When I joined The Episcopal Church (TEC, what was the Church of England in the American colonies before the revolution), I followed the two year 1979 daily office cycle, but it does not cover the entire Bible either, (even without the Apocrypha). The Eucharistic service is not intended to read the whole of scripture through the year, but instead give a selection of it, and is a separate lectionary from the Daily Office.

This page looks to fill in the reading cycle of the 1662 BCP, using tables from the 1871 revision of the original 1662 tables, and the revised table of 1922, intended to have greater consistency with the calendar feasts and liturgical cycle, as well as return to the use of the Apocrypha. Also intended to be looked at is the TEC BCP 1979 Daily Office Lectionary.

Original 1662

What verses from the KJB are missing if using the original 1662 lectionary tables? Numbering is by chapter, (so a missing verse would look like 10.5, as in chapter 10, verse 5). The selections below are those readings that are not read throughout the year:

BCP 1662, 1871 table

The main purpose of the 1871 table seems to be getting rid of most of the Apocrypha readings from the original 1662 table, increasing the rest of the readings, including Revelations, but with more selective readings from each book. The selections below are those readings that are not read throughout the year.

I'm still working through this table and will continue to fill this in what is missing, so check back. Sundays are not complete for the Old Testament, and all of the New Testament.

The way the 1871 table is laid out is a bit confusing at first. When something says read 2, V.4, it means read chapter 2, verse 4 to the end, or the short hand I use below (for what is not read) would be 2.4-. When it says to read 18, to V. 17 it means to look at the last chronolgically defined book (in this case from January, it is Genesis) and read chapter 18.1-16, the to representing the stopping point. You can see this in sequences where a chapter carries on reading starting from 17 to whatever as defined, as this examples demonstrates. It is also to be noted that the Sunday lessons are distinct from the calendar, which are Old Testament readings paired with the Holy Communion Sunday New Testament readings.

©David Egan Evans.