Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Joseph Spencer’s book on typology and the Book of Mormon appears to be back in print (and free, here). Good stuff, and relevant to today’s material as well as Nephi’s interpretive Isaiah material.
In this section, Jacob is speaking by assignment on a topic from Nephi, (2Ne 6:4), and the topic is Isaiah.
When Bishop Nephi asked me to speak on Isaiah…
First, if you haven’t read my post on 2Ne 1-2, you need to; it establishes that the implicit background of these chapters is covenantal and Mosaic, which is key to understanding what happens in these chapters. Continue reading
Today we enter into 2 Nephi, which immediately raises the question, why is there a second Nephi? Continue reading
For those of you who are new to the blog (and the stats suggest there are a few), check out my suggested reading list on the Book of Mormon.
Nephi’s vision seems at times to border on the genre called apocalyptic [link to all my posts and podcasts talking about genre]. Apocalypses came up recently in my first post on Revelation. The genre is important to recognize, because understanding the genre determines how we understand the information presented. Continue reading
These are the most familiar chapters to any Latter-day Saint, and I’ve literally spent weeks on them in Institute classes, going slowly and thoroughly. I’d wager many of us could recite 1 Nephi 1:1 from memory, and a good number of us in our mission language; not from trying to memorize it, just from having read it so much. Familiarity does not necessarily mean understanding, though. The following questions appear unrelated, but are clues to what’s going in in the initial chapters and indeed, all of 1-2 Nephi. And it’s quite different than what people assume.
We’re moving into some dense historical, textual, and doctrinal territory today, as there is lots of background to cover. I lean pretty heavily on some of my tools. Continue reading
My picture, from the Kidron Valley.
As always, it’s important to start with setting and context. Remember back in Acts 19, where the silversmiths who make Athena shrines start a riot and get Paul thrown out of the city? “Great is Diana of the Ephesians”? Paul met some disciples there and stuck around for three months, and now he writes to that congregation. Paul himself is now apparently in prison (Eph 4:1) and writing letters. Whether in Rome, Ephesus, or Caesarea, we don’t know. Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Philemon are known collectively as The Captivity or Prison Letters. These are Paul’s Folsom Prison Concert, if you will. Continue reading
Before talking about Paul’s Letter to Galatians , some notes on Paul’s Letters in General
The ease we have in reading, writing, and communicating makes it easy to misunderstand Paul’s letters. Continue reading
Corinthians, continued
The latter part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians has a definite flow and organization to it. While our tendency is to zoom in on a single verse or even sentence, sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. So, let’s start with an overview and then zoom in a little.
Chapters 8-11 deal with two seemingly unrelated topics: food and sexual immorality. This is puzzling to us, but logical to Paul’s readers. We’ll return to this to unpack why.
In chapter 11, Paul regulates some issues about how the community should function, both relating to gender and the Lord’s Supper, which Latter-day Saints call “the sacrament.” (Shortened, apparently, from “the sacrament [ordinance] of the Lord’s supper.”)
Then he moves on to a potentially more destructive issue; the Corinthian saints are highly competitive and trying to one-up each other, but with spiritual gifts. Who is the most blessed? Who is the most spiritually in-tune? This is not terribly unusual. The Apostles themselves had argued about which of them “was the greatest” and even asked Jesus to settle the matter- Luke 9:46, 22:24, Matt 18:1 Continue reading
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