What does it mean by the virgin was "extremely fair and white" in 1 Nephi 11:13?
In Czech, the word they use is "bělostná" which apparently means snow-white, lily-white, pure white, alabaster.
Going from the Czech meaning, I think it's pretty obvious to say that Mary, the mother of God, was white more of a symbolic way than a literal way. I guess she could have been albino. Huh.
As Semites, neither Mary nor Jesus were probably very white-skinned, despite what millennia of western art might have you think. But then again, they didn't wear Renaissance-era clothing, either. I guess artists typically personalize their versions of Jesus. And I guess that makes sense, even though it's really annoying.
This is the kind of question which I have less than zero interest researching online. It is like, pure fodder for anti literature. I really like Hugh Nibley (and by the way, according to my brother, Nibley's interpretation of the word "white" in the Book of Mormon is that it has little to nothing to do with race or skin), but I'm not an apologist. I hate conflict. It is kind of...hard enough to write any of this at all.
I think in order to study this in any amount of satisfaction, I would want to search the scriptures - mostly the Book of Mormon - for instances of the use of the word "white." I would want to see how often they definitely refer to skin color or race, how often they refer to "the mark", how often they refer to something else.
But that does not sound like a particularly instructive, useful way to spend my time, and a really great way to invite critics of the Book of Mormon to do their thing.
I have no personal problem with believing or accepting that the Nephites might have been racist. I think racism is terrible. I don't want to be racist.
Answer:
Mary was definitely a really righteous woman who was foreordained to be the mother of Jesus Christ. It seems she may have had remarkably pale skin, but maybe that is just a reference to her personal purity. Basically, I don't know and I don't think it's super important.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Was Nephi actually physically present or was it a vision just in his mind in 1 Nephi 11:11?
Was Nephi actually physically present or was it a vision just in his mind in 1 Nephi 11:11?
He was "caught away in the Spirit of the Lord."
It seems to imply that he was literally in an exceedingly high mountain. But maybe that was just part of the vision.
He was not in his father's tent, as we learn in 1 Nephi 15:1.
Answer: I do not know. Maybe he was literally carried away. Maybe it was just in his mind. It could be either. I don't know from personal experience how visions work. They could work in a variety of ways. I guess it's not that important.
He was "caught away in the Spirit of the Lord."
It seems to imply that he was literally in an exceedingly high mountain. But maybe that was just part of the vision.
He was not in his father's tent, as we learn in 1 Nephi 15:1.
Answer: I do not know. Maybe he was literally carried away. Maybe it was just in his mind. It could be either. I don't know from personal experience how visions work. They could work in a variety of ways. I guess it's not that important.
Is Jesus Christ ever referred to as "the Most High God"? 1 Nephi 11:6
Is Jesus Christ ever referred to as "the Most High God"? In 1 Nephi 11:6 it seems to be referring to Heavenly Father.
This question goes with all the other questions about "which God" is it.
So I used Wordcruncher and discovered that there are 22 instances of the exact phrase "most high God" in the standard works, and I'm also counting Luke 8:28 which has "Jesus, thou Son of God most high."
OT : 9 in Genesis, Psalms and Daniel
NT : 4 in Mark, Luke, Acts and Hebrews
BoM : 6 in 1 Nephi, Alma and 3 Nephi
D&C : 3 in sections 36, 39 and 45
I discovered it's really hard to know exactly which member(s) of the godhead are being referenced. I also was strict, in that I only allowed myself to assign them to one category. These are the categories:
Jesus Christ
Heavenly Father
Holy Ghost
All Three At The Same Time
Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father
Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost
Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
AMBIGUOUS <-- I did not allow any of them to stay in this category, even though that is where I put a lot of them at first.
Here's a list of all the instances of "most high God":
This question goes with all the other questions about "which God" is it.
So I used Wordcruncher and discovered that there are 22 instances of the exact phrase "most high God" in the standard works, and I'm also counting Luke 8:28 which has "Jesus, thou Son of God most high."
