I would not advise you to read the bible as part of your English language studies, as it will be too tiresome, unnecessary and will not help you with speaking Modern day English anywhere near as much as you're hoping. I am not a Christian, and coming from a secular country I believe that Western culture does have its basis in the basic beliefs and morals of the Christian faith (for example do not steal, do not kill) but aside from that, English speakers have developed their own culture which differs from country to country. I'm sorry, but I believe you buying the Bible was a waste of money from an English learning viewpoint.

I just completely agree with David Buckingham's opinion. It depends but it'd better if you started from the New Testament. It'd be very worth for you. I bet.

I have read the whole bible through a number of times. Reading the Bible will not help very much with learning modern English as the KJV version of the Bible used to be the common book for the English-speaking world but isn't any more. If you wish to understand the christian aspect of western society, it is very important to read the Bible. Don't start at the beginning though, read through the 'New Testament' starting with the part called 'Matthew'. The Bible is arguably the basis for most of western values.

well , not just the malay language . (by the way .apa kabar :) ) well the other languages too ,such as indian , persian , spanish , urdo , and the countries in the north of Asia . and thats because they read the quran , and other things related to islamic teaching . by the way , what do you know about islam ?

I think religion and philosophy are parts of a language. For instance, Chinese were influenced by Buddhism when those sutras were translated into Chinese. Also, Confucianism and Taoism both have profound influence on Chinese. However, I have to admit that they have lesser influence on modern Mandarin. For my national language, Malay, there is an apparent influence from Islam as it had loaned a lot of words from Arabic.