After the wise men came, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
Category: Scriptures
Relics
The Book of Mormon is a reliquary in prose. In some extensive sections and at some critical moments, what drives the narrative is the question: how did a set of golden plates, a steel sword, a ball of curious workmanship, a breastplate, and two translucent stones end up inside a stone box buried in a hill in the state of New York? For a religion that attaches little to no significance to relics, it’s striking that large sections of our distinctive book of scripture are concerned with the provenance—the origin and the later cultural significance—of a particular set of holy artifacts.
Bones
One of the subterranean threads running throughout the Book of Mormon is the mystery of whose bones are heaped upon the land northward.
The Canonization of the Book of Mormon?
Penguin Books has just published a “Penguin Classics” edition of the Book of Mormon edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp. Penguin Classics, of course, are the paperback editions of literary staples like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. They are printed and marketed largely as texts for college classes. The assumption is that a text included in the Penguin series has become a stable part of the high-brow diet of books, or at least ought to be. It is worth reflecting a little bit about what this edition of the Book of Mormon might or might not mean. The Penguin book itself is based on the 1840 edition of the text rather than our current edition of the scriptures. The text was chosen because this was the last version that Joseph Smith was personally involved in editing. Also strictly speaking there is no standard 1830 version of the text for the simple reason that Grandin edited the book as he was printing it, with the result that different copies of the 1830 edition contain different versions of the text. Our current edition, in contrast, contains an elaborate set of interpretive aids that were added long after Joseph was murdered. Hence, the Penguin edition is printed without versification or the current chapter breaks, both of which were added in Utah by Orson Pratt. Rather, it is printed as regular prose – much like a novel – with the original chapter breaks, which were…
M Gets a Joke
A while back our household sat down to watch an episode of Monk. We like Monk because not only is it funny, it’s also sad and tender and offers good – sometimes very good – cultural satire. As I fed M she kept turning her head to look at the TV, watching whatever it is she sees when she’s watching something. We’re not sure what that is because doctors have sent mixed messages about her eyesight. But she does see.
The War Chapters
And a great sleep did come over the land; yea, verily, there was much dozing and nodding of heads in all of the sabbath schools.
Revelation 3:1-13
Previous posts in this series are here.
Revelation 2:12-29
Previous post in this series here.
Reading Psalm 137 as a Microcosm of Discipleship
Psalm 137 is one of those wonderful and paradoxical passages of scripture that contains within itself a universe.
Jesus Said . . .
I’m reading a commentary on Psalms and in the section on the authorship of the Psalms, the writer has this to say:
Korihor and the United States Reports
Let’s read the Book of Mormon as a commentary on American constitutional law and vice versa. Alma 30:7-10 reads:
Moral Hazard in the Scriptures
For those hoping to find more economics in their scripture study…
Egyptian Brass Plates and a naming contest
If this is common knowledge I completely missed it. So I post this in memory of all those who also slept through indecent chunks of early morning Seminary.
Women Who Know
… grow tomatoes in their home garden, and lots of them. Men who know grow them, too.
Amazon’s take on the Book of Mormon
Amazon.com has an algorithm for noting the “Statistically Improbably Phrases” in any given book. The idea is to look for word combinations that are uncommon generally but common in the book in the hope that this provides potential buyers some insight into what the book is about. Here are the ones for the Doubleday edition of the Book of Mormon:
Joseph and Moses
Most are acquainted with the passage in D&C 130 where God gives a fascinating response to Joseph’s query about the Second Coming:
We Did It
We’ve finally read the entire Book of Mormon as a family, all of us (those that can read, anyway) taking turns verse by verse. It only took us four and a half years, and we’re ready to do it again.
Scriptures as Seer Stones
To me, the most interesting thing about the seer stone that Joseph used when translating the BoM is not that he used it but that it is really just a rock. From what I understand, if you or I were to pick it up, we couldn’t tell it apart from any other smooth rock of similar color.
History and Scripture
Testifying of historicity
As I was re-reading conference, I came across this closing statement by President Hinckley: