The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

 

You can listen to or download the May 23 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. In this episode, our hosts discussed a recent Interpreter about Captain Moroni as well as ancient religious architecture in Hawaii. The second portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #27 (D&C 71-75). 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: May 23, 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 25, “The Lord Requireth the Heart and a Willing Mind” on D&C 64-66. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the May 9, 2021 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-may-9-2021/. 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

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The Tree of Life is certainly the most significant object in the Garden of Eden. However, its presence has always been somewhat of a puzzle to students of the Bible because it is only briefly mentioned in Genesis: once at the beginning of the story in connection with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,[1] and once at the end when cherubim and a flaming sword are placed before it to prevent Adam and Eve from partaking of its fruit.[2]

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Though neither the nature nor the function of the Trees of Life and Knowledge are given explicitly in scripture, an understanding of temple teachings and layout can greatly illuminate this subject. This Essay will provide some background on the symbolism of these two trees. In Essay #60, we will see how their placement in the Garden of Eden relates to the layout of Israelite temples and makes their roles in the story of Adam and Eve apparent.

Symbolism of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

The Hebrew expression “knowledge of good and evil” can mean knowledge of what is good and bad, or of happiness and misery—or, most arguably, of “everything,” if “good and evil” can be taken to mean the totality of all that is, was, or is yet to be.[3] The variegated light and darkness in the photograph of the fig tree shown above suggests the ambivalent nature of this symbolism.

Perhaps the most relevant hint on the meaning of the phrase comes from Deuteronomy 1:39, which speaks of little children “who… have no knowledge of good and evil,” suggesting “that they are not legally responsible for their actions.”[4] In this sense, the term refers not to abstract conceptual knowledge but rather to the kind of “knowledge which infancy lacks and experience acquires.”[5] Thus, sensing his inexperience, the young King Solomon prayed for the ability “to discern between good and evil” so that he would be able to function in his royal role.[6] The kind of understanding implied by the phrase “knowledge of good and evil” is, as Claus Westermann[7] concludes:

…concerned with knowledge (or wisdom) in the general, comprehensive sense. Any limitation of the meaning of “the knowledge of good and evil” is thereby excluded. It can mean neither moral nor sexual[8] nor any other p...

Review of Adam S. Miller, Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020). 162 pages. $9.95 (paperback).

Abstract: Adam Miller has created a thoughtful and enlightening theological study of the book of Mormon. It is obvious from his textual commentary that Miller has given a significant amount of thought and effort into teasing out practical insights from the book’s original authors. Except for some clumsy distractions that occasionally appear in his text, I would highly recommend Miller’s analysis of Mormon’s and Moroni’s apocalyptic narratives.

Adam Miller is a “big picture” thinker, which is evident from this and other books that he has authored. In this latest work, Miller fashioned a creative, refreshing, and insightful treatise in Christian theology.1 His interpretation of scripture and theological concepts was truly captivating, and his use of words was, mostly, pleasingly poetic. What holds this book back from being truly inspiring, at least for me, was Miller’s lack of attention to details. On multiple occasions I found myself intrigued with one of his ideas, only to come to the conclusion, after further reflection and analysis, that the idea was either unlikely or untenable. In general, I would say that I enjoyed visiting the destinations where the book took me as a reader even though I was not always fond of the path that led to those destinations.

[Page 320]The Smooth Path

As I read and pondered Miller’s theological insights I found myself underlining everything that impressed me and scribbling some of my own thoughts in the margins. When I was finished, I determined to create a table of everything that I had underlined, and I was surprised to see the list had grown to dozens of citations. In this review I have chosen to include only the “top 10” from my list. Following that, I briefly outline where the path got rocky for me as a “detail-oriented person.”

How, in Christ, are we Saved?

