You can listen to or download the November 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, Stephen Smoot, Spencer Marsh and Hales Swift. The discussion included the work of linguist Brian Stubbs, the word Shinehah in the Book of Abraham as well as the so-called “magic world view” of Joseph Smith’s era. Also included was a roundtable on the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #46 on 1 and 2 Peter. 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: November 3, 2019. 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 New Testament Lesson 45, “Be Ye Doers of the Word, and Not Hearers Only,” covering the Epistle of James. The panelists for this roundtable were Steve Densley, Craig Foster and Dan Ellsworth. This roundtable was extracted from the October 27, 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-october-27-2019/. 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 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, Craig Foster and Dan Ellsworth, discussing the dynamics of losing and recovering your faith. Also included was the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #45 on the Epistle of James. 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 27, 2019. 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: This article explores why Jesus so often healed in synagogues. By comparing the uses and purposes of Diaspora and Palestinian synagogues, this article argues that synagogues functioned as a hostel or community center of sorts in ancient Jewish society. That is, those needing healing would seek out such services and resources at the synagogue.

What were synagogues like in Palestine1 during the time of Jesus? What were synagogues like in the Roman world during the time of Paul? Why is the synagogue a place where people can be healed? Why does Jesus do so much healing at the synagogue? Why not do the healings elsewhere? This article explores why Jesus so often healed in synagogues.

A careful reading of the New Testament suggests that synagogues played an important role in the ministries of Jesus and Paul. Synagogues provided the contextual backdrop for Jesus’s stunning Messianic announcement and his acts of healing and teaching. For Paul, synagogues constituted a staging ground for preaching the gospel message and may have been a place of lodging when first arriving to town. Hence, understanding more fully the physical configuration and social purpose of ancient Palestinian and Diaspora synagogues will provide contextual meaning of synagogical references in the New Testament, specifically why Jesus healed at synagogues.

[Page 42]Jesus and Palestinian Synagogues

When we think of Judaism, synagogues are a natural component. Though we may have a general familiarity with these Jewish houses of worship as they exist in our own day, the picture in Jesus’s day was quite different.2

Throughout the Gospels we hear stories of Jesus entering into synagogues to read scriptures, to teach, and to heal. Indeed, the Gospel of Mark records that Jesus’s first act after making the announcement of his missionary purpose3 was to go to the synagogue to teach and to heal (see Mark 1:21-27). Similarly, the Gospel of Luke teaches that Jesus first revealed his divine mission while at a synagogue after reading a passage from Isaiah. Because the synagogues were central to Jewish community life during the time of Jesus and during the time of the synoptic writers, we see the gospel writers share a variety of crucial stories about Jesus that are situated at the synagogue. Given the prominence of synagogues in the world of Jesus, we would do well to learn more about them.

Studying synagogues in first century Palestine (or in the first century Diaspora, for that matter) is not a simple and straightforward undertaking. Though the institution today is synonymous with Judaism and has been for more than 1800 years, the available evidence on first century Palestinian synagogues is not abundant. Nevertheless, we do have sufficient evidence about ancient synagogues to paint an intriguing and valuable contextual picture through which we can enhance our understanding of Jesus’s ac...

Review of David B. Ostler, Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), 206 pp. $32.95 (hardback), $20.95 (paperback).

Abstract: David Ostler’s book Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question addresses the daunting task of ministering to people who have grown disillusioned with the core doctrines and the community of believers they encounter in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is perhaps the most challenging ministering effort a leader or member of the Church can undertake, and Bridges provides valuable insight into the process of disaffection as well as specific things that Church leaders and members can do to create a healthy environment for members to work through challenges to their faith. This review discusses those strengths of Bridges as a resource and also explores areas where the well-intentioned approaches discussed in the book can backfire, causing more harm than healing in a community of believing Latter-day Saints.

