A Kingdom of Priests

When the children of Israel arrive at Mount Sinai, the Lord tells them "You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself.  Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom priests, and an holy nation" (Exodus 19:4-6)

Did this happen to the House of Israel in the Old Testament?  In a way it did, but in a limited scale.  In Exodus 19 the Lord told Moses to bring the people to the bottom of the mountain so they could hear his voice. The people came, and they saw the lightning and thunder on the mountain, and heard the voice of the Lord but it sounded to them like a trumpet. (v 18-19)  Then in Exodus 24, Moses, Aaron, and 72 others were admitted onto the mountain where "They saw the God of Israel...And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God and did eat and drink." (v 9-11) These experiences distinguished these people as witnesses of God. They were singled out as a special group of people, or "treasure" because they had this experience and entered into a covenant with God.

Most of the House of Israel, however, refused to receive the full blessing the God wanted to give them. When Moses came down from the mountain with the Law, "All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off." (Exodus 20: 18-21)  The people were too afraid to listen to the Lord directly and enter his presence. Then, soon after they feared because Moses had been the in Mountain talking to the Lord for a long time.  They made a golden calf and worshiped it when God had expressly commanded them not to make any images. (Exodus 32) They are not ready to become a "nation of priests", so the Lord creates a subset of priests to serve them. 

The Lord commands the people to build the tabernacle, and then consecrates Aaron and his sons to be priests to serve in the Tabernacle (Exodus 28).  The Levites and descendants of Aaron continued to server in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, for hundreds of years until Herod's Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.  In that way, the House of Israel partially fulfills the command to be "kingdom of priests, and a holy nation," but the priesthood was limited to a select few who officiated in the temple. The other tribes of Israel depended on the temple workers to help them perform ordinances and make covenants.

So what about today?  Is there a "kingdom of priests" today?  I only know of one church that invites all members to become priests and priestesses. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invites all worthy young men to be ordained as priests beginning at age 16. All worthy adults are washed and anointed to become priests and priestesses in holy temples.  In the ancient temple, only the high priest may enter the Holy of Holies once a year. In modern temples all worthy adults are invited to symbolically pass through the temple veil and enter the Lord's presence when they receive their temple endowment. In a very real way the members of the LDS church fulfill the Lord's request to be a "kingdom of priests".

So if members are part of this "kingdom of priests" what are our responsibilities? In ancient days the priests made it so that all the house of Israel could perform the ordinances required by the Judaic Law. That is what the modern LDS church is offering to the whole world today. They recognize that all peoples and cultures have truth and their own kinds of relationships with God, but only in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can people recieve and perform the ordinances, and make the ritualistic covenants they need to fulfill God's plan for them.  That is why we build so many temples.  That is why we send our young people and older people to serve as missionaries.  We are the kingdom of priests that the Lord is sending out serve the entire world.   

Jesus' Anointing

This week we take a break from our study of Exodus and turn to the celebration of Holy Week.  I posted about my family's traditions surrounding Holy Week a few years ago.  Today I want to focus on an occurrence that is often overlooked in the recounting of the last week of Jesus' life. To start out, I have to ask the question: what does it mean when we say Jesus the Christ?  

Both of the terms "Christ" and "Messiah" mean the same thing, "Anointed One." (Christ is Greek, and Messiah is Hebrew).  What role does anointing play in the Old Testament?  There are two kinds of people who are anointed, priests, and kings. Since Jesus qualifies as both a priest and a king then it makes sense that he would be anointed. Yet, there is no account of Jesus being formally anointed by either of religious or political leaders of the day.  There isn't even an account of Jesus being anointed by God.  

There are only two accounts of Jesus receiving an anointing, and both were performed by women.  In John 12:1-8 Mary the sister of Martha, anoints Jesus' feet shortly before Holy Week.  In Mark 14:3-9 an unnamed woman anoints Jesus' head with spikenard. Some people think of these as two separate events, and some people see them as two recountings of the same event. For this discussion I will consider them the same event.  Mary, the sister of Martha, pours a very expensive and aromatic oil on Jesus right before his crucifixion.

Why, if one of Jesus' main titles is "Anointed One," is Jesus anointed only by women?  And what is spikenard and why would a women own a very expensive alabaster container of it?  

Spikenard is a essential oil perfume made from a plant that grows in the Himalayas. It would have been expensive because it was imported from a far-away country. Why might a woman own some?  We must remember that ancient Israel, especially the cities, would have been very stinky places. There was the smell of sweaty bodies, sweaty animals, and animal dung. Jews performed a lot of ritual washings, but in the desert running water was scarce and baths were few. It would have been normal, therefore, for a woman to have purchased, or have been gifted perfume as part of her dowry to sweeten the experience of marital intimacy. 

I purchased some spikenard last time we studied the New Testament.  It has a nice smell, but quite strong.  A few drops of it would have gone a long way. The story specifically says that pouring the whole container on Jesus' head was considered a waste and the smell filled the house. 

