The bible is made up of two sections, the first section is called The Old Testament and contains thirty nine books, each book has been divided into chapters and each chapter into verses.  Similarly the second section is called The New Testament, it contains twenty seven books, each book has been divided into chapters and each chapter into verses. Normally at the beginning of the bible there  is a list of the books of each of the Testaments with their full name and abbreviated name and the page number.  So Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1 would be Gen 1v1. Where I am using scripture,  I will say where the text comes from in the bible, so if you want to, look up the scripture for yourself. Where there are too many texts, I will have a number in a bracket and a list of related scriptures will be shown in an appendix.

Do not allow anyone to teach you that the narrative of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all written some 40 years after Christ's resurrection.  This is unacceptable and allows the argument that the scriptures have been corrupted over time through memory lapses.  If this were the case one would be able to understand that argument.  When you read the gospel accounts, especially John's account of Jesus' words at the last supper, it is obvious that they were written down and those that were not John14 v26 would have covered.  I have often had scriptures brought back to my rememberance by The Holy Spirit, that is a part of what He does.  When Christians attend a conference they often make notes, particularly if there is an anointed speaker.  How much more would God have the words of Jesus recorded by one or more of His disciples for the sake of those who were to follow Him in subsequent generations.  Not all of Jesus' disciples were illiterate fishermen.  It may well have been that these recorded accounts were not fully collated for some 40 years into what we know today as the gospels.

I would encourage you  to focus your biblical reading on the New Testament in the first instance, then when you have a good working knowledge of  the New Testament progress on to the Old Testament.  Some parts of the bible you will not understand without Divine revelation, some parts seem to be beyond our understanding.  With these parts it is best to bypass them and leave them on the shelf for some other time, for there is plenty that you will understand and that will be  quite challenging enough.  You can read both Old and New Testaments with confidence that they are accurate and I can give you a number of reasons why.

Many of the name of the towns and cities that are mentioned in the bible are still called that today and many are in the same place which is evidence in itself, e.g. Jerusalem, Damascus, Gaza, Bethlehem, the Red Sea, Galilee, the Dead Sea, the river Jordan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Rome, Lebanon, and Syria.

First - archaeology.  Many archaeological findings support the historical records in the bible according to text books on the subject for both the location of ancient cities and settlements both in Israel and the surrounding countries. Use Wikipedia to check these things out.

At Caesarea a monumental stone on which is inscribed the name of Pontius Pilate called the Pilate stone was found in 1961 and is now in a Museum in Israel.

The five porches by the Pool of Bethesda has been found as in John 5v8.

The water tunnel which Hezekiah one of the Old Testament Kings had hewn out of solid rock has been found 2Kings 20 v20.

Senator Tacitus a Roman historian recorded statements in AD116 of opponents of Christianity around AD64 when Emperor Nero blamed Christians for the great fire of Rome.  This contains independent evidence of a historic Jesus being crucified by Pontius Pilate.

One of the criticisms made against the biblical account of the existence of King David and his dynasty was that given its dominance and duration we would have expected some archaeological evidence, and none existed. Then in 1993-1994 the Tel Dan inscription was found at Tel Dan in northern Israel, which makes reference to King David.

It seems as if the stones are even crying out.