Abstract: We are told in the Title Page of the Book of Mormon that the Book of Mormon was revealed in our day “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever.” Hence, the covenantal context, structure, and logic of the Book of Mormon demand further consideration, exploration, and elucidation. A prosperous starting point is the phrase “If ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land.” This covenantal phrase is used throughout the Book of Mormon as a summary of the theological logic of the suzerain-vassal treaty covenant type in which God sought to secure the fidelity of his people, who would receive in exchange continued prosperity in His appointed promised lands.

One of the most commonly occurring phrases in the Book of Mormon, “If ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land,” may easily be mistaken as an almost trite way of saying that it’s good to obey God. However, if the Book of Mormon is read with an understanding of ancient covenants, the meaning of the phrase takes on new light. Understanding that ancient context means not just recognizing the pervasive use of covenants and their monumental importance in the ancient Near East but also appreciating the formulas and conventions that were used to express and make covenants. The theme of prospering in the (promised) land first occurs in 1 Nephi 2:20, where the Lord speaks to Nephi: “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land [Page 202]which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.” Nephi recalls those words in 1 Nephi 4:14, observing that the Lord had told him, “Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise.” The form that may be most familiar to Book of Mormon students is first given in Lehi’s farewell speech to his family in 2 Nephi 1:20, quoting what the Lord has said: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.”

The simple core concept in all of this is the promise “If ye will keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land,” the wording of Alma 37:13. But why is this concept repeated over 20 times in almost every book of the Book of Mormon, with many other related exhortations? What was the purpose of this phrase or formula? I propose that this phrase is a powerful summary statement of a covenant relationship between the people and the Lord, directly related to what is now (thanks to scholarship that began long after Joseph Smith’s day) the familiar concept of the suzerain-vassal treaty,1 whose conceptual worldview and theology seem to undergird significant portions of the Book of Mormon.

 

You can listen to or download the July 11 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Martin Tanner, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. In this episode, our hosts discussed the United States Constitution. The second portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #34 (D&C 89-92). 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: July 11, 2021. 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.

 

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31, “The Power of Godliness” on D&C 84. The panelists for this roundtable were Kris Fredrickson and Martin Tanner. This roundtable was extracted from the June 20, 2021 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-june-20-2021/. 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.

 

Abstract: The authors begin by highlighting the importance of Book of Moses research that has discovered plausible findings for its historicity, rendering it at least reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to sacred premises — even if, ultimately, the choice of premises is just that, a choice. Emphasizing the relevance of the Book of Moses to the temple, they note that the Book of Moses is not only an ancient temple text, but also the ideal scriptural context for a modern temple preparation course. Going further, the authors address an important question raised by some who have asked: “Since Christ is at the center of the gospel, why doesn’t the temple endowment teach the story of the life of Christ? What’s all this about Adam and Eve?” The answer given in detail in the paper is as follows: “The story of the life of Christ is the story of giving the Atonement. And the story of Adam and Eve is the story of receiving the Atonement. Their story is our story, too.”

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the Latter-day Saint community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen, “Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement,” in Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses: Inspired Origins, Temple Contexts, and Literary Qualities, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, David R. Seely, John W. Welch and Scott Gordon (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central; Redding, CA: [Page 158]FAIR; Tooele, UT: Eborn Books, 2021), page numbers forthcoming. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-threads-in-the-book-of-moses/.]

Historicity and Plausibility of the Book of Moses

Bruce: The description for this conference states, “Because we believe that the Book of Moses includes authentic history, the possibility of evidence for that belief interests us as scholars.” In other words, the papers throughout this book have been prepared by scholars who believe in the general historicity of the Book of Moses, and their research has found evidence that supports that belief. I’d like to begin by offering some context and support for their approach.