OT : 9 in Genesis, Psalms and Daniel
NT : 4 in Mark, Luke, Acts and Hebrews
BoM : 6 in 1 Nephi, Alma and 3 Nephi
D&C : 3 in sections 36, 39 and 45
I discovered it's really hard to know exactly which member(s) of the godhead are being referenced. I also was strict, in that I only allowed myself to assign them to one category. These are the categories:
Jesus Christ
Heavenly Father
Holy Ghost
All Three At The Same Time
Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father
Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost
Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
AMBIGUOUS <-- I did not allow any of them to stay in this category, even though that is where I put a lot of them at first.
Here's a list of all the instances of "most high God":
And here is my biased, opinionated judgment about how many times they refer to whom:
Jesus Christ: 11
Heavenly Father: 5
All Three At The Same Time: 6
Answer: Yes. Here are the other eleven references to Jesus Christ as "the most high God":
Genesis 14:18
Genesis 14:22
Acts 16:17
Hebrews 7:1
Alma 26:14
3 Nephi 4:32 (twice)
3 Nephi 11:17
Doctrine and Covenants 36:3
Doctrine and Covenants 39:19
Doctrine and Covenants 45:66
The Holy Ghost is never referred to as "the most high God."
Friday, December 21, 2018
Who are the covenant people of the Lamb referred to in 1 Nephi 14:14?
Who are the covenant people of the Lamb referred to in 1 Nephi 14:14?
"I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth;"
Who are the covenant people of the Lamb?
Are they the saints of the church of the Lamb?
The covenant people of the Lord (is the Lord here God the Father?) are definitely descendants of the House of Israel, including descendants of Lehi in the Americas as 2 Nephi 29:2 points out. I am pretty sure this is repeated over and over and over and over and over throughout the other books of scripture. It would be interesting to know how often the scriptures refer to the covenant people.
The covenant is with "God" (see Mosiah 5:8 which to me seems to be a reference to God the Father).
Answer:
Yes and no.
The covenant people are both those people who actively make covenants (i.e. saints of the church of the Lamb, like for example, yours truly!) and their descendants.
You know, I have often thought about what it means for there to be just one family that is called the "covenant people." It seems to me that if this is taken literally, at some point, this will include every single human being on the face of planet earth. At least, this is how I felt when I saw that my DNA test had "2% Eastern European Jewish" ancestry (before the recent big update which removed all trace of Jewish heritage for me).
But I guess that is a deep hypothesis for another day.
The scriptures seem to be pretty clear, though, that people who are members of the Lord's church are also "covenant people." When we make covenants with God, what else could we be?!
The question I think I was trying to ask, but didn't, is to what extent is it possible for people who are not members of the Lord's restored church to make covenants with him and follow him? I am not sure about that. I don't think we have a monopoly on striving to follow God. I do think my church is literally the only church on the earth today to have the correct authority from God to administer specific ordinances like baptism. Ordinances are covenants. So...
...so temple work is really important.
If Jesus Christ is the "Lord God" then was he raising himself up in 1 Nephi 10:4? Or does this imply that the "Lord God" is Heavenly Father?
If Jesus Christ is the "Lord God" then was he raising himself up in 1 Nephi 10:4? Or does this imply that the "Lord God" is Heavenly Father?
The next related question I have is who made the covenant with Lehi in 1 Nephi 13:30 that, "the land which is choice above all other lands...his seed should have for the land of their inheritance"? This is another reference to the "Lord God."
In the temple today, I learned that without any shadow of a doubt, the word "Lord" can refer to God the Father. So, yes, it is plausible that here "Lord God" could refer to God the Father.
So these are just a handful of examples of how the words "Lord God" could mean either Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father or perhaps both. Agh!
I think the only way to get any kind of satisfactory answer about this is by gathering some data from searching the scriptures with a computer. I'm really glad I have this wordcruncher tool. I wish that I also had all of the standard works in one big, fat corpus so I could use other tools. But at least it allows me to do case-sensitive searches in word cruncher.
Search for 'Lord God'
Search for 'LORD'
Search for 'Lord' - not 'lord'
Perhaps cases of '. Lord' will really refer to lord and not Lord. Hmm.
