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Come, Follow Me Week 42 – Doctrine and Covenants 115-120

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A Defense and a Refuge

By DeeAnn Cheatham

There are two significant examples in the scriptures where a people of Zion existed. One occurred when Christ came to the Americas and taught his gospel to the Nephites and the Lamanites. He then selected twelve apostles, who organized his church and continued to teach the people.  After a few years, every person had converted to the Lord, creating a community where there was no contention because “the love of God did dwell in the hearts of all the people and every man dealt justly with each other” (4 Ne 1:2).  “Surely there could not be a happier people” (4 Ne 1:16). This state of Zion lasted for almost two hundred years.

The city of Enoch is another example of a Zion community. Enoch was instructed by the Lord to preach repentance to the people. He did this for many years and eventually gathered the righteous and established a City of Holiness. They were surrounded by people who were described by the Lord as the most wicked of his creations (Moses 7:36). And yet, in the midst of all this sin, they were able to create a refuge and attain such a level of righteousness that eventually the entire city was taken up to heaven.

A refuge is a place of shelter, protection, or safety We are similarly surrounded by chaos and sin and need a refuge, a place of safety. Within our homes, wards, stakes, and communities, we can work to creates “pockets of refuge”. In D & C 115:5-6, the Lord stated: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 42 – Doctrine and Covenants 115-120

Come, Follow Me Week 41 – Doctrine and Covenants 111-114

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Finances and Faith in the Kirtland Crisis of 1837

by Elizabeth Kuehn

(This is from a presentation given at the 2017 FairMormon Conference)

While I will cover nineteenth-century economics and the Kirtland bank briefly in my presentation today, I also want to focus on the period of spiritual crisis in Kirtland in 1837 and ways I hope we can learn from the Kirtland experience for our current moment of spiritual crisis.

The crisis within the Mormon community of Kirtland has been inseparably connected to the founding and subsequent failure of the church’s Kirtland bank. However, there is too often a direct causal connection assumed between the bank and the 1837 crisis. The focus of my presentation today is to demonstrate the complexity of this period of history, contextualize both the bank and the crisis, and address several prevailing assumptions about each.

Although most Kirtland narratives place the bank amid the financial devastation of 1837, the Kirtland Safety Society Bank was organized in November 1836. As such, understanding developments in Kirtland in 1836 is key. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 41 – Doctrine and Covenants 111-114

Three Important FAIR Conference Presentations to Help Parents, Leaders, and Other Teachers of Children and Youth

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These three presentations are important to families and Church leaders of all faiths. We hope you will watch them and share them with your Latter-day Saint, and non-Latter-day Saint, friends.

Jeffrey Thayne – “Worldview Apologetics: Revealing the Waters in Which We Swim” (transcript)

Carl Trueman – “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution”

Ed Gantt – “Agentic Sexuality: How a Latter-day Saint Perspective Can Rescue Humanity from the Tyranny of the Abstract”

Jeffrey Thayne is from BYUI, Carl Trueman is with Grove City College and is an Orthodox Presbyterian, and Ed Gantt is from BYU.

This is a reposting from a previous blog to highlight the conference presentations.

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 15

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Part 15: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section F]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

I’m going to dive in and start discussing what Joseph’s interpretations of what the figures on Facsimile 2 mean compared to what “modern Egyptologists say,” but first, I do want to point out that on this facsimile, there are a lot of numbered entries where Joseph says he’s not allowed to translate those figures yet while the Egyptologists have a description. Jeremy Runnells stacks them up in such a way as to imply that Joseph was incompetent by comparison, but Joseph could not read Egyptian. His translations and explanations were given to him by revelation.

The scriptures are full of verses comparing the wisdom of God to the wisdom of men. It’s not surprising these interpretations don’t match in every case, particularly when, as we’ve pointed out, those figures could be “read” multiple different ways by multiple different groups of people. As Hugh Nibley said, “In viewing them today, we must bear in mind the principle [of] … the ‘plurality of approaches,’ which states that the Egyptian, far from being adverse to giving more than one interpretation to a character, rejoices in putting as many meanings and associations as possible into every situation. Any one figure could stand for more than one idea, deity, force or principle, so that one may not say ‘this figure cannot be Re because it is Atum.’ On the hypocephalus, to make things more interesting, all the symbols, each with its multiple meanings, are drawn together into a circle where they are closely interrelated, suggesting a great wealth of possible interpretations.” It’s also not surprising that, if those figures were interpreted as having to do with temple worship and covenants the way we discussed last week, God would not allow Joseph to reveal them to a worldwide audience. But even with those caveats, there is a surprising amount of information that aligns between the various explanations. Regardless of what Runnells is trying to imply, Joseph was not incompetent, and his interpretations of these figures do hold up against ancient Egyptian and Jewish thought.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 15

