Things not included in the Come Follow Me program.

As we wind down the Old Testament in Come Follow Me here are some of the things you missed because we don't include the Apocrypha.

Tobit: Do you have a hankering for historical fiction set in the time between the Old and New Testaments with a supernatural aspect and a side of moral preaching? Look no further than Tobit.

Judith: Still interested in historical fiction, but with a female protagonist who chops off a guy's head, and a plot and characters symbolizing Judah and its enemies? Judith is your book.

Esther: Are you disappointed because Esther is just too short? Did you know that there is more? Here's six more chapters worth of material.

Wisdom: Are you the kind of person that can't get enough of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and you want another book full of pithy little sayings that teach wisdom? The Book of Wisdom is there for you.

Sirach: STILL not enough pithy little sayings? Sirach is the Stephen Covey of the Old Testament. Not doctrine, but written by a famous believer.

Baruch: Ever felt that you just wanted a little more Jeremiah? Well, it's not exactly Jeremiah, but Baruch really, really likes Jeremiah.

Letter of Jeremiah: Ever felt that you just wanted a little more Jeremiah? Well, this one actually is a little more Jeremiah.

Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children: Have you ever read Daniel chapter 3 and thought, "What if this chapter was 68 verses longer?" Read it to find out.

Susanna: Did you ever get to the end of the Book of Daniel and think, "This could have used more nudity and talk of sex." Susanna is the missing chapter from Daniel that you have been looking for.

Bel and the Dragon: Did you ever feel like your life was missing a good mystery story involving Daniel? Did you ever think that the story of Daniel in the lion's den was really missing something? These two stories, "Bel" and "The Dragon", have got you covered.

1 and 2 Esdras: Did you read Ezra and think, "Man, I really wanted to read more lists of all the names of the people who came to Jerusalem from Babylon, and the names of their ancestors, and what jobs their ancestors had, and the names of the cities and towns they came from, and the names of the villages and towns they settled in around Jerusalem, and EXACTLY how much gold and silver they brought with them." Well Esdras has all that and more! Gird your loins for discussions about wine, women, and the king! (It's the truth!) Also ancient international politics.

Prayer of Manasseh: You probably were always wondering about that one prayer mentioned briefly in a single verse in Chronicles where a king named Manasseh prayed after getting captured. No? Oh I thought everyone obsessed over things like that. Well here is that prayer! (Maybe)

1 Maccabees: Have you been looking for an unbiased, emotionless, 100% historically accurate history of the beginning of the Hasmonean Dynasty? Well you won't find any of that here! This is 100% pure, adulterated propaganda baby! Reading this you will find that Judas Maccabeus was a noble, holy, enlightened, faithful priest of the highest order who valiantly fought against the Godless heathens who did terrible things like... take a bath (gasp!), got a haircut (clutches pearls), and didn't believe in killing heretics! (faints) You will find a complete history of how Judas, his brothers, and nephews, violently defeated the nasty imperial army by valiantly running away. Many times. They were so successful at defeating the imperial armies that they only had to definitively defeat them 7 or 8 times and drive them from the land forever. Until they came back. Again. Hey once they even won a battle! You will learn how Judas nobly "stuck it to the man" by robbing poor defenseless villages, I mean put down hot beds of insurrection. And how Judas reminded all Jews to be faithful to God by personally killing Jews traveling to Jerusalem who didn't show him proper respect by voluntarily "donating" all their worldly possessions to their noble cause. Additionally you will learn how it is evil and an afront to God to buy the position of "high priest" (unless you are personally related to Judas Maccabeus, then it is a smart move and shows how intelligent you are). There will be many other important tidbits such as, let's play the game guess who is secretly Jewish! The Romans! Who knew? They are the lost ten tribes or something. We invited them to come visit Jerusalem and see what a great place it is. I'm sure they'll be great friends and allies in the future. (Ominous foreshadowing)

2 Maccabees: On a serious note, this is perhaps the most "modern" of all the books in the Bible. It comes with an introduction by the author. He identifies himself, states his experience and credentials, and explains his sources. He identifies potential biases, and discusses the difficulty of writing accurate history and the reliability of sources. Everyone should read the first chapter of 2 Maccabees because it explains many of the things about how scripture is written, but is never actually explicitly talked about anywhere else.

