During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there is some background noise. Volumes vary, probably depending upon where the recorder was placed in the room. Many are very low volume but in most cases it’s possible to understand the words. In a couple of cases the ends of one class were put on some space left over from a different class. There’s some mixup around D&C90-100 that couldn’t be figured out so those recordings are as they were on the tapes. Even with these flaws and missing classes, we believe these these will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program. This week we have three Lectures relevant to the January 25-31 Come, Follow Me lesson.

All 26 recordings are available immediately as follows:

* In the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/

* Come, Follow Me Resource Index: Doctrine and Covenants — 2021 at https://interpreterfoundation.org/come-follow-me/doctrine-covenants-2021-index/

 

D&C 6: Recorded October 22, 1978

 

D&C 6-7: Recorded October 29, 1978

Podcast: Download (Duration: 44:19 — 20.8MB)

D&C 9-10: Recorded December 2, 1978

Podcast: Download (Duration: 46:27 — 21.7MB)

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 44, “A House unto My Name” on D&C 124. The panelists for this roundtable were Martin Tanner, Kris Frederickson and Mike Parker. This roundtable was extracted from the September 19th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-September-19-2021/. 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.

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.

 

This series is cross-posted with the permission of Book of Mormon Central from their website at Pearl of Great Price Central

Listen to an audio recording of this Essay:

Download PDF

Download audio recording

 

In the image above, we see an industrious Noah diligently tending his vineyard, in striking contrast to a later depiction in the same chapter that describes him as being in an inebriated stupor. Scholars have noted the odd inconsistency between these two scenes. Can these two opposing pictures of Noah be reconciled?

It is difficult to know whether this contradiction is the result of different traditions, textual misunderstanding, or the abbreviated nature of the biblical account.[1] Some scholars even wonder whether there was a deliberate effort to defame or belittle the character of Noah.[2] What seems certain is that the biblical author deliberately framed this sequel to Noah’s Creation and Garden story as a replay of the scene of the Adam and Eve’s Fall and consequent judgment in Eden. Most often the instigator of this “Fall” is seen to be Noah, who, it is reported, succumbed to the intoxicating influence of wine from his vineyard. However, it is significant that the scriptures omit any hint of wrongdoing by Noah and put all the blame on Ham and his son Canaan. In the admittedly tentative interpretation given in this article, we will discuss the possibility that Ham’s wrongdoing consisted in his having approached, without authorization, the inner curtains of the sacred tent where Noah was enwrapped in vision.[3] Some ancient traditions viewed Ham’s actions as part of an effort to steal Noah’s priesthood garment and undermine his authority.

Now, let’s look at the story more closely.

Fall and Judgment

In Essay #76, we described the “Creation” and “Garden” symbolism in the story of Noah. In Genesis 9, the “fall” and “judgment” scenes, which echo the Fall and Judgment scenes of Adam and Eve, are recounted in six short verses:[4]

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Looking at the passage more closely, however, raises several questions, especially in light of the possibility that some redactors may have been motivated to defame or belittle the character of Noah in the interest of making the role of Moses more prominent or unique.[5]

What tent did Noah enter? Although the English translation says “his tent,” the Hebrew text features a feminine possessive that normally would mean “her tent.”[7] The Midrash Rabbah explains this as a reference to the tent o...

During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there is some background noise. Volumes vary, probably depending upon where the recorder was placed in the room. Many are very low volume but in most cases it’s possible to understand the words. In a couple of cases the ends of one class were put on some space left over from a different class. There’s some mixup around D&C90-100 that couldn’t be figured out so those recordings are as they were on the tapes. Even with these flaws and missing classes, we believe these these will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program. This week we have two Lectures relevant to the next week’s Come, Follow Me lesson.

All 26 recordings are available immediately as follows:

* Come, Follow Me Resource Index: Doctrine and Covenants — 2021 at https://interpreterfoundation.org/come-follow-me/doctrine-covenants-2021-index/

* The individual Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants 2021 Lesson pages found at https://interpreterfoundation.org/come-follow-me/doctrine-covenants-2021-lessons/

* In the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) through any of the indexes or through a search. For example, on the Topical Bibliography (https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/topical/) look under Doctrine and Covenants for a complete listing.

 

D&C 121 Part A: Recorded March 16, 1980

 

D&C 121 Part B: Recorded March 16, 1980

Podcast: Download (Duration: 43:18 — 20.3MB)

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 43, “O God, Where Art Thou?” on D&C 121-123. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the September 12th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-September-12-2021/. 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.

