In this episode of The Interpreter Radio Show, our hosts are Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson, and Martin Tanner. You can listen to or download the April 16th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks are also included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast).

The “New Testament in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 20, “What Lack I Yet?” covering Matthew 19–20, Mark 10, and Luke 18 will also be posted on Tuesday, May 2.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Original air date: April 16, 2023. These recording have been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The New Testament in Context Lesson 20: “What Lack I Yet?” covering Matthew 19–20, Mark 10, and Luke 18

Restoration Advocacy: Archaeological evidences of the Book of Mormon

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Abstract: Scholars have recently suggested that The Teachings of Silvanus, a text from Nag Hammadi Codex VII, is the product of several authors with the earliest portion dating to the late first or early second century and the latest portion to the third or early fourth century. Silvanus’ provenance, therefore, allows this single document to serve as a potential microcosm evidencing the change and alteration of early Christian thought and doctrine. Latter-day Saints have long contended that the Restored Gospel is more closely aligned with the earliest strains of Christianity vis-à-vis the creedal form. Through the lens of Silvanus, Latter-day Saint and Calvinist positions are evaluated relative to the early and late Silvanus authors and are found to be most compatible with the early and late portions of the text, respectively.

As a teenager my first exposure to the Nag Hammadi texts came via a series of Einar Erickson audio tapes that my mother purchased. I still remember his vivacious voice reading tantalizing snippets from ancient texts and favorably comparing them to aspects of the restored gospel of Christ. He would always conclude his presentation with the question, “Where did Joseph Smith get this?” After hearing about all of these remarkable discoveries, I eagerly anticipated the impending wave of confirmatory evidences from ancient hidden texts that would definitively prove the miracle of the restoration. It is forty years later, and Erickson’s prediction of a tidal wave of faith affirming scholarship has yet to emerge; at least it has not emerged from the sands near Nag Hammadi. While these texts have had an intensely dramatic effect on New Testament scholarship, they have had relatively little impact upon members of the Restored Church of Christ, especially its lay members. Why is this?

[Page 14]One reason is that many of the Nag Hammadi texts were produced and cherished by Gnostics — groups whose writings and beliefs were directly attacked by early Church Fathers. For example, Irenaeus famously designated Gnostic writings as “an abyss of madness and blasphemy against Christ.”1 While the Nag Hammadi corpus has proven a treasure trove for secular scholars, traditional Christians have generally dismissed the documents as Gnostic heresy and doctrinally trivial.2 This line of argument was the essence of the evangelical response to Erickson’s audio series. Melanie Layton shares the argument that the early Christian/Latter-day Saint similarities highlighted by Erickson “do not confirm, they condemn if one considers the source of the parallels.”3

For similar reasons,

 

In this episode of The Interpreter Radio Show, our hosts are Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen. You can listen to or download the April 9th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks are also included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast).

The “New Testament in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 19, “Rejoice with Me; for I Have Found My Sheep Which Was Lost” covering Luke 12–17 and John 11 will also be posted on Tuesday, April 25.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Original air date: April 9, 2023. These recording have been edited to remove commercial breaks.

Restoration Advocacy: Answers to prayers and following the Spirit

The New Testament in Context Lesson 19: “Rejoice with Me; for I Have Found My Sheep Which Was Lost” covering Luke 12–17 and John 11

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

 

In this episode, our hosts are Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye, Spencer Kraus, and Hales Swift. You can listen to or download the April 2nd broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast).

The “New Testament in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 18, “I Am the Good Shepherd” covering John 7–10, will also be posted on Tuesday, April 18.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Original air date: April 2, 2023. These recording have been edited to remove commercial breaks.

Discussion: General Conference

Restoration Advocacy: The Book of Abraham and the authenticity of the Book of Mormon

The New Testament in Context Lesson 18: “I Am the Good Shepherd” covering John 7–10

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Presented at:

2014 Temple on Mount Zion ConferenceSaturday, October 25, 2014https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2014-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/

Conference Proceedings:

The Temple: Ancient and Restored at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-ancient-and-restored/

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

  Download audio recording

 

 

In the March 26 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, our host Martin Tanner discusses New Testament lesson 17, “What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?” on Matthew 18 and Luke 10.