There are probably other terms like Lord Omnipotent, Lord Almighty - I have not thought of all of them; maybe they are covered in 'Lord'.
There's also 'Lord ... God' - usually my/his/their/our etc.
It is going to take some work to try to figure out how to solve this problem. It is also going to require creating (i.e. getting my husband to create) a tool that exports the data into a spreadsheet. It is going to take some time.
So, to answer the question I was originally asking:
Probably in this particular verse "Lord God" refers to God the Father. Certainly the words "Lord God" elsewhere in the scriptures do refer to multiple members of the godhead. There are really only seven possibilities:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- God the Father and Jesus Christ
- God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- All of them at the same time
The eighth possibility is unsatisfactory, and that is that the reference is ambiguous. It's unsatisfactory because:
- Ambiguity = unknowable. God is not unknowable. He is also not ambiguous. He is real.
- My understanding of God should not be ambiguous!
- Is it the understanding of the writer that makes it ambiguous?
- Is it the language of whatever translation that makes it ambiguous?
The final question is this: does it matter? Does it matter which specific member of the godhead is acting, being referenced or described since they are all perfectly united in harmony of purpose - since they are all "one" in this way?
Whether or not it matters to you, it deeply matters to me. I think it matters a lot. I really, really, really, really want to know the actual nature of God.
I know this is not the only way to discover it. I know it is not a perfect way to discover it. I know it is not a complete way to discover it.
But it is a way.
The next related question I have is who made the covenant with Lehi in 1 Nephi 13:30 that, "the land which is choice above all other lands...his seed should have for the land of their inheritance"? This is another reference to the "Lord God."
In the temple today, I learned that without any shadow of a doubt, the word "Lord" can refer to God the Father. So, yes, it is plausible that here "Lord God" could refer to God the Father.
1 Nephi 14:8 asks, "Rememberest thou the covenants of the Father unto the house of Israel?" This seems to imply that God the Father made the covenants with the house of Israel, therefore it's reasonable that God the Father could mean the "Lord God."
1 Nephi 20:16 says, "Come ye near unto me; I have not spoken in secret; from the beginning, from the time that it was declared have I spoken; and the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me." Here Nephi is quoting Isaiah who is speaking Messianically, i.e. as if Jesus Christ is speaking. It seems pretty clear that Jesus Christ is referring to the other members of the godhead here, so the "Lord God" as Heavenly Father, and the Spirit as the Holy Ghost.
2 Nephi 6:9 says, "Nevertheless, the Lord has shown unto me that they [those who were at Jerusalem] should return again. And he also has shown unto me that the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, should manifest himself unto them in the flesh; and after he should manifest himself they should scourge him and crucify him, according to the words of the angel who spake it unto me." This is Jacob, Nephi's little brother, prophesying. It's very unambiguous here that the "Lord God" refers to Jesus Christ.
Then there's these verses in 1 Nephi 21:22-23 which exactly the same as Isaiah 49:22-24, which both start, "Thus saith the Lord God:" and later it is clarified that it is talking about the LORD, so Jehovah. Jehovah is always, always Jesus Christ. At least as far as I understand.
So these are just a handful of examples of how the words "Lord God" could mean either Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father or perhaps both. Agh!
I think the only way to get any kind of satisfactory answer about this is by gathering some data from searching the scriptures with a computer. I'm really glad I have this wordcruncher tool. I wish that I also had all of the standard works in one big, fat corpus so I could use other tools. But at least it allows me to do case-sensitive searches in word cruncher.
Search for 'Lord God'
Search for 'LORD'
Search for 'Lord' - not 'lord'
Perhaps cases of '. Lord' will really refer to lord and not Lord. Hmm.
There are probably other terms like Lord Omnipotent, Lord Almighty - I have not thought of all of them; maybe they are covered in 'Lord'.
There's also 'Lord ... God' - usually my/his/their/our etc.
It is going to take some work to try to figure out how to solve this problem. It is also going to require creating (i.e. getting my husband to create) a tool that exports the data into a spreadsheet. It is going to take some time.
