10000 TO 9000 BC

This 45th post presents an outline of information about the period from 10000 to 9000 BC.

These Outlines of Prehistory are just that: Outlines. They contain links to additional information. Each one is a work in progress and none of them is as complete or as well organized as I would have liked. I hope you enjoy them anyway.

"I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a better position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive Heaven's help in our lives." Thomas S. Monson.

CHIASMS IN I KINGS I

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 26, King Solomon: Man of Wisdom, Man of Foolishness.

This is the first of three lessons from 1 Kings and includes material from 1 Kings 1 – 11.

Raphael (1483-1520): The Judgment of Solomon, fresco, Vatican City.

See my article, Chiasms in I Kings. This contains all the chiasms in I Kings and is being used in the posts for Gospel Doctrine lessons 26, 27, and 28.

"The full power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is contained in the Book of Mormon. Period." Russell M. Nelson, October, 2017. Read your Book of Mormon.

HARMONY OF S-K-C III

This is the third of eight parts of my Harmony of the material in 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, and parts of Isaiah and Jeremiah: Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles Part III.

These thirty pages contain parts of 1 Kings (chapters 1-7), 2 Samuel (chapter 23), 1 Chronicles (chapters 22-29), and 2 Chronicles (chapters 1-3).

One thing you'll have noticed is that there are long stretches where the narrative exists in only one of the two sources. It is safe to say that a LOT of material has been lost. It is probable that parts of the original writing have been removed from BOTH versions.

Another thing to notice is that there are never more than two side-by-side versions of the narrative. Compare that to the four parallel versions of the Gospels.

Finally, the book I chose to put on the left determined the order of things on the right. I chose Samuel before Kings, and Kings before Chronicles, because that's their order in our KJV Old Testament. If I'd put Chronicles on the left, the narrative might be in a slightly different chronological order.

"Ten or fifteen minutes a day with the scriptures, and particularly with the Book of Mormon, can give you marvelous understanding of the great eternal truths which have been preserved by the power of the Almighty for the blessing of His children. As you read of the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will draw closer to Him who is the author of our salvation." Gordon B. Hinckley.

40000 TO 10000 BC

This 42nd post presents the material I've compiled about the period from 40000 to 10000 BC. As you can see from the map below, human migrations out of Africa began around 200,000 years before the present.

Map from the April 2018 National Geographic Magazine.

"There is a power in the Book of Mormon which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the straight and narrow path." Ezra Taft Benson.

CHIASMS IN PSALMS

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 25, "Let Every Thing That Hath Breath Praise the Lord".

Lesson 25 is about some Prophecies of Christ found in Psalms. The Scriptures also contain Types of Christ, which was the subject of my June 3 Post to this blog.

Robert Alden wrote three articles about the chiasms in Psalms. You can find them at Monergism, or read them on Google Drive: Psalms 1-50, Psalms 51-100, and Psalms 101-150.

I spent many hours trying to compile my own article with the chiasms in Psalms. One of my main sources made the headers to the Psalms verse 1, and then verse 1 became verse 2, and so on. I gave up trying to renumber all this material to match what's in the Bible. Another frustration was that some sources use the KJV text and some use text from one of the "modern" translations. All my compilations suffer from that problem.

A footnote on page 191 in Alden's second article explains that some translations of the Hebrew Bible consider the titles of the Psalms to be the first verses. Although that sounds like a good explanation, I looked at several Hebrew Bibles online, and none of them did that. It is often hard to find the "true facts" about anything.

"I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies." Jeffrey R. Holland.

HARMONY OF S-K-C II

This is the second of eight parts of my Harmony of the material in 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, and parts of Isaiah and Jeremiah: Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles Part II.

These thirty pages contain part of 2 Samuel (chapters 12-24) alongside a small part of 1 Chronicles (chapters 11, 21, and 22).

"When you feel weak, discouraged, depressed, or afraid, open the Book of Mormon and read." Boyd K. Packer.

PEOPLE BEFORE ADAM AND EVE

In this 39th post I'm introducing a topic that may upset some of you. There is undeniable evidence from many different scientific disciplines that man has been on this planet for several tens of thousands of years. They looked like us, wore clothing, used fire, had language, culture, and religion, and displayed all the other trappings of modern men. They lived here long before Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden.

During the rest of the year I'll be publishing articles I've compiled about the various time periods recognized by modern archaeology, paleontology, and other sciences, such as Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and so on.

I'll introduce this topic with an article I published in another blog I had in 2008, Darwinism: People Before Adam and Eve".

Here is a table of the posts in this series.

