Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Insert here my usual gripe about how we’re trying to cover so much ground in so little time, but let’s talk about The Ten Commandments. It’s a common-knowledge topic, and everyone’s seen the film, so we all know everything about them, right? Continue reading
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
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 19:23) 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’m bumping this post for utility, although I haven’t had time to rework it.
Text: Moses 5:16-41; 6:26-63; 7:13, 17-47, 68-69
As always, time compels us to be selective in what we focus on. Today, it’s all about Cain.
First off, we need to understand that Cain has nothing to do with Canaan. That association is an accident of English transliteration and pronunciation. They sound similar in English, but in Hebrew Cain/qayin (accent on first syllable) has no relation at all with Canaan/kena’an (kuh-nah-ahn, accent on middle syllable.) If there’s any descent of Cain in the Bible, it’s… Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, who is a Kenite. Or rather, a Cain-ite, if we’re being more consistent. As the intro paragraph of the Anchor Bible Dictionary article on Kenites says, “The Kenites—or more correctly the Qenites—were a community or clan whose ancestry was traced to an eponym, biblical Cain (Heb qayin ). The Kenites constituted a non-Israelite group, frequenting the wilderness near Sinai…” The text thus portrays Moses marrying Jethro’s daughter Zipporah, a non-Israelite who is the namesake of Cain, if not a descendant.
If Cain has nothing to do with Canaan, he does have something in common with Cainan/qeynan who appears in Genesis 5:9-12. (See the genealogy discussion below.)
Cain and Master Mahan- I think this is a great opportunity to bring a human-centric and Christ-centric focus to the lesson. Continue reading
As with Genesis 1, here’s my attempt to gather together some resources for understanding Genesis 2-3 and common questions.
(Post with minor updates from four years ago.)
I do not intend to write a weekly post on the Come Follow Me section. D&C is the book I have taught the least, read the least, know the least about, and have the most limited mental bibliography. While I do American religious history, 1820-1850 is not my time period or specialty at all. Second, I am up to my eyeballs in writing projects: turning my dissertation into a book, some spin-off articles, and some other things. I will continue to write posts, some about D&C and Church history, but approximately… whenever the muse strikes and I have time.
A few general introductory notes about the Book of Ether.
First, unlike the other two Book of Mormon migratory peoples, the Jaredites (as we call them) are not under the Law of Moses. Abraham>Isaac>Jacob (Israel)>>>>Moses. They’re not Jewish nor even Israelite (also a late term) nor Canaanite, but Mesopotamian, probably. So they are operating under a different set of religious ideas, different language— Sumerian, Akkadian, something else? Hebrew isn’t an option— and different cultural background than the rest of the Book of Mormon. And indeed, Ether has a different feel to it than the rest. It’s largely political history, stories of wars between scheming royal families, imprisonment, regicide, etc. All very Game of Thrones-y. Continue reading
Let’s begin with this observation about the power of art, by a BYU professor with training in both art and religion. Continue reading
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