Nephi does it again right at the start of this passage, though this time it’s in reverse: he talks about faith in the Son of God, and then realizing that his reader would need clarification on that, he inserts the parenthetical about the Son of God being the Messiah of whom Lehi had been prophesying earlier in the chapter. The whole passage here is interesting in terms of its being a small bit of autobiography leveraged to preach a sermon at us. Nephi relays his experience to us in order to explicitly teach us and convince us that we can follow in the same path. Lehi was faithful, followed the commands of God, followed the inspiration of the spirit, obtained revelation (his own and others’), diligently studied that revelation, and came to know the mysteries of God. Nephi heard and hearkened and followed the same seeking pattern. His autobiographical description is both an invitation and a warning—we will be judged for how we react to our mortal framework and whether and how we seek. It’s really nice to read this passage in Hardy’s addition, which makes the poetry plain. This passage was my favorite when I was a small boy and first going through the Book of Mormon—I’m not sure why, not even sure that there was a reason why. I liked the sound of yesterday, today, and forever, and the one eternal round. And going through it slowly this…
Reading Nephi – 10:11-16
At the end of this section Nephi notes that there were many other prophecies of Lehi, and many of those prophecies Nephi wrote in his other plates. Here he’s only written what he thought appropriate. Well then, what has he written? Out of many prophecies, what does Nephi consider worth including? Two main things. First, he’s copied over Lehi’s messianism and re-interpreted that messianism for his reader. Second he’s laid a foundation for one of the major themes of the entire Book of Mormon: this notion of scattering and gathering, which he’ll take back up when relaying his own vision in a few chapters, and which gets repeated throughout the rest of the record. With this latter, there’s something else that’s interesting. Lehi isn’t just prophesying for his posterity, he’s given them a way of understanding and affirming the wrenching experience that they’ve undergone by situating their personal experience within a much grander, holy narrative. It’s necessary that branches be broken off and scattered—this is God’s plan. (Note that Jacob later picks up on this and attributes it to Zenos’s allegory of the olive grove—this scattering and gathering contributes to the health of the whole grove and significantly increases the harvest. Perhaps Jacob was also relaying the teachings of Lehi.) Consequently, Lehi’s family is blessed, honored, or at least undeniably part of an ultimately meaningful and divine narrative; and both Lehi and Nephi felt it imperative that their posterity understand…
Reading Nephi – 10:1-10
The first lines go right along with the confusion and different worldview conspicuous in 9. Having just stated the Lord’s intention for Nephi to focus on the spiritual as opposed to the secular and his own confusion over this point, Nephi launches in to tell us about his journey, his reign, and his ministry. It’s all the same to him. It’s all the workings of God. And I Nephi through the first part of II Nephi is in fact about showing that God was behind Nephi’s reign. I wonder what’s behind this notion of a “land of inheritance.” It’s a large theme in scripture. Here, Nephi’s keen on establishing a new land of promise, which becomes a land of inheritance for his people. This plays large later in the Book of Mormon as overzealous nationalists insist on retaking the land of Nephi, which results in disaster. I wonder if it is a part of Nephi’s and later prophets’ focus on being grafted back in to the House of Israel. The prophecies of Lehi concerning the exile and then return of the Jews must have played large in their minds as they themselves distinguished and made sense of their own journey. It wasn’t an exile, it was divine guidance to new promised lands; but the idea of multiple promised lands was brand new, and they were keenly aware of being “broken off” from their people. How would contemporary scholars or prophets…
Guest Post: All Flesh
John Gustav-Wrathall is the newly-elected president of Affirmation: LGBT Mormons, Families & Friends, an international organization founded in 1977 to support LGBTQ/SSA Mormons and their families, friends and Church leaders. Following his election, I invited Gustav-Wrathall, a personal friend, to draft a post on his thoughts about the new policy, his interactions with Church leaders, and what he thought important that members know. The post below is the product of that invitation. For those who don’t know him, Gustav-Wrathall is an adjunct professor of American Religious History at the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where he teaches future Protestant ministers about Mormonism (and other religions). He is the author of Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA (University of Chicago Press, 1998), has published articles in Sunstone and Dialogue on being gay and Mormon, and is the author of the Young Stranger blog, which he has maintained since 2007. Though excommunicated from the Church, John has a testimony, and has been active in his south Minneapolis ward since 2005 (he discusses his journey back to the Church in several of his Young Stranger blog posts, including the fantastic “On Being a Gay Mormon Missionary“). He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his husband of over twenty years, to whom he was legally married in Riverside, California in July 2008, and with whom he has foster parented three sons. All Flesh John Gustav-Wrathall And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my…
2016 Gospel Doctrine- Recommended Resources on the Book of Mormon (updated)
As with the Old and New Testaments, here are my suggestions for this year’s study of the Book of Mormon. (Edit for newcomers: Who am I and why do my suggestions have any merit?)
Reading Nephi – 9
This is an extraordinarily odd chapter—and odd in ways that really do support the either prophet or genius narrative of Joseph Smith. Why, if one were simply trying to cover up their mistake in losing 116 pages and the first several hundred years of history, would you stick this chapter in here? You go ahead and finish translating from Mosiah through Moroni. Then, since your narrative is screwed up, you plan out this clever narrative of there being “other” plates—the Small Plates of Nephi—tacked on at the end of the gold plates—you use this ad hoc addition of these other plates to backfill and fix your narrative. But if what you’re really worried about is the scandal of the loss of the 116 pages, why wouldn’t you stick this chapter with it’s explanatory narrative—all about God knowing the reasons for these small plates when Nephi himself doesn’t, but surely there’s some purpose—at the very beginning? Modified slightly, Chapter Nine would work extremely well as a preface. As is, Nephi totally interrupts himself in the middle of his exodus narrative in order to talk about a tangent concerning different plates. He tells us that he is emphasizing “the more part of the ministry” as opposed to political and military events. Again, this is something that would make a nice preface to the whole book. Instead, Nephi’s preface to the whole book (the headnote just prior to chapter one) is a claim…
What the Smith Boys Said This Year
Reading Nephi – 8:29-38
The folks who make it to the tree via the path-rod fall down. Its exhausting. This seems so significant, and seems to confirm my earlier reading of the path-rod as not the optimal means of getting to the tree; we ought not kid ourselves about the cost of this route. Likewise, there seems to be a significant contrast between the difficulties of the path-rod and the difficulties making the tree via revelation. It’s a difficult journey no matter how one gets there—but Nephi’s gloss here highlights the danger of exalting the path-rod, or mistaking mere means as ends. Overall we’re being keyed in to two prominent mistakes—the one made by those who leave the path to wander in darkness, and another made by those who stay but mistake the path for the destination. There’s another great contrast here, concerning our initial steps and desires: those who begin to make their way toward the tree vs. those who begin to make their way toward the great and spacious building. I can’t help but think of Terryl Givens’ frequent comments that intellectually (and I would add, culturally) there is always good reason to elect Zion and there is always good reason to elect the world. This is mortality. What we intentionally elect, upon consideration, is a shining manifestation of our personal values. We also see here that merely making a choice and beginning down a path does not bring us to a…
The First Vision of Lienhard Jost
Just before Christmas in 1522, an illiterate laborer from Strasbourg named Lienhard Jost lay in his bed at night and prayed. He had literally felt the ground shifting under his feet when an earthquake had struck while he was cutting wood in the forest that day, but he was even more unsettled by the ongoing religious controversies and by rumors that the world would be destroyed by a second Deluge in little more than a year.
Family and individual: the chicken or the egg?
