CHIASMS IN LEVITICUS

The LDS Gospel Doctrine lessons skip right over Leviticus, but I thought I'd see what I could put together anyway. See my Leviticus article.

The material in Leviticus was revealed about a year after Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness. This could be anywhere from as early as about 1550 BC to as late as 1220 BC, as I've documented in previous posts.

In my Patriarchs Timeline I guesstimated the start of the Exodus as 1552 BC. In my article about the strange ages of the four Patriarchs, I guessed 1491 BC.

One guess is as good as another. Don Fortner has 1490 BC, and Chuck Swindoll and Frank DeCanio both have 1446 BC, just to give a few you can look up for yourself.

The Old Testament Student Manual doesn't really pin down any date, but suggests some possible synchronisms with known Egyptian rulers. It favors a later date rather than an earlier one, and mentions 1220 BC as a date when the "Habiru" were already in Canaan. But they could have arrived much earlier.

It took a long time to format all the chiasms in Leviticus that I found online. If you want to see a really ambitious approach to Leviticus, see Chaver. Someone please explain it to me.

In retrospect, a lot of the chiasms in my two Exodus articles might have been the result of people looking for patterns where there really are none. What do you think?

You are expecting me to remind you to read your Book of Mormon, but I've decided not to say anything about that in this post.

CHIASMS IN EXODUS II

This post accompanies gospel doctrine lesson 14, "Ye Shall Be a Peculiar Treasure unto Me". This lesson is based on selected events from Exodus 15 through 40. I cover some of the chiasms in these chapters in Exodus Chiasms II.

The Ten Commandments Written by the Finger of God by Arnold Friberg.

Latter-day Saints believe the two sets of tablets contained different material. The first set contained the full Gospel, with the covenants and ordinances of the Melchizedec priesthood. The Israelites showed by the Golden Calf incident that they were not ready for the Gospel, so the second set of tablets contained the Law of Carnal Commandments, which was administered by the lesser Aaronic priesthood. See articles about the Law of Moses in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, in the Bible Dictionary, and in the Guide to the Scriptures.

Moses fights Amalek by Michelangelo.

Many paintings, and even statues, show Moses with "horns". The KJV translation of Exodus 34:29-35 tells us that when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the stone tablets, "the skin of his face shone". Some Bible translations render this as "his face had horns". Read a good explanation in Jonathan Lipnick's article at Israel Institute of Biblical Studies. See a collection of depictions of a horned Moses in art on YouTube.

Why do you suppose people are so quick to grab onto something that is nonsense and at the same time ignore things of real significance? (See Matthew 23:24.)

To help clear YOUR head of ideas about Moses with horns coming out of HIS head, be sure to read your Book of Mormon.

WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS

In addition to not knowing with any certainty WHEN the Exodus happened, there is no solid archaeological evidence about WHERE any of the events took place. For example, about two dozen locations for Mount Sinai have been proposed, and there is no agreement whether Horeb and Sinai were the same.

The best information I've found is at the LDS.org Bible Maps page Israel's Exodus from Egypt and Entry into Canaan. See a higher resolution map.

Do you know where your Book of Mormon is tonight?

CHIASMS IN EXODUS I

This post accompanies gospel doctrine lesson 13, Bondage, Passover, and Exodus. This lesson is based on selected events from Exodus 1 through 15. See my article "Bondage, Passover, Exodus" on Google Drive or OneDrive.

When was the Exodus? Here is the first page of the 2013 LDS King James Bible Chronology.

In my "Chronology of the Patriarchs" article on Google Drive or OneDrive, I used 1491 BC as the date of the Exodus. In the Chronology of the Patriarchs post itself, I gave a list of dates for the birth of Abraham taken from various authors. 1491 BC is no better than any of the others. I use it in the timeline below merely to give you some idea about how long ago these events took place.

What, then, were the events of the Exodus?

I'll cover the first half of this timeline today, and the second half next week.

Up until now I've included ALL the Hebrew poems I know about from my years of collecting them on the internet. After Exodus, I plan to only show the BEST chiasms from the material.

I hope you are faithfully reading your Book of Mormon every day.

JOSEPH IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS III

This is the third of three posts about the life of Joseph. This is Joseph in the Book of Genesis III.

Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh by Benjamin West

I like to read the Book of Mormon in bed before I go to sleep at night. How about you?

JOSEPH IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS II

This is the second of three posts about the life of Joseph. This is Joseph in the Book of Genesis II.

Joseph Resists Potiphar's Wife by Del Parton

I hope you made time to read your Book of Mormon today.