Finished 2 Kings & 2 Chronicles

It surprised me to learn Kings & Chronicles were parallel accounts. I asked Don if he knew & he said yes.

The Old Testament Student Manual does not address Chronicles separately. I read 2 Chronicles as I read 2 Kings. The OTSM would cross-reference 2 Chronicles, so I would read the corresponding chapters. I haven't finished 1 Chronicles yet. It is a genealogy & was not addressed in the OTSM. Wikipedia says Chronicles immediately follows Samuel & Kings as a summary with additional details sometimes added.

The OTSM took 4 chapters to cover 2 Kings.

• Chapter 5: 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 2 - read Nov. 5
• Chapter 6: 2 Kings 3-13 - began Nov. 6, finished Nov. 10
• Chapter 12: 2 Kings 14-20 - began Nov. 24, finished Nov. 26
• Chapter 19: 2 Kings 21-25 - read Nov. 27

Kings is a history of the Northern & Southern Kingdoms of Israel & Judah. Rather a sad commentary.

I have skipped Isaiah at this point. The OTSM takes 6 chapters, plus 2 enrichment chapters to cover Isaiah. I know I skipped the chapters on Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. Well ... I read them, but didn't ponder them.

Finished Deuteronomy

on July 31. It looks like it took me 9 days to read this. Let's see if my scripture journal has anything of interest in it. Not really, still copying the chapter summaries, but did copy some interesting snippets from the OTSM & made a few comments of my own.

According to the Old Testament Student Manual "Deuteronomy is a title formed from the two Greek words deutero, “second,” and nomos, “law.” Thus, the title means “the second law,” or “the repetition of the law” (see Fallows, Bible Encyclopedia, s.v. “Deuteronomy,” 1:522).

The OTSM says Moses did not die, but was translated because he had work to do which he needed his physical body for. I don't remember this either. Where was I in seminary?

Moses did not die, but was translated, transfigured because he had a mission to fulfill in the flesh, before Christ was resurrected. He & Elijah conferred the priesthood on Peter, James & John BEFORE Christ was resurrected. (OTSM)

Finished Exodus

It took me 12 days to finish Exodus. I forgot to read one night. My entry on Day 25 says:

Forgot to read. Remembered when I was in bed.

I finished Exodus June 26 & was quite concerned I was now a day behind! Oh my! It seems I was still reading just to be reading. Case in point: On day 23 I wrote:

Who knew that Exodus was so boring? I remember I thought seminary boring the year we studied the Old Testament. It must have been the subject matter & not the teacher. I do remember that Moses' life is divided into 3 sections of 40 years. The first 40 years he spent as an Egyptian prince; next 40 years, shepherd; last 40 years, a prophet in the wilderness. Brigham Young is referred to as a latter-day Moses because he led the Saints to the Salt Lake Valley.

Finished Genesis

This should have been posted June 14, 2010. This was the first book I finished in the Old Testament. It took me 2 weeks to read. I followed the reading schedule from readthescriptures dot com. My journal entries are rather boring. I copied & pasted the summaries from each chapter with very few comments of my own.

One comment I made on day 3 makes me chuckle:

Interesting that the name Javan is here. Chapter 10:2. I wonder if that is where present day name Javen comes from.

Because look at my comment from last night, day 177

I found in 1 Chronicles 1:7 that Javan was the grandson of Noah. Our little neighbor boy is named Javen. I had never heard the name before they had Javen.

I think one of the main problems I had with Genesis is I had never kept a scripture journal before. I didn't quite know how to keep one. I like to make notations in the margins of books, but even that is not something I do with abandon, mainly because most of the books I read are borrowed from the library or someone else. They are not my books to mark up.

Old Testament

I have a spreadsheet on the network where I track my reading progress, but when it goes down, I don't have access to it. I actually started Rayn-Beau Reads so I'd have a place to track my progress in my scripture reading, besides the journal on readthescriptures dot com.

Then I discovered PAGES! Wow! A whole new dimension! So, I decided to put my Old Testament reading there, a link to the entry where I recap my reading of a particular book in the OT & the date I finished it.

Then I discovered there are six books I didn't blog about: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Job, Proverbs & Ecclesiastes. Something I will need to rectify.

Finished Jonah, Hosea & Micah

In the last week I have finished Jonah, Hosea & Micah. I read Jonah in one sitting, not hard to do with only 4 chapters.

Chapter 9 in the Old Testament Student Manual, One Should Not Flee From One's Responsibilities. I was surprised to find Jonah was such a whiner, not really a whiner, but a very angry man. He did not want to do what the Lord asked him to do. Are we like Jonah? Do we do what the Lord asks us to do?

I made this entry in my Scripture Journal for Jonah:

This is intriguing, something I have never heard before. Jonah was a type of Christ. He was in the belly of the whale for 3 days & 3 nights. In Matthew 12:39-41 Christ says the sign is Jonah.

