The two Books of Samuel (Hebrew: Sefer Sh'muel ספר שמואל‎) are part of a series of historical books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings), making up a theological history of the Israelites, affirming and explaining the Torah (God's law for Israel) under the guidance of the prophets.

Samuel begins by telling how the prophet Samuel is chosen by Yahweh, the god of the Israelites, at his birth. The story of the Ark which follows tells of Israel's oppression by the Philistines, which brings about Samuel's anointing of Saul as Israel's first king. But Saul proves unworthy and God's choice turns instead to David, who defeats Israel's enemies and brings the Ark to Jerusalem. God then promises David and his successors an eternal dynasty.

According to Jewish tradition the author was Samuel himself, but this idea is no longer regarded as tenable. Modern scholarly thinking is that it originated by combining a number of independent units, of various ages, when the larger Deuteronomistic history (the Former Prophets plus Deuteronomy) was being composed in the period c.630-540 BCE.

Samuel ( /ˈsæm.juː.əl/;Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֶל, Modern Shmu'el Tiberian Šəmûʼēl; Greek: Σαμουήλ Samouēl; Latin: Samvel; صموئيل, Ṣamu’īl; Strong's: Shemuwel) is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet and is mentioned in the Qur'an.

His status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras. According to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: Saul and David.

Samuel's mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Hannah, at the beginning of the narrative, is barren and childless, like Abraham's wife Sarah. Hannah prays to God for a child. Eli who is sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary at Shiloh, sees her apparently mumbling and thinks Hannah is drunk, but is soon assured of her motivation and sobriety. Eli was, according to the Books of Samuel, the name of a priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel. He blesses her after she promises the child to God. Subsequently Hannah becomes pregnant; her child is Samuel. After he is weaned, she leaves him in Eli's care.

J. David Pawson (born 1930) is a prominent Bible teacher based in Great Britain. He is the author of more than thirty books.

According to his autobiography, Pawson's immediate ancestors were all farmers, Methodist preachers or both - dating back to John Pawson, a friend and follower of John Wesley. His father, H. Cecil Pawson, was head of Agriculture at Durham University and also Vice President of the Methodist conference. From his childhood in the north of England David Pawson had wanted to be a farmer, but by the time he had completed his studies for a B.Sc. in Agriculture at Durham University, he felt God was calling him into full-time Christian ministry. He then studied for an M.A. in theology at Wesley House, Cambridge University, and subsequently joined the Royal Air Force as a chaplain, serving in Aden.

After leaving the RAF he served as a Methodist minister, but became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of infant baptism. After appearing before a doctrinal committee of the Methodist church, he volunteered to leave the denomination, and did so. Shortly thereafter he accepted an invitation to become the pastor of Gold Hill Baptist Church in Buckinghamshire.

David Firth (born 23 January 1983) is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet (most notably the popular Adobe Flash animation website Newgrounds, as well as his own personal sites). Several of his various works in cartoon Flash animation, as well as his multiple music videos and works of video art have garnered large followings, and include some of the most acclaimed video series online.

Notable animation sequences from Firth include Salad Fingers, as well as the comedic Burnt Face Man series. A number of Firth's works have been featured on the BBC in the UK, and the BBC has hired Firth on several occasions to work on TV programs and commercials. He also created a flash-series called "Jerry Jackson", which can both be viewed on Newgrounds and his own site, in which a cartoon character ironically pretends to be "a professional animator", even though the animation is intentionally poorly crafted. Jerry Jackson was also based on the people that would write badly written hate comments on his videos, as he would read them, he imagined that they spoke like Jerry Jackson. Firth also created Men from Up the Stairs.

The Books were an American duo, formed in New York City in 1999, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their releases typically incorporate samples of obscure sounds and speech. They have released three critically acclaimed albums on the German label Tomlab, and released their fourth studio album, The Way Out, on Temporary Residence Limited in July 2010.

Zammuto and de Jong first met in New York City in 1999 as they shared the same apartment building. De Jong invited Zammuto to dinner at his apartment, where he played him some of his collection of audio and video samples, including a Shooby Taylor record. Zammuto said of their meeting that "we both kind of knew at that moment that we listened (to music) in interesting ways and had similar approaches to music." Soon after, they began playing what they considered to be pop music, in comparison to their own works, under the name The Books.

In 2000, The Books started work on what would become their début album Thought for Food. Zammuto and de Jong moved locations constantly during this time, recording in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and finally in the basement of a hostel in North Carolina where Zammuto worked for a while after hiking the Appalachian Trail.