One way to look at the scene is that Mary, by sacrificing the large container of oil was showing her great love, perhaps even romantic love, for Jesus.  She was, in essence, saying, "because of my great love for you I will never marry or love another man. I know you are going to die, so I will use all my spikenard on you at once, while I have the chance." 

If this is the case, it is a very touching and romantic scene. It makes it even more beautiful that Jesus appears first to Mary when he is resurrected.

There is, however, an even more impactful symbolic meaning to this scene. If you read through my blog titles from the last time we studied the Old Testament, you know that the idea of God as the Bridegroom, and the church as his bride permeates the whole Old Testament, and then recurs in force in the book of Revelation. I think the reason that the woman in Mark who anoints Jesus is unnamed, is because Mark (and the other gospel writers) was aware of this symbolism.  He knows that spikenard is associated with the bridal chamber.  He knows that the bride represents the church.  He is showing two important principles. 

First, that it is Jesus' death that makes him the Bridegroom. When Judas asks why Jesus allowed the waist of the expensive oil, Jesus says that she has done it in preparation for his burial (Mark 14:8). He is combining images of marriage and death on purpose. He is showing that Jesus' suffering and death is the marriage that joins us to him in an everlasting covenantal embrace. 

Second, Jesus is not established (i.e. anointed) as priest and king by worldly religious or political leaders, but by the church itself (symbolized by the woman).  In order for him to be our priest, we must be his disciples.  In order for him to be our king, we must be his subjects. It is our love and respect for him that enthrones him and makes him Lord in our lives and in our hearts. 

Covenant Relationship in Genesis 18-23

 In Genesis 12 Abraham enters a covenant relationship with the Lord, which we discussed in my pervious blog. In the chapters we read in Come Follow Me this week we get to see what it means to be in a covenant relationship. One of the insights I gained this week is that a covenant is more than just an agreement--if you do this then I will do that.  Instead it is a relationship with God that grows as you and God learn to trust each other. 

There is a modern way of talking about relationships that deals with “bids” and how someone responds to them.  A “bid” is when someone does something to seek your attention or involvement in their life. How you respond to the bid largely determines how good your relationship is with that person. You can respond in three basic ways: you can turn toward them, away from them, or against them.  When you turn toward the person, you are acknowledging their need and offering some kind of support or aid. Turning away is when you change the interchange from being focused on the person, to being focused on something else, or on yourself. Turning against a person means that your reply to the bid with some kind of comment or action that feels like an attack. 

In Genesis 18-23 we see several short vignettes which involve either the Lord or the covenant family member putting out a "bid" and what response to the bid comes from the other party. The stories demonstrate that when the covenant family of Abrahams reaches out to the Lord, he responds by turning toward them. When God puts out a "bid" to one of the covenant family, they mostly respond by turning toward him, but not all. Those who do turn toward the Lord are blessed, but those who do not are punished. 

I taught this principle to my class of teenagers today.  Here are the stories we considered. We made a chart that showed who it was who made the bid and what the response was. 

Genesis 18: 1-5 Abraham entertains the three messengers

The Lord makes the bid to Abraham. Abraham turns to the Lord by welcoming the messengers with extreme hospitality, The Lord blesses Abraham and Sarah with the ability to have a child. 

Genesis18: 22-33 Bargaining over Sodom and Gomorrah

Abraham makes the bid to the Lord by asking him to Spare Sodom and Gomorrah if some righteous can be found.  The Lord turns toward Abraham by actively bargaining and giving the concessions Abraham seeks. In the end, even the lowest concession is not met, but the Lord still tries to save Lot and his family from the coming destruction.

 

Genesis 19: 12-26 Lot’s family escapes Sodom and Gomorrah

The Lord makes the bid by sending messengers to save Lot's family.  Lot's son-in-laws turn away because they are not willing to leave the city.  Lot's wife turns away as well and is destroyed. The people of the wicked cities turn against the messengers, threatening to kill them, and are destroyed. 
Genesis 21:15-19 Hagar and Ishmael are cast out

After Hagar and Ishmael are cast out from the family of Abraham they are about to die of thirst.  Hagar makes the bid, asking the Lord to save their lives. The Lord turns toward Hagar by providing water, but also by blessing her to be the matriarch of a great nation through Ishmael.

Genesis 22:1-3 Abraham is willing to offer Isaac

The Lord makes the bid by asking Abraham to sacrifice his miracle son. Despite the horrific nature of the bid, Abraham turns toward the Lord by preparing to sacrifice his son straightaway. 

Genesis 22:9-14 Abraham is spared from offering Isaac

Abraham make perhaps a silent bid to the Lord to not have to sacrifice his son.  The Lord responds by turning toward Abraham and sending an angel to stop the sacrifice.  He instead provides a ram for the sacrifice, and accepts Isaac as the heir to the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. 