I see clear parallels between our current interest in the historicity of the Book of Moses and what happened some years ago with research about the Book of Mormon. During the unfortunate Mark Hofmann era of the mid-1980s, the Church encountered an unusual barrage of criticism about Joseph Smith and the historicity of the Book of Mormon—that is, whether the history described there actually happened. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, then on Brigham Young University’s board of trustees, described this criticism as “a new generation of fiery salvos, including a few duds and re-used, old darts.”1

These issues prompted Elder Maxwell to galvanize the skilled and faithful scholars he knew at Brigham Young University (BYU) to “protect our flanks” rather than just “wave our arms.”2 And instead of focusing primarily on such external evidence as archaeology, he favored an approach that studied “parallels between the ancient world and the Book of Mormon,” especially parallels “drawn from texts and historical facts” discovered since 1829.

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

 

 

 

Knowledge as the Prize in Adam and Eve’s Test of Obedience

In this essay we will describe in detail the immediate consequences of the transgression in the Garden of Eden:

li {margin-left: 2em;} blockquote {margin-left: 2em;} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;}

table {border: 1px solid #dddddd !important;; width: 100%; margin: auto;} table td{border: 1px solid #dddddd !important;; padding: 10px !important; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom;} table.noborder, table.noborder td{border: 0px solid #ffffff !important;; padding: 0 !important} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;} .icon {vertical-align: baseline !important;}

* “The eyes of them both were opened”

* “They knew they had been naked”

* The false apron

* The Tree of Knowledge as a symbol of death and rebirth

The Eyes of Them Both Were Opened”

We read in Moses 4:13 that after Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had been naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” The ending of the verse implicitly signals to the reader that the making of the aprons is the culminating event in the story. However, Emily Mahan observes that the Old English manuscript shown above punctuates the verse differently, with three dots in triangle form, highlighting the importance of the opening of the eyes of Adam and Eve: “and the eyes of them both were opened .·.” She notes that:

The punctuation mark [i. e., “.·.”] is the “strongest” punctuation mark in the scribe’s repertoire. Used infrequently compared to the single punctus, it represents the biggest pause. And that is the last line on the page (although there is in fact space for at least a couple more words). The reader must pause here at the moment when the eyes of the first human beings are opened, and lift their own eyes to the top of the next page. This page begins with an image: the naked Eve and Adam, Adam in the act of eating the fruit, the serpent in a tree to the left. The text resumes below it, midway through Genesis 3:7, with a large colored initial that, combined with the previous punctuation and page change, suggests that this should be considered a significant break in the text, and that something new is beginning.

In other Old Testament instances, events where the eyes are opened connote a sudden vision of hidden things.[1] Partaking of the fruit of the tree allowed Adam and Eve to begin to experience and distinguish good from evil—the “opposition in all things” described in 2 Nephi 2:11. Note that in demonstration of her new capacity for discernment, Eve immediately “sees through Satan’s disguise of clever hypocrisy, identifies him, and exposes him for what he is.”[2]

They Knew They Had Been Naked”

By the change that happened when their eyes were opened, Adam and Eve realize that they “had been naked.”[3] The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob equates a “perfect knowledge” of “nakedness” with “guilt” and “u...

Abstract: The phrase goodness of God does occur occasionally in the Hebrew Bible but has not been considered by Old Testament scholars to be an independent principle in Israelite theology. Rather, it has been interpreted as just another way of talking about God’s acts of hesed, or loving kindness for his covenant people and is usually interpreted in the context of the covenants Israel received through Abraham and Moses. The Book of Mormon clearly echoes that Old Testament pattern but also presents two additional conceptual frameworks that are explained in terms of the goodness of God. It advances an explicit divine plan of redemption or salvation that existed before Abraham — even before the creation of the earth — which had as its purpose making eternal life possible for God’s human children universally — not just the descendants of Abraham. And it also teaches the gospel or doctrine of Christ that provides the path individuals must walk to take full advantage of that plan — as they become good like God and qualify to enter his presence and receive eternal life. Nephite usage radically expands the Old Testament concept by portraying this mortal probation as each person’s God-given opportunity to become good like God. The goodness of God is frequently invoked by the Nephite prophets as a basic theological concept which can explain why God advanced his plan of salvation for men before the world was and why he is completely reliable in blessing and protecting those who have entered the covenant path by embracing his gospel and striving to endure to the end. The Nephites also used the phrase in the Old Testament pattern to explain the acts of God in delivering, blessing, and preserving his covenant people. Furthermore, some usages seem to invoke all three of these contexts simultaneously, demonstrating the comfortable integration of each of these perspectives in Nephite theological understanding.

