Old Testament Study Questions

[Erudite]

We have a really amazing Gospel Doctrine teacher who chastized us today because so few of us had read and even fewer of us could regurgitate any of the assigned reading for today. (I'd read portions, but then got sidetracked into studying a tiny portion of it and didn't finish the whole thing.) He was totally cool about it and loving and you could just feel that he wants us to get more from the scriptures and he's a little frustrated that we weren't making the effort. So he stopped the lesson and asked us what we were doing to feel the Holy Ghost in our reading. Wow...ok, I know we all know that we should be making that effort, but lately I haven't put conscious thought into learning from the Holy Ghost in my scripture study. I was kinda glad that part of my study had actually taken place in the Temple, but I knew that didn't really excuse me from inviting the Holy Ghost to teach me because while I learned from my study, I don't know that I was taught...if that makes sense.

Anyway, I was talking a bit about this with 5D this week and she mentioned how she approaches it and I have been mulling ever since. As a result of our teacher's admonition to do a better job studying, I paid attention to the kind of knowledge that he was able to share about the scriptures and thus what kind of learning he's done to know what he knows. And here is my list of questions to guide me in my study of the Old Testament:

- Who is the person(s) named by the book? In the book of Judges, for example, who are they? (See BD "Judges" for a good answer).
- Who is speaking? Who is being spoken to?
- What are the main stories of the book and how do they related to each other? In Judges, our teacher mentioned Deborah, Gideon, and Sampson as the main stories and then he asked us how they relate to each other. He pointed out that at this time, the Children of Israel were headed into apostacy so the Lord was using regular people (as in people not specifically called to be prophet) to get through to people. Our teacher used it as an example of God's great love for us...that He keeps attempting to teach us.
- How does this book fit into the history of the time and the other books? It was with this question that we flipped to the BD to read about the judges. I've noted also that the BD often gives a quick overview of the person for whom the book is named. For example, both Ruth and Ezra appear in the BD and learning about them there is very helpful when reading the book that bares their name.
- Why was this story/passage/thought included?
- What can I learn from it? How can I apply it to my life?
- How does this story correlate to modern revelation? Our teacher connected the story of Sampson's mother (and the mention of the need for the parents in Judges to follow the Lord's guidance) with D&C 68:25.
- What have modern prophets stated about the story?

I wrote these questions down to give myself a little push in studying the Old Testament. I'm the GD substitute teacher and I know I need to find more from the stories than I do so that I am able to give more than I have. I thought maybe others could benefit from this as well.

[natickgirl]

Thanks for sharing! I like those questions, and they will help me in my scripture study (if I ever get myself on a good reading schedule). I've come to realize that I can't just sit & read scriptures without knowing the "whole story," meaning the historical, political, religious, and sometimes even geographical settings in which it takes place.

I think approaching our study & discussion with an attitude that we will be taught if we have an open mind is a big help. Some people choose to fall asleep in Sunday School...I choose to try to learn something. The Old Testament really is full of lessons that apply to our lives today if we seek to understand. My mind has been opened to wonderful, personal thoughts as I've listed to Gospel Doctrine discussions, and my scriptures are getting full of underlines & notations!

[Erudite]

I added another question which is a good one for the OT, because it's not always wonderfully clear on the doctrine:

What doctrine is taught or illustrated by the stories?

Also,
How much time passes in this book/chapter/event?