I've never had any problem reading any book, obviously with the exception of ones written in foreign languages I don't speak at all. You can't fake it if you don't know anything at all. (trying to read chinese characters like Ezra Pound who squinted at them for obvious pictographic meanings.)

But there's one exception, my black horse.

I tried to skim the Bible (Old and New Testament), in multiple translations. Including easy ones, dumbed-down ones, ones for deaf readers, etc.

I thought that as literally millions of people have read this stuff for literally hundreds of years, and it permeates every part of western culture, it would be a walk through the park. Much easier than "more difficult" or specialized stuff.

This is not true. I found it absolutely horrific to try to read it from beginning to end. It's very difficult and basically I gave up, even in situations where I had no other reading material and absoluetly nothing else to do except drink some coffee and try to read it. I found the old and new testaments are unreadable.

This is not just because of the subject matter. For example (I've said this elsewwhere) I found the Qu'ran an incredibly easy skim. You can do it in an hour. (easily, and for meaning.)

Just try it:

http://www.nooresunnat.com/Audio/Complete%20Quran/Quran%20Tr...

This is just 566 pages triple-spaced with mostly blank lines, it's like 180 actual pages. It's incredibly repetitive. You can really stop on the parts that say something.

The whole thing doesn't say much, there's not all this useless geneology and history and names and such. It's easy.

Start skimming now and you'll be done by the time you get an answer to a quick email you just sent. 20-40 minutes if you're fast.

So it's not me. It's not hte subject matter. It's just that the old and new testaments are not the same at all. they're incredibly dense books that somehow made it into our culture while being totally unreadable sequentially. (for understanding.)

obviously it's fine to look up specific verses in. but as a book? Forget it. Even if you're stuck on an island with nothing else, it makes for the most impossible reading you'll ever find in a language you speak.