In each of these cases when the supplicant made a bid to the Lord, the Lord blessed them beyond what was strictly needed.  When the Lord made a bid from one of the covenant keepers, and the person turned toward the Lord, the Lord blessed him. The time when the covenant keeper turned away, the outcome was dire. Through these repeated experiences the relationship between the family of Abraham and the Lord grew stronger because each came to see that the other could be relied upon to maintain the relationship and the covenant. 

In real life, even the faithful don't get exactly what they want when they petition the Lord.  That is not because he is not keeping up his part of the relationship, but because he knows better than we do what we really need in the eternal scheme of things.  If we both keep making and receiving "bids" from the each other, we come to trust each other so that when, in a specific situation, we don't receive what we would like from the Lord, we have enough relational cache that we are able to trust that God actually does know what is best for us. That helps us endure our trials with faith. 

But it is not just about getting through trials. When we continually put ourselves in a state of humility to ask and receive communication from God, we become refined, gain capacity, and become more like the Savior. What I realized this week is the the Covenant Path our church leaders keep talking about is more than just checking of a list of ordinances we need to complete.  It is a path of relationship building where each time we respond to the Lord and he responds to us, our relationship gets closer and we become more like him.

 

The Abrahamic Covenant

 In Come Follow Me this week we read Genesis 12-17.  It has some interesting stories--some that are hard to understand.  In 2022 I wrote a blog about the story of Abram telling the pharaoh that his wife was his sister.  I still haven't heard anyone else put forward the idea I explained in that post, but I think it is an interesting one. 

This week I have been thinking about the Abrahamic Covenant and how I might teach it to teenagers. I blogged about the vision of the cut animals back in 2022. Although I found that interpretation fascinating, I think it is a little esoteric for 15-year-olds.

I have heard some teachers refer to the three "P's" of the Abrahamic Covenant: Priesthood, Posterity, Promised Land. The church's "topics and questions" article about the Abrahamic Covenant says that the covenant includes posterity and priesthood, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. 

The idea that priesthood is part of the Abrahamic Covenant is unique to the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.  Nowhere in Genesis does the Lord talk about Abraham having priesthood, though it could be implied because Abraham is clearly the spiritual leader of his clan and receives revelation in various forms. 

In Genesis, Abraham is promised that he would become a great nation, that his name would be great, that the Lord would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. (Genesis 12: 2-3) Elsewhere the Lord promises his decedents the land of Canaan as an inheritance. (Genesis 15:18-21)

So what here applies to modern Latter-day Saints?  In D&C 84:33-34 it says

"33 For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods (Aaronic and Melchizedek) of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.
34 They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God."

This implies that we, through the priesthood, partake in the Abrahamic Covenant. What does that actually mean for us?  We are not going to inherit the land of Canaan.  We are not going to be the founder of many nations, at least on earth. It is not through our descendants that all the nations of the world will be blessed (especially if someone doesn't happen to have descendants).

I think the best answer to this for Latter-day Saints is the sealing prayer in the temple. In that prayer we are promised all the things mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant (though not Canaan specifically) not on this earth, but in the eternal world. 

So does the Abrahamic Covenant have any application for us in this life?  We have the hope of future blessings, and that hope is itself a blessing, but is there more?

I think that the Abrahamic Covenant, especially the version found in Genesis, boils down to the idea that God is our god and will take care of us and watch our back. If you think about it, Abraham was promised that things that were of most worth to people of his time period.  He needed a large posterity to ensure his safety and success as part of a large and powerful clan. Without centralized government, people were at the mercy of any clan that was bigger and more powerful than your own. In chapters that follow the Genesis 12 we see some examples of clan wars, and that Abraham was able to assemble enough troops from his own clan to defeat invading hostile clans. He needed a great reputation to deter those who might think of invading and conquering his clan. He needed land so his flocks and family members could farm, herd, and get enough natural resources to survive. Finally, he needed divine intervention if someone with a bigger clan did attack, or if there was a famine, or any of a number of trials from the time period.

Our needs are not the same as Abraham's.  We are not part of a nomadic tribe wandering around the deserts of the Levant. We don't need a large posterity to ensure our safety and security.  We don't need to own a large piece of land to ensure that we get enough food. We don't need fame to prevent others from attacking us. But still, we partake in the Abrahamic covenant because when we accept God as our God, he promises to watch our back.  He will give us what we need to survive and be successful (at least spiritually) on this earth just as he did for Abraham.  His blessings might look different for each of us, but they will come if we follow the Lord. 

Section 77: Three Priests of the Temple

Last week we studied Doctrine and Covenants section 77.  It is a question and answer session with the Lord about the meaning of certain symbols in the book of Revelations. Most of it is pretty difficult to understand. 