In his first chapter, Miller describes himself as a Christophysicist, a less-than-familiar term for me. From what I was able to glean from the Internet, Christophysics is a theo-scientific approach to theology. In this chapter, Miller wrote, “The urgent question at the heart of my work is always the same: exactly how, in Christ, are we saved?” (8). This, of course, is the primary question that all Christian texts should have at their core. This question does not regularly recur in Miller’s book, nor does he come right out with a clear answer, but the entire book can be characterized as orbiting this central concern. As I read and pondered, I found it profitable to relate everything back to this same question: how, in Christ, are we saved?

Sacrificing All Things

“If Christian discipleship sits squarely at the crossroads of a world that imposes the loss of all things and a religion that requires the sacrifice of all things, what does it look like to willingly lose all things? What does it look like to practice that loss as discipleship?” (28). Central to Mormon’s short book is the nagging knowledge that for him the world is rapidly coming to an end. A key to understanding the man Mormon, as Miller points out, is that Mormon, as a true follower of Christ, sacrificed all things for his God and for his people. The question for modern Christians is how we can reconcile these two ideas: the absolute certainty that this world will end for everyone — one way or another — resulting in the loss of all things,

Abstract: Modern readers too often misunderstand ancient narrative. Typical of this incomprehension has been the inclination of modern biblical critics to view repetitions as narrative failures. Whether you call such repetitions types, narrative analogies, type scenes, midrashic recurrences, or numerous other names, this view of repeated elements has dominated modern readings of Hebraic narratives for at least 200 years. Robert Alter, who introduced a new yet antique understanding of repetitions in the Hebrew Bible in the 1980s, began to reverse this trend. Such repeated elements aren’t failures or shortcomings but are themselves artistic clues to narrative meaning that call readers to appreciate the depth of the story understood against the background of allusion and tradition. Richard Hays has brought similar insights to Christian scripture. The Book of Mormon incorporates the same narrative features as are present in other Hebraic narrative. The ancient rabbis highlighted the repeating elements in biblical narrative, noting that “what happens to the fathers, happens to the sons.” The story of Moroni’s raising the standard of liberty in Alma 46 illustrates the repetitive expectation by seeing the events of the biblical Joseph’s life repeated in the lives of these Nephite descendants of Joseph. Such recurrence in narratives can, considering the insights of Alter and Hays, reveal richness and depth in the narrative without detracting from the historical qualities of the text.

Hagar is twice expelled from Abraham’s household (Genesis 16:4–14; 21:9–19), thrice a patriarch endangers his wife in a foreign country by passing her off as his sister (Genesis 12:10–19; 20:1–16; 26:6–11), and multiple times a patriarch or prophet travels to a foreign country to meet a nubile girl at a well to secure a wife (Genesis 24:10–60; 29:1–16; Exodus 2:15–21). Pharaoh slaughters the infants as does Herod the Great (Exodus 1:15– 22; Matthew 2:16–18), and a prophetic figure — whether Moses or Jesus [Page 264]— miraculously provides food in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4–16; Matthew 15:32–38). I could cite many more examples of repeated biblical stories: conflicts as the younger brother supersedes the older (Joseph and his brothers, Genesis 37, 42–45; Esau and Jacob, Genesis 27; Laman and Lemuel against Nephi, 1 Nephi 3:28–31 and elsewhere), threats against out- of-towners appealing for hospitality (Genesis 19; Judges 19); twice Nephites send their attractive young women out to charm marauding Lamanites so the vulnerable group isn’t killed (Mosiah 19:12–15; Mosiah 23:33–34). Such doublets, as they are frequently called, are fundamental to the working of Hebraic narrative: two creation stories, two instances of animals boarding the ark (seven of each kind once and two of each animal the second time), two narratives of water provided in the wilderness during the exodus. To the modern mind these examples are historical problems in the text — duplications, narrative inconsistencies, failures, plagiarisms; biblical critics have in the past few decades rehabilitated these recurrences, noting their sophistication, revealing modern incapacities in scorning them. Sternberg notes of biblical repetitions that “the dismissal of its redundancies in terms of ‘noise’ is the reader’s last resort rather than first resort”1 and more likely the result of readerly failure than writerly shortcoming. Since the advent of modern historical criticism of the Bible (starting with, say, Spinoza in the seventeenth century) the presence of such recurrent stories was used to denigrate the Bible as a historical source and narrati...

