Abstract: A recent review of Joseph M. Spencer’s book The Vision of All: Twenty-Five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record made the case that the book contains several challenges and problems, in particular that it advocates a theologically deficient interpretation of Isaiah that denies Isaiah’s witness of Jesus Christ. This response provides an alternative reading of Spencer’s work and suggests these assertions are often based on misunderstanding. At stake in this conversation is the question of whether or not there is more than one valid way to read Isaiah that draws upon a faithful, Restoration perspective. While Spencer may interpret and frame some things differently than some other Latter-day Saint scholars, the prophecies of Isaiah provide enough richness and possibility to accommodate a chorus of faithful approaches.

In a previous issue of Interpreter, Donald W. Parry reviewed Joseph M. Spencer’s book The Vision of All: Twenty-Five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record.1 I am offering a response for two reasons. First, although they were not intended this way, a few statements in the review may incorrectly be taken to imply that Spencer, as a person, lacks an understanding of Restoration doctrine, does not accept Church teachings, and is closed to the influence of the Holy Ghost. When readers come away from the review thinking this is what the review meant, it can lead to significant personal and professional repercussions for Spencer, who is a Brigham Young University religion professor. Second, I believe the review significantly misunderstands Spencer’s book, and these misunderstandings led to substantial misrepresentations of what Spencer’s [Page 2]book says. My aim, then, is to offer my own reading of Spencer’s book and gently correct the errors I perceive in the earlier review.

Before proceeding, I wish to state categorically that my response should in no way signal disrespect for the intelligence, talent, or good intentions of Dr. Parry. He has been my teacher, mentor, and friend for many years, and there are few people whose opinions on Isaiah or Hebrew I value as highly. I believe Dr. Parry’s review was written with the best of intentions and that the inaccuracies were the result of honest misunderstanding. Although the record should be set straight regarding Spencer’s book, this should in no way diminish Dr. Parry’s numerous contributions to our study of Isaiah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other important fields of study, for which Latter-day Saints will always be in his debt.

Faithfully Approaching Isaiah

Unfortunately, some lines in the review could be read to infer that Spencer is not a believing or faithful Latter-day Saint. For example, these two sentences are taken from the same page:

In my own personal view, Spencer’s work presents certain challenges and problems, especially for Christians who maintain that Isaiah’s text contains numerous Jesus Christ-focused elements. …

In my experience and considered opinion, academics (particularly those who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints) who intend to explicate Isaiah’s text in books or media would do well to possess the following: (1) a comprehensive understanding of the doctrinal framework of the Restoration of the gospel (and acceptance of and compliance with its teachings) and (2) a heart open to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, the quintessential revelator and teacher.

You can listen to or download the May 10 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. In this episode, they discussed John Gee’s new book Saving Faith. Also featured was a roundtable on the upcoming Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson #23 on Alma 8-12. 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 10, 2020. 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 Book of Mormon Lesson 20, “They Were Called the People of God,” on Mosiah 25-28. The panelists for this roundtable were Bruce Webster, Kris Fredrickson and Mike Parker. This roundtable was extracted from the April 19, 2020 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-april-19-2020/. 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

 

 

The Opening of Enoch’s Mouth

When the Lord called Enoch as a prophet, Enoch was concerned about his ability to adequately preach to the people. In particular, he described himself as being “slow of speech.”[2] Moses may have been quoting Enoch when, after receiving his own prophetic calling, he told the Lord he was “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue”[3]—literally, in Hebrew idiom, “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.”[4]

In Moses’ case, as with Ezekiel, the problem was most likely not a physical speech impediment,[5] but rather doubts about his fluency in the native language of his hearers.[6] What language would that be? Not Egyptian, of course, because Moses had been raised in Egypt[7] and during his first appearance at Pharaoh’s court both he and Aaron did the speaking.[8] Rather, as Richard E. Friedman argues, Moses more likely had difficulty with Hebrew. Friedman observes that “God’s response in fact confirms that the problem for Moses was speaking ‘to the people,’[9] not to the Egyptians.”[10]

Could Enoch have been in a similar predicament? After all, he was not sent to preach repentance to his own people (who presumably spoke his own language), but rather to the people in the eastern land where his journey had taken him.[11] Whatever the case, non-canonical Enoch sources seem to corroborate that Enoch had speech challenges. Some accounts, for example, portray Enoch as having been “deliberate in his speech” and “often silent.”[12]

These descriptions are notable because being “slow of speech” is not a common motif among biblical prophets. Only Moses and Enoch are specifically described in this manner. It is also curious that in the cases of both Enoch and Moses, “it is the stammerer whose task it is to bring down God’s word to the human world.”[13] “Whatever the circumstances, the underlying idea is that prophetic eloquence is not a native talent but a divine endowment granted for a special purpose, the message originating with God and not with the prophet.”[14]

Although God provided Aaron as a spokesman for Moses, He offered no such relief to Enoch. Instead, He gave Enoch himself “the power of … language”[15]—a term that is found nowhere else in scripture. By this power and at his “command” in speaking “the word of the Lord, … the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, … and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness,” causing “all nations [to fear] greatly.”[16]

The wording of God’s promise to Enoch is also significant:<...