Addendum: A note about 1 and 2 Maccabees. They are written to support the Hasmonean Dynasty. They controlled Jerusalem shortly before the Romans took control (and the Hasmoneans were the ones who allied themselves with the Romans, and we know how that turned out). Herod the Great (the one that killed all the babies in Bethlehem, that Herod) married the last princess of the Hasmonean Dynasty. If there was any single group of people responsible for the state of society at the time of Jesus, the Hasmoneans are the number one culprits. They are responsible for the formation of both the Sadducees and Pharisees (there was a civil war between different parts of the royal family, and those who became the Sadducees supported one side, those who would become Pharisees supported the other side). They laid the groundwork for the conditions that would result in the assassination of Jesus.

2 Maccabees is still heavily pro-Hasmonean, the author was being paid by them to write their history after all, but it presents a more historical picture than 1 Maccabees. 1 Maccabees is pure propaganda. If you read through 1 Maccabees and think "Hey I like these guys. They are valiant defenders of the faith and scripture." You really, really need to rethink your approach to religion. The way of thinking on display in 1 Maccabees is the same way of thinking that Jesus later condemned as hypocrisy, and the same thinking was used to justify killing him. Basically if you take everything taught in 1 Maccabees and do the exact opposite then you should be good.

Joseph F. Smith had a classical understanding of time, and that is important

In 1918 Joseph F. Smith had a revelation on the Savior's visit to the spirit world and the redemption of the dead. Leading up to this revelation he had many questions weighing on his mind brought on by recent family deaths and his own reckoning with mortality.

While explaining his thinking leading up to the revelation Joseph F. Smith said,

25 I marveled, for I understood that the Savior spent about three years in his ministry among the Jews.... 27 But his ministry among those who were dead was limited to the brief time intervening between the crucifixion and his resurrection; 28 And I wondered at the words of Peter—wherein he said that the Son of God preached unto the spirits in prison... and how it was possible for him to preach to those spirits and perform the necessary labor among them in so short a time. (D&C 138:25-28)

Part of what made Joseph F. Smith ask his questions in the first place was the fact that he could not see anyway for the Savior to have sufficient time to preach to so many people who had already died. Without realizing it Joseph F. Smith had certain implicit metaphysical assumptions that determined what kinds of questions he would ask and what kinds of answers he would look for. Joseph F. Smith operated with a certain subconscious understanding of time that created a paradox that necessitated an answer.

If Joseph F. Smith had lived much later in our day and had asked the same question, "How could the Savior do more in three days than he had done in three years on Earth?" he would have different options available to answer this question regarding time. But for him, this question presented an unresolvable paradox. If members of the Church did not have the benefit of Joseph F. Smith's revelation and asked the same question today, a number of people would probably invoke the principles of relativity and relative time.

Possible answers could have included things like, "The flow of time is different in the spirit world.", or "Time is only something relevant to mortality, so the Savior was not bound by time constraints in the spirit world." Any of these answers would have lessened the urgency of resolving the three day time constraint on the Savior, and could have possibly lead Joseph F. Smith to consider his questions differently, or even a different set of questions.

Because of the proliferation of Einstein's theories of relativity we have a very different fundamental understanding of time than people previously had. Generally we do not even realize the immense difference in how we collectively understand time compared to even 100 years ago. The idea that time can flow at different rates, or that time is relative to the observer, has so permeated our society that major Hollywood movies can use the idea as a crucial plot point and we do not even consider how strange a concept it is for time to flow differently or fail to grasp the relative nature of time. Even the concept of time travel is a relatively modern concept that we do not realize entirely depends on certain crucial ontological concepts of time that have only entered our collective consciousness in the past 100 years.

For Joseph F. Smith his subconscious concept of time worked very differently from ours. He was not acculturated to a relative or even a dimensional understanding of time. For him time was the same for everyone, everywhere including the spirit world, and, even though it was subconscious and unintentional, how he understood time was central to the paradox that he faced. If he had a different subconscious concept of time then his approach to the question of how did the Savior accomplish in three days what he did not manage to do in three years would have turned out differently. Perhaps he would not have pondered the question in the same way, or he would have gone looking in different directions for different answers to resolve the issues that weighed on his mind.

My point is, when Joseph F. Smith was faced with certain questions, the ones that were the most paradoxical for him and presented the greatest challenge, were the ones that were only present because of how he subconsciously viewed time. The implicit cultural assumptions he unintentionally held placed boundaries on the kinds of questions he would ask, and the kinds of answers he sought. His ontology (his fundamental understanding of the nature of existence) informed the structure of the questions and paradoxes he faced.

