The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

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, both discussing D&C 76.

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 76A: Recorded August 12, 1979

 

D&C 76B: Recorded August 19, 1979

Podcast: Download (Duration: 42:21 — 19.9MB)

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 10, “Surely the Lord Is in This Place” on Genesis 28–33. The panelists for this roundtable were Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen and Mark Johnson. This roundtable was extracted from the January 23rd broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-January-23-2022/. 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.

 

Abstract: The verbal expression “we might have enjoyed,” as used in a complaint that Nephi attributes to his brothers, “we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance” (1 Nephi 17:21), reflects a use of the Hebrew verb yrš in its progressive aspect, “to enjoy possession of.” This meaning is evident in several passages in the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps most visibly in the KJV translation of Numbers 36:8 (“And every daughter, that possesseth [Hebrew yōrešet] an inheritance [naḥălâ] in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy [yîršû] every man the inheritance [naḥălat] of his fathers”) and Joshua 1:15 (“then ye shall return unto the land of your possession [lĕʾereṣ yĕruššatkem or, unto the land of your inheritance], and enjoy it [wîrištem ʾôtāh].” Examining Laman and Lemuel’s complaint in a legal context helps us better appreciate “land[s] of … inheritance” as not just describing a family estate, but as also expressing a seminal Abrahamic Covenant concept in numerous Book of Mormon passages, including the covenant implications of the resettlement of the converted Lamanites and reconverted Zoramites as refugees in “the land of Jershon” (“place of inheritance”).

In 1 Nephi 17:20–22, Nephi recalls the gist of his brothers’ complaints1 about leaving behind their family estate, “the land of … inheritance” [Page 124](1 Nephi 2:11; 3:22; 5:2; and 17:21), “at”2 or near Jerusalem and the concomitant abandonment of considerable material possessions (e.g., 1 Nephi 2:4; 3:16, 22, 26). This recollection reflects several significant Hebraisms: “Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy” (1 Nephi 17:21).3

In this study, I will examine how the complaint “we might have enjoyed our possessions in the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy” reflects the Hebraism “land of … inheritance,” as well as a possible polyptoton4 and an allusion to the tree of life in Lehi’s dream. I will further examine how the main verb in this complaint — enjoy — reflects a specific secondary meaning of the Hebrew verb yrš, “enjoy possession of.”5 The meaning of this verb in its secondary, progressive (or continuous) aspect is reflected in several important passages in the Hebrew Bi...

Having completed Nibley’s Pearl of Great Price lectures, we return for the next few week’s to his Doctrine and Covenants lectures.

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, covering D&C 64 through D&C 75.

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 64-68: Recorded June 29, 1979

 

D&C 68-75: Recorded August 5, 1979

Podcast: Download (Duration: 43:02 — 20.2MB)

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 9, “The Covenant Is Renewed” on Genesis 24–27. The panelists for this roundtable were Bruce Webster and Mike Parker. This roundtable was extracted from the January 16th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-January-16-2022/. 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.

 

Abstract: In previous and pending publications I have proposed interpretations of various features of Nephi’s writings. In this paper I undertake a comprehensive discussion of the seven passages in which Nephi and his successor Jacob explain the difference between the large and the small plates and describe the divinely mandated profile for each. While most readers of the Book of Mormon have been satisfied with the simple distinction between the large plates in which the large plates are a comprehensive historical record of the Nephite experience and the small plates are a record of selected spiritual experiences, including revelations and prophecies, that approach has been challenged in some academic writing. What has been missing in this literature is a comprehensive and focused analysis of all seven of the textual profiles for these two Nephite records. In the following analysis, I invoke the insights of Hebrew rhetoric as developed by Hebrew Bible scholars over the past half century to articulate a vision of how these scattered explanations are designed and placed to support the larger rhetorical structures Nephi has built into his two books. The conclusions reached support the traditional approach to these texts.

The intent of this paper is not to advance either a comprehensive or a final interpretation of Nephi’s writings in First and Second Nephi. Rather, it is limited to a discussion of one dimension of those writings which has not previously been adequately identified and analyzed, but which should play an important role for any attempt at comprehensive interpretation. My own understanding of Nephi’s two books continues to evolve in important ways and benefits continually from the insights of other students of the text. I agree with Ben McGuire’s conclusion [Page 100]that both individuals and reading communities should keep their interpretations of this sacred text open to future insights.1

Readers of the Book of Mormon commonly assume the adequacy of a simple and straightforward explanation for the existence of Nephi’s Small Plates (sometimes abbreviated herein as SP).2 As explained at various points in the text, Nephi had undertaken a shorter version of his Large Plates (LP) record by selecting out the spiritual teachings, prophecies and revelations for a more focused presentation. But the adequacy of that explanation has come under considerable strain from two very different directions. In 1986 Fred Axelgard advanced the idea that the description provided for the Large Plates of Nephi as being more historical also applied to all of First Nephi and the first five chapters of Second Nephi.3 And now in an as yet unpublished working paper, I am advancing a new paradigm for interpretation of the Small Plates that both supports and pushes well beyond the traditional analysis by emphasizing Nephi’s use of Hebrew rhetoric4 to structure all of First [Page 101]and Second Nephi as a carefully calculated expansion and elaboration of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life.

During the Winter Semester of 1986 at Brigham Young University, Dr. Hugh W. Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scriptures, presented a series of 26 lectures to an Honors class on The Pearl of Great Price. This class was videotaped in the Maeser Building and made available by FARMS as both video and audio recordings. The text was then transcribed and included in Ancient Documents and the Pearl of Great Price, published by Deseret Book.

All 26 lectures are available immediately as follows:

* Links to both the video and audio recordings: The Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/

* Video recordings: Maxwell Institute playlist on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehBxXyk-Ots&list=PLOrN0FV73AsIeKPG48pi390UWWdOVyIgi

* Transcripts (ePub format): Deseret Books at https://deseretbook.com/p/ancient-documents-pearl-great-price-hugh-nibley-78458?variant_id=20055-ebook

* Transcripts (Kindle format): Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Documents-Pearl-Great-Price-ebook/dp/B004FN1QRE

This week we have the final two lectures in the Pearl of Great Price Series, discussing Joseph Smith—Matthew and Joseph Smith, respectively. We’ve also included links to the video recordings.

 

Lecture 25—Joseph Smith—Matthew

Video: View on YouTube

Podcast: Download (Duration: 47:47 — 44.8MB)

 

Lecture 26—Joseph Smith

Video: View on YouTube

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:00 — 38.4MB)

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 8, “Is Any Thing Too Hard for the Lord?” on Genesis 18–23. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the January 10th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-January-10-2022/. 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.