You can listen to or download the May 3 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Neal Rappleye, Jasmine Rappleye and Hales Swift. In this episode, they discussed Church pageants, pioneer trek, and types of missionary callings. Also featured was a roundtable on the upcoming Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson #22 on Alma 5-7. 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 3, 2020. 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: Over the centuries, many religious thinkers — precisely because they are religious thinkers — have put a premium on intellectual attainment as a prerequisite for salvation. This has sometimes yielded an elitism or snobbishness that is utterly foreign to the teachings of the Savior. The Gospel as taught in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints values education and knowledge, certainly. But not unduly. Intellectuals, while heartily welcome among the Saints and, when faithful, much appreciated for their potential contributions to the Church, have no claim on any special status in the Kingdom simply because of their (real or pretended) intellectuality, whether here or in the hereafter.

A recurring theme in the texts that I read with my Islamic philosophy class during the coronavirus-truncated Winter 2020 term at Brigham Young University — particularly, I think, in the Faṣl al-Maqāl (“The Decisive Treatise”) of Ibn Rushd and in Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (“Alive, Son of Awake”) — is the notion that the full theological and philosophical truth should be restricted only to the elite. It should, so these two twelfth-century Andalusian texts argue, be carefully and deliberately withheld from people disqualified by their (presumably inferior) natures from being able to deal with it. In some interpretations, Ibn Rushd may even have argued that only intellectuals of the most rarified class — and, really, only their intellects, not their emotions or individual personalities — would attain immortality or eternal life.

I’m afraid that intellectuals are often prone to elevate themselves among the electi and to look down from that lofty perch upon the mere auditores.1 Ancient Gnosticism, for instance, which took its name from the Greek word γνωστικός (gnōstikós, “having knowledge”), was all [Page viii]about what and how much one knew. Consider this passage, from the Gospel of John:

So the people were in two minds about him — some of them wanted to arrest him, but so far no one laid hands on him.

Then the officers returned to the Pharisees and chief priests, who said to them, “Why haven’t you brought him?”

“No man ever spoke like that!” they replied.

“Has he pulled the wool over your eyes, too?” retorted the Pharisees. “Have any of the authorities or any of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, who know nothing about the Law, is damned anyway!” (John 7:43–49, J. B. Phillips translation)

What about the masses? Who cares?

Such dismissiveness is not confined to scriptural stories of long- gone peoples. Decades back, I sat in a seminar room in Denver where a presenter at an academic conference was setting forth her reading of James W. Fowler’s fairly well-known 1981 book Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. In that book, Fowler (1940-2015), an American theologian affiliated with Emory University, distinguished seven stages of spiritual growth. I remember the thought crossing my mind that the characteristics of the highest stage of Professor Fowler’s seven levels were curiously similar to the views and attitudes of, say, a professor of theology at a liberal Protestant divinity school.

There seems a powerful tendency among people who theorize about God — perhaps particularly in the absence of contradicting experience or revelation — to imagine Him in their own image.

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 19, We Have Entered into a Covenant with Him, on Mosiah 18-24. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the April 12, 2020 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-april-12-2020/. 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.

 

.icon {vertical-align: baseline !important;}

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

 

As with many prophets elsewhere in scripture, the account of Enoch’s mission found in the Pearl of Great Price begins with the details of how he was called as a prophet. Such a story is often called a “prophetic commission.” Bible scholar Walther Zimmerli[2] distinguished between two types of prophetic commissions: (1) the narrative call pattern, whereby the prophet is called as part of a conversation with the Lord or His representative and objections to his fitness for the mission are raised and resolved;[3] and (2) the throne theophany call pattern, whereby the prophet ascends to the presence of God to receive his divine commission. Though no account of a prophetic calling rigidly fits the criteria for either of these categories, the calls of Moses, Jeremiah, and Enoch[4] might be seen as typifying the first pattern, whereas the calls of Isaiah and Ezekiel are generally good exemplars of the second.

Among the objections that skeptics have raised about the Book of Moses is whether, on the one hand, it has simply borrowed its stories and language wholesale from the Bible and, on the other hand, paradoxically, whether it is not biblical enough. In addition to introducing significant aspects of Enoch’s call that will be treated in more depth in subsequent articles, this article will give examples of how both kinds of objections can be met with a little research and careful reading.

With respect to the concern about wholesale borrowing from the Bible, our response will treat this question: Does Moses 6:26–27 simply borrow from the Gospel of John? With respect to the concern about whether the Book of Moses is sufficiently biblical, we will address a second question: Does Enoch’s call fit the biblical pattern?

Does Moses 6:26–27 Simply Borrow from the Gospel of John?

The account of Enoch’s prophetic commission in Moses 6 begins as follows:[5]

26 And it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land, among the people; and as he journeyed, the Spirit of God descended out of heaven, and abode upon him.