So, to answer the question I was originally asking:
Probably in this particular verse "Lord God" refers to God the Father. Certainly the words "Lord God" elsewhere in the scriptures do refer to multiple members of the godhead. There are really only seven possibilities:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- God the Father and Jesus Christ
- God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- All of them at the same time
The eighth possibility is unsatisfactory, and that is that the reference is ambiguous. It's unsatisfactory because:
- Ambiguity = unknowable. God is not unknowable. He is also not ambiguous. He is real.
- My understanding of God should not be ambiguous!
- Is it the understanding of the writer that makes it ambiguous?
- Is it the language of whatever translation that makes it ambiguous?
The final question is this: does it matter? Does it matter which specific member of the godhead is acting, being referenced or described since they are all perfectly united in harmony of purpose - since they are all "one" in this way?
Whether or not it matters to you, it deeply matters to me. I think it matters a lot. I really, really, really, really want to know the actual nature of God.
I know this is not the only way to discover it. I know it is not a perfect way to discover it. I know it is not a complete way to discover it.
But it is a way.
Coming to know God
How to express the feelings in my heart? I'm not sure that it's possible.
Today I went to the temple. The kind of worship in the temple is not the same as the kind of worship in church buildings. Anyone can enter into the church building when it's open (unlike some extremely beautiful Catholic cathedrals and churches in France, for example, which are open all the time). To enter a dedicated temple you must qualify to have a temple recommend. It's a piece of paper that is signed by both your bishop and your stake president after being interviewed separately by them. The first and most important requirement to enter is to have faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Other requirements include being baptized, paying a full and honest tithe, keeping the dietary/health code, and following the law of chastity (abstinence before marriage, total fidelity after).
At church, we worship God in these ways:
- we sing hymns
- someone says an opening and closing prayer to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, and we end by collectively saying, "amen."
- we listen to people share their testimony and when they close in the name of Jesus Christ, we collectively say "amen" again.
- There is one ritualistic, symbolic practice: the sacrament. A priest prays to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ to ask him to bless and sanctify the bread and the water to the souls of all those who partake or drink of it. We do this to remember the body and blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us, and it's a symbolic witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves his name. We are promised that if we do this, we will always have the holy ghost with us.
- we separate into classes which are divided by age and/or gender and the singing, prayers, and teaching continue.
Inside the temple it's not like that at all.
In the temple, you present your recommend at the front desk. An officiater scans it. If it's valid, they let you enter. You go to a changing room. You change into white clothes: a white dress with long sleeves (and pockets) for women, white pants, white shirt, white tie for men. White socks, white slippers. If you are doing baptisms, you actually get changed into a thick, white jumpsuit which the temple launders. Usually when we go to the temple we do endowments or sealings.
The temple endowment is totally full of symbolism and ritual. Basically, you sit in a room and watch a film for about half of it. It's a participatory film which occasionally stops for you to do various things which are all pretty simple, but loaded with symbolism. At one point, you go into a new room. I am not sure how much of it I'm allowed to talk about so I'll err on the side of less.
The film is a narrative story about the creation of the earth and the point of human existence. Some big takeaways from the endowment ceremony are these:
- Jesus Christ is completely, perfectly obedient to the Father
- Adam and Eve's story is at least in part symbolic
- It was always the plan that we would need a Savior
Today there was a deaf woman in the room so the endowment ceremony had a film playing the entire time with actors signing the words as well as close captions.
And this is what really deeply touched me: I realized because of the deaf film that at the very end of the ceremony, the final reference to the Lord, it's actually about God the Father, not Jesus Christ. That... Completely changed my perspective about the entire endowment ceremony.
Beyond that, it changed my perspective about the word "Lord."
Actually, it very deeply bothers me - something about it, but I can't exactly explain what.
I had previously assumed that the word Lord was almost always Jesus Christ in the scriptures. I know that LORD in the Old Testament refers to Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ.
The first page of 1 Nephi has a reference to praying to "the Lord." I assumed that as Jews, maybe they were misguided in their understanding of the identity of God. That seems like a very reasonable assumption, one that I share with all Christian faiths, I guess.