There was one thing I heard in one of my podcasts that I wanted to record because I thought it was interesting.  It was in Talking Scripture and it was made by Bryce Dunford (Episode 329, I am quoting from the transcript).  Bryce's big thing is that he sees temple symbolism in everything.  In this context he was talking about the identity of Elias (v. 9)  He pointed out that Elias is the Greek form of Elijah (because in Greek if you end a name with an "A" sound it sounds like a girl's name).  I wanted to record it here so I could have it for future reference. He said, 

"I think Elias is a priestly figure.  Now I'm going to take you liturgically to the temple, and there's three priests.  There's the one who's standing outside, calling everybody to leave Egypt."

"And that typically is personified as Moses.  Then once they leave and they enter into the call or the holy place, there's a priest there that is inviting them to live a higher law.  And that is the Elias figure/"

"And so that's John.  John in the wilderness is an Elias. He is actually called that because he's speaking to people with ears to hear, and he's asking them to live a higher law."

... "And then finally, the third priestly figure is Melchizedek or Jesus.  And that figure is the one that invites us to cross the veil into the father's presence.  And so if you read it that way, John is standing as Elias, and he writing this work, and no one's going to get it except those who have ears to hear." 

I don't know where Bryce got the information about the three priests representing Moses, Elias, and Melchizedek, but I thought it was very interesting.  It helps explain all the different people who are called Elias in the scriptures. 

Section 29: Foreshadowing the Exodus

 Section 29 is the first eschatological section in the Doctrine & Covenants. Eschatology is the study of the end times. This section is often compared to the book of Ezekiel or the Book of Revelation because they also deal with the end times and have some of the same symbolic images.  One of the podcasts I listened to this week (I think it was Scott and Casey on Scripture Central) pointed out that there is also a lot of imagery here from the book of Exodus. This fascinated me since one of the things I am discovering this year is that the modern church was as much a restoration of the Old Testament worship as it is of the New Testament gospel.  

In the Exodus story, before the people leave Egypt, Moses calls down 10 plagues onto the Egyptians.  They are:, water into blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail that turns into fire, locust, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.  Once they left Egypt, the Hebrews were lead by a pillar of fire/smoke to Mount Sinai where they received the law. Let's see how many of these images we can find in D&C 29.

Hail: 29:16 (also and stars falling v. 14)
Flies: 29:18

Lice: (here maggots) 29:18
Darkness: 29:14
Pillar of Fire: 29:12
Mount Sinai: 29:13

It doesn't include all the images, but there is definitely enough that someone familiar with the Exodus story might notice the tie in, especially because of the mention of the Pillar of Fire and the Mount Sinai. Those images are exclusively related to the Moses story.

At this time Joseph Smith was working on the "translation" of the Bible, so maybe these ideas were already in his head when he received the revelation. The thing he didn't know, and nobody knew at that point except God, was that within 20 years the Saints would be making their own exodus from the United States, lead by a modern Moses, Brigham Young, to establish a new home/nation in the American West. As the Old Testament Exodus is the foundation story of the People of Israel, the Doctrine and Covenants is the foundation story of the modern church. Was the Lord intentionally foreshadowing?  Probably.  He loves to do that. Did anyone pick up on it at the time? Probably not.

Ether

I was out of town and missed a couple of weeks so I am combining a bunch of thoughts about the Book of Either into one post.  

The Book of Ether is a short account of a group of people who came to the Americas more than a 1000 years before the Nephite exodus from Jerusalem.  The first part is in the form of an epic origin narrative, and there is a cursory account of the various rulers of the people, and then it ends with an epic destruction narrative. The whole story mirrors in miniature the account of the Nephite people. Here are a few things I found interesting in the story. 

The Brother of Jared was the religious leader at the beginning of the story. His actual name is never mentioned, but one of the podcasters noted that if you are writing in a pictorial language, like ancient Egyptian, (not that it says it was written in that language, but many ancient languages started out as pictorial) it is a lot easier to use a common idea, like "brother" than to come up with a sign that represents the phonetic recreation of someone's name. This is because each picture represents either a word, or a syllable. Common words have their own symbol, but an unfamiliar word, like a name, would be represented by symbols of words that sound like the syllables of the name. For example, if the language required that there be a picture letter for each syllable of Mohonri Moriacumer, it would have needed to use eight symbols each time the name was mentioned.  But if the language already had an accepted symbol for brother, then writing, "The Brother of Jared" would only take three symbols. 

The experience of the Brother of Jared seeing the finger of God is very much a temple experience. It resembles more the ancient temple experience than the modern one, but all three have the key element of being allowed to move through the veil to enter the presence of the Lord.  There is a good "Know Why" by Scripture Central about the imagery.

Even though this is an "epic" narrative, and is not trying to be historically accurate, there are ways that ancient peoples could have crossed into the Americas using boats.  It is unlikely that they would have been able to do it in one go, like is suggested by the text, because they would not have been able to store enough water and food, and deal with refuse from the animals and people, if they really did spend almost a year in the boat without reaching land.  It is not, however, impossible that they could have used boats to move in increments along the coast to get to the Americas.  I watched a PBS video that suggested that the first peoples to enter the Americas did come by boat, moving in stages from Asia to Alaska to Washington etc, camping on the beach along the way, rather than by walking across the frozen Bering Strait. 

