We are now out of the Pentateuch, into what’s called the Deuteronomistic History, or DH. This refers to the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Continue reading
Category: Old Testament
Come Follow Me: Deuteronomy
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Mat 22:36-40 KJV)
I begin with this familiar passage because it bears directly on our study of Deuteronomy. It illustrates two things. Continue reading
Abraham, Sarai, Hagar, and the Contextual Approach to Scripture
I recently saw someone comment, “Well, I’m off to explain to a bunch of twelve-year olds why Abraham proposed sleeping with another woman as a cure for infertility.” Presumably a bit tongue in cheek, but it illustrated the problems of an approach to scripture which doesn’t emphasize seeking understanding through context.
Come Follow Me Notes: Exodus 15-20, 32-34.
Insert here my usual gripe of “we’re trying to cover so much ground in so little time!” So let’s focus 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
Come Follow Me: Notes on Exodus 1-14
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
Come Follow Me: Genesis 24-29
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:
Abraham 1:1, 5-20; Genesis 15-17; 21-22
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
Implicit Contexts in the Scriptures, but especially Genesis
(Reposted from 2022 without update)
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
Let’s talk about the flood. A lot.
I’ve broken this post into a few distinct parts. Other parts I will offload to links instead of reprinting massive amounts of text. There’s a lot to explore here, and a lot to talk about. Continue reading
Gospel Doctrine Lesson 5- Moses 5:16-41; 6:26-63; 7:13, 17-47, 68-69
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
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