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Month: March 2012

Crossword Contest

Eliyahu ben David Crossword ContestMy readers and listeners are intelligent people who are highly Bible-literate. Many of you home school your kids, enjoy personal Bible study and family Bible study as well. I’m also pretty sure that all of you enjoy an intellectual challenge! That’s why I thought it might be fun to host a monthly crossword puzzle contest, with a new crossword on a different Scriptural theme each month. Thus, the soon-to-be-sort-of-famous Eliyahu ben David Crossword Contest is born! And what’s a contest without a prize, right?

SO .. the winning entry each month will be posted on this site, and the winner will receive a free autographed book, CD, DVD, or whatever is being offered that month for the giveaway. In a minute I’ll tell you how to enter the giveaway, but first, I thought you might like to know how I got into creating crosswords.

It all started a few years ago when a Christian Radio Station, The JC Town, KPJC AM 1220, Salem, OR, asked me to write a monthly feature for their magazine. I noticed the magazine did not have a crossword, so I thought I could create crossword puzzles that would promote Bible study. Creating those puzzles was really fun, and they did have the desired effect – to get people looking in their Bible for the answers! I loved that! Well, JC Town had a format change, so my puzzles were no longer needed there. However, the crossword seed was planted to spring up here in the form of the Eliyahu ben David Crossword Contest.

Here are the rules:

1. Register at this website. It’s free.

2. Do the latest puzzle. You can click the link in the contest post and do the crossword on the handy-dandy interactive webpage or print it out and do it in the conventional way. You know, with a pencil. 🙂

3. Email me a screenshot or scanned image of your completed puzzle. Be sure to put your username on it, and any comments you want to make. Realize it could get posted on this website, Twitter, Facebook, etc, and may be permanently etched on the eastern slope of the Great Pyramid of Giza, where it will remain for ten thousand years – or, alternately, on the refrigerator till Thursday.

4. Now, here’s the really important part: after completing the above, leave a comment with the respective puzzle post letting me know what you thought of the puzzle. Be honest. If you want to say the Eliyahu ben David Crossword sucks lemons, that’s no problem. On the other hand, if you liked it, let me know why. Your comments will help me to keep improving the puzzles.

5. Provided you have completed 1-3 above, you can receive additional entries by completing any or all of the Bonus Entries listed on the then-current contest post.

6. I will use the secret Eliyahu ben David method to select a winner. I’m not sure yet, but I think it will involve a hat and my lovely co-host, Dawn. Update: I asked Dawn and she said, “use Random.org” – so there ya go. Anyway, the winner will be posted on this website and will receive the highly coveted prize via snail mail. Fun, right?

7. All entries must be in by the last day of the month in which the respective Eliyahu ben David Crossword Contest puzzle is first posted. (Puzzles will remain on the site after that, just for fun.)

Eliyahu ben David Crossword Contest Conventions:
[Say that 3 times fast!]

1. Unless otherwise stated, all Bible references will be made according to the King James Version of the Bible. This creates a level playing field for all, since the KJV is the most widely available version in English.

2. Some words and clues will reference information contained in my books and/or radio programs, or other material I’ve authored. After all, it is the Eliyahu ben David Crossword Contest, right? 😉

3. All submissions and related comments become the property of this website and may be displayed by us without further permission. Copyright being what it is these days, I had to say that.

4. It’s perfectly ok to post about our contest, but not the puzzle solutions, to Twitter, Facebook, your website, and anyplace you like, so long as you include a link pointing back to this website.

5. As time goes on we may learn from our inevitable mistakes, making a few more rules and conventions necessary, which will be posted here as an update.

6. All puzzles can be found under the category: “Crossword”. Feel free to do the old ones, just for fun!

UPDATE: Here are links to our puzzles!

April, 2012 – 1st EBD Crossword Contest on Targum Isaiah

May, 2012 – Mount Carmel Contest Crossword

NEW!!! June, 2012 – Elijah at Horeb Crossword Contest

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My Latest Title..

Tsiyon Edition Targum Isaiah In English with Parallel Jewish and Christian Texts is my latest book, but not mine only. This volume required multiple editors and the best layout expert available to make it the highly usable volume that it is. Many thanks to everyone who worked on it! It includes Targum Isaiah as well as both a Jewish and a Christian text. All three texts track together throughout the book for easy comparison. The book has a larger form factor to accommodate the three translations of Isaiah. There are three indexes and other helpful features to help readers get the most out of this resource. Why Targum Isaiah, you might ask? Targum Isaiah dates from before the birth of Christ, and it represents the thinking of the Hillel School, the most influential Rabbinical school of the period. Targum Isaiah thus reveals the most prominent thinking of the first century Jewish community on the topics discussed in Isaiah. This becomes much more interesting when we realize that Isaiah is the most quoted book of the prophets in all of the New Testament. Targum Isaiah literally bridges the gap between the first century Synagogue and the early Messianic believers. Trust me, it’s mind blowing! Our edition is also an amazing value, since Targum Isaiah usually retails from $100 to $250. Ours lists at about $23, putting this volume into the hands of just about anyone who wants to dig into this fascinating material.

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