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 14

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Part 14: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section E]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

We’re talking about Facsimile 2 today. I’ll have to discuss the facsimile explanations next time, since there’s background we need to cover for those to make sense. Anyway, Facsimile 2 is what is known as a hypocephalus:

Facsimile 2 belongs to a class of Egyptian religious documents call hypocephali (Greek: ipokefalos, hypokephalos), “under the head,” a translation of the Egyptian hry-tp with the same meaning). A hypocephalus is a small, disk-shaped object, made of papyrus, stuccoed linen, bronze, gold, wood, or clay which the Egyptians placed under the head of their dead. They believed it would magically cause the head and body to be enveloped in flames or radiance, making the deceased divine. The hypocephalus symbolized the Eye of Re or Horus, that is, the sun. The scenes portrayed on it relate the Egyptian concept of resurrection and life after death. To the Egyptians, the daily rising and setting of the sun was a vivid symbol of the resurrection. The hypocephalus itself represented all the sun encircles, the whole world. The upper portion represented the world of men and the day sky, and the lower portion (the part with the cow) represented the netherworld and the night sky.

Pearl of Great Price Central elaborates:

Today there are 158 known hypocephali which have been catalogued and/or published. Based on their attested chronological and geographical distribution, “it is clear that the hypocephalus [did] not become a widespread funerary object” in ancient Egypt. Instead they “remained exclusive pieces of funerary equipment reserved for the high clergy and for the members of their families who occupied” high-ranking positions in the temple, especially the temple of Amun at Karnak, the temple of Min at Akhmim, and the temple of Ptah at Memphis. Although hypocephali themselves appear to be later creations, the mythological and cosmological conceptions contained in hypocephali have apparent forerunners in earlier Egyptian texts.

According to Spell 162 of the Book of the Dead, hypocephali served a number of important purposes: to protect the deceased in the afterlife, to provide light and heat for the deceased, to make the deceased “appear again like one who is on earth” (that is, to resurrect them), and to ultimately transform the deceased into a god. Hypocephali were also conceived of (and even sometimes explicitly identified as) the magical eye of the sun god Re that consumed enemies with fire. Their circular shape and function to provide light, heat, and protection naturally lent themselves to this conceptualization in the minds of the ancient Egyptians.

While these might perhaps have been the primary purposes of hypocephali, it is clear from the explanatory rubric of some copies of Spell 162 of the Book of the Dead and from other surviving evidence that they also served non-funerary roles. For example, hypocephali or objects that served the same purpose as hypocephali were used as divinatory devices in the Egyptian temple and as astronomical documents. This is especially significant since Joseph Smith’s interpretation of Facsimile 2 draws connections to the temple and features several astronomical elements. Hypocephali also shared a conceptual link with temple gates. In this capacity they served, among other things, to keep out enemies and admit friends into sacred space and shared a focus on creation motifs. Once again, this parallels some of Joseph Smith’s explanations of Facsimile 2 which emphasize creation.

In summary, while hypocephali served a number of important religious and ritual purposes for the ancient Egyptians, they ultimately “point[ed] toward the Egyptians’ hope in a resurrection and life after death as a divine being.”

 

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 14

“A Life Lived in Crescendo”: Selected Punctuation Marks of Joseph Smith’s Final Years

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A “Come, Follow Me” YouTube Virtual Fireside Series Sponsored by

The Interpreter Foundation, Book of Mormon Central, and FAIR

 

The next presentation will be on Sunday, October 17, at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Jeffrey Bradshaw will be speaking on “Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances.” A flyer is available here.

Introduction

[Joseph Smith] lived his life in crescendo, it grew in intensity and volume as he approached its close. Higher and still higher the inspiration of God directed his thoughts; bolder were his conceptions, and clearer his expositions of them. So far was he from being a “fallen prophet” in the closing months of his career, as apostates charged, that he grew stronger with each passing day; more impressive in weight of personal character, and charm of manner; for he preserved amid all the conflicts and trials through which he passed—until the shadows of impending death began to fall upon him in Carthage prison—the natural sweetness of his nature, and the intellectual playfulness characteristic of him from boyhood—so do not fallen prophets (Elder B. H. Roberts, Introduction to Joseph Smith, Jr. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, 6:xli-xlii). [Read more…] about “A Life Lived in Crescendo”: Selected Punctuation Marks of Joseph Smith’s Final Years

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 13

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Part 13: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section D]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

Today, we’re going to start talking about the facsimiles, beginning with Facsimile 1. Facsimile 1 is pretty unique, not just among the other Book of Abraham facsimiles but also among other similar known scenes, which are often referred to as “lion couch scenes.” This is the only facsimile that we actually have the original copy of. We don’t have the originals of Facsimile 2 and Facsimile 3 anymore. Facsimile 3 was described on one of the scrolls in the 1863 Wood Museum catalog, showing that it was among that papyri that burned in the Chicago Fire.