27 And he heard a voice from heaven, saying: Enoch, my son, prophesy unto this people …

Curiously, the closest biblical parallel to the wording of these opening verses is not to be found in the call of any Old Testament prophet, but rather in the description of events following Jesus’ baptism found in the New Testament. As demonstrated in the following chart, these parallels include the Spirit of God descending from heaven, the Spirit abiding upon an individual, and a voice from heaven declaring that individual’s sonship.

table {border: 1px solid #dddddd; width: 100%; margin: auto;} table td{border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 10px !important; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;} p.wp-caption-text{text-align: center !important;} p.wp-caption-text:before {content: '' !important;}

Topic

Book of Moses

New Testament

The Spirit Descends from Heaven and Abides upon Him

Moses 6:26 – And it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land,

.icon {vertical-align: baseline !important;}

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

Listen to or download an audio recording of this Essay:

  Download PDF

  Download audio recording

The eminent Yale professor and Jewish literary scholar Harold Bloom called the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham two of the “more surprising” and neglected works of Latter-day Saint scripture.[2] With the great spate of publications over the decades since fragments of Egyptian papyri were rediscovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[3] we have begun to see a remedy for the previous neglect of the Book of Abraham.[4] Now, gratefully, because of wider availability of the original manuscripts and new detailed studies of their contents, the Book of Moses is also beginning to receive its due.[5]

What did Professor Bloom find so “surprising” in the Book of Moses? He said he was intrigued by the fact that many of its themes are “strikingly akin to ancient suggestions.” While expressing “no judgment, one way or the other, upon the authenticity” of Latter-day Saint scripture, he found “enormous validity” in the way these writings “recapture… crucial elements in the archaic Jewish religion.… that had ceased to be available either to normative Judaism or to Christianity, and that survived only in esoteric traditions unlikely to have touched [Joseph] Smith directly.”[6] In other words, Professor Bloom found it a great wonder that Joseph Smith could have come up with, on his own, a modern book that resembles in so many ways ancient Jewish and Christian teachings.

We are persuaded that competent wielding of the tools of scholarship can be of immense value in increasing our understanding of both ancient and modern scripture. Moreover, we see no reason why the same methods of comparative analysis that are sometimes employed to argue that Joseph Smith used nineteenth-century sources as aids in translation cannot also be used to discover ancient affinities to modern scripture. While such arguments are not the sine qua non of the believer’s testimony, they have their place in cracking open by a hair the doors of faith for a skeptical world. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has said:[7]

Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence — we still need that spiritual confirmation in the heart … — but not to seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief when it is available is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position and deny us a unique, persuasive vocabulary in the latter-day arena of religious investigation and sectarian debate. Thus armed with so much evidence of the kind we have celebrated here tonight, we ought to be more assertive than we sometimes are in defending our testimony of truth.

To that point I mention that while we were living and serving in England, I became fond of the writing of the English cleric Austin Farrer. Speaking of the contribution made by C. S. Lewis specifically and of Christian apologists generally, Farrer said: “Though argument does not create conv...

Abstract: Some people have suggested a strain of violence within nineteenth- century Latter-day Saint culture as violent as and perhaps more so than that of most Americans around them. Critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints point to a few well-known acts of extralegal violence as evidence of a culture of violence that permeated the early Church. But were these examples of violence really out of the norm of nineteenth-century American society? This article looks at examples of extralegal punishment for certain crimes, placing them and the examples of extralegal punishment in Utah within a greater historical and cultural context.

Over the years, critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and even some historians have suggested a strain of violence that permeated nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint culture which was as violent as and perhaps more so than that of most Americans around them. Indeed, according to well-known historian D. Michael Quinn, “Those violent norms were officially approved and published by the LDS Church in pioneer Utah.”1 As I point out in this paper, the historical record is not as clear-cut as some may assume.

Before delving into the main topic of this paper — violence in service of extralegal justice in early America — it should be noted that it is easy for present-day sensibilities to be shocked and offended by the historical accounts treated in this paper. This is understandable; one can be excused for not even knowing that early Americans were familiar with and often approving of what we, today, view as barbaric acts. Looking at [Page 282]these accounts — distasteful as it may be — is necessary if one wants to fully understand the historical context in which singular events dredged up by critics occurred.

Examining Two Commonly Cited Examples of Church-Approved Violence

While different examples are cited to push the argument of a prevalent strain of violence in early Church culture, perhaps some of the most popular are stories of castration in early territorial Utah. Even from the nineteenth-century there were accusations of multiple cases of castration by members of the Church, such as John D. Lee’s Mormonism Unveiled (actually mostly written by William L. Bishop), which claimed that “many a young man was unsexed for refusing to give up his sweetheart” to “old, worn-out members of the Priesthood.”2 Despite accusations and tales of rampant castrations, there are only two well- documented cases: the castration of Henry Jones in Payson, Utah, in 1858 for incest and of Thomas Lewis of Sanpete County in 1856.3

On 27 February 1858, Hosea Stout recorded in his diary, “This evening several persons disguised as Indians entered Henry Jones’ house and dragged him out of bed with a whore and castrated him by a square & close amputation.”