Transgression

 Last week we went to the temple and did an endowment session.  In the endowment, there is symbolic portrayal of the plan of redemption that depicts the fall of Adam and Eve and their eventual return to the presence of God. In the final scene, Eve quotes Moses 5:11 "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient."  

I kept wondering why Adam and Eve's partaking of the forbidden fruit is always called a "transgression" in Latter-Day Saint theology instead of the "original sin" as in other Christian theologies. As a Latin reader, when I see the word "transgression" I break it down into its roots; trans=across, gression=travel or move. So in my mind transgression means to move across something.  The modern dictionary has the same definition that most people think of when they read "transgress" i.e. a sin or breaking a law, but could it here refer to the latin meaning? David suggested I look in a dictionary contemporary with Brigham Young who wrote down the temple ceremony.  I looked up the Webster's 1828 dictionary, and the first definition is "The act of passing over or beyond any law or rule of moral duty; the violation of a law or known principle of rectitude; breach of command."  So it does have more of the sense of crossing a boundary than our modern usage. 

So why is this important to me? I have long seen the story of Adam and Eve, and particularly of Eve's choice to partake of the fruit, as symbolic of our choice to leave pre-earth life and come into mortality.  To me the fall is not from Eden to the "Lone and dreary world" but from pre-Earth life into mortality. We all had to make Eve's choice to suffer the pains of mortality and eventual death in order to have "seed" and learn to distinguish between good and evil.  By making that choice, we all experienced spiritual death by leaving God's presence and have to rely on messengers to receive God's word. In this context, to say the Adam and Eve "transgressed" just means they traveled across the line from immortality to mortality, from "heaven" to earth.  

Another support for this symbolic interpretation is that Adam's name means "earth," and Eve's name means "life."  Eve decided that in order to bring human "life" to the "earth" they would need to transgress (cross over) and become mortal.  In other words, in order to begin procreation you have to have a physical body. The story is telling us the purpose of mortality and the reason why there is death and suffering. It is also giving us hope that, at the end of this life there is hope through obedience and faith in the Savior, our older brother and the creator of the world, Jesus Christ. People who spend too much time trying to interpret this story literally are missing the whole beautiful message. 

Anyway, to circle back around, I think this is why they call Eve's and Adam's partaking of the fruit a "transgression."  It symbolizes the spirit moving across the boundary from pre-earth life into mortality. 

Anti-Nephi-Lehi Swords

One of the most impactful scenes in this week's reading is found in Alma 24 when the new Lamanite converts make a covenant to never again wield a weapon against another human. They talk about how their swords were "stained" with the blood of their brethren (v. 12) but that they had become bright by the blood of Christ (v. 13). They feared if they took them up again they would never be able to make them clean again. A couple of the podcasters talked about the question, how could a metal sword become stained with blood? Metal washes right off. 

I had never been concerned with this question. I always just figured that it was metaphorical, like Lady MacBeth's spotted hands. But one of the podcasters, Bryce Dunford, mentioned that the Mayans did use wooden swords, which could, conceivably, become stained with blood. They are called a "macuahuitl" and they are like a cricket bat but with pieces of obsidian,or shark teeth embedded along the shaft.  At the time of Cortés' invasion of Central America one of the Spaniards saw a man sever a horse's head off with one of these weapons.

Of course, the Mayan civilization was hundreds of years later than the time of Alma. Still, I had never seen a weapon like this, and I thought it was cool.  Maybe this kind of weapon had been in use for centuries and was the kind that the Lamanites used. If it is, it supports another idea that I have had that I blogged about before. I think there is a lot of evidence that the Nephites were an iron age culture and understood metalworking, but the people of the New World were more primitive and didn't have the metallurgy skills Nephi used to make tools to make his boats. (1 Nephi 17). There is a Wikipedia Article about Metallurgy in Pre-Columbians America  that suggests the pre-Columbians did have some metalworking skills, but they didn't use them to make weapons. If the Nephites retained their ability to make metal swords, (Nephi said he used the Sword of Laban as a model to make many swords 2 Nephi 4:14) it would help explain why, as a smaller group, they were able to escape conquest from the Lamanites for so long. 