To begin with, this is what we have in our scriptures today. It’s an engraved copy of the original with numbered explanations of what the figures mean. This is the papyri fragment showing the facsimile. You’ll note that in the fragment, there are pencil markings filling in missing pieces, which I’ve circled in teal on this copy. We don’t know who penciled in those missing pieces or when they did it, but eyewitness testimony does suggest at least some of those missing pieces were intact when Joseph first received the papyri. There are at least two eyewitness descriptions of what seem to be the original vignette. So, maybe Joseph filled it in, maybe he didn’t. We honestly don’t know. There are claims it was filled in incorrectly, which seems to be partially true and partially untrue.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 13

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 12

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Part 12: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section C]

 

by Sarah Allen

 

As the beginning of the next question in the CES Letter is basically a retread of the previous one, I’m just going to skim over it really quickly as a brief recap.

Egyptologists have also since translated the source material for the Book of Abraham and have found it to be nothing more than a common pagan Egyptian funerary text for a deceased man named “Hor” around the first century C.E.

As we went over previously, the papyri fragments have been translated and do reflect funerary texts, which the Church confirmed just over a month after they received them. As we also went over, we certainly cannot say they were the source material for the Book of Abraham. Joseph himself said otherwise, and even if you don’t believe him, numerous other eyewitnesses all confirmed that it was the long roll that was the source material, not the fragments mounted under glass. Since the fragments are all we have today, we can’t confirm the eyewitness testimony. However, whether you believe in the catalyst theory, the missing scroll theory, or some other theory entirely, if we trust in Joseph Smith, the one thing we know for certain is that the fragments are not the source material for the Book of Abraham, no matter how many times Jeremy Runnells insists that they are.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 12

Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

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by David W. Smith

 

“A Fulness of the Holy Ghost”

From the beginning of his presidency, President Russell M. Nelson has repeatedly emphasized the blessings of temple service. In his very first address as President of the Church he said:

As a new Presidency, we want to begin with the end in mind. For this reason, we’re speaking to you today from a temple….The ordinances of the temple and the covenants you make there are key to strengthening your life, your marriage and family, and your ability to resist the attacks of the adversary. Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path.
(“As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign, April 2018)

In a later address he counseled: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 11

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Part 11: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section B]

By Sarah Allen

 

Before I get started, I just wanted to reiterate that these are all answers that work for me personally. They may not work for you, and that’s fine. My point in all of this was not to say that this is the only way to view something, but to show that there are answers out there if you go looking for them. If someone who is not a scholar or a professional apologist or researcher can find the stuff I’m posting with a little digging, imagine what else you could find out there if you tried, you know? And some evidences that are convincing to me won’t be convincing to you, and vice versa. That’s okay. Find what is convincing to you. Investigate the stuff you have questions about. Don’t just take my word for it, or the words of critics. Dive in yourself and do the research and see what you can find. Don’t just take one source at its word. Evaluate the different sources, as Reddit user lord_wilmore recently advised. You’ve all seen just how many different sources I’m drawing from to write these posts. There’s never just one. Even when I find a response from someone whose opinion I trust, I still often look for additional sources. I read the footnotes, and I read the sources my sources draw their opinions from. My hope is that these posts will encourage all of you to do the same when you come across a question you can’t immediately answer.

So, that said, let’s dive into some controversy, shall we?

We know this is the papyrus that Joseph used for translation because the hieroglyphics match in chronological order to the hieroglyphics in Joseph’s Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which contains his Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL). Additionally, the papyrus were pasted onto paper which have drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area on the back and they were companied by an affidavit by Emma Smith verifying they had been in the possession of Joseph Smith.

First of all, that second sentence is completely out of place. No one from the Church that I’m aware of with any degree of authority has never denied that the papyrus fragments the Church has in its possession are some of the papyri that Joseph had. If someone out there did ever make that claim, it certainly was not in an official capacity while speaking for the Church. As I stated last week, the Church announced the fragments were in fact Joseph’s and that they were funeral documents a month after receiving them. This has never been in dispute, and tacking on the sentence to imply that it was in dispute is sketchy. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 11