Post 42	40000 - 10000 BC
Post 45	10000 - 9000 BC
Post 48	9000 - 8000 BC
Post 51	8000 - 7000 BC
Post 54	7000 - 6000 BC
Post 57	6000 - 5000 BC
Post 60	5000 - 4000 BC
Post 62	4000 - 3000 BC
Post 64	3000 - 2000 BC
Post 66	2000 - 1000 BC
Post 69	1000 - 900 BC
Post 71	900 - 800 BC
Post 74	800 - 700 BC
Post 76	700 - 600 BC
Post 78	600 - 500 BC
Post 80	500 - 400 BC
Post 82	400 - 300 BC
Post 84	300 - 200 BC
Post 86	200 - 100 BC
Post 88	100 - 1 BC
Post 90	The Intertestamental Period

I encourage you to read your Book of Mormon and pray about it. If you do so with faith in Jesus Christ, with sincerity, and with real intent (to do something about the answer), your testimony will be strengthened.

CHIASMS IN II SAMUEL

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 24, "Create in Me a Clean Heart". Please see my article, Chiasms in II Samuel.

Lesson 24 includes parts of II Samuel 11-12, and Psalm 51.

Pieter Lastman - David Gives the Letter to Uriah.
2 Samuel 11:14-15

2 Samuel 12:1-7

A few days ago I finished reading the English Book of Mormon and started the Spanish version while listening to the audio files. In 1 Nephi 1 I discovered some discrepancies between the text and the audio. There were additional or missing words and phrases. I even found a grammatical error! I started making a list of my discoveries. I sent several inquiries to LDS.org. No reply yet.

HARMONY OF S-K-C I

In this 37th post, I'm going to show you part of a Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles that I put together between 2006 and 2011. This is one of my more ambitious projects, and the whole thing is 248 pages long. I've divided it into eight parts as shown in the table below.

Post 37	Part I		Pages 1-30
Post 40	Part II	HARMONY	Pages 31-60
Post 43	Part III	of	Pages 61-90
Post 46	Part IV	SAMUEL,	Pages 91-120
Post 49	Part V	KINGS,	Pages 121-150
Post 52	Part VI	and	Pages 151-180
Post 55	Part VII	CHRONICLES	Pages 181-210
Post 58	Part VIII		Pages 221-240

Without further ado, here is my Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, Part I.

These thirty pages contain parts of 1 Samuel (chapter 31), 2 Samuel (chapters 1-12), and 1 Chronicles (chapter 3, and 10-20).

There are several places in the Scriptures where you can find multiple accounts of the same events.

For example, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are versions of the stories of Jesus written by different men. In my second post, How I Got Started, I showed a page from a Gospel Harmony I made in Spanish on my mission in Uruguay. People have been trying to "harmonize" the four Gospels ever since the 2nd century AD. You can see an LDS version in your LDS King James Bible or online at Harmony of the Gospels. There are MANY different versions online.

In my 4th and 6th posts I presented my own Harmonies of The Creation of the Earth and The Fall of Adam and Eve.

Most harmonies attempt to put the events written by different writers in chronological order. In 1996 I put together a harmony of Omni, Words, and Mosiah in the Book of Mormon to keep track of where events were taking place as people moved around from the Land of Nephi, to the Land of Zarahemla, to the Land of Helam, and in the Wilderness. Read A Guide to Omni Through Mosiah.

When we get to Isaiah later on this year, I'll show you a harmony I created of the parts of Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon. That will be in October. Gospel Doctrine lessons 36 to 40 teach some of the ideas in Isaiah.

I try to read the Book of Mormon every year. I'm lazy and didn't get started this year until January 30. There are 239 chapters. My goal was to read at least a chapter a day. I finished yesterday. This has done me a lot of good. You'd benefit from doing it yourself. I've started listening to the Book of Mormon in Spanish.

One of my projects, which unfortunately can't be presented in this blog, is a harmony of the original 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon alongside the 1985 Book of Mormon. I have photos of every page of the 1830 edition together with side-by-side text. I'd be thrilled to give you the whole thing on a DVD if you are interested. (Oh, I crack myself up sometimes!)

CHIASMS IN I SAMUEL IV

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 23, "The Lord Be Between Thee and Me For Ever". Please see my article, Chiasms in 1 Samuel IV.

Lesson 23 covers 1 Samuel 18-20; 23-24.

Jonathan was roughly thirty years older than David. This beautiful stained glass window gets it backwards.

David and Jonathan - Cathedral of St. Raphael, Dubuque, Iowa.

Artist Frederick Leighton's Jonathan's Token to David gets the ages a little closer to reality. See 1 Samuel 20:11-13. But, when this event occurred, David would have been about 18 and Jonathan would have been about 48, so Leighton underestimated their ages. Also see this chronology, always keeping in mind that "for every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert".

"I promise that as you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions every day." Russell M. Nelson.

CHIASMS IN I SAMUEL III

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 22, "The Lord Looketh on the Heart". Please see my article, Chiasms in 1 Samuel III.

Lesson 22 covers 1 Samuel 9-11; 13:1-14; 15-17.

William Ladd Taylor - David playing his lyre
for King Saul. (1 Samuel 16:17-23)

Arsen Kurbanov - David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17)

"Regardless of how many times you previously may have read the Book of Mormon, [every time you read it] there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord." Gordon B. Hinckley. Today is a good day to Read the Book of Mormon.