The last page of 2 Nephi is a reference to calling on God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. This is how I worship God. I just assumed Nephi learned more about the nature of God as he got older and finished the record.
Turns out, the Lord can refer to God the Father. It is unambiguously a reference to God the Father in the temple. Therefore, mightn't it be similar elsewhere in the scriptures?
Ergo: I made mistakes in my interpretation of the scriptures. In my search to highlight parts of the scriptures that refer to Jesus Christ, I sometimes highlighted the wrong thing.
THAT BOTHERS ME. A LOT.
So here's the possibilities I came up with for what the words about God in the scriptures could refer to:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and Jesus Christ
- both Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- All Three At The Same Time
(Oh how the medieval numerologists are shouting with joy to see there are seven possibilities.)
The eighth: it could be ambiguous.
I am really unsatisfied with the idea of worshipping and learning about an ambiguous, unknowable God. It actually...the feeling in my heart when I consider that as a possibility is complete incredulity and dissatisfaction. It neither fits with what I believe and feel to be true nor with any shred of logical reasoning in my head. Meaning: if God is ambiguous and unknowable, why should I worship him at all.
This new idea (to me) that the word Lord can refer to a member of the godhead that isn't necessarily Jesus Christ doesn't compel me to despair and give up my faith - ha! No.
But it does make me yearn with every piece of my soul to study this very carefully and thoroughly - and a highlighter, a book, and lots and lots of time is NOT going to be the most successful method to do that. It will take too long and be too subjective.
I need to find a way to search the scriptures for all references to all the names of God (including pronouns - eghh), export them into a spreadsheet including the verse in which they fall, label them as being one of the eight possible cases, and then study hard the ambiguous examples until I understand which "God" they actually mean.
I could spend my entire life doing this.
But though it seems daunting, I know it would be incredibly worthwhile. What is more worthwhile to study in the scriptures beyond the nature of God?
Just as ASL shed a whole lot of light on my understanding of this topic, so will studying the scriptures in other languages/translations. The word cruncher app I've been playing around with gets me all the scriptures in English, the Old Testament in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek.
How I wish it could also have a parallel translation of the Bible - the whole Bible, not a dumbed-down abbreviated version - in Czech. I don't get why my church doesn't have its own digital version of the Bible in languages other than English; there has to be a way to get this thing I crave. But how?!
Today I went to the temple. The kind of worship in the temple is not the same as the kind of worship in church buildings. Anyone can enter into the church building when it's open (unlike some extremely beautiful Catholic cathedrals and churches in France, for example, which are open all the time). To enter a dedicated temple you must qualify to have a temple recommend. It's a piece of paper that is signed by both your bishop and your stake president after being interviewed separately by them. The first and most important requirement to enter is to have faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Other requirements include being baptized, paying a full and honest tithe, keeping the dietary/health code, and following the law of chastity (abstinence before marriage, total fidelity after).
At church, we worship God in these ways:
- we sing hymns
- someone says an opening and closing prayer to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, and we end by collectively saying, "amen."
- we listen to people share their testimony and when they close in the name of Jesus Christ, we collectively say "amen" again.
- There is one ritualistic, symbolic practice: the sacrament. A priest prays to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ to ask him to bless and sanctify the bread and the water to the souls of all those who partake or drink of it. We do this to remember the body and blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us, and it's a symbolic witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves his name. We are promised that if we do this, we will always have the holy ghost with us.
- we separate into classes which are divided by age and/or gender and the singing, prayers, and teaching continue.
Inside the temple it's not like that at all.
In the temple, you present your recommend at the front desk. An officiater scans it. If it's valid, they let you enter. You go to a changing room. You change into white clothes: a white dress with long sleeves (and pockets) for women, white pants, white shirt, white tie for men. White socks, white slippers. If you are doing baptisms, you actually get changed into a thick, white jumpsuit which the temple launders. Usually when we go to the temple we do endowments or sealings.
The temple endowment is totally full of symbolism and ritual. Basically, you sit in a room and watch a film for about half of it. It's a participatory film which occasionally stops for you to do various things which are all pretty simple, but loaded with symbolism. At one point, you go into a new room. I am not sure how much of it I'm allowed to talk about so I'll err on the side of less.
