{"id":37110,"date":"2017-09-18T05:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T10:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=37110"},"modified":"2017-09-05T04:47:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T09:47:17","slug":"reading-nephi-1512-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2017\/09\/reading-nephi-1512-20\/","title":{"rendered":"A New (and Everlasting) Covenant &#8211; Reading Nephi &#8211; 15:12-20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/09\/reading-nephi-headnote\/068-068-the-liahona-full-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-34019\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-34019\" src=\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/068-068-the-liahona-full1-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/068-068-the-liahona-full1-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/068-068-the-liahona-full1-1024x669.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>This post is part of a series of reflections on I Nephi. If you&#8217;re interested, the introduction to the series is <a href=\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/09\/reading-nephi-series-introduction\/\">here.<\/a>\u00a0To peruse earlier entries, click the authors tab at the top of the page and then click on my name. I welcome your own thoughts on these specific verses (or on my reflections) in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p>* * * *<\/p>\n<p>As Nephi answers his brother\u2019s question in verses 12-14, I have two thoughts that come to mind. First, I think it\u2019s important to see that Nephi\u2019s whole explanation centers on a new worldview. I suspect that his brothers\u2019 lack of understanding had less to do with their inability to grasp our simplistic Sunday School summary of the allegory of the olive tree, and much more to do with how culturally and theologically \u201cother\u201d this picture was compared to their own understanding. As Wittgenstein said, pictures hold us captive. Note the new and exotic elements of Nephi\u2019s picture, very different than the plausible and solidly traditional picture holding Nephi\u2019s brothers [FN1]:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That God\u2019s covenant with Israel isn\u2019t geographically bound;<\/li>\n<li>That the House of Israel can be partitioned and scattered without the dissolution of the covenant;<\/li>\n<li>That in the wake of that scattering, the House of Israel can apostatize for generations without the dissolution of the covenant;<\/li>\n<li>That the Gentiles\u2014the non-covenant people\u2014will play a key role in the fulfillment of God\u2019s covenant with Israel;<\/li>\n<li>That the Messiah is more than human, yet will be \u201cmanifested in body\u201d to humans (note that this continues to be confusing to later generations, including the priests of Noah\u2014and perhaps Abinadi for that matter! I\u2019ll admit it\u2019s confusing for me too; as Latter day Saints we\u2019ve never clearly worked out what this might mean);<\/li>\n<li>That the gospel of the Messiah will be given <em>not<\/em> to the covenant people, but again to the non-covenanting Gentiles;<\/li>\n<li>That even after the Messiah has come and gone, for many generations, this same Messiah (without being present) is still able to bring salvation to those who \u201ccome\u201d to him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To put it mildly, all of this would be quite shocking in a 7<sup>th<\/sup> century BC Jewish world\u2014something all too easy for us who were raised on such a narrative to miss.<\/p>\n<p>But note that it gets even worse (i.e., more scandalous). It\u2019s not just that the Gentiles (non-covenanters) will end up playing a positive role in the overall unfolding of God\u2019s deliverance of his covenant people. First, the Jews (the covenanters) will outright reject the covenant and its fulfillment; and the then the Gentiles will be led by God <em>to destroy <\/em>the Jews, and only <em>after <\/em>that to preach the gospel covenant to them! Particularly in the context of a worldview that understands God\u2019s function as having delivered Israel from Egypt and delivered them to the promised land and delivered the inhabitants of the promised land into Israel\u2019s hand, and then preserved Israel from numerous external attacks\u2014that is, in an ancient Mesopotamian context of God being tied to the military, political, and economic flourishing of a people\u2014this is incredible. To say the least. Rather than clarify or further contextualize or address this scandalous point, Nephi instead claims that all of this is ultimately the fulfillment of God\u2019s covenant with Abraham! More particularly, these events are somehow the fulfillment of what God meant in declaring that Abraham\u2019s posterity will bless all the earth!<\/p>\n<p>All this helps me to understand what it is that Nephi\u2019s brother\u2019s found so difficult to understand in Lehi\u2019s claims (and probably Nephi\u2019s commentary as well). But it\u2019s also deeply profound. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. It strikes me as indeed a blessing to all the earth that Abraham\u2019s posterity is both geopolitically abased and (in some sense of the word) apostate to the covenant, while at the same time having bequeathed to all the earth truth and a covenantal relationship that blesses us all. In fact, it is precisely the taking up of the covenant to restore Israel that is the blessing to the Gentile hosts of the earth. It heals all sides, grafts in all branches, makes the entirety of the orchard fruitful. This is the kind of deeply inclusive form of exclusive covenant that I can give my whole heart to.<\/p>\n<p>Second, I\u2019m struck by the parallel between the narrative drama of chapter 15 and what will later take place with Mormon\u2019s account of Abinadi before Noah and the priests. In both scenarios we see: the rightful rulers and teachers of the people (culturally speaking) react contentiously to the teachings of a recently sent prophet. These rulers and teachers are unable to understand that prophet\u2019s message (on multiple levels). Their challenge to the prophet is articulated (in part) as a matter of disputing the meaning of a passage of scripture or revelation. The prophet can surely see that the whole of the matter of the challenge is not merely the meaning of the given passage, but rather is a matter of an entirely separate orientation toward scripture and revelation. Nevertheless, the prophet patiently (or perhaps \u201cpatiently;\u201d Nephi never seems to reveal himself as anything more than \u201cpatient\u201d) explains the meaning of the passage in question, contextualizing it within the greater redemptive narrative of the Messiah to come. Ultimately, the rulers\/teachers reject and murder the prophet (or attempt to murder him and sew the seeds for the later genocide of the prophet\u2019s people). This rejection and (attempted) murder likewise results in the loss of political power among the ruler\/teachers as well as significant suffering among the rest of society.<\/p>\n<p>The confrontation doesn\u2019t come off so well for either party\u2014at least not in the short term. It strikes me as odd at the end of this passage that Nephi claims his brothers were humbled. At the start of the next chapter they don\u2019t sound very humbled\u2014and Nephi accuses them of being the opposite. This is one way that the text manifests Nephi\u2019s work of crafting a narrative years removed from the actual events. What\u2019s given to us as a single conversation in the immediate wake of a vision is more than that\u2014it\u2019s a concise distillation of Nephi\u2019s understanding of (perhaps) years\u2019 worth of interchanges.<\/p>\n<p>* * * *<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It\u2019s hard to tell how closely Nephi\u2019s &amp; Lehi\u2019s pictures track one another, since in 10:12-14 we\u2019re already getting Nephi\u2019s summary and interpretation of\u2014together with commentary on\u2014Lehi\u2019s discussion of the allegory of the olive tree.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I suspect that his brothers\u2019 lack of understanding had less to do with their inability to grasp our simplistic Sunday School summary of the allegory of the olive tree, and much more to do with how culturally and theologically \u201cother\u201d this picture was compared to their own understanding.<\/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-37110","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\/37110","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=37110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37174,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37110\/revisions\/37174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}