The most impactful thing about the Book of Ether for me this month has been the metaphor of God sending someone on a difficult and uncomfortable journey to get them to a better place.  God wanted to give the people of Jared a promised land, but he knew they could only get there by making a frightening and uncomfortable journey.  Because they had faith, the people were willing to undertake the journey in hopes of receiving God's blessing.  In return, God gave the people what they needed to make the journey safely and even gave them whatever comfort he could to make the journey less arduous (e.g. the lighted stones in their vessels, and the strong wind that blew them across the sea more quickly). But he didn't remove the necessity of making the journey.  They had to make the journey to get where they needed to be.  Life is sometimes like that.  We have to go through the hard dark times for God to get us to where we need to be.  It takes faith not to back away from the hard stuff, but if we do have faith, and call on God for help, he gives us what we need to get through the journey. 

Samuel the Lamanite

 The Story of Samuel the Lamanite is one that is always a hit with children and teens.  In my primary class today I let a child stand on a chair while he read part of Samuel's speech. The visual image of Samuel standing on the wall as the Nephites below try to knock him off with stones and arrows is unforgettable. If you look past the drama of the scene, there are other aspects of interest that I noticed this week, both from my reading and from my podcasts.

First, as we have seen in the Old Testament and, to a lesser degree, in the Book of Mormon, the name is the message.  Samuel is a Hebrew, שְׁמוּאֵל, comes from two words, "shem", meaning name, and El, meaning God. Samuel in the Old Testament, is a prophet who hears God call his name (Samuel 3:2). In his speech, Samuel the Lamanite makes it clear God has called him by name to speak God's word, "Behold, I, Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak to you the words of the Lord." (13:5).  

Second, we don't really know much about Samuel.  The writer, presumably Helaman, but maybe Mormon, introduces him, simply, as "one Samuel, a Laminite" (13:2). He is not from Zarahemla, since it says "he came into the land Zarahemla" (13:2) and when he leaves the city, he flees to "his own country" (16:7).  So the question is, how did he come to be named Samuel.  That, as I have stated, is a very Hebrew name.  The Lamanites we have read about before this mostly don't have Hebrew sounding names, (e.g. Lamoni, Lehonti, Zerahemnah) so chances are that Samuel is a second generation convert.  He prophecies as 5 BC and he seems to be an adult at the time, so he could be a descendant of the people of Ammon, who were converted about 80 BC. Could he be one of the Stripling Warriors, who fought in 65 BC?  If he is, he is pretty old by ancient standards, but he might be one of their sons. If he is the child of one of the converts of Lehi and Nephi, he is quite young, because Lehi and Nephi had their success with the Lamanites in 30 BC. Whoever his parents are, he is well read in Nephite scripture.  He quotes Alma and seems to refer to the preaching of King Benjamin. 

The real question is why don't we know more about him.  The obvious reason might be that either Helaman, or Mormon didn't know more about him.  When they talk about Nephite leaders, they know from their own records who their parentage is, but Samuel is an outsider, and didn't stick around after the event.  How could they get to know his parentage?  Another less flattering idea is that either Helaman or Mormon had a touch of racial prejudice. Afterall, there is no other record in the Book of Mormon of the preaching of a Lamanite. Did they only include Samuel because the Lord urged them to in 3rd Nephi 23:9?  If they were a little prejudice, it is understandable.  Both men had spent much of their adult life at war with the Lamanites. It is hard to had high regard for those who are trying to kill you.

The most remarkable thing about Samuel's prophecies are their specificity.  Only in Samuel's prophecies do we get a measurable time frame within which a prophecy is to be fulfilled.  It isn't usually the Lord's way to be so exact in a prophecy.  I think the Lord was specific here because there was so much at stake.  We know from subsequent chapters that Samuel's warning about destruction was no idle threat. During the calamities at Jesus' death, Zarahemla is burned with fire. Other Nephite cities are buried under landslides or sunken into the sea. Samuel's words gave the people fair warning so that the Lord's ultimate judgements were just. (15:17)  It makes me think that if our modern prophets start slipping in definite time lines into their prophecies/predictions, we better watch out.

Abish

 This week in our Come Follow Me readings we meet one of the six women named in the Book of Mormon.  The fact that we only have six named women in the Book of Mormon is notable. For comparison, there are about 200 named women in the Old Testament. I think one reason there might be very few women named is because of the editor. Mormon was a man who lived very much in a male centered world.  He was a military leader in a time of war, and these areas of focus were overwhelmingly the realm of men during his life. The fact that he mentions Abish by name here, therefore, means that he found her name significant. 