The film is a narrative story about the creation of the earth and the point of human existence. Some big takeaways from the endowment ceremony are these:
- Jesus Christ is completely, perfectly obedient to the Father
- Adam and Eve's story is at least in part symbolic
- It was always the plan that we would need a Savior
Today there was a deaf woman in the room so the endowment ceremony had a film playing the entire time with actors signing the words as well as close captions.
And this is what really deeply touched me: I realized because of the deaf film that at the very end of the ceremony, the final reference to the Lord, it's actually about God the Father, not Jesus Christ. That... Completely changed my perspective about the entire endowment ceremony.
Beyond that, it changed my perspective about the word "Lord."
Actually, it very deeply bothers me - something about it, but I can't exactly explain what.
I had previously assumed that the word Lord was almost always Jesus Christ in the scriptures. I know that LORD in the Old Testament refers to Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ.
The first page of 1 Nephi has a reference to praying to "the Lord." I assumed that as Jews, maybe they were misguided in their understanding of the identity of God. That seems like a very reasonable assumption, one that I share with all Christian faiths, I guess.
The last page of 2 Nephi is a reference to calling on God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. This is how I worship God. I just assumed Nephi learned more about the nature of God as he got older and finished the record.
Turns out, the Lord can refer to God the Father. It is unambiguously a reference to God the Father in the temple. Therefore, mightn't it be similar elsewhere in the scriptures?
Ergo: I made mistakes in my interpretation of the scriptures. In my search to highlight parts of the scriptures that refer to Jesus Christ, I sometimes highlighted the wrong thing.
THAT BOTHERS ME. A LOT.
So here's the possibilities I came up with for what the words about God in the scriptures could refer to:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and Jesus Christ
- both Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- All Three At The Same Time
(Oh how the medieval numerologists are shouting with joy to see there are seven possibilities.)
The eighth: it could be ambiguous.
I am really unsatisfied with the idea of worshipping and learning about an ambiguous, unknowable God. It actually...the feeling in my heart when I consider that as a possibility is complete incredulity and dissatisfaction. It neither fits with what I believe and feel to be true nor with any shred of logical reasoning in my head. Meaning: if God is ambiguous and unknowable, why should I worship him at all.
This new idea (to me) that the word Lord can refer to a member of the godhead that isn't necessarily Jesus Christ doesn't compel me to despair and give up my faith - ha! No.
But it does make me yearn with every piece of my soul to study this very carefully and thoroughly - and a highlighter, a book, and lots and lots of time is NOT going to be the most successful method to do that. It will take too long and be too subjective.
I need to find a way to search the scriptures for all references to all the names of God (including pronouns - eghh), export them into a spreadsheet including the verse in which they fall, label them as being one of the eight possible cases, and then study hard the ambiguous examples until I understand which "God" they actually mean.
I could spend my entire life doing this.
But though it seems daunting, I know it would be incredibly worthwhile. What is more worthwhile to study in the scriptures beyond the nature of God?
Just as ASL shed a whole lot of light on my understanding of this topic, so will studying the scriptures in other languages/translations. The word cruncher app I've been playing around with gets me all the scriptures in English, the Old Testament in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek.
How I wish it could also have a parallel translation of the Bible - the whole Bible, not a dumbed-down abbreviated version - in Czech. I don't get why my church doesn't have its own digital version of the Bible in languages other than English; there has to be a way to get this thing I crave. But how?!
Just as strongly as I believe that God could, if he wanted to, make himself known to me through a visitation of an angel, or a clear vision, or any number of miraculous ways - I understand that one of the main purposes of this life is to try to walk by faith. It would defeat the purpose if I had the answers given to me. I believe that the promise repeated in the scriptures is true: if I ask, if I knock, if I search, if I ponder, if I pray - I can come to know God.
But there is within me still a deep feeling of terrible loneliness that it has to be this way, that I have to be separated from God at all. I do not like it. It is so unsatisfying in a way that words don't come close to describing.
