Crossing the Scriptures

It was an amazing experience to discover the dynamic connections between the ancient Hebrew letters and the individual books of the Bible.
There are several excerpts (I labeled them "snippets") from various chapters of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES that I have posted here in weeks past.

It is now out in PAPERBACK as well as KINDLE and NOOK

I can think of a few people to send a copy to who have never read the Bible - they'll get a good concept of the whole Bible in a short time.

I've also had several people who know the Bible well read it and tell me how interesting and enlightening it was to read (and reread) CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES. So . . . I guess it's for everyone.

Puzzled But Not Perplexed

You never get the subtleties if you don’t know the language. No translation gives the whole picture and I know that. So as I fretted over how to teach a seemingly straightforward, teeny tiny little six verse Psalm I started by looking at the original Hebrew. Aha! I recognized a few words from my limited self study of this most difficult language and right there at the end of verse 6 of Psalm 13 I found my first clue: gml or rather lmg in Hebrew – I’ll explain later. (Unfortunately the Hebrew font won't print on this blog)

Here’s the Psalm:
1 How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the LORD’s praise,
for he has been good to me.

The first two verses have four repetitions of “How long” and oh, man, does that ever show a groaning lament in the Hebrew. The next two verses contain a request, but still show a desperate, forlorn grief.

“BUT I TRUST” the Psalmist, King David, says in verse 5. What does he trust in? He trusts in God’s unfailing love and then he goes on to turn the psalm into a hymn of praise with a secret message. And I solved it! It was that “gml” clue I mentioned above plus the fact that I always look at several English translations as well.

Verse 6: “he has been good to me” in the King James Version is “he has dealt bountifully with me”. That phrase rang a bell so I checked the Hebrew and, sure enough, there was “gml” which not only means “to deal bountifully” but is a homonym for the third Hebrew letter which pictures, or symbolizes, the Holy Spirit. Hmm, the line above that has LORD in caps. Aha again! The Hebrew here is the unpronounceable name of God. Back up one more line – “my heart rejoices in” . . . oooh, I saw that the next word was salvation. I know that’s Jesus, but this is an Old Testament verse so . . . off to the Hebrew original . . . and AHA! The Hebrew here for salvation is yeshu’ah. (Guess how you say Jesus in Hebrew. That’s right: Yeshua.) So, David trusts in God’s unfailing love which is, in English, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. I love puzzling these out!

Daily Cheap Reads

Does everybody but me know about these sites? Daily Cheap Reads Jr. features ebooks for kids and young adults at ridiculously low prices. From there you can link to their sister site for more Cheap Reads.
Schools are out, or almost out, for summer and with all the Nookbooks and Kindles out there I suspect that kids may just do a little more reading this summer if it's electronic.

The Delight of Returning Favors

I'm in the middle of doing some fine line editing for a new author, Stephen Flitcraft, and in exchange he has made this amazing book trailer for one of my kids' novels. Please tell me what you think. Stephen is recovering from a stroke and I have been amazed by his creativity. Authors help authors all the time, but this has been a most rewarding experience.
Youtube Video for Bullies and Bears

Swearing

My mother never swore. Almost never. I heard her say “damn” once, but that was it. I remember one time when I was in the back seat of the car and she was driving. A nice conversation was underway between me and someone else in the car (I no longer remember who) when in response to something incredible that the other person said (probably my sister) I expressed amazement by saying not “gee” as I usually did, but rather “gees”.

Faster than a whip came my mother’s hand across my mouth. “You don’t talk like that!” she simply said, not yelling.

What did I do? What did I say? She went on to explain that “gees” was just too close to Jesus’ name. I was maybe nine or ten and I understood the Ten Commandments, especially the one about not taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Pretty rough, you’re thinking, to strike a child for that, but I am so thankful that she did. I don’t swear. I never picked up the habit and though I’ll let a character in my books swear, I never actually type the word. And my characters will never, ever use the Lord’s name in vain.

I remember a sad story about a poor, homeless child learning the Christmas story for the first time. He was amazed and happy to learn about the baby’s birth, but couldn’t understand why Mary had named him with a cuss word. Sad.

Sad. Yet amazing. Does anyone curse by saying “Oh, Buddha!” or “Hare H. Krishna!” or “Allah damn it!” or anything like that? Think about it.

Short Story Contest - YOU WIN by Voting

Heart of Eden Short Story Contest

Remember my post "The Spanish Stranger"? Well, it's in a little ROMANCE contest over at the Immortality and Beyond blogsite. I'm hoping you'll take a peak, vote, and give yourself a chance to win a $25 prize. Yes, that's right, voters get prizes, too. So click on this link please.
(This is NOT an "adult" type of contest.)

Excerpt 1 from TUNNELS

I don’t know how I got into this building. Sometimes that happens to me in this place. I don’t think it’s memory loss or anything magical. It just is. When I say “I suddenly found myself outside”, well, that’s literally what happens.