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 24, “That Which Cometh from Above Is Sacred” on D&C 63. The panelists for this roundtable were Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye, and Hales Swift. This roundtable was extracted from the May 2, 2021 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-may-2-2021/. 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 May 16 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Kris Frederickson and Martin Tanner. In this episode, our hosts discussed finding answers to gospel questions and difficult items through prayer and revelation. The second portion of the show was a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #26 (D&C 67-70). 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: May 16, 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 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:

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In this Essay, we review the instructions given to Adam and Eve: the commandments to be fruitful and multiply and not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge; the instruction for Adam to cleave to Eve, the most unique of God’s creations; and the commandment for them to “dress” and “keep” the Garden. As with other parts of this rich story, there is far more than meets the eye when the details are fully appreciated.

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The First Two Commandments to Adam and Eve

The illustration above shows God creating Eve and then instructing the couple. It was created under the direction of Herrad of Hohenbourg a twelfth-century abbess under who was responsible for assembling a comprehensive and copiously illustrated compendium of knowledge and salvation history, called Hortus Deliciarum (Garden of Delights).[1] The details of the depiction draw on traditions from outside of Genesis:

* The commandment to be fruitful and multiply (Moses 2:27). As was discussed in Essay #50, an essential part of the plan was for Adam and Eve to have children. In the middle of the drawing above, a Tree of Life has sprouted human faces resembling Adam and Eve, attesting to ancient traditions about individual premortal existence.[2] This “Tree of Souls”[3] which, in Jewish legend, represented the heavenly Tree of Life, was thought to produce “new souls, which ripen and then fall from the tree into the Guf, the Treasury of Souls in Paradise. There the soul is stored until the angel Gabriel reaches into the treasury and takes out the first soul that comes into his hand” so it can be born into mortality.[4]

* The commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Moses 3:16–17). Gary A. Anderson points out an interesting divergence between Genesis story and the drawing featured here: “Whereas Genesis 2 recounts that Adam was created first (2:4–7), given a commandment (2:16–17), and only then received a spouse (2:19–24), the Hortus Deliciarum has it that Adam was created, then Eve was drawn from his rib, and finally both were given a commandment.”[5] At right, God gestures toward the Tree of Knowledge in warning as He takes Adam by the wrist. At the same time, Eve raises her arm in what seems a gesture of consent to God’s commandment.[6]

Eve’s Fivefold Uniqueness

Donald W.

Review of Hugh Nibley Observed, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Shirley Ricks, and Stephen Whitlock (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation, 2021). 820 pages. $45.00 (hardback), $35.00 (paperback).

Abstract: Those who knew Brother Nibley best knew he was a remarkable man of both depth and breadth. This new volume plumbs both that depth and breadth in the recounting of personal stories and colorful history. This volume is a welcome addition to any library.

I knew Hugh Nibley from 1976, when I took my first class with him, until his death in 2005. As my teacher and as a scholar, he had a great impact on my intellectual and spiritual life as a student at BYU. Through the years, the example of Hugh Nibley as a man has continued to inform my life. For this reason, this book is important to me.

As a tribute to Hugh Nibley, the editors of this volume have collected forty essays written by Nibley’s family, his peers and colleagues, and his students and friends. The title of the book is a play on the title of Nibley’s autobiographical film entitled The Faith of an Observer: Conversations with Hugh Nibley. The stated purpose of this volume is to explore and celebrate the extraordinary life and career through “a kaleidoscope of portraits, perspectives, and memories from family, friends, and colleagues — observers, as it were, of a preeminent observer” (xv). This volume is a valuable and welcome complement to two biographies previously written: Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life, by Boyd Peterson and Sergeant Nibley, PhD: Memories of an Unlikely Screaming Eagle, by Alex Nibley. A few of these pieces have been published elsewhere, but the great majority are new. There are more than two hundred photos [Page 242]throughout the volume, many from the Nibley family, that help to illuminate the life and work of Hugh Nibley.