Chapter 10 in the OTSM, A Call to Faithfulness. It took 3 days to read Hosea, a total of 14 chapters. But Hosea used a lot of metaphors & symbolism like Isaiah. In fact, he was a contemporary of Isaiah. You have to understand the Jewish way of prophesying & I don't. That's why I am so grateful to have the Institute manual to study as I read the scriptures.

Chapter 11, Promise of Judgment, Promise of Salvation. It took 2 nights to read Micah. The internet was so slow, I couldn't switch from window to window. It took almost half an hour just to read 2 chapters. I gave up.

I thought Micah 4:1-2 was interesting where it says "the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains ... & people shall flow unto it." The exodus of the Mormon pioneers to Utah, in the top of the mountains, in the last half of the 1800s was a fulfillment of this prophecy.

The Savior appears to have had Micah 7:6 in mind when he spoke the words recorded in Matthew 10:35-36.

T4MRC-Part 5

Part 5 of The Four Month Reading Challenge has been released. I made a page for it so I don't have to keep going back to try to find it in past blog entries. I was excited to see a new challenge.

It's A Must Read & other book clubs

I have been a member of an online reading club for several years called It's A Must Read. I completed that group reading challenge this year!

I also joined the local library in a state-wide reading group that runs January-March each year called Let's Talk About It. This year the subject was culinary. I have wanted to join it other years, but have never dared do it. I loved it & will do it again this year, if financial cutbacks don't eliminate it.

The Relief Society (women's group at church) has a book club too. I missed it last night because I didn't have transportation. And, this is a big AND, I hadn't read the book.

2011 reads

It's November & the year is winding down. It seems people are thinking of 2011 reads. I joined the 144 Books in 2010 challenge over on Goodreads & will do good if I get a third of those 144 books read. In order to help myself stay on task, I broke that challenge down into several smaller challenges to add up to 144.

•  Alphabetically by author last name = 26, I have only read 6.
•  Alphabetically by book title: = 26, 3 read
•  Dewey decimal system = 10 (1 book for each category), 3 read
•  Favorite authors = 24, 6 read
•  May Never Read = 10, 1 read
•  Memoir &/or biography = 12, 5 read
•  New author = 12, 11 read
•  Re-reads = 12, 6 read
•  TBR = 12, 3 read

Then I made tickers for each challenge & a cumulative one; built a spreadsheet with a page for each challenge & a page for the cumulative total. As of Nov. 18, I have read 44 books. One third of the total is 48, which is totally doable by Dec. 31, without forcing the issue. Last year, 2009, I only read 20 books all year. I feel  good with my accomplishment this year, I easily doubled last years number.

Last year when I was thinking up categories, I was looking for another category & a friend suggested a category for new authors, which I hadn't even thought of. It is the one I have enjoyed the most & have almost completed the challenge. I plan to finish it before the year is out.

So, I haven't decided what I'm going to do for 2011. Do, I just keep on with the 144 books & take 3 years to finish it? Do I bag it because I didn't make it? Do I double my books again this year? Do I start over on my mini challenges? Or make new mini challenges?

One mini challenge I'd like to do this year is Serial Reads - keep track of books in series. And I want to whittle down my to be read list. It is at an all time high at 226 books & I'm adding new books all the time.

I like the way The 4 Month Reading Challenge is set up too, sigh. What to do? What to do?

One thing I had better do is get off the computer. A friend's husband's viewing is tonight. His funeral is tomorrow & I won't be able to go to it. It's a work day. It's my turn to cook this evening also.

Finished Joel and Amos

It took me 5 days to read Amos & there are only 9 chapters. I have been reading for pleasure instead of studying the scriptures. Several nights I didn't get to bed until 3 a.m. I should know better than to do it. I always end up with a migraine if I don't get enough sleep.

Tonight when I read Amos 8:11-12

 11 ¶ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,but of hearing the words of the Lord

  12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

I immediately thought of the Dark Ages, not realizing there was also a "dark ages" from 400 BC until John the Baptist's ministry started in 30 A.D.

I should have known that. I still wonder where I was in Seminary. Luana said she had Jack Cherrington as her Old Testament teacher in Seminary when she was a senior in high school in 1948. Twenty years later I had him as my Old Testament teacher when I was a senior in 1968! I didn't realize Luana had Seminary. Mother didn't, but she graduated from high school in 1944.

Finished 1 Kings

I finished 1 Kings last night, Nov. 4.

The network was taken down Oct. 22 & is still offline. I do not have access to my reading log spreadsheet. If I had been faithful in keeping up this reading blog, I may have been able to recreate it, but .... I'm not sure if I can. According to my count, I have finished 16 books of the Old Testament.