Julie Smith wrote a stimulating post last week, “A Rhetoric of Indirection,” in which she argues that the Church is undergoing a counterproductive cultural shift in homiletic emphasis from personal discipleship to strong nuclear families. When she joined the church in the 90s, she writes, “there was a focus on individual righteousness–personal scripture study, prayer, personal worthiness, temple attendance, etc. Now when I hear those things, they are usually couched in or around The Family.” While official discourse did address families 25 years ago, she concedes, it was a secondary concern rather than a direct focus. She concludes by lamenting that the present emphasis on families is distorting our culture and teachings, “leading us to focus on precisely the wrong things, to the detriment of individuals and families.” Julie’s post was hugely appreciated by our readership, and I understand why. I’m very sympathetic to — more than sympathetic, deeply invested in — the difficult position of singles, gays, childless couples and members in non-traditional family situations, and I am troubled that teachings on the importance of families leaves them spiritually under-nourished. I consider this to be a question of pressing concern for church leaders. Because I enjoy conversation with Julie, and because I think it’s important and fun for social conservatives and progressives to talk, I’d like to respond to her post on two points, one small and one fundamental. First, I’m skeptical of the implied historical narrative, in which…
Reading Nephi – 8:23-28
Why didn’t Lehi and his family ever see or need the rod of iron or the path when they journeyed to the tree? And by contrast, why did so many of those who sought after and obtained the path & rod, then fall away? Reading closely, it is only those who relied on the rod to get through the mists of darkness that are specifically noted to have fallen away (of course, at least some of those who failed to use the rod were lost—a bit of a catch 22). And how could folks fall away simply because of the glitterazzi who were mocking them? They’d partaken of the blasted fruit already! Of course I don’t know. But here’s a few thoughts. Lehi & family’s conversion seems much more secure. They had to make use of the Spirit, or of their own pure striving, and they were motivated by family and by the tree & its fruit. I’m not sure what the motivations or social support systems of the others were—Lehi and Nephi don’t point that out—but the existence of a straight path and a rod of iron in the midst of a dark and dreary (empty space!) world seems to be a big part of their falling away. That resonates with me. We’re in the midst of a big, dark, fathomless, meaningless world. Lots of folks are desperate for and latch onto a path or a rod or some…
In Their Own Language
“For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fullness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language.” D&C 90:11 Introduction This post begins with a simple question: does the Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS) publish scholarship that treats the Book of Mormon as an ancient text? Or, in the words of Bill Hamblin, has the new leadership at MI “undermin[ed] ancient Book of Mormon studies” in favor of “modern Mormon Studies in its broadest sense” to the point where the Maxwell Institute today is “Sunstone South”? It’s a sensitive question, so let me get some caveats out of the way. I’m not an expert in ancient studies of any kind (Book of Mormon, Mesoamerican, Biblical, or other). Additionally, I’m not trying to wade into the larger controversy surrounding the change in leadership, a controversy that involves people I know and respect on both sides. I’m not passing judgment on MI as an institution nor responding to all the criticism raised by Bill Hamblin (and others), some of which are valid. I want to start by just answering one question: has the study of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text survived at MI? After reviewing the most recent issue Journal of Book of Mormon studies and one of the newest books published by the Maxwell Institute, I can say that it certainly has. Schooling the Prophet I’ll start with…
Proof-Texting in the December YW Lessons
Ezekiel delivered the longest single prophecy, the longest single allegory, in the Bible in what is now Ezekiel 16. His theme is that Jerusalem has acted like a prostitute. He presses his case for 63 verses!
Reading Nephi – 8:13-22
There are patterns here in the partaking of the fruit: self, then family, then others; self, then the righteous, then the wicked; self, then one’s people, then others. Enos later repeats this pattern in his great prayer. I don’t think this pattern lends credence to an egoistic (or even a growing enlightened self-interest) interpretation, however; quite the opposite. The first fruits of enlightenment seem to be to recognize that I am not a mere individual, that my own salvation is never enough. When pursuing righteousness, we seem to be made ever more aware of the centrality of others who at first glance appear to be different or separate from me. Rather than a growing awareness that others matter to my self-interest, it seems to be a growing awareness that others matter to my self, together with an awareness that we’re all of the same divine family. If we bracket the surreality of dreams, then we get an interesting insight into knowledge here as well. Each time Lehi searches for or actively takes note of something, something else is disclosed to his view. Looking for his family and how he might bring them to the tree makes him aware of the river. Searching for Laman and Lemuel, he notices the rod of iron, which brings into view the path, which brings into view the spacious field, which brings into view the grand fact that the world is not merely Lehi and…
A Rhetoric of Indirection
I remember watching the Olympics when I was in high school and concluding that the swimmers had the best-looking bodies of all of the athletes. Not scarily gaunt like the runners, not comically and grotesquely bulging like the weight lifters, not the stunted look of the gymnasts.
