{"id":34271,"date":"2015-11-06T04:12:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T09:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34271"},"modified":"2015-10-31T07:16:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T12:16:02","slug":"reading-nephi-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/11\/reading-nephi-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>This was a chapter break in the original edition (end of Chapter Two), but I\u2019m not terribly impressed with whoever\u2019s editorial decision that was. This is clearly not a break. Nephi\u2019s switched from discussing his father\u2019s reading of the Plates of Brass to discussing his own writing\u2014but it\u2019s not meant to be a substantive shift; rather, it\u2019s mean to draw a continuity. I don\u2019t know that Nephi\u2019s being audacious in the same way that you or I (or a General Authority for that matter) might be being audacious if we declared our writings scripture. But he is being audacious in the sense that he sees himself as continuing the record. There are the Plates of Brass, there is the Book of Lehi, and here are Nephi\u2019s writings, and they all fall into the same category. Being the new caretakers of this record, the obligation is clearly to continue it. And this sense of things continues, even amongst later record keepers who knew themselves to be unrighteous.<\/p>\n

And what ought one expect to be written in a record such as this? We\u2019ve already seen that a major understanding of the Plates of Brass\u2014and here Nephi obliquely informs us that Lehi took it up as well\u2014is the recounting of one\u2019s genealogy. Scripture is like a covenant\u2014temporally extended, and something in which we ourselves our situated; and giving us an understanding of that situating is a major purpose for having scripture. I lament that Nephi didn\u2019t include the genealogy. I\u2019m fascinated by the idea. How would it have looked? What are the names? What could we learn from them? Were they continued\u2014did they inform Nephite naming practices? Any surprises like there are in Christ\u2019s genealogy? But Nephi\u2014though he clearly feels the need to justify the decision\u2014decided not to share this with us. I suspect he assumed they\u2019d be available to us in the Plates of Brass (which Lehi has just prophesied would go to everyone) as well as his father\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

What else? Here Nephi declares his main intention and motivation: to bring us to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to declare the things of God. I think one sees here as well the older, seasoned Nephi, a man who has long since grown comfortable with the role of theocratic leader among his people. Here is a man who doesn\u2019t hesitate in the slightest to issue commands, not just to his people but to his posterity (i.e., his intended audience; at least at this point).<\/p>\n

And that final command is itself fascinating: don\u2019t write things other than that which is of worth to humans in general. (The inherently relative nature of what is meant as a universal mandate aside.) Two thoughts: first, it\u2019s a command that requires revelation and communion with the divine\u2014there\u2019s no other way to make sense of the command. One would could only know what was of such worth with their ear directly attuned to the Spirit. Second, it\u2019s interesting to see here what Nephi jettisons as not meeting that criterion: genealogies. Clearly the Jews disagreed. As did his father, whose original motivation for retrieving the Plates of Brass was just that. Here is the first trace of Nephi\u2019s convoluted, agonistic relationship to the Jews. Later he explicitly rejects significant portions of the culture and traditions and beliefs. Yet he holds dearly to their God, their covenant, and their promises\u2014waiting to be grafted back in. Add to this the reinterpreted Messiah that soon becomes central to the narrative. We\u2019re witnessing the birth of a new religion\u2014the defining of continuity and distinction\u2014that accompanies the birth of a new people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was a chapter break in the original edition (end of Chapter Two), but I\u2019m not terribly impressed with whoever\u2019s editorial decision that was. This is clearly not a break. Nephi\u2019s switched from discussing his father\u2019s reading of the Plates of Brass to discussing his own writing\u2014but it\u2019s not meant to be a substantive shift; rather, it\u2019s mean to draw a continuity. I don\u2019t know that Nephi\u2019s being audacious in the same way that you or I (or a General Authority for that matter) might be being audacious if we declared our writings scripture. But he is being audacious in the sense that he sees himself as continuing the record. There are the Plates of Brass, there is the Book of Lehi, and here are Nephi\u2019s writings, and they all fall into the same category. Being the new caretakers of this record, the obligation is clearly to continue it. And this sense of things continues, even amongst later record keepers who knew themselves to be unrighteous. And what ought one expect to be written in a record such as this? We\u2019ve already seen that a major understanding of the Plates of Brass\u2014and here Nephi obliquely informs us that Lehi took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34274,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34271\/revisions\/34274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}