Having perused the whole of the book and read many of the essays, let me give an initial personal impression. Many years ago, while I was a BYU student, a couple of my friends and I, like many others, would try to attend every Nibley class offered on campus. We were smart enough not to take these classes for credit until we had sat through them several times because Nibley’s tests and grading could be brutal. I remember an exam of about 150 points, and the highest score in the class was somewhere around 30 points. Nibley’s religion classes weren’t made to build your self-esteem. But we simply could not get enough of Hugh Nibley.

One day we heard that Brother Nibley taught Gospel Doctrine in his home ward, so we determined that we would start attending his Sunday classes as well. I clearly remember attending the first Sunday School class. One of the things that we had noticed in his classes was that he often would teach about whatever topic he happened to be publishing on at the time — especially the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses, or the Book of Abraham. It didn’t matter what the Sunday School class was supposed to be about; he would simply begin by presenting and discussing his current topic of interest. One of the odd things about his BYU classes was that the final class at the end of the week never quite dovetailed with what he would start talking about on Monday morning. When we started attending his Sunday classes, we made a startling discovery that explained the situation. In his Sunday School class, he would just continue the discussion he had been conducting at the end of the school week on Friday. Then, sure enough, on Monday in his BYU class he would pick up where he left off in his Sunday lesson. So, from that time on we realized that to get the full value of the Nibley experience, we would need to attend his Sunday lectures as well.

As I read through the essays in Hugh Nibley Observed I had a similar feeling.

Abstract: In his well-known volume about the Book of Mormon, Grant Hardy focuses primarily on the book’s main narrators. However, he also makes a number of observations about other figures in the book that are of particular interest, including some about Captain Moroni. In addition to those I address elsewhere, these observations include the claim that Moroni lacked the typical religious virtues — which Hardy identifies as “humility, self-sacrifice, kindness, and relying upon the Lord.” They also include the assertion that Helaman, in his manifest reliance upon God, serves as a counterexample to Moroni’s military leadership. A close look at the text, however, indicates that both these claims are mistaken.

Grant Hardy’s influential volume, Understanding the Book of Mormon,1 focuses on the text’s main narrators. Other figures in the book naturally receive attention along the way, however. One of these is Captain Moroni. Among Hardy’s remarks regarding Captain Moroni are these seven: (1) Moroni’s divine communication (reported in Alma 60:33) was an “off-the-mark revelation”;2 (2) Moroni “slaughters” his political opponents;3 (3) he is not portrayed in the text as “a particularly religious man”;4 (4) he was not comparable to the sons of Mosiah in spiritual matters [Page 218]— despite Mormon’s claim to the contrary;5 (5) he can be described as being “hot-blooded” and as having an “aggressive posture,” a “quick temper,” a “blunt manner,” and “hasty suspicions;”6 (6) he did not possess the “typical religious virtues;”7 and (7) he serves as a contrast to Helaman, who, unlike Moroni, put his trust in God more than in his own expertise.8

I have addressed the first five of these claims elsewhere in two separate papers.9 In this article I will consider the final two assertions, namely, that Captain Moroni lacked “the typical religious virtues” — by which Hardy specifically means “humility, self-sacrifice, kindness, and relying upon the Lord”10 — and the claim that Helaman serves as a counterexample to Moroni.11

Now, the idea that Moroni lacked the usual religious virtues might well be a common view, since what stands out in the record are his wartime leadership and his immersion in circumstances of violence. When we think of Moroni, we tend to think of his military engagements rather than his religious virtues. Surprisingly, however,