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.

 

This series is cross-posted with the permission of Book of Mormon Central from their website at Pearl of Great Price Central

Listen to an audio recording of this Essay:

Download PDF

Download audio recording

 

Thomas Cole’s artistry evokes poignant emotions as it leads the viewer’s eye from the foreground to the background of the painting. The rough rocks nearby recall recent scenes of cleansing upheaval and destruction; beyond them, the Ark is finally at rest in calm waters, a witness of the divine love that preserved its righteous passengers in their journey through the deep; in the distance, the towering peak is a beacon of hope, a “Sinai” for Noah — presaging new revelation for the faithful remnants of humanity.

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Though the Book of Moses ends abruptly with the Lord’s declaration of the Flood in Moses 8:30, we continue the story of Noah, the Ark, and the Flood in the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 6–8 within this essay.

In the Bible, Noah’s ark is described as a huge, rectangular box with three floors and a roof, which makes it sound more like a building than a boat. Was Noah’s ark designed as a floating “temple”? Before addressing this question, it will be important to remind ourselves about how people in ancient times read scripture.

How Did People in Ancient Times Read Scripture?

The Prophet Joseph Smith held the view that scripture should be “understood precisely as it reads.”[1] In saying this, however, it must be realized that what ancient peoples understood to be a literal interpretation of scripture is not the same as what most people think of today.

To those who recorded Bible history, it was not enough to describe events in photojournalistic fidelity to the sights and sounds that might have been picked up “objectively” by a camera (if one had been available in their day). Rather, an inspired author would want to write a history that acknowledged the hand of God within every important occurrence. To the ancients, important events in history were part of “one eternal round.”[2] They took pains to help the reader detect that current happenings were consistent with divine patterns seen repeatedly within scriptural “types” at other times in history —past and future. A simple description of the bare “facts” of the situation, as we are culturally conditioned to prefer today, would not do for our forebears.[3]

Consider, as a more recent example, Joseph Smith’s description of the Book of Mormon translation process. Modern readers are usually interested in the detailed, “literal” accounts given by some of the Prophet’s contemporaries about the size and appearance of the instruments he was supposed to have used and the exact procedure by which the words of the ancient text were made known to him.

Abstract: The scriptures are saturated with covenantal words and terms. Any serious or close reading of the scriptures that misses or ignores the covenantal words, phrases, and literary structure of scripture runs the risk of missing the full purpose of why God preserved the scriptures for us. This is especially true for the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, which emerged out of an Old Testament cultural context. Research during the past century on ancient Near Eastern covenants has brought clarity to the covenantal meaning and context of a variety of words and literary structures in the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon. This article builds on that revealing research to show that the English word “perfect” in a covenantal context in scripture can also be represented with the covenantal synonyms of “loyal, loyalty, faithful, and trustworthy.” God has revealed and preserved the scriptures as records of these covenants and of the consequences of covenantal loyalty or disloyalty. The Lord’s injunction to “be ye therefore perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is beautifully magnified when we realize that we are not simply asked to be without sin, but, rather, to “be ye therefore covenantally loyal” even as God has been eternally and covenantally loyal to us.

For Latter-day Saint readers, one of the most consternation-creating passages in scripture is Jesus’s admonition in the Sermon on the Mount to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). For those of us already desiring to be more like God, that is, with tendencies toward perfectionism, this charge from Jesus can feel overwhelming, overpowering, and dispiriting. Who, among the fallen children of Adam and Eve, will ever in this mortal life be able to be perfect? The cause seems hopeless.

[Page 2]A different perspective may come by considering the difference in the Book of Mormon when Christ reiterates His commandment, but this time also referring to Himself: “Be perfect, even as I or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48). Perhaps the perfection referred to requires a perspective going beyond mortality and looking to the fullness that comes after the resurrection. But even then, the commandment to be “perfect” is given to us as flawed mortals for whom perfection seems so unobtainable.

Thankfully, there have been regular reminders from scholars1 and church leaders2 that the original meaning of the Greek word “teleios,” far from evincing the meaning of flawlessness, instead evokes the sense of completion, goal-orientation, maturity, and purposefulness. For example, after a careful examination of the Hebrew and Greek words involved in KJV passages that use the word “perfect” with respect to mortals, Frank Judd explains that mortal flawlessness is not implied in Matthew 5:48; on the contrary, the “essential sense of the Savior’s command to be perfect is a call to live the gospel of Jesus Christ to the best of one’s ability, using the Atonement to repent when necessary.”3