Reading Nephi – 8:9-12
How did Lehi know that the fruit was desirable to make one happy? Usually in dreams we just know things; we know the context or the background that makes the dream sensible. Is that what it was? What about in life? Why do some of us simply know how to be happy and others don’t? Why are some of us intuitively drawn to the “things of God” while others aren’t? Why do some react to the great theophanic events in the way that Nephi did and others react like Laman and Lemuel? Nephi makes it out to be a choice, a choice to pray and seek after personal revelation. Perhaps that was true in his case. But it seems so commonly a kind of instinct with no agency behind it. And yet: there it is before us all, a fruit desirable to make us happy. What does it mean that it is desirable to make one happy? Does it mean that it’s a good fruit to eat if you want to be happy? Or, reading ahead and seeing that among other things the fruit represents the love of God, is it that the fruit desires for us to be happy? I like the epistemic progression inherent in verses 9-12. Lehi doesn’t know everything, and it’s only through experiencing the fruit that he comes to know. He begins with knowledge of the link to happiness, but only upon tasting does he…
Beatus Vir
Throughout the middle ages, the popularity of the Book of Psalms caused it to be reproduced in Latin as a separate volume of devotional literature called the Psalter. In medieval manuscripts, the opening phrase of Psalm 1, “Beatus vir,” was often richly decorated, as in this example from the thirteenth-century. The Latin Beatus is related to the modern English words beatific and beatitude and translates as happy or blessed. Vir is the Latin word for man with variations persisting in modern language: virile, virtue, and virtuoso. The King James Version of the Psalms (which did not exist yet in the middle ages) opens with the close English equivalent “Blessed is the man.” The university library in Utrecht preserves an early ninth-century manuscript of the Psalter, likely originating from the family of Charlemagne. This rare volume, known today as the Utrecht Psalter, is unique in that it presents pen-drawing illustrations for each of the 150 psalms. It recently became available online, where it can be consulted in its entirety (http://bc.library.uu.nl/node/599). When I first saw the full-page illustration for Psalm 1, I was struck by a distinct sense of familiarity, even though this manuscript and its illustrations were completely new to me. Upon closer inspection and in reviewing its relationship to the text of the first Psalm, I noted a striking similarity to every family home evening, Sunday School lesson, and flannel board retelling of Lehi’s dream from 1 Nephi 8 in…
Call for Papers: Mormon Scholars in the Humanities
I’m passing this along from MSH President Jenny Webb:
Reading Nephi – 8:1-8
Verse 1: it seems clear that they lived in the Valley for quite some time. Lehi’s dream. This labyrinth makes the whole book worthwhile. I too have had dreams that make me deeply question the future and my relationships, that do not simply manifest but engender worry and joy. But here we see a dream that not only spawns reflection in the dreamer, but gives future credence to Nephi’s narrative and theocratic reign, shapes a people, is buried for fourteen hundred years, comes to light, and once again shapes another people. This dream is as iconic as anything in Mormonism. I don’t think we pay nearly enough attention to the very first part. Lehi walks in darkness. For hours. Taking the account straightforwardly, this walk in darkness is the overwhelming bulk of the whole dream. Doing as Lehi and Nephi do and extrapolating this vision as a metaphor of our mortal lives, those lives are almost entirely—or perhaps I should say they are built on the foundation of—walking through darkness. Lehi had a guide, but didn’t seem to know if the guide was trustworthy (at least, he says nothing of the guide beyond noting a white robe and that he was beckoned to follow). I also have guides I frequently do not trust, or at least am unsure of; they give me no comfort, just as this guide gave Lehi no comfort. Retrospectively, some of them have been angels. For…
“That They Might Have Joy”: Conquering Shame Through At-one-Ment
