The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

 

You can listen to or download the October 10th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). This episode is hosted by Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. In this episode, our hosts discussed various aspects of scholarship and academic writing. The second portion of the show is a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #47 (D&C 133-134). 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: October 10, 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.

 

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 9-10: Recorded December 2, 1978

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

 

D&C 10: Recorded December 10, 1978

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 45, “A Voice of Gladness for the Living and the Dead” on D&C 125-128. The panelists for this roundtable were Steve Densley and Mark Johnson. This roundtable was extracted from the September 26th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-September-26-2021/. 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.

 

 

You can listen to or download the October 3rd broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). This episode is hosted by Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye and Hales Swift. In this episode, our hosts discussed the recent General Conference. The second portion of the show is a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #46 (D&C 129-132). 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: October 3, 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.

 

Abstract: The accounts of the Anti-Christ, Korihor, and of Alma’s mission to the Zoramites raise a variety of apparently unanswered questions. These involve Korihor’s origins, the reason for the similarity of his beliefs to those of the Zoramites, and why he switched so quickly from an atheistic attack to an agnostic plea. Another intriguing question is whether it was actually the devil himself who taught him what to say and sent him on a mission to the land of Zarahemla — or was it a surrogate of the devil or a human “devil” such as, perhaps, Zoram? Final questions are how Korihor ended up in Antionum, why the Zoramites would kill a disabled beggar, and why nobody seemed to have mourned his violent death or possibly unrighteous execution. There are several hints from the text that suggest possible answers to these intriguing questions. Some are supported by viewing the text from a parallelistic or chiastic perspective.

table {border: 1px solid #dddddd; width: 100%; margin: auto;} td, th {border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 5px !important; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;} th {background-color: #eeeeee; color: #373737 !important; font-size: 100% !important; font-weight: 700 !important; text-transform: none !important; line-height: 1.5 !important} .centered td, td.centered, .centered th, th.centered {text-align: center !important;} td.left, th.left {text-align: left !important;} table.noborder, table.noborder td {border: 0px solid #ffffff; padding: 0 5px !important}

Two of the most gripping stories within the Book of Mormon are first, the account of Korihor and second, Alma’s mission to the Zoramites. These stories have been discussed in many forums, and many authors have supplied commentary on them. However, there remain at least seven significant questions in these accounts — “holes,” if you will. John Welch has called at least some of these lacunae or gaps, “omissions.”1

While answers to these questions cannot currently be proven definitively, the text offers several hints that, like an accumulation of circumstantial evidence in a legal case, can be amassed to provide speculative but credible answers. Some of this circumstantial evidence is new, coming from the relatively recent discovery of underlying parallelistic structures within the Book of Mormon text. John Welch expressed this idea when he wrote: “The design and depth of the [Page 50]Book of Mormon often comes to light only when the book is studied with chiastic and other ancient literary principles in mind.”2 Such parallelistic considerations seem particularly helpful in the case of Korihor and of the Zoramites, as I will attempt to demonstrate.

This article will consider how important themes are presented: 1) in the current verse and chapter format, 2) by parallelistic structures (usually chiasms), and 3) in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. The latter point is important since the modern chapter and verse divisions were not revealed by inspiration to Joseph Smith and were not a part of the first printing. They were provided by Orson Pratt and not published until 1879.

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...