Also, it's kind of like researching my ancestors. I really enjoy hearing people describe my great grandparents. I enjoy reading the stories. I enjoy collecting the records. I feel a lot closer to them as I hear their words describe these dead people.
But I never fully believe anything that is said or written about these dead ancestors of mine, at least completely. Like, I always have somewhere in my consciousness an understanding that all the records, all the memories of these people contain blatant biases. All of the records are flawed. I am certain that the scriptures - and certainly many or perhaps most of the interpretations of them! - are flawed. It definitely does not make it worthless to search these extant records meticulously. I don't even care that it's a weird approach to spirituality, to try to use computers to come closer to God.
But won't it be so great when we finally, finally get to meet our ancestors and actually know them? Far better than that - won't it be incredible to meet God and talk to him face to face?
He feels so far away to me sometimes.
And even at the times when I feel closest to him, it is still farther than I want it to be.
I believe and trust that there are multiple epistemologically valid ways to get closer to him. For example, trying to keep the commandments as I understand them. Trying to be like him, even if I fail. Just because I personally feel very little confidence that asking a simple, humble prayer will get me the closeness and the answers I seek doesn't mean I won't try it.
As with all of my really, truly deep interests, a thorough, thoughtful analytical treatment is probably my favorite way to try to come to know something because I probably overvalue facts and logic. I hypothesize that as I search the scriptures, there will be less cases of "ambiguous God" than I thought, and that the cases that are ambiguous will bother me less the more I study them. I also hypothesize that the ones that do bother me might be solvable through reading other scriptures (or perhaps even nonscriptural texts). Or perhaps answers will emerge through searching the scriptures through a different translation in a different language. We will see.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Did Lehi see Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father in 1 Nephi 1:8?
When he is praying "to the Lord" he sees a pillar of fire.
He was freaked out.
He goes home.
He lies in his bed.
He was "carried away in a vision."
He "thought he saw" God sitting upon his throne, surrounded by numberless concourses of angels.
He saw "One" who was really bright come out.
Twelve others followed the "One."
The "One" gave Lehi a book and told him to read it.
As he read he felt the Holy Ghost.
...and his dream continues, but that's enough for now.
Some observations:
It is ambiguous from the language whether or not the person on the throne is the same as the person who comes down. It could have just been a scene change in his vision.
But it kind of seems unlikely, because the word "One" seems to differentiate the bright person coming down from God sitting upon his throne.
If they were the same person - if Lehi recognized them as the same person - then I guess it would be much more likely for him to describe it differently.
Also, I've always thought it was kind of weird that Nephi says that his dad "thought he saw." In English, the pragmatic meaning of that is often, "...but he didn't really." Is Nephi saying that his father Lehi was wrong?
From what I understand, the Jews at that time were worshiping Jehovah - though I am pretty sure they did not call him that. I think there is something about the holiness of the name of God that made it need to be substituted with the vowels from the Hebrew word for lord, adonai, and when you mix that together with yhwh you get Yahowah and then there is a shift in the pronunciation of these letters in English to Jehovah. The King James translators used the word LORD in all caps when they translated this word. Jehovah is just the proper name of the God of Israel in English. He is the premortal Jesus Christ.
Huh. In Czech it is translated as Hospodin?!
Which is not the same as Pán. To me, it seems to evoke some kind of meaning of like, one who gives or saves. Hospoda is a pub, a hospodář is one of the 23 jillion Czech words for farmer (sort of, more like a bailiff I guess), hospodárný is someone who is economical/frugal/saves, hospodárnost is frugality, hospodářství is administration, or a homestead.
Side note: I am really sad that the Bible is not included in the LDS library (and thus in the wordcruncher library). I really wish I could search the word of God in Czech the same way. Also, my understanding is that Bible kralická was translated earlier than KJV from some of the same source text? I guess? So yeah, like...reading it in Czech will definitely be interesting!
I discovered that the article I read yesterday and posted about is actually wrong. The word Jehovah shows up 9 times (not 7 times) in the Old Testament.
OT : 9
NT : 6
BoM : 13
D&C : 9
PGP : 5 <-- which is significant because this book is super short.