The important thing about this story is not what kind of sword the Lamanites used.  It is that they were willing to give up their past life style, their past sins, and even their lives because of their faith in Christ. The slaughter of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people is a brutal scene but it reminds us all, in times of trial, to take the long view. Whatever trials we endure in this life, if we endure them well, we will be blessed, even if it is in the next life.

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.

Alma and the condescension of God.

 When Alma the Younger preaches to the people of Gideon he finds that they have not strayed from the path as much as the people of Zarahemla (Alma 7:6).  He is therefore not as pressed to preach repentance, but is at liberty to teach them more about Christ's condescension. In Alma 7:11-12 we read 

"And he shall go forth, suffering the pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the band of death which bind his people; and hie will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

In several of the podcasts I listened to they suggested that Jesus suffered temptations and took upon him the infirmities of his people as part of the Atonement.  I think, however that his passage mostly refers to the incarnation.  By condescending to become a mortal being, he opened himself to temptation, pain, sickness and infirmity.  In other words, by taking on a physical body in the fallen world, he came to understand what it is like to have a physical body in the fallen world. This is one way he learned empathy for his creations.

Of course, he also suffered for sins so that we might repent, "the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance." (7:13)  

We learned in 2 Nephi 9:7 that the atonement was infinite.  Jesus suffered all things for us so that we might repent and have hope (1 Peter 3:18). His lessons on compassion and empathy, however, began way before his suffering in Gethsemane and his death in Golgotha. He began learning how to "succor his people" as soon as he was born.  He left his place as the creator God, and took on the form of a helpless infant. I find that I am in almost as much awe of Jesus' condescension as his atonement. Both were extreme voluntary sacrifice. Both were acts of consummate compassion. Both were evidences of his supreme love for all of us.

Two ways to serve: Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah

After the miraculous conversion of Alma and the sons of Mosiah, they all wanted to go out and do missionary work.  The sons of Mosiah preached among the Nephites for a while, but then went off to preach to the Lamanites.  They were with the Lamanites for 14 years.

Alma, however, didn't get the chance to go with them.  Instead, when Mosiah did away with the monarchy and established judges, Alma was elected as the first Chief Judge.  He was already the high priest of the church, and for seven years he served in both positions.  During that time there was a war, in which he fought against the king of the Nephite rebels and slew him.  He had to deal with the aftermath of the war, figuring out how to care for all the widows and orphans, and how to recover economically from the devastation caused to the workforce and the crops by the war. Finally, after seven years he gave up the judgement seat. He was concerned with the spiritual state of the people and decided to devote himself exclusively to preaching the gospel.  In later chapters we see him preaching in many cities. He is sometimes successful and sometimes rejected. At one point he is thrown in prison and forced to watch the believers be martyred for their beliefs.  

Those familiar with the Book of Mormon know what happened to the sons of Mosiah during the same time period.  They went to the lands of the Lamanites. They were initially thrown into prison, but eventually they were released and had great success among some of the Lamanite people. Other Lamanites rose up against them, and they, too, watched their followers get slaughtered because they would not break their covenant with the Lord. Eventually they bring their remaining converts back to Zarahemla and establish a safe haven for them.

Often when I was growing up I thought the sons of Mosiah were the "cool" missionaries. The whole story of the conversion of King Lamoni is so dramatic, and they ended up with so many converts.  But beginning this story again this year, I am realizing that by staying back, Alma the Young had the tougher job. He faced many of the same missionary challenges as the Sons of Mosiah, but also had to shoulder all the political and military burdens as well. The outcome of his missionary labors wasn't as showy, but that doesn't mean he didn't work and suffer as much.  He did, perhaps suffer more. 

I think life is like that.  Some people do a ton of work, and don't see much benefit in this life. Others do a ton of work and are blessed to see the benefit of their labors. These two parallel stories show that it doesn't matter as much what kind of statistics we rack up in life.  Did we raise 10 kids or two.  Did we serve as a Stake President or just as an Elder's Quorum Secretary.  Did we baptize dozens of people on our mission or none. The Lord knows the degree of difficulty in our lives.  He blesses us for our consecration and our dedication. The outcome of our efforts is not as important as our willingness to make the effort.