For the best view, and especially for printing, I recommend downloading it as a PDF document:

Timeline-Book-of-Mormon-and-Old-Testament-Prophets.pdf

The timeline has a few flaws.

For one, I am certainly not a graphic designer. I created it using LibreOffice Calc so that I could update the date ranges easily without having to re-create the graphic from scratch.

For another, the correct date ranges for some of the prophets are notoriously difficult to pin down. I’ve placed the prophets according to the best information my research could find and I’ve included a little margin of error in the date ranges. The more ancient prophets are especially fuzzy, so the ranges tend to indicate a longer period in which they may have been operating. For those prophets for whom there are multiple proposed dates with little consensus, like Joel, I have selected the date ranges that made the most sense to me based on the information I had, but marked them with a lighter background to indicate that there are other possible placements.

I am also aware that scholars believe that books like Jonah and Daniel may have been written after the Babylonian captivity and that others may have been written over a period of time by multiple authors under the same name. However, I have opted to place the prophets in the time when the events of these books are set or when the prophet to whom the writings are attributed likely lived.

Along the right side the prophets are listed in the order they appear in books of the Old Testament and Book of Mormon to make it easy to correlate the book order to the timeline. It also identifies which group of Hebrew and Christian scriptures the book comes from (Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, The Writings) and the Book of Mormon.

I hope it will be as helpful to others as you study the Book of Mormon and Old Testament as it has been to me.

Though I am not a prolific poet, the poetry I write is usually infused with gospel concepts and imagery. But I had never thought of poetry so directly inspired by scriptural narratives before.

As is usual for me, the time between when the idea for a poem occurs to me and when I actually write it is substantial. It has been well over a year, and I am now approaching the one year anniversary of my trip to Israel for Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles.

This last Sunday, I sat down and wrote a draft of the first poem, and then honed it during the next day and a half. Hope you enjoy it.

____________________________

By the Hand of Uriah
( 2 Samuel 11 : 14 – 15 )

Just open it! one roared a goading taunt,
and then the rest in chorus joined the dare.
We face the foe alone, the king doth not,
so open up the letter that you bear.

For not a moment tempted was his eye.
Oh faithless fools! he shouted as he stood.
Though least among his mighty men am I,
with Israel’s king I stand; his word is good.

My honor tried by query of the king,
though sore I yearned to know my wife once more,
while cov’nant’s ark in tent doth dwell, such thing
I would not do and slept outside the door.

To my hand commends the king what he did write.
In vain his trust is not, as God’s my light!

____________________________

Read more of my original poetry.

Then in November, we released an update to add the Old Testament.

When we released the Book of Mormon, I had taken the time to develop a Book of Mormon outline, and I wanted to outline the Old Testament as well.

I started looking online for some good Old Testament outlines to use as a reference, and while I found a number, none were really what I wanted.

So, I began to review numerous articles on the Old Testament to help me understand each book better, and I went through the entire Old Testament chapter by chapter, and often page by page, comparing what I was reading to the articles and identifying ways to group and relate the parts.

In addition to study, I prayed frequently that Heavenly Father would help me to understand and organize an outline that would be useful for me and others; simple enough to make the book more understandable and approachable without  oversimplifying.

The resulting outline was built into the plugin, but I quickly realized that I needed to create a printable version.

So, here’s the final outline in PDF format that can be downloaded and printed by anyone who finds it useful.

An Outline of The Old Testament

[Edit 01/03/2011 - you can find the most recent revision of the outline, as well as outlines for other books of scripture, at http://scripturelog.com/outlines .]

I’ve learned a great deal through this process and have grown to both understand and love the Old Testament more than I ever have before.  Even if in the end the outline is only really useful to me, it’s been worth it.

(There is also a revised and simplified version of my Outline of the Textual Structure of the Book of Mormon for those interested)