The name "Abish" is from two Hebrew words, ab (אָב) which means "father" and ish (איש) which means "man". So her name literally means, "father is a man".  So why would Mormon find this name significant? It is just a statement of fact: isn't everyone's father is a man?  The podcasters I listened two mentioned two possible reasons.  One is that she was converted to the gospel by "a remarkable vision of her father."  Here we have an ambiguity.  Who had the vision? One way to read this is that Abish's father had a vision and told Abish about it and Abish was converted.  A different way to read it is that Abish had a vision of her father that converted her to Christianity.  Of course, that begs the question, was it a vision of her earthly father, or is this referring to a vision of her Heavenly Father. The text just doesn't give us enough to answer these questions definitively. 

The other reason Mormon might have considered the name significant, is because it encapsulated the difference between the Nephite view of God and the Lamanite view of God.  In the the stories of Ammon preaching to Lamoni, and the one of Aaron preaching to Lamoni's father, it states that the Lamanites believed in a "Great Spirit". (Alma 18:5 and Alma 22:9)  This Great Spirit created the world, but didn't actively govern the affairs of men. The Nephites, on the other hand believed that God is in the form of a man and he is their Heavenly Father, i.e. Father is a Man--Abish. 

These are interesting speculations, but we don't reallyknow why Mormon included Abish's name and not, say, the name of Lamoni's queen who also played an important part in the story. I do find it remarkable that this name, which is not found it the Old Testament, is here in the Book of Mormon.  It is a very Hebrew sounding name and has a meaning in Hebrew that is clearly related to the story being told. Could Joseph Smith have made this up while crafting the Book of Mormon at age 21, before he had ever studies Hebrew?  It is only one of many many Hebraisms found the in book. Maybe they are all coincidences, but really? 

Why Melchizedek?

 When Alma and Amulek are preaching to the people of Ammonihah, Alma is explaining to Zeezrom the plan of redemption, starting with the fall of Adam (Alma 12). Then in the next chapter he seems to randomly launch into a discussion of the priesthood and how Melchizedek was a high priest after the order of the son of God (Alma 13).  What does Melchizedek have to do with the fall of Adam and the plan of redemption?

To answer that question, you have to remember a couple of things from the Old Testament. The story of the fall of Adam sets up the main conflict of the Old Testament.  Man is thrust out of the presence of God and cannot return without divine assistance. In the Old Testament that assistance comes with the establishment of temples and priesthood. In the First Temple Period, people are ritualistically cleansed through blood sacrifice and then the High Priest, acting as proxy for the whole nation, is admitted into a symbolic garden of Eden (i.e. Holy of Holies) and the presence of the Lord (before the Mercy Seat), thus overcoming spiritual death.

Of course, in the Old Testament, the only people who could be High Priests were direct descendants of Aaron. This was a problem for the Lehites when they left Jerusalem because they were descended from Manasseh, not Aaron. They built temples in the New World, but there was no one, according to the Jewish law, who could act as High Priest. It seems that they resolved that problem the same way that Paul resolved the problem of Jesus' claim to be a High Priest in the book of Hebrews chapter 7. I that chapter, Paul claims that Jesus' authority comes not through Aaron, but through an older priesthood, after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7:17) In Alma 13, Alma seems to be using the same kind of argument to justify ordaining High Priests, not according to Levitical law, but through the older Melchizedek priesthood.  These priests could establish and run temples, which showed the people how to overcome original sin, and return to God's presence.  

Of course, Alma was not ignorant of another good reason to bring up Melchizedek.  Melchizedek was a religious leader to was able to take a wicked people and lead them into righteousness. That is what Alma was trying to do with the people of Ammonihah. Melchizedek is a type of Christ.  His name means, "Righteous King" which is also a title of Jesus. Alma hopes that the people of Ammonihah will be encouraged and inspired by the story of Melchizedek as a type of Jesus, to repent and have hope for eternal life. 

Alma's sermon to Zeezrom, Hard Hearts and Soft Hearts

 This week in Come Follow Me, we read about Alma's mission to the people of Ammonihah and the conversion of Amulek and Zeezrom. One of the recurring themes in his sermon, and throughout the whole book of Alma is the idea of having a hard heart. The idea of having a hard heart is mentioned dozens of times in Alma.  It is interesting that the term "soft" heart is never mentioned, and the term "softened their hearts" is only mentioned twice. 

What does it mean to have a hard heart? One thing to consider is that the heart had a slightly different symbolic meaning in the Old Testament than it does in modern times. In our culture, the brain is the center of  understanding, the heart is the center of emotion, and the gut is the center of intuition. In the Old Testament, the brain where you store information,  but the heart is the center of understanding, the gut is the center of emotion. So if you are hard hearted, it doesn't mean you have strong negative emotions against something. It means that you are closed minded. You are unwilling to consider and understand things. 

Some of the passages in Alma 12 support the idea that the people of Alma's time also had the same symbols attached to the different parts of the body.  Having a hard heart seems to be associated with being unwilling to receive the words of the Lord.  In Alma 12:10, Alma says that "he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word".  Then in v.13 "Then if our hearts have been hardened, yea, if we have hardened our hearts against the word, insomuch that it has not been found in us, then will our state be awful, for then we shall be condemned."  Having a hard heart clearly means you are not willing to accept  "the word".  It is about knowledge and understanding, not necessarily about emotion.