There were a lot of people, mostly between the ages of twenty and forty, busily moving around. I saw a couple of guys step out of the giant round openings of what looked like room-sized washing machines. Front loaders. I peered into one after they turned the corner. Clothing was stuck to the far inside wall of the machine and had to be peeled off like Velcro. I know because that’s what I did. I needed a new disguise. Stealing someone’s freshly washed laundry would have to do.

But before I could change I suddenly found myself outside. I walked around the building looking for an entrance and finally found one at the walk-out basement level. A line of people stretched twenty feet or so with each person pushing a wheeled laundry basket. You know the kind – prisoners escape in them all the time.

I didn’t think this was the way I had entered the first time, but I had known there would be challenges when I came here. I cut in line and edged in. No one complained. I took the first set of stairs up two flights and followed the women as they went right, men left. There was a pool, swimsuits, towels. I disrobed and wrapped myself in one of the plushest white towels I had ever felt and went looking for the giant washing machines again.

The building had a party room with a large stone fireplace. I didn’t enter. Probably my terrycloth gown would not be classy enough.

An announcement blared. The police were on site. I didn’t just need clothes now, I needed ID as well or a really quick escape route.

I followed a woman my size and watched her pull armloads of pants, shirts, underwear and sheets from one of the machines. She heaped them in a pile on a long folding table and then went back to the giant machine, crouched and entered it, presumably to peel off the items that would be stuck to the back.

Of course I grabbed what I wanted from the table and ducked into an open machine to change. I was fast and then I hurried to one of the small windows that looked out toward a fading sunset. I wasn’t the only fugitive it seemed. Several people were jumping out, landing on the loose dirt and sand-surfing down the steep hillside. I wiggled through the opening and did the same. A few yards beyond the building’s perimeter we all were in the cover of sudden darkness.

copyright 2011 by Debra Chapoton

Kindle Version Out First - CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES

Later this month the paperback version of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES will be released. Right now the Kindle version is available at Amazon and also at Barnes & Noble

CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES is a Bible Study supplement for anyone who wants to know more about each of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. I've posted a number of "snippets" from this book on my blog that show the divine links between Old and New Testament books and the Hebrew alphabet. This new way of approaching the Scriptures will edify even those who have spent years studying the Holy Word. The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet connect three times each with the 66 books of the Christian Bible. CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES matches each letter to each book, in order, three times, so the reader can observe the amazing connections between books that are spaced exactly 22 books apart. It's pretty cool.

Kindle Edition at 99 Cents

The Kindle Edition of EDGE OF ESCAPE is currently marked down to $.99. Here's the link: EDGE OF ESCAPE

A Little Snippet, part 10

I love it when I figure something out and realize that the solution was right in front of me all along. Sometimes we need someone to point out an obvious connection that our brains just skip over. Sometimes just letting our gaze go, like staring at those 3-D pictures, brings things into focus. Here’s another of those cool “wow” moments I had in writing CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES, which will soon be released.

Chapter 23 of the book of Leviticus starts with what I think is a pleasant contrast to all the previous negative prohibitions and sacrifices. The Lord appoints some feasts: The Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the Feast of Tabernacles. These are wonderful “parties” and have special significance to Israel, but even more significance to Christians. Why? Because they are or will be fulfilled in Christ.

First of all Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits fall on the 14th, 15th and 17th of the Jewish calendar month of Nisan. These are spring feasts. Pentecost is 50 days later on the 6th of Sivan, a summer month. The last three feasts are all autumn festivals falling on the 1st, 10th and 15th of Tishri.

The Passover supper (the Seder meal, explained earlier in the chapter on Exodus) was what Jesus and the disciples were having the night before His crucifixion – The Last Supper! For the Jew Passover celebrates liberation from slavery to Egypt; to the Christian Christ’s crucifixion signifies liberation from slavery to sin and death.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the day Christ was crucified – Good Friday! Leaven, or yeast, is symbolic of sin. Jews eat unleavened bread, bread made without yeast called matzah, during the seven days of this feast. Matzah is striped and pierced, an obvious (to a Christian) link to Christ’s pre-crucifixion beating and the sword piercing He received on the cross.

The Feast of First Fruits took place on the day Christ rose from the dead! This feast was to present the first fruits of the harvest to God. The priest would wave the first sheaf of grain and it was accepted by God on the people’s behalf – just as Jesus now is the “first fruit” accepted on our behalf.

The Feast of Pentecost was the day the Holy Spirit was poured out onto the disciples! The first Pentecost was 7 weeks after the death of the Passover lambs. On that day Moses received the Law on the stone tablets and when he returned to camp 3000 men died because of their sin. Seven weeks after Christ, the Lamb of God, was crucified the disciples received the Holy Spirit and 3000 believed that day (Acts 2:41).

The next three will be fulfilled as prophesied in the Holy Scriptures. The Feast of Trumpets was a day of rest for Israel on which they should “sound the trumpets”. This is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. At some future date the trumpets will sound Christ’s return. Now that will really be a new year!

The Day of Atonement is the day that the priests made atonement for Israel. The people fasted and prayed. On some future Day of Atonement Jesus will be revealed as King and return to this earth.

The Feast of Tabernacles was a feast of joy when the harvest was brought in. Someday it will be the harvest of saved souls and a day that Christ will begin His rule.

These seven feasts, given and explained THOUSANDS of years ago, show us right where we are on God’s calendar. Here are two good websites to visit if you want to read more:
Jewish Holidays

Jewish Feasts
(excerpt from pre-published edition of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES by Debra Chapoton, copyright 2011.)
BY THE WAY, I'm looking for objective reviewers, so if you'd like a pdf copy of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES for review, please email me at bigpinelodge at gmail dot com

Bigfoot Day, Ninja Night excerpt

This is an excerpt from chapter 4 of BIGFOOT DAY, NINJA NIGHT. This book is for kids ages 8 - 12 and is full of humor and suspense as a group of kids sneak off into woods.

So there we were. Lost. Deep in the dark forest. Monsters lurking. Mosquitoes buzzing. Spiders watching. Blood dripping. Dried poop stinking. Or something else . . .

“Okay, who let one?”

“Not me.”

“Not me.”

“It wasn’t me, either, and it’s different from this stuff that’s dried on me,” Sydney smiled as she said this. Nothing gets to that girl. I think she’s happy to be lost.

“Maybe it’s the creature.” Callie said this like she knew the creature personally and, well, it’s just the creature. Yeah, that’s all, the creature just had a little gas, no biggy.

I wasn’t falling for it. I made a face. I turned. I sniffed. I turned again, sniffed again. I picked a direction. There was nothing stinky to the left so that was going to be our new path. The others followed like the little lambs they are.

“Hey, let’s sing.” We just ignored Sydney on that one. Way to not be cool.

“I don’t get why it’s so dark,” Callie said as she stumbled along, last in our miniature parade. “It’s only a little bit after one. Maybe. I think.”

“Yeah,” Austin agreed. “We just had lunch before we came. We haven’t been out here that long.” He really stretched out the word “that” when he said it. We haven’t been out here thaaaaaaaaaaaaat long.

I wouldn’t be making a big deal about how he said it, but it was just that when he was stretching out the word I heard another sound. A sound that could have been someone else trying to mimic him. Not an echo exactly. Just the “aaaaaa” sound, like a sheep’s bleat or a bubble stuck in your throat or the witch in “The Wizard of Oz” before she says “my pretty.”

“Aaaaaaaaaa.” There it was again.

“What was that?” I asked. I glanced back and again everyone was swinging their heads all around. I knew that they had heard it, too. I could imagine all their arm and leg hairs popping out straight with goose pimply fright. Our parade line was tightening up fast as Austin crowded up closer to me and Sydney reached for Austin and Callie closed in on Syd.

“The Bigfoot,” Austin breathed.

“Mr. Two-toes,” Sydney said at the same time.

copyright 2010 by Debra Chapoton BIGFOOT DAY, NINJA NIGHT

A Little Snippet, part 9

There are many words that begin with aleph besides God’s names, such as “one”, “love”, “light”, “truth” and “faith”. These are very important words to our beliefs. Pause a moment and think about why they would all begin with this first Hebrew letter.

Now think of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5). What’s the first one? No other gods before me! God is Number 1, the One and Only, the Eternal Omnipotent God. His first initial is the first Hebrew letter. Throughout Genesis we get a good picture of God as our Father: He keeps reaching out to man, provides new covenants, never gives up on us and blesses us. He is the Sovereign Ruler over all of His creation. By the way, the Hebrew word for “created” and the Greek equivalent are prominent not only in Genesis, but in Isaiah and Romans (the other two aleph books) to the tune of 10 times above average.

(excerpt from pre-published edition of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES by Debra Chapoton, copyright 2011.)

A Little Snippet, part 8

Let’s look at the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet: aleph. Verse 1 of Genesis says: “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and the earth.” Elohim starts with aleph, in fact many of God’s names start with aleph: El (God, Mighty One), El Shaddai (God Almighty), El Olam (God Everlasting), El Elyon (God Most High). Also many facets of God’s nature begin with this letter in Hebrew: love, light, truth, faith, Sovereign Lord.

When you write the three letters in Hebrew that spell “aleph” you get 3 different words - eleph which mean “ox” or “thousand”, alaph which means “teach”, “learn” or “tame”, and aluph which means “prince”, “chief”, “leader”, “master”, “ruler”, “guide” and “teacher”. The first one, eleph, may seem weird at first if you’re trying to relate the letters to Biblical symbolism. However, an ox signified strength. It was the chief domesticated animal of the time and had to be “tamed”. That brings us to the second word, alaph, which means “tame” as well as “teach” and “learn” with the idea of learning by association. The last word, aluph (prince, leader, etc.), appears in Genesis 52 times, that’s 64% of all the times it appears in the entire Bible. I think Genesis is showing us very clearly who our leader, master and guide is: God.
(excerpt from pre-published edition of CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES by Debra Chapoton, copyright 2011.)