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.

CHIASMS IN I SAMUEL II

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.

John Singleton Copley – Samuel tells Eli
the Judgments of God on His House.

Don't forget to read your Book of Mormon today.

THE NAMES OF GOD

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.

CHIASMS IN RUTH AND I SAMUEL I

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.

Robert T. Barrett - Ruth Pledges her Loyalty to Naomi.

Rembrandt van Rijn - Ruth and Boaz.

Read the Book of Mormon.

TYPES OF CHRIST

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?

CHIASMS IN JUDGES

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 19, The Reign of the Judges. Please see my article, Chiasms in Judges.

Here's a table showing the number of years in each section of the narrative. If you add up the years in the table below, they total MORE than the number of years between the death of Joshua and Saul becoming King of Israel (470 versus 334 years). Some of the periods must overlap. Notice how many of these periods are factors or multiples of forty. Why? These periods may be somewhat artificial. For an interesting discussion of the number 40 in the Bible, see Meaning of Numbers in the Bible.

8		Oppression – Cushan-rishathaim		Judges 3:8
40		Othniel		Judges 3:11
18		Oppression – Eglon, king of Moab		Judges 3:14
80		Ehud		Judges 3:30
20		Oppression – Jabin, king of Hazor		Judges 4:3
40		Deborah – Barak (Righteous)		Judges 5:31
7		Oppression – The Midianites		Judges 6:1
40		Gideon (Righteous)		Judges 8:28
3		Abimelech's rule		Judges 9:22
23		Tola		Judges 10:2
22		Jair		Judges 10:3
18		Oppression – The Ammonites.		Judges 10:8
6		Jephthah		Judges 12:7
7		Ibzan		Judges 12:9
10		Elon		Judges 12:11
8		Abdon		Judges 12:14
40		Oppression – The Philistines		Judges 13:1
20		Samson		Judges 15:20; 16:31
40		Eli – Priest in Shiloh		1 Samuel 4:18
20		Samuel – The Ark in Kirjath-jearim		1 Samuel 7:2

Read the Book of Mormon.

THE GDPR – A SPECIAL POST

When I opened my Old Testament Blog to upload today's post I found this message:

This must be the Blogger GDPR notice, but it does NOT appear in my blog. So I hereby take it on myself to inform my readers.

I posted the following three articles about the GDPR on Facebook on Thursday, May 24. The GDPR went into effect on Friday, May 25.

Grant Cottam
May 24 at 11:07am

Tomorrow the GDPR goes into effect. This article explains it. Today I got YELP's new Privacy Policy email, and over the past month or so I've gotten PP emails from many other services and groups I use.

This article claims the GDPR is a step forward in safeguarding your Privacy, but when I read YELP's PP document, what I got out of it is that YELP will "share" your information with unspecified "third parties" and will even allow unspecified "third parties" to gather their own information from you with cookies and by other methods.

And there ain't anything y'all can do about it, short of shutting down your modem and router.

Here's why you've been getting so many privacy policy and terms of service updates lately

All those updated privacy policy notices in your inbox are coming from a new European internet privacy law.

POPSCI.COM

Grant Cottam
May 24 at 11:10am

This is what the New York Times has to say about the GDPR.

What the G.D.P.R., Europe’s Tough New Data Law, Means for You

The European Union is introducing the G.D.P.R, some of the strictest online privacy rules in the world. The aim is to give internet users more control.

NYTIMES.COM

Grant Cottam
May 24 at 11:17am ·

Watch Joanna Stern's WSJ video on MSN. Then get started reading those nearly 400 pages of Privacy Policies.

To Read New GDPR Privacy Policies You'll Need a Football Field

Those updated privacy policies flooding your inbox due to Europe's GDPR compliance deadline on May 25 are so long that if you print out the ones from 30-some most-used…

WSJ.COM

I'm going to assume this Post complies with Blogger's GDPR requirement.

CHIASMS IN JOSHUA

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 18, "Be Strong and of a Good Courage". Please see my article, Chiasms in Joshua.

In an earlier post I mentioned the false notion that Moses had horns, and how strange it is that literally hundreds of paintings and sculptures depict this mistranslation. It is equally interesting to discover there are hardly any paintings of the Battle of Jericho, arguably the most famous Old Testament battle. There are lots of Bible Art illustrations, but almost nothing you'd call art. See the Wikimedia collection, which has two Tissot paintings and a panel from the front doors of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, which are replicas of Lorenzo Ghiberti's doors in the Florence Baptistry.

Instead of a painting, here is a timeline of the Conquest of Canaan. There are lots of these online to choose from, and the dates, as I've repeatedly pointed out, tend to differ from one to the next. Just pick the timeline that tickles your fancy.

YEAR	EVENTS	CHAPTERS
1406 BC	God Commissions Joshua	1
1406 BC	Rahab Welcomes the Spies	2
1406 BC	The Israelites Cross the Jordan	3-5
1406 BC	Conquest of Jericho and Ai	6-8
1405 BC	Kings Join Against Israel	9
1405 BC	The Sun Stands Still	10
1405 BC	Northern Palestine Defeated	11-12
1399 BC	Land Allotted Among the Tribes	13-22
1375 BC	Joshua's Farewell Address	23-24

Jericho has been occupied since about 9,000 BC, almost at the beginning of the Holocene. Abundant water springs in and around the city made it an attractive place to live. Wars, earthquakes, and accidental conflagrations repeatedly knocked everything down and people rebuilt on top of the rubble. A mound or "tell" slowly grew at the site. At the time of the Conquest, the total area enclosed by the upper mudbrick walls—the citadel or fortress—was only about 325 feet by 800 feet, much smaller than most people probably think, and would have housed about 1,200 people. When threatened, people living in the surrounding areas would have fled to the fortress for protection. See Answers in Genesis and Wikipedia for more information.

Watch Dr. Fink's interesting Tell es Sultan video.

Read a chapter or two from the Book of Mormon.

WOMEN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

This post honors Mother's Day. Please see my article The Women of the Old Testament. I compiled it for Mother's Day in 1998. I spent several hundred hours on this. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

My mother, Virginia Shirley Spencer, was born on July 18, 1919, and died on March 13, 2005. My mother's mother, Mae Listman, was born on January 17, 1895, and died on April 15, 1956. She taught me how to drive.

Me, my mother, and my grandmother Mae.

My grandparents divorced and my grandfather remarried. My other grandmother was Dorothy Sherwin. She was born on April 7, 1905 and died on December 18, 1987.

My mother, me, and my grandmother Dorothy.

Of all the people I've known who have passed beyond the veil, these three women are the ones I'm most looking forward to seeing again when I "shuffle off this mortal coil".

Happy Mother's Day.

P.S.—Don't forget to read your Book of Mormon.

CHIASMS IN DEUTERONOMY

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 17, "Beware Lest Thou Forget". Please see my article, Chiasms in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:7 has a great message about Scripture study.

Read the Book of Mormon with your children. Do it today.

CHIASMS IN NUMBERS II

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 16, "I Cannot Go Beyond the Word of the Lord". Please see my article, Chiasms in Numbers II.

Balaam Prophesies the Glory of Israel by James J. Tissot.

Take a look at BYU Magazine's Spring 2018 article An Experiment upon the Word. What is your favorite page in the Book of Mormon? Page 329, which describes the character of Moroni, is one of my favorites.

CHIASMS IN NUMBERS I

This post accompanies Gospel Doctrine lesson 15, "Look to God and Live". Please see my article, Chiasms in Numbers I.

Moses and the Brass Serpent by Judith Mehr

Now is a good time to open your Book of Mormon, no matter what time it is, and read something.