You can listen to or download the New Testament in Context segment of the March 26 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The other segments of the March 26 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-march-26-2023.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

 

Original air date: March 26, 2023. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Abstract: It is natural to wonder how the day on which Jesus was crucified could come to be known as Good Friday. In this exploration of the topic, John Welch examines the many events which occurred on that fateful day and the meaning they have for us today.

[Editor’s Note: This article is based on a talk delivered on Good Friday, April 2, 2021, to the German Missions Reunion in Salt Lake City. It has been lightly edited for publication.]

Today happens to be an auspicious day, Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday. It is a suitable time to reflect on the trial, the cross, and the death of Jesus.

Karfreitag is the German name for Good Friday. The word kar means klage (mourning), kummer (worry), and trauer (sorrow). For Catholics it is a solemn day of fasting, which traditionally means that people eat fish on that day, but it also means they avoid alcohol, even beer. In Germany, this day is also known as Stiller Freitag (quiet Friday). Some German states restrict it as a day of silence, when certain types of noisy activities, such as concerts or dances, are legally banned. This name echoes the “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night) of Jesus’s birth 33 years earlier, but now that word draws our attention to Jesus’s voluntarily stilling his mortal body, even as he once stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Consider for a few moments all that happened during those particular 24 hours of that day. On the Jewish calendar, as one should note, the day began when the sun went down the evening before. So Good Friday actually began with the Last Supper, with the Lord’s beautiful [Page 2]words in John 13–17, and continued with the Lord’s cosmic conflict in Gethsemane and then with Judas’s betrayal and Jesus’s arrest. All that then led to Golgotha, to the cross, to his yielding up of his spirit, to the earthquakes, to placing Jesus’s body in the tomb, and to his breaking down the gates of Hell. All of that was accomplished within those 24 fateful and fruitful hours. It was indeed a terribly Good Friday!

Although many things happened that day, and all of them were crucially important, in most Christian minds, attention focuses primarily on the Cross. As you will remember, in Germany depictions of the crucifixion were almost everywhere — on monuments, on shrines beside most country roads, and on the tops of alpine peaks. Sometimes, as in the Catholic style, the depiction was of the dead, crucified body of Christ on the cross. Other times it was in the plain Protestant mode of showing the empty cross, which emphasizes that his body is no longer here, for he is risen.

Seeing all these kinds of crosses in Germany made a deep impression on me as a young missionary in the 1960s in Bayern, in Bamberg and Berchtesgaden. I learned there to revere the unpleasantries of the cross as a part of my Latter-day Saint faith.

I have come to appreciate that, as Latter-day Saints, we, of all people, don’t need to choose theologically between Gethsemane or Golgotha. We don’t need to opt between Jesus’s bleeding from every pore, or his bleeding from the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. I like to think of it this way: Jesus overcame spiritual death in the darkness of Gethsemane, while he vanquished physical death in broad daylight on the cross. Both, working together, were necessary.

People sometimes wonder why Latter-day Saints don’t usually wear crosses, as many Christians do. Might a good answer be that, while we don’t outwardly wear crosses, we do bear holy marks of the crucifixion in the tokens of our temple covenants? By keeping those covenants, we inwardly reverence the cross and strive to always remember Christ crucified.

While teaching, in law-school courses at Brigham Young University in Provo, for 40 years various topics on Jewish, Greek, and Roman laws in the New Testament, many things have impressed me about the trials and execution of Jesus. Above all,

Presented at:

2014 Temple on Mount Zion ConferenceSaturday, October 25, 2014https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2014-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/

Conference Proceedings:

The Temple: Ancient and Restored at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-ancient-and-restored/

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

  Download audio recording

 

 

In the March 19 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, our hosts Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson, and Martin Tanner discuss New Testament lesson 16, “Thou Art the Christ” on Matthew 15–17 and Mark 7–9.

You can listen to or download the New Testament in Context segment of the March 19 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The other segments of the March 19 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-march-19-2023.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

 

Original air date: March 19, 2023. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

 

In this episode of The Interpreter Radio Show, our host is Martin Tanner. You can listen to or download the March 26th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. These audio tracks are also included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast).

The “New Testament in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 17, “What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?”, on Matthew 18 and Luke 10 will be posted on Tuesday, April 11.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Original air date: March 26, 2023. These recording have been edited to remove commercial breaks.

Restoration Advocacy: Responses to the critics of the Book of Abraham, and reasons why it is a true translation by the “Gift and Power of God.”

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.