[Page 132]Readers of the Book of Mormon do not have to wait long to be introduced to the goodness of God as a foundational concept. In the second sentence of the book, Nephi refers to his “great knowledge of the goodness … of God” as a reason for writing it.1 In a 2016 article,2 Matthew L. Bowen shared his discovery that Nephi had demarcated his writings in the small plates as a single rhetorical unit with an inclusio by referring to the goodness of God at the beginning and again at the end.

 

You can listen to or download the July 4 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). This episode was hosted by Martin Tanner. In this episode, Martin discussed Independence Day, the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. The second portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #33 (D&C 88). 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: July 4, 2021. 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.

 

 

You can listen to or download the June 27 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen and Mark J. Johnson with special guest John Gee. In this episode, our hosts discussed Dr. Gee’s latest paper on the reality of the historic Jesus. The second portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #32 (D&C 85-87). 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: June 27, 2021. 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.

 

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 30, Where “Much Is Given Much Is Required” on D&C 81-83. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the June 13, 2021 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-june-13-2021/. 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

 

 

 

Knowledge as the Prize in Adam and Eve’s Test of Obedience

The battle begun in the premortal councils and waged again in the Garden of Eden was a test of obedience for Adam and Eve. However, it should be remembered that the actual prize at stake was knowledge—the knowledge required for them to be saved and, ultimately, to be exalted. The Prophet taught that the “principle of knowledge is the principle of salvation,”[1] therefore “anyone that cannot get knowledge to be saved will be damned.”[2]

li {margin-left: 2em;} blockquote {margin-left: 2em;} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;}

table {border: 1px solid #dddddd !important;; width: 100%; margin: auto;} table td{border: 1px solid #dddddd !important;; padding: 10px !important; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom;} table.noborder, table.noborder td{border: 0px solid #ffffff !important;; padding: 0 !important} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;} .icon {vertical-align: baseline !important;}

This raises a question: Since salvation was to come through knowledge, why did Satan encourage—rather than prevent—the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge by Adam and Eve? Surprisingly, the scriptural story makes it evident that their transgression must have been as much an important part of the Devil’s strategy as it was a central feature of the Father’s plan. In this one respect, the programs of God and Satan seem to have had something in common.

However, the difference in intention between God and Satan became apparent when it was time for Adam and Eve to take the next step.[3] In this regard, the scriptures seem to suggest that the Adversary wanted Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life directly after they partook of the Tree of Knowledge—a danger that moved God to take immediate preventive action by the placement of the cherubim and the flaming sword.[4] For had Adam and Eve eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life at that time, “there would have been no death” and no “space granted unto man in which he might repent”—in other words no “probationary state” to prepare for a final judgment and resurrection.[5]

It is easy to see a parallel between Satan’s initial proposal in the spirit world and his later strategy to “frustrate” the plan of salvation through his actions in Eden. Just as his defeated premortal scheme had proposed to provide a limited measure of “salvation” for all by precluding the opportunity for exaltation,[6] so it seems that his unsuccessful scheme in the Garden was intended to impose an inferior form of immortality that would have forestalled the possibility of eternal life.[7] Fortunately, however, because the Devil “knew not the mind of God,” his efforts “to destroy the world”[8] would be in vain: the result of his deceitful manipulations t...