In this case the unstated, and unintentional, prepositions of Joseph F. Smith lead him to a question that could be answered by revelation. In fact, his assumptions about the nature of time made his questioning possible. If he had a different understanding of time then he may not have been forced to reckon with his uncertainty in the same way. So his subconscious assumptions on the nature of time were beneficial and greatly simplified the issue he was considering. But it does not always turn out that way.

Quite often we are faced with paradoxes or questions we cannot find an answer for. Frequently the paradox only exists because of the subconscious, unintentional choices we have made in understanding the world. Many times I see people of faith asking some form of the question, "How does XYZ work if ABC?" or, "How can XYZ be true when ABC is true?" For them these are paradoxical questions for which there is no solution. But quite often the paradox only exists because of unstated assumptions they have made without even realizing it. Many such questions, such as the relationship between science and religion, are entirely dependent on subconscious assumptions we have made regarding the nature of science, scripture, authority, and revelation (not to mention epistemology, language, metaphysics, and God himself).

Sometimes the answer to someone's question simply requires the right information with an acceptable explanation. But other times the paradox lies entirely in unstated assumptions the person has made. These are the most difficult to address, because recognizing our own unstated assumptions about reality, and identifying them as the source of our confusion, is perhaps one of the most difficult human tasks in existence. It is easier to change someone's behavior than it is to make them realize that the intractable paradoxes that seemingly have no resolution are the result of unintentional assumptions they have made about the nature of reality itself. And the most difficult of these already difficult conflicts are the ones that are most closely bound to someone's identity.

In summary, I have used the example of Joseph F. Smith and the questions he faced about the spirit world to point out certain assumptions he had about the nature of time that may be very different from our assumptions today. Using this, I introduced the idea that the assumptions we unintentionally and subconsciously make can, in part, determine the types of questions we ask, and what we might consider to be an intractable paradox. Some questions can be answered through discovering new information, but other more paradoxical questions can only be resolved by considering what underlying assumptions we have unintentionally made about reality. Addressing these more paradoxical questions is a difficult endeavor that takes patience, experience, and practice. But by first recognizing that these unstated assumptions exist we can be more aware of assumptions that make some questions seemingly unanswerable, and ultimately give us a path towards resolving these paradoxes. Sometimes finding the answer to a question requires realizing that we are asking the wrong question.

Temple Doctrine Part 1: Order and Chaos

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2, NRSV)

The very first act of God as recorded in Genesis was to create order from chaos. The primordial chaos was formless and void. It had no shape nor could any part of it be differentiated from another. There were no opposites, no light nor dark, neither hot nor cold. This primordial chaos was typified by water which anciently was the one thing that had no set form. But in the midst of the chaotic primordial waters God created a space where order, and therefore life, could exist. God took the indistinguishable primordial chaos and differentiated it creating light and dark, day and night, springtime and harvest. The opposite of life was the formless void.

In our current popular culture order is equated with rigidity and invariance. Order is viewed as something that limits free will and is oppressive. But that kind of order is only the order that people impose on the world. The order provided by God in Genesis is the natural order that is the basis of life. Without the natural order, life would know nothing but chaos and corruption. Here is one of the major themes of Genesis. The natural order is created out of chaos, and from that order life is created.

The creation story in Genesis is crafted to show progressive spheres of order. On the outside of creation is where we find the primordial chaos without order. But beneath the dome of the sky there is a space created where life can exist because of the order created by God. Inside of this sphere is where we find world as we know it. And at the center of creation God created a garden as a perfect symbol of an orderly life. It was not wild untended garden, but well kept and full of all useful plants. The garden sustained life and at the center of the garden was the tree of life that gave immortality and eternal life. 

But at some point corruption and it's resulting disorder and chaos enters the garden in the form of a serpent. But why a serpent? Here is where our modern culture fails to understand the symbolism here. Suppose I am telling a story and it is about a young girl who wears a red cape with a hood and she is walking through a forest. Just based on that, who does she meet in the forest? Does she meet a goat? Or a troll? Or a fairy? No, she meets a wolf. Why does she meet a wolf and not a bear, or perhaps a family of bears with papa bear, mama bear, and baby bear?

We know that she will meet a wolf because in our culture we have that story ingrained in our collective understanding. We can do this with many other stories. A story of three little pigs, what do they do and what happens to them? A story starts out with a tortoise and a rabbit, what will happen? A girl with long hair lives in a tower, what will happen? We know the answers to these questions because we have been taught them by our culture.