In C. S. Lewis’s masterful book The Great Divorce, a bus full of spirits travels from the dreariness of hell to the foothills of heaven, where each spirit is ministered to by heavenly guides. In one of the most interesting exchanges in the book, a heavenly spirit ministers to the spirit of an apostate Anglican bishop, with whom he shared friendship in mortality. The spirit’s encouragements to believe are answered by the bishop with deconstructive, theoretical rejoinders that illustrate the bishop’s cravings for intellectual abstraction over personal commitment. At one point, the bishop says of the theological opinions he taught in mortality:

They were not only honest but heroic. I asserted them fearlessly. When the doctrine of the Resurrection [Page 18]ceased to commend itself to the critical faculties which God had given me, I openly rejected it. I preached my famous sermon. I defied the whole chapter. I took every risk.1

The ministering spirit refutes the bishop’s assertion, countering that there had been powerful social incentives in terms of prestige and fear of commitment for the bishop to hold and promote those skeptical views. The spirit steers the conversation to a specific choice he hopes the bishop will embrace:

We are not playing now. I have been talking of the past (your past and mine) only in order that you may turn from it forever. One wrench and the tooth will be out. You can begin as if nothing had ever gone wrong. White as snow. It’s all true, you know. He is in me, for you, with that power. And — I have come a long journey to meet you. You have seen Hell: you are in sight of Heaven. Will you, even now, repent and believe?2

The idea that belief in the gospel message can be chosen is controversial. Some people seem born with the ability to believe, but restoration scripture also speaks of the ability to believe witness testimony as a gift (Doctrine and Covenants 46:14). However, if we feel inclined to view that gift as something allocated arbitrarily to mortals by divine whim, we are also told this and other spiritual gifts can be sought (D&C 46:8), with the qualifier that the seeking should be done “earnestly.” To my mind, one of the most underappreciated phrases in the Book of Mormon’s narratives of the nature of belief is Nephi’s recollection in 1 Nephi 2:16 that “I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father ….

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 44, “An High Priest of Good Things to Come,” covering Hebrews 7-13. The panelists for this roundtable were Bruce Webster, Kris Fredrickson and Mike Parker. This roundtable was extracted from the October 20, 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-october-20-2019/. 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 20 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). The hosts were Bruce Webster, Kris Fredrickson and Mike Parker. The discussion was centered on the recent General Conference addresses as well as a sobering conversation on human trafficking. Also included was the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #44 on Hebrews 7-13. 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 20, 2019. 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: In 2015 Brian Stubbs published a landmark book, demonstrating that Uto-Aztecan, an American Indian language family, contains a vast number of Northwest Semitic and Egyptian loanwords spoken in the first millennium bc. Unlike other similar claims — absurd, eccentric, and without substance — Stubbs’s book is a serious, linguistically based study that deserves serious consideration. In the scholarly world, any claim of Old World influence in the New World languages is met with critical, often hostile skepticism. This essay is written in response to one such criticism.

The most recent issue of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies included a review of two books by Brian Stubbs.1 It gives me no pleasure writing this response to Chris Rogers’s review of Stubbs. I sat on Chris’s dissertation committee (University of Utah) directed by Lyle Campbell, and I wrote a positive letter of recommendation for his candidacy for the Linguistics Department at BYU. When I heard about his strong objection to Brian Stubbs’s books,2 it piqued my curiosity because I had [Page 2]written a favorable article regarding Stubbs’s 2015 book.3 I understood that Rogers’s displeasure had to do with (a) Stubbs’s shoddy scholarship and (b) the apparent impossibility of Middle Eastern languages effecting changes in Proto-Uto-Aztecan (PUA), a reconstructed American Indian ancestral language.

I immediately emailed Rogers, trying to get some clarification regarding his strong antipathetic attitude toward Stubbs’s works. In his response, Rogers mentioned that it had something to do with “joiners and splitters.”4 I was acquainted with “lumpers and splitters” (explained below), but I could not imagine how the concept applied to Stubbs’s work. Rogers was kind enough to send a preliminary copy of an article, which was since revised, now appearing in the 2019 issue of Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

When I read the draft, I saw what Rogers’s view of lumpers and splitters meant as applied to Stubbs’s work, and given what he meant, I was deeply disappointed for the reasons outlined below. He sees Stubbs’s work as “so replete with disorganization, numerous assumptions, mistaken definitions or incorrect characterizations of linguistic concepts, inexact methods, pedantry, and apologetic rhetoric that the idea seems dubious, even without careful scrutiny” (260, emphasis added). He went on to say,

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 43, Jesus Christ, “the Author of Eternal Salvation,” covering Hebrews 1-6. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the October 13, 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-october-13-2019/. 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 13 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. The discussion was centered on the recent General Conference. Also included is the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #43 on Hebrews 1-6. 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 13, 2019. 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.