When he volunteered to teach a Bible study course, Donald E. Knuth, computer scientist, master programmer, creator of TeX, inventor of Literate Programming, and author of The Art of Computer Programming, pondered the two main ways of reading the Bible.

Method 1: We can read it straight through, for context. By reading at normal speed, we can follow the flow of ideas and get intuitive impressions, just as the first readers and hearers of those words might have done. Or, Method 2: We can single out isolated verses, for meditation and/or scholarly study. By focusing on small details, it’s possible to understand the deeper significance of a passage.

Both of these ways are important. Method 2 is most satisfactory for group study, since Method 1 works best when a person can read at leisure and without interruption.

My idea for a Bible class was based on a fourth way to select Bible verses for study, making use of a mathematical principle that provides an effective way to gain knowledge about complicated things: A large body of information can be comprehended reasonably well by studying more or less random portions of the data. The technical term for this approach is stratified sampling.

Knuth’s idea was to pick a chapter and verse number, essentially at random (but with the chapter and verse numbers not so large they excluded too many shorter books and chapters), then examine that chapter and verse from each book in detail.