Scripture Memorization Journal

This entry journals my memorization of Hebrews – as far as possible on a day-to-day basis.

For the first time I am memorizing a passage with verse numbers. When repeating verses mentally or out loud, I include chapter and verse number for each verse. In learning them, I've found it easiest to remember especially the verse numbers of certain verses that have a number easy to recall (e.g., 7, 10, 12, 14, 20), and/or begin a new section of the text. Knowing those and knowing where verse divisions are, I can usually reconstruct the remaining verse numbers with enough accuracy to achieve my purpose in memorizing them, which is (1) to ensure that in reciting passages to myself from memory, I don´t skip over sections, (2) and to readily recall in which chapter and part of chapter a given text is in.

  • Chapters 1-7 I memorized 4-8 weeks ago, partly while travelling by train and partly while hiking in the mountains.
  • Oct 26: 45 minutes while signing letters (1000 to sign altogether, only part of that time did I use for memorization); learning chapter 8, and starting to get familiar with chapter 9, 1-4.
  • Oct 27: 30 minutes while biking; reviewed chapter 7 multiple times (chapter 7 being still quite new, and not very well fixed in my memory)
  • 30 minutes while cleaning bathroom; reviewed chapter 8, chapter 9:1-2.
  • Oct 28: 30 minutes while biking and climbing uphill; review chapters 1-8.

In the following days a number of reviews of chapters 1-8 mostly while underway, and have been refreshing other books of St. Paul as well. In a few cases I realized I needed to check one or another verse when I had an opportunity.

November 11, Monday: 45 Minutes in train and subway. Learned Heb 9:5-20 well enough to recite the whole passage twice stumbling at only two places and making only a couple very minor mistakes (substituting expressions that convey basically the same sense as the actual passage for the exact wording of the passage).

Note: I find it more efficient to learn a longer passage imperfectly on the first day than to learn a shorter passage perfectly on the first day. After a night's sleep it becomes clearer which verses or parts of verses are troublesome and need the most attention and repetition, so that I can apportion time specifically to those, rather than taking more time on every verse.

November 12, Tuesday: 20 minutes review of 9:5-20 in train and waiting on train platform (in this case I needed to look at the text often enough that I couldn't have done the review while engaged in anything that needed attention). Finished this review by reciting the whole passage three times. Status: most of the text is fairly firm, but certain conjugations and linking adverbs are not; for example, Heb 9:15, "Therefore he is the mediator", I could easily slip to remembering "Thus he is the mediator." In principle I try to learn the English text (RSV) as it stands, but don't care very much about the substitution of such synonyms when learning a translation rather than the original Greek text.

Another 10 minutes in another train and walking to the place where I have a course making a beginning of learning the last few verses of chapter 9.

November 13, Wednesday: in a 20 minutes short walk after lunch a review of 9:1-9:28 (at 9:15 and 9:23-end I had to look at the text). The second half of this period I spent working though the text backwards verse by verse, or in some cases in blocks of two verses, in order to strengthen the connection of each part with the preceding passage (without doing this, one ends up knowing a text well in relation to the following context, but not quite so well in relation to the context that precedes it.) 20 minutes walking to train station and while changing trains, reviewing chapters 8-9.

November 14, Thursday: 5-10 minutes reciting chapters 8-9 while showering and getting dressed; 12 minutes reciting chapters 6-9 while biking to Trumau. When reciting in the afternoon, I couldn't remember the second half of verse 26, though I knew there was a second part I couldn't remember.

November 15: 7 minutes reciting chapters 8-9 between church and home.

November 17: 7 minutes reciting chapters 7-9 between church and home.

November 18: 30 minutes learning chapter 10:1-11 (while on a bike path, so without being able to give full attention to memorization). Recited once again in the early evening.

November 19: 1 minute reviewing chapter 10:1-11, 8 minutes reciting it while showering and getting dressed.

20 minutes reciting chapter 5-10:11 while biking from Trumau to the train station

November 21: 3 minutes reciting chapter 10:1-11 while showering.

November 22: 5 minutes reciting chapters 9-10:11 while biking from Church.

November 23: 5 minutes reviewing chapter 10:1-11 and correcting some mistakes that arose in the course of reciting it the previous days without checking the text.

November 25: 20 minutes learning chapter 10:11-21

November 26-30: a couple times reciting chapter 10:1-14 (all I could remember without looking at the text)

December 1: 10 minutes relearning Heb 10:15-20 (There is a certain difficulty in remembering correctly Heb 8:10 "I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts" and Heb 10:16 "I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds" — this will always remain a difficulty, unless I can figure out a logical reason in the epistle for the change in order, or use a mnemonic trick to remember in which case "minds" comes first, and in which case "hearts" comes first.) Postscript: it works to remember that the second occurrence is the "strange" one, i.e., since the first meaning of heart is something physical, it is more normal to speak about writing on hearts than on minds.

From December to March: four times reciting Heb 1:1-10:18.

March 3: 15 minutes learning Heb 10:15-27.

March 9: 40 minutes learning Heb 10:15-39.

March 10: 40 minutes learning Heb 11:1-16.

March 13: 20 minutes reviewing Heb 11:1-16.

March 17: 1 hour 30 minutes reviewing Heb 11:1-16 and learning heb 11:17-end (while biking on bike trails).

March 24: 1 hour reviewing Heb 11 (15 minutes in train, 45 minutes biking and hiking).

March 31: 20 minutes reviewing Heb 11.

April 3: 5 minutes reviewing Heb 11.

(This post will be updated on an ongoing basis).

 

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