Scripture Study – How I study

Three weeks ago I wrote a post about how I mark my scriptures when I’m studying them. And I said I’d write about how I study the scriptures separately. Basically, I read the scriptures with all of my scripture marking tools out and mark those things. And even though I’ve read them once that way does not mean I caught everything. I’m always finding more things to mark.

Once I read the Book of Mormon by reading all of the “last words” the prophets shared and then going back and filling in the rest. That was a real good way to see what they thought was most important. I read the Book of Mormon in about a month once. I’ve taken people saying they don’t see the point of such things like all the war chapters as a challenge and read them knowing that of all the things that could be included those were so there must be a reason. Guess what? There’s a reason for the war chapters. There is a TON of good stuff there.

I’ve heard of a lot of other ways people do it that sound interesting. I took an Education Week class at BYU where each day the teacher used a different hymn as the basis for a study of the scriptures and teachings from modern prophets. It’s on my list of things to do with a few different hymns, “How Firm a Foundation” is probably at the top of the list.

While I was a student at BYU I took two Book of Mormon classes, a New Testament class, an Old Testament class, a mission preparation class, a Doctrine and Covenants class, a Pearl of Great Price class, and a Writings of Isaiah class. Studying the scriptures for a class is definitely one way to do it.

Several times I’ve heard Elder Scott talk about how he always keeps a little notebook with him, always, not just when he’s studying the scriptures. Then if the Spirit speaks to him he can write it down. By writing it down he’s showing that he’s paying attention and the Spirit will tell him more. I’ve got a few little notebooks of my own now that I’ve filled. I pull it out during scripture study when there just won’t be enough room in the margin to write what I’ve just figured out.

About a month ago I had a morning where what I was figuring out from my reading wouldn’t fit in my little notebook or the margins. So I printed out the two chapters I’d read, pulled out a pencil, and started drawing out all the connections I was seeing. I thought I’d walk you through it.

To start I made sure I was understanding all of the terms. Most of these I know from the classes I’ve taken. I was more aware of them this time because I’d started to notice a bigger picture going on in this book and so I was primed to notice them.

Using the footnotes I noticed that the Hebrew terms “Hephzi-bah” and “Beulah” worked with opposites in that verse to form couplets that also matched the bigger picture I was seeing.

I made connections between several terms that were used in both chapters, like “bridegroom” and “bride”. Using surrounding words helped me connect terms such as seeds, offspring, sons, and even righteousness and glory all together. These two chapters clearly belong together.

As I kept looking at it though I noticed yet another pattern. The two chapters formed a chiasmus, a form of Hebrew poetry where ideas are repeated on both ends as they point towards the central and most important idea. Sometimes the ideas are opposites of each other, pain going towards the center and joy coming back from the center. Sometimes the ideas are the same. It looks like an X, hence the name.
A
– B
– – C
– B
A

The center of the chiasmus is verse 11 in the first chapter.

And this is why chapter breaks can cause you to miss a lot (there weren’t chapter breaks when it was orginially written down). If I’d read these two chapters separately rather than consecutively like I did that morning, I would have missed all of this.

It’s beautiful. I’m so glad I noticed all of that. And that is why I love Isaiah.