So in the story of the creation where God brings order to chaos, who will come to corrupt the order created by God? Here our culture fails us because we are not surrounded by the milieu of the ancient world. If we weren't steeped in our culture it would seem strange that three little pigs were building houses and why they used three different building materials. In the same way it seems strange to us that a serpent comes into the well ordered garden to corrupt it. But in the ancient world it was something generally understood and to be expected.

In the mythology of the Middle East the serpent was the symbol of the primordial chaotic waters. In Canaanite and Hebrew stories a serpent is the agent of chaos and evil. The Babylonian goddess Tiamat was the goddess of the sea and from her the world was created, and she is frequently described and depicted as a dragon or a serpent. The symbol of a serpent, especially a sea serpent, as an agent of chaos and evil can be found throughout Indo-European mythologies. From Norse mythology to Persian mythology, and almost everywhere in between, a serpent or a dragon represents evil, destruction, and death and in many cases is associated with water, the sea, or destructive storms. So the symbol of a serpent entering into the garden to tempt our first parents to bring death and corruption would have been readily understood by people anciently.

The effect of the serpent in the Garden of Eden was to bring corruption which would ultimately result in death. In this way the cosmic principle of order and life are contrasted with corruption and death. Without God the cosmos is chaotic and devoid of order and life. God brings order to the chaotic darkness and from that life can exist. But the world is not completely ordered. Corruption and death are fundamental parts of the world. We ourselves are corrupt and because of that we are cut off from the the orderly garden of life and the presence of God. We will die because of the inherent corruption found in the world.

In the temple endowment we symbolically go through the process of seeing order and life created in the world. We are introduced into the garden. We are expelled from the garden out into the corrupt world where we will experience sorrow and death. To return to the presence of God and gain eternal life we must have the order of God restored to us. This is something we cannot do by ourselves. Through ministering angels God reveals to us the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God, which order is necessary for us to return to the presence of God. Just as God created life in the world by bringing order to the chaos, it is only through the Order of the Son of God that we can remove corruption and chaos from our lives and gain eternal life.

Questions to Ask Before Asking Questions About Genesis

 A few questions people have posted online recently have prompted me to write this. This started out as a response to someone's thoughts on reconciling the story of the creation in Genesis with what we are figuring out from modern science.

 Before asking any questions about Genesis it is best to first ask yourself a few questions.

1. Who wrote the Bible?

More specifically, who wrote the book of Genesis? The easiest thing to do is assume that it was Moses. But how does that fit with what we know from an LDS perspective? In the Pearl of Great Price the Book of Moses is Joseph Smith's "translation" of Genesis chapters 1-6 up to verse 13. So the Joseph Smith translation took 5 and 1/2 chapters in Genesis and expanded them into 8 chapters for the Book of Moses. There are a couple of different ways of looking at this.

The material added by Joseph Smith could be divinely inspired or mandated material added to the original text by Moses. Or it could be material that originally was in the book written by Moses and later editors removed it when writing the "Reader's Digest condensed" version of Genesis. Either way the implication is that just the text from Genesis was not considered complete and additional revelation was needed.

This all of course assumes that Moses was the one who wrote the version that we have in Genesis. If you start looking into that question just realize that the answer gets very complex very quickly, and it does nothing to make the question "Who wrote the Bible?" any easier.

From the Book of Moses we learn that what was written about the creation and the Garden of Eden was shown to Moses in a vision. The story of the Garden of Eden was not written down by Adam. The story of the flood wasn't written down by Noah. If we assume that Moses wrote Genesis, and there are arguments that he may not have (or there may have been many editorial revisions), then whoever wrote Genesis in the form that we have now was writing 1,000-4,000 years after the events in the Book of Genesis. 

In so many ways the question of who wrote the Bible leads to the next major question that you have to ask.

2. What language was the Bible written in?

Anyone who has learned a second language knows that translation is not always as simple and straight forward as you might think. For many years my dad taught Spanish and something he always told his students was, "Spanish is not translated English!"

Yes, words like "que" are usually translated into English as "what". But "que" does not mean "what". The word "que" has its own meaning and use in Spanish that does not always correspond to "what" in English.

But it gets more complex from there. In most universities, and even in some high schools, students are required to take a few classes of a foreign language. In some cases taking advanced math classes counts towards the foreign language credit. This actually makes sense because as anyone who has suffered through several math classes knows, math is a foreign language. You have to learn how to read, write, and speak math. It's deceptive because math can use all English words and numbers, yet still be a completely foreign language.

The same is true of science. Science has its own language. Many people are completely unaware of this because if you pick up a book on physics or chemistry