Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Now that we’re getting into the desert Exodus narrative, we’re going to encounter what scholars call “legal sections” of scripture, that is, the details of the Law of Moses. I’m not interested in these so much as I am in the way the Israelites entered into the law, by covenant. So, let’s talk about these a bit more from an ancient Near Eastern perspective Continue reading
As we move into Exodus, time passes suddenly. We move away from the individual novella of Joseph to several hundred years later, just as we often do in the Book of Mormon. Just how long, we don’t actually know. Continue reading
Today, I’ve got a bit of writing about these chapters in General, an article I wrote in the past on Genesis 38, and some useful tidbits Continue reading
President Joseph Fielding Smith took his understanding of geology and cosmology from his readings of scripture. One of his central premises was that scripture consisted of divinely-revealed facts of religion but also science and history; and therefore, scripture— as he interpreted it— should take precedence over limited and flawed human theorizing, i.e. modern science.
On two occasions, Smith commented on the mountains of Utah, and these illustrate his premises.
One of the aspects of scripture study as commonly practiced by LDS is the idea of applying the texts to ourselves. Although we use Nephi’s term “likening” (1 Nephi 19:3 7) to refer to this, we haven’t really understood what Nephi means by it.1And I’m not going to analyze it here. What we do instead, typically, is to approach scripture expecting to find one of two things:
I haven’t had time to update this post significantly .
This weeks’s chapters are difficult and socially significant like last week’s, which makes them difficult to write on. My approach, therefore, will be to come at it from a few disconnected directions in which I ask questions I don’t really have good answers to. Before moving on, I strongly recommend you read Robert Alter’s literary translation and commentary on chapter 22 as well as my post on why all the chapters leading up to Genesis 22 are important for Genesis 22.
What makes this chapter difficult and uncomfortable? (BTW, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I’d suggest you’re either not paying attention, or haven’t really thought about it.) Continue reading
I want to clarify why Genesis 22 unrolls the way it does. Isaac isn’t the sacrifice there just because “it’s the most horrific thing we can think of.” Abraham’s test goes far beyond that, but in order to grasp it, we have to start back in Genesis 12, and see how the events unfold, culminating with Isaac. Genesis 22 is thus intimately connected to the events of the preceding chapters, and if we ignore them, we misunderstand. This is one of those times we look so much at one tree that we miss the forest around it. Edit: As Ardis Parshall pointed out to me, all of this shows that the command to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22 was not arbitrary nor is it “out of the blue.”
I got this note from a friend, who read my post on Genesis and implicit contexts, and am posting it with permission, edited slightly. I don’t really do sports analogies. While I am very active in several things, I don’t follow any teams or watch any sports. Everything below is from my friend, until the very end.
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As my wife and I were studying tonight, we hit upon a useful analogy for understanding scripture. It could be adapted for a class, depending on the students and the teacher.
We recently finished a year studying the D&C, and had a lot of tools for understanding it. Some of these were built in to our scriptures, like chapter headings. Then there were free Church-provided electronic and paper resources, like Gospel Topics essays, Revelations in Context, maps, etc.1To say nothing of the cottage industry of books written to support the Gospel Doctrine year of study. But I want you to imagine that you are a new convert in, say, Taiwan or Russia, reading D&C 49 for the first time, with none of that stuff. Continue reading
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