After these statements Alma goes into a recounting of the fall of Adam. He focuses on the fact that when Adam falls he gains the ability to know the difference between good and evil:

31. Wherefore, he gave commandments unto men, they having first transgressed the first commandments as to things which were temporal, and becoming as gods, knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and pleasures, whether to do evil or to do good—

32 Therefore God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption...

Simply stated, Adam and Eve gained the understanding of good and evil from the fall, and the result was that God gave them commandments so they would know to choose the good.

When Alma and Amulek were first teaching Zeezrom, he was hard hearted.  He was asking questions to trick Amulek into saying something self-incriminating instead of seeking honest answers. When Amulek and then Alma withstand the tricks, and point out Zeezrom's own wickedness, he begins to tremble, and he begins to soften his heart.  He was still asking questions, but his questions were honest and sincere.  He was asking questions with an open mind, ready to consider and possibly accept the answers. With his mind receptive to truth, he has become, in the symbolism of the Hebrews, soft hearted. 

Zeezrom, unfortunately was the exception. Most of the people of Ammonihah remain hard hearted. They were unwilling to listen to truth, and they were also wicked.  We learn in later chapters that most of the people of Ammonihah ultimately reject Alma's teaching and do horrible things to the believers. The text implies, however, that the root of their wicked behavior was their unwillingness to listen to truth not visa versa.

The unwillingness to listen to truth is also a prevalent problem in modern society.  Using this definition, it would be possible that some really nice people are also hard hearted.  They are set in their ways, maybe they have a pet philosophy and are closed minded to any other way.  I think it is also important to say to ourselves, as the early apostles did at the last supper, "is it I, Lord?" (Matthew 26:25)  Are there things, even gospel truths, that we are unwilling to consider? If the answer is "yes" we might consider Alma's words to Zeezrom in Alma 12:10, "he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion, until it is given to him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full." If that doesn't motivate us to give up our pet philosophies, I don't know what will.

Abinadi as Moses

 This week we studied the words that Abinadi preached to King Noah and his court. As I read it this time, I was struck by how many similarities there are between Abinadi and Moses. Several of the podcasts I listen too mentioned it as well. Mormon, the editor of the story, seems to specifically bring attention to the similarities. Here are a few. 

Both Abinadi and Moses are sent to a people who are in captivity.  Where as the house of Israel are in physical bondage to the pharaohs, the people of King Noah are in spiritual bondage.  Noah "did cause his people to commit sin" (Mosiah 11:2)

Both Abinadi and Moses gave the people the ten commandments. (Mosiah 12-13)

Both Abinadi's and Moses' faces shone when they were filled with the Holy Ghost (Mosiah 13:6), Mormon even says that his face shone like Moses' on Mount Sinai (13:5)

Both Abinadi and Moses established a new religious dispensation. As Moses wrote down the new Mosaic Law,  Alma wrote down Abinadi's words and they became the basis for Nephite religion for the next 150 years until the coming of Christ.  Alma passed them on to his son Alma the Younger, who taught them to his descendants, Helaman, then Helaman, and then Nephi and Lehi. 

The timing is just about right as well.  If we think of Lehi as Abraham and Abinadi as Moses, in both cases there were about 400 years between them.  400 years is a long time, and a religious structure can slip a lot in that much time. How closely were they still following the Law of Moses?  Who knows.  It is clear that they knew about the Law of Moses (13:26-27), but they will have mixed with indigenous people and adopted some of their beliefs and practices.  If they hadn't had the brass plates, they would have strayed even more from the Law, but they did, and seem to be familiar with the later prophets, such as Isaiah, as well. 

As Moses did not restore the Abrahamic religious practice, but set up a new worship based on the tabernacle, the religion Abinadi sets up is not a renewal of the Law of Moses, but the gospel of Christ. He sees the Law as a forerunner of  the Gospel of Christ. He sees the necessity to continue practicing the Law of Moses, but only while they await the advent of Christ. 

The main way that Abinadi differs Moses is that he did not live to lead his people out of captivity. That was left to his one convert, Alma, whom we will study next week.

The Condescension of God

 If you have been reading my blog this year so far, you know that I have been asking "When did Nephi learn that the Messiah would be their God, Jehovah, incarnate?"  This week while I was listening to my podcasts I found the answer in 1 Nephi 11.

Nephi has prayed and asked to know the meaning of his father's vision.  He is caught away in the spirit and an angel shows him the scene Lehi described.  First he sees the tree with the fruit (v 8).  The spirit asks him what he wants to know, and he answers "to know the interpretation thereof." (v 11)  The angel then shows him a vision of the virgin Mary and asks "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" (v. 16).

Nephi replies that he doesn't understand that concept, and the angel says, "Behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh." (v 18). Or did he?

Two of the podcasters I listen to mentioned that in the original 1830 version of the Book of Mormon, the verse read, "the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh." (see 1830 version of the Book of Mormon in the Joseph Smith Papers.) They said that Joseph Smith went back later and changed it to the current reading to avoid confusion. Later, in Chapter 11 an similar "clarification" was made.  It now reads, referring to Mary's baby, "Behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Farther!" but it in 1830 it read, "Behold the Lamb of God, Even the Eternal Father." (ibid)  Joseph Smith doubtless made this correction because in his day, people understood that Mary's baby wasn't Heavenly Father, but Jesus Christ.  He didn't want anyone claiming that he was suggesting that Mary's son was Heavenly Father. 

In Nephi's time, however, the Israelites didn't believe that Elohim was one god, and Jehovah was another god.  There was only one god, or elohim, that was called, "Jehovah." They believed a Messiah would come but they also did not know that Jehovah would come to earth and become the Messiah, the suffering servant described by Isaiah (Isaiah: 53)  They had no clue about the condescension of God. It is not until the New Testament that there is an idea of a "Son of God," and really, only John who suggests that Jesus was the creator God, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. (see John 1:1-9)

The original translation of 1 Nephi 11 suggests that Nephi got the message centuries before the rest of the world.  It makes it clear that Nephi understood, from very early in his ministry, that Jehovah, himself, the creator of the world, and God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, would condescend to become an infant child of mortal woman, and would willingly suffer and die to atone for the sins of his people.

1 Nephi 1-5

 This week we start into the text of 1 Nephi.  I have read 1 Nephi so many times, but somehow I always am surprised at Lehi's initial visions. My mind wants to jump into Lehi's family leaving Jerusalem and I forget that Lehi has two really significant revelations before they leave. In the first Nephi sees the Lord in a pillar of fire, and the Lord speaks to him, though we don't find out what he said.  Then he returns to his home and falls onto his bed and sees another vision.  This is a throne theophany, very like the one seen by Isaiah 100 years earlier. (Isaiah 6).  These two visions use symbols appropriate to the culture in Lehi's day to convey specific information.  The vision of the Lord standing on a rock reminds readers of Moses first seeing God in the burning bush, and then later when the presence of the Lord would be manifest by a pillar of fire appearing over the tabernacle. They communicate that 1. Lehi has been called as a prophet. and 2. the temple of Lehi's day was no longer the exclusive dwelling place of the Lord. The temple theophany establishes Lehi as a prophet, but also suggests that he will produce a volume of scripture. 

It is interesting that Lehi sees "One descending out of the midst of heaven,"  and "twelve others following him." (v. 9-10).  Since I am tracking references to Jesus in the Book of Mormon this year, here is one of the earliest ones.  The one descending is clearly Jesus, and the twelve following are his disciples. So how much did Lehi understand about the incarnation of Jesus?  At this point in the story, probably not much.  He was clearly familiar with the words of Isaiah because they are quoted extensively in both 1st and 2nd Nephi.  Isaiah gave a lot of foreshadowing of the Savior's incarnation but doesn't speak of if explicitly.  There seems to be an expectation of a Messiah, but at this point I don't think Lehi or Nephi understand that Jesus, the same God they worshipped as Jehovah, would come to Earth, take upon himself a mortal body, and save humanity for death and sin. That information is given to Nephi and Lehi gradually as they travel toward the promised land.  

One more interesting little insight from today's lesson.  In 1 Nephi 1:1-2 Nephi writes: "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in the all the learning of my father. ...Yea I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." One of my podcasters pointed out that in 1830, "goodly" could mean good, but could also mean "having goods," or wealthy.  If the meaning means "wealthy" it follows well that was why Nephi, as even the youngest son, was able to attend school and learn about the language of the Jews and the Egyptians.  So why would Nephi have to learn the language of the Jews?  Wasn't he a Jew himself? Actually, he was not.  The Brass Plates contained the genealogy of Lehi, and from these he learned that he was a descendant of Joseph, not Judah. He was from one of the 10 tribes that were "lost" or conquered 120 years earlier.  Lehi dwelt in Jerusalem, but he was a foreigner in Jerusalem, and perhaps spoke a different language at home than the "language of the Jews." His family were descendants of refugees from the Assyrian invasion in 722 BC, and perhaps still felt like outsiders in Jerusalem.  I think we will notice that Nephi speaks of the Jews with a degree of separation.  He and his family had lived among them "all of his days." but maybe didn't fully identify with them. That may have enabled Lehi to more easily see the corruption that had fallen upon the Jews.  Their ancestors had seen the 10 tribes ripen in iniquity before they were destroyed and maybe they now recognized the same symptoms. As Tyler Griffith points out in Scripture Central, they may have also seen the current temple as corrupt.  That is why they felt alright about building an alter in the wilderness and offering sacrifices, (2:7) even though such a thing was not permitted under the contemporary Jewish code.