Meanwhile, I did a search for "LORD" in all caps:
OT : 6,468
NT : 5
...and that's it. When Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he did not put LORD in all caps.
My understanding is that Judaism has always been extremely strictly monotheistic. It would have been majorly shocking for Lehi to see two different members of the Godhead.
I know that even very righteous prophets of old didn't have a perfect understanding of our relationship to God. For example, the brother of Jared in the book of Ether is scared out of his wits when he sees Jesus Christ's finger reaching out to touch the stones to give them light on their journey across the ocean. He never knew or even imagined that God had a body - I think he was even surprised to see God in a human form at all.
I think it still took a while before Lehi and his family understood the godhead and our relationship to God. And that is okay.
I also know that we have been told that we live in a time when we have the fullness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This means we might have access to knowledge about God's nature that previous generations, including Lehi, maybe didn't.
It was sort of part of the Law of Moses to pray to Jehovah, though surprisingly less than I though. The Bible Dictionary has this to say:
Before the first generation of mankind had passed away, men began to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26; Moses 5:4). Prayers, whether with (Gen. 12:8; 13:4) or without (Gen. 20:7; 32:9–11) sacrifice, were constantly offered by the patriarchs to God. The efficacy of the intercession of good men was recognized (Gen. 18:23; 20:7; Ex. 32:11).Prayer is nowhere specifically commanded as a duty in the law, and prayers were not prescribed at the sacrifices except on two occasions: a confession of sin on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:21) and a thanksgiving when offering the firstfruits and tithes (Deut. 26:3, 13). It is, however, certain from the nature of things, and from the custom in later times, that prayer accompanied sacrifice.
and later:
As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.Jews like Lehi didn't understand that Jehovah and the Messiah are the same person, and they believe that the Messiah 1. has not come and 2. will be totally human, not divine. They also did not really pray to God the same way as we do today at all. Remember that the word "Christ" is just Greek for "Messiah", which means "the anointed one."
To Lehi, it would have been really surprising to learn that the godhead is made up of three separate beings, all of whom might be mentioned in this vision: God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. He would have been really overwhelmed. And he was.
There was a really inspiring talk given at last general conference about the nature of God the Father. It was literally just doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, and very positive doctrine at that.
Here is a very short excerpt with gajillions of links:
During mortality, Heavenly Father provides us with the conditions we need to progress within His plan. The Father begot Jesus Christ in the flesh14 and provided Him with divine help to fulfill His mortal mission. Heavenly Father will likewise help each of us if we will strive to keep His commandments.15 The Father gives us agency.16 Our lives are in His hands, and our “days are known” and “shall not be numbered less.”17 And He ensures that eventually all things work for the good of those who love Him.18It is Heavenly Father who gives us our daily bread,19 which includes both the food we eat and the strength we need to keep His commandments.20 The Father gives good gifts.21 He hears and answers our prayers.22 Heavenly Father delivers us from evil when we let Him.23 He weeps for us when we suffer.24 Ultimately, all of our blessings come from the Father.25
So here's what I think:
I think the bright "One" that Lehi saw was Jesus Christ. It seems like he did not yet know who Jesus was. I think it's possible that God sitting on the throne who Lehi saw was either Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father if his vision were some kind of nocturnal thing where he wasn't actually physically transported somewhere. Elsewhere in the scriptures, people have to be transfigured in order to endure the presence or glory of heavenly beings like God the Father. I think it would be super unlikely for Lehi to have been transfigured at this point in his ministry; that seems to be an end-of-one's-mortal-mission event, therefore Lehi's vision here was more likely some kind of nocturnal vision.
I think it's possible that Lehi and Nephi disagreed about who Lehi saw. Perhaps Nephi thought it was more likely that he saw Jesus Christ sitting on the throne. There are lots of examples of the LORD sitting on his throne in the Old Testament (and a few in the New Testament). Jesus Christ definitely has a throne.
In the end, I think it's not super important; I'd probably side with Nephi more than Lehi, but that's because I'm totally biased and have been reading his words my entire life, so I feel like he's an old friend. What do you think?
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