How to Memorize the Books of the Bible Part 2 of 3 – The Old Testament
In this section am going to show you how to commit the books of the Old Testament to memory. I highly recommend listening and downloading the audio of this post to a CD or mp3 player, so you can listen and review the books of the Bible even when you are not at your computer.
Okay, so by now, you should have the basic structure of the Books of the Bible committed to memory. Let us just review it real quickly. What have you got on your toes? The five books of Moses. On your knees, you have the History of the Nation of Israel. On your muscle, you have that brain for the wisdom literature. The rear is an Army Major for the Major Prophets. Your lungs is the coal miner for the Minor Prophets, shoulder is the life of Jesus. Your collar is a ball of letters for Paul’s Letters. On your face, you have the postal letters for the Apostle’s Letters. On your point you have the Prophecy section symbolized by that Professor. If you don’t have the basic structure of the Bible memorized, please go back to Part 1 now and do a more thorough review.
In this section, we are going to flesh out the Old Testament. I will show you how to take the 39 books in the Old Testament, using the pictures that you have already created, and flesh them out so that you will have stored all 39 books on your first five body parts.
Okay, let us go. Take it in order. Your first body file that you have is your toes and right now Moses is standing there. The five books of Moses are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. How do you make that into a picture? I am going to go through this once, because you can review it on your own, so here is how you create the picture for Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
You have Moses on there already, but what is he doing? We are going to need to make a story out of this, so I want you to just imagine this as vividly as you can. You have Moses on your toes, now from his chin, which phonetically is exactly the same as Chin-esis or Genesis, from Moses’s chin he has suspended and acts and ducts, or Exodus. Moses pulls on a pair of Levi’s jeans that are all covered with tics, that is Levi-tics, Leviticus. From the pockets of those Levi’s jeans, he pulls out two birds, but they cannot feel anything, because they are numb-birds or Numbers. He looks at you and yells at the top of his lungs, he says, “Dude! Run!” That is dude-run-omy. Got it?
What is Moses doing?
From his chin, he has suspended acts and ducts, pulls on those Levi’s jeans that has those tics all over them, from the pockets of the jeans, he pulls out two numb birds, yells, “Dude! Run!”
Genesis – Chin(esis)
Exodus – Act and ducts
Leviticus – Levi jeans covered in tics
Numbers – Numb birds
Deuteronomy – Dude run!
Again, review it later as many times as you need to on this recording. We are not going to do anymore review of the future sections because you can do it on your own time.
Next section, on your knees, what have you got? Your knees are telling you the story or the history of the nation of Israel. There are 12 books here. Watch this! They are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehamiah and Ester. How do you make that picture?
Your knees are telling you the story, which is sound based, but I want you to envision the story unfolding on your knees. From your knees, I want you to imagine sprouting a huge Joshua tree. If you do not know what a Joshua tree looks like, look at the cover of the U2 album “The Joshua Tree.”
There is a Joshua tree sprouting out of your knees and here is what you see in the branches of that tree. On the far left hand side, you see a bunch of Judges engaged in a very animated conversation with Babe Ruth, the big baseball player from the early 1900s.
Next to the Judges that are talking with Babe Ruth, you see standing next to each other are two mules that are covered with sand, they are sand mules, or Samuels.
Riding on each of the mules is a king, so you have two Kings. Picture them with their big crowns and their long flowing robes.
Now each of these kings is holding in his hand a chrome nickel for Chronicle. So you have two sand mules, two kings and two chrome nickels. Or two Chronicles. Getting it?
Now next to that scene with the mules and the kings and the chrome nickel, you see a zebra which would be a representation for Ezra. The zebra is using his knee, for Nehamiah, to stir the dirt the shape of an S fir Ester. So it is Zebra using his knee to make an S. Lock it in there.
Joshua – Joshua tree
Judges – Judges
Ruth – Babe Ruth
Samuel – Sand mules
Kings – Kings
Chronicles – Chrome nickels
Ezra – Zebra
Nehamiah – Knee
Ester – Stir S.
The Wisdom books are next. That is on your muscle, so in the Wisdom books there are only five books, Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
It is symbolized by a brain, but what is that brain doing on your muscle? The brain pulls on a robe that symbolizes Job. This robe is made of palm leaves and very soft fur on the inside, or pro-ferbs. The brain is eating a chocolate éclair and drinking tea at the same time. An éclair and tea for Ecclesiastes. While the brain is eating, it is singing songs.
So that brain is pulling on a rope that is made of palm with fur on the inside eating an éclair and drinking tea and singing songs. That is Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Boom! That all lives right there on your muscle.
Job – Robe
Psalm – Palm leaves
Proverbs – (pro)Fur
Ecclesiastes – Éclair and tea
Song of Solomon – Songs
The next file on your body is your rear. So what do you have on your rear right now? You have a military major, not a general, but a major to symbolize the Major Prophets. Picture him wearing a full uniform. What is he doing? He looks at you right in the eye and he says, “I say!” to symbolize Isaiah. He then jumps up on a chair that looks at him with one gigantic sad eye, which is a chair-eye or a Chair-emiah! Now the next book is Lamentations, so this major looks down and notices that he is standing on a whole bunch of mints, for Lamentations. Then he realizes that would be very easy to kill. He would be an Easy Kill or Ezequel, he jumps of that chair and he yells, “Dang!” For Daniel.
So the Major says, “I say!” jumps up on the chair with the eye, the Chair-emiah. Notices the La-Mint-ations, realizes it would be an Easy Kill or Ezequel, jumps down and utters, a Dang yell or Daniel. We are almost done here, you guys and we are doing really well.
Isaiah – “I say!”
Jeremiah – Chair eye
Lamentations – Mints
Ezekiel – Easy kill
Daniel – “Dang!”
The Minor Prophets are next, now this is a tough one because there are 12 of them. Hoesa, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Naham, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. How do you make a picture out of those? I will show you exactly how I did it with my Sunday school class.
Right now you have a coal miner on your lungs wearing a hat with a light, holding a pick ax, for the minor prophets. Now this miner grabs a hose, like a big fire hose, for Hoesa, and starts spraying it all GI Joe, for Joel.
When he hits GI Joe with that fire hose, a mosquito, for Amos(quito), comes flying off the of them and starts flapping his wings in the air. Are you seeing this in your mind? This is all happening on your lungs.
Now this mosquito magically transforms himself into a bat. It’s not just any bat, it is an old bat, with one hanging old eye. Old-Bat-Eye for Obadiah. We are just trying to create triggers.
As this mosquito is turned into an old bat eye, the whole thing is swallowed up by a giant whale. What would the whale represent? Of course, I think everybody knows the story of Jonah and the whale.
The whale is holding a microphone, but he is holding the microphone to his knee. Yes, in this story whales have knees; just create the picture in your mind. The microphone obviously is for Micah.
The whale is holding the microphone to his knee because his knee is making the strange humming sound. It is a knee-hum or Naham.
On the back of the whale you are seeing in your mind’s eye, I want you to picture a cook. A cook with white clothes on, a big white hat on and he is real happy, so he has a big smile on his face. He’s a happy cook, for Habakkuk.
The happy cook is holding a few things. In one hand a fan with a great big eye on it. That is a Ze-fan-iah. And the other hand, he is holding a grocery bag with that same looking eye on it. That is the bag-eyes, sounds just like Haggai. Again, all we are looking to do is create triggers. He pours out the bag and what comes tumbling out is a zucchini that is crying. A zucchini crying for Zechariah, and a melon that is crying, for Malachi.
Hoesa – Hose
Joel – GI Joe
Amos – A mosquito
Obadiah – Old bat eye
Jonah – Whale
Micah – Microphone
Naham – Knee hum
Habakkuk – Happy cook
Zephaniah – Fan eye
Haggai – Bag eyes
Zechariah – Zucchini crying
Malachi – Melon crying
Now you have it. Go back and review these things. It might take you a couple of times through, so take it one file at a time. When you have one, move on to the next one. I would be willing to bet that if you reviewed just a little bit, you will find that you have the 29 books of the Old Testament, now committed mostly to memory visually.
In the next segment, I will teach you how to commit all of the books of the New Testament to memory.