*Film spoilers* Steve McQueen’s 2011 film Shame is one of the most devastating movie experiences I’ve had in recent memory. I’m wading into potentially touchy Mormon territory given its NC-17 rating and subject matter, but I think it’s worth the risk. In short, the film follows Brandon (an incredible Michael Fassbender) as he struggles with his all-consuming sex addiction; one that includes frequent pornography viewing and masturbation at both work and home, casual sexual encounters (including one in a gay bar despite being quite straight), and multiple hired sex workers. In the midst of his nihilistic despair, we witness his withdrawal from those around him, including his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) who is temporarily staying with him. Yet, the underlying theme of all this is–as the title makes clear–shame. The word shame may bring to mind a mixed set of meanings. For example, the word is obviously central to “ashamed” or even the phrase “have you no shame?” This understanding of the concept is very ancient in origin. Biblical scholars have labeled societies in antiquity (including the Greco-Roman world Jesus inhabited) as honor/shame societies (this has been discussed here at Times & Seasons before). While the modern Western world features a highly internalized, personalized morality, other cultures place stronger emphasis on the connection between personal behavior and community values. “In shame cultures,” writes one pair of biblical scholars, “people are more likely to choose right behavior on the basis of what society expects from them. It…
Three Footnotes on Moroni and the Swastika
My review of David Conley Nelson’s Moroni and the Swastika, a book about Mormons and the church in Nazi Germany, was just published in Dialogue. To summarize my review briefly: the book’s primary arguments are wrong, it distorts the facts and documents that it takes as evidence for those arguments, and the writing is imprecise and sensationalist in ways that are more typical of religious polemic than mainstream scholarship.
YW Lesson: Why Is It Important for Me to Gain an Education and Develop Skills?
Here’s how I taught this lesson in my ward:
A sad Sunday
It was a sad Sunday, this 15 November 2015. For two reasons; the major disaster of course was the murder spree in Paris, which has shocked Europe to the core. The Sabbath prayers in our Utrecht ward were for the many victims, and for the grieving host of their loved ones. Europe is united in grief, but also in anger. We consider ourselves at war, a word we do not use easily, not with Islam, but with IS. Even the problem of housing hundreds of thousands of refugees who voted with their feet not to stay in a completely radicalized country, pales in the face of this tragedy. But we will not be budged, we will not let our lives be dictated by thugs. On that, everybody agreed, and the grief binds us together. The other issue was totally unrelated, and very small in comparison with this, minute indeed, but the question kept our minds and tongues busy. We simply could not and still cannot understand that grief also could come from friends, from brothers in Christ. Of course I refer to the ruling on children of same sex marriages, who are now denied the normal pathway into the Church, administratively burdened not by their own faults but by the life style of their parents. We in the Netherlands used to be quite Calvinist, and our ancestors suffered under the weight of original sin, of inherited guilt. For us Mormonism…
On Ben Carson’s Adventism, Creationism, and the Bible
I wrote a piece at ReligionandPolitics today about how Ben Carson’s SDA beliefs put him close to the source of creationism. Please give it a read. Ronald Numbers, eminent historian of science, creationism, and Seventh-day Adventism offered useful critique of an earlier draft, my thanks to him. There were a few questions I wanted to address beyond what I wrote, that get more into the history of interpretation. What was the genesis (sorry) of the seven-day structure of Genesis 1? Wasn’t young-earth creationism the only understanding of Genesis until Darwin and evolution force a reevaluation of it? Below, some quick and dirty historical responses to these questions. I find this stuff fascinating, and it will be partially covered in my book.