This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 21, God Will Honor Those Who Honor Him. Please see my article, Chiasms in 1 Samuel II.
Lesson 21 covers parts of I Samuel chapters 2, 3, & 8.
Don't forget to read your Book of Mormon today.
This post celebrates Father's Day. We call God our Heavenly Father, but prophetic literature (the scriptures) has hundreds of names, titles, descriptions, characteristics and symbols for Deity. See my articles, The Names of God, and Los Nombres de Dios.
My wife and I served a six year mission in the Spanish branch in our stake from 2000 to 2006. During this time I translated my Names of God article into Spanish. Well, into Spanglish, actually. Así que si hay imprefecciones, son mías, y agradezco todas las sugerencias que me quieran enviar.
While I was translating the article, I made a lot of very interesting discoveries that I tried to include in the Spanish version. I'd be interested in your comments, both pro and con.
As an aside, you might be interested to know that the Quran contains 99 Names of God.
I have about twenty English translations and one Spanish translation of the Quran. The two that seem to be the best (and most impartial) are the Ali Quli Qara'i (2005) and the Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem (2005) translations. Warning: these are both fairly large PDF files. I think it would be worth everyone's while to read this great book.
The Foreword to the Pikthall (1930) translation says, "The Koran cannot be translated. .. Every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. .. (English) can never take the place of the Koran in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so." Watch Abu Rumaysah's video series about translations of the Quran.
I wonder if some of the same things could be said about the insights you get reading The Book of Mormon in other languages.
I have the audio files for both the English and Spanish scriptures on my computer and I like to listen to both. Now I'm not going to get into an argument about the merits of reading versus listening except to say that both methods have their pros and cons.
The important thing is that you immerse yourself daily in the Book of Mormon, in whatever language, and by whatever method works for you.
This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 20, "All the City . . . Doth Know That Thou Art a Virtuous Woman, which is taken from the book of Ruth and from the first two chapters of 1 Samuel.
Please see my articles, Chiasms in Ruth and Chiasms in 1 Samuel I.
Read the Book of Mormon.
This is a special post showing how Jesus Christ is found throughout the Old Testament in prophecies and in "types" and "shadows". Please see my article Types of Christ.
The words "types" and "shadows" do NOT appear in the King James Bible. [The word "shadow" is used 68 times in the Old testament, but, as far as I can tell, never in the sense intended by this Post.] This is one of the truths restored through The Prophet Joseph Smith. Students of the Bible in all religions today, however, talk about the "types" and "shadows" of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. This seems to be one restored teaching that has caught on even though it is true.
There are lots of really good sectarian videos online that discuss this subject. Here are four that you might enjoy watching. The image above comes from one of them.
Daniel John (1:07:41). Amir Tsarfati (50:22). Robert Breaker (1:00:30). James Bynum (50:26).
If you watch these, you'll discover that my article is far from complete.
Have you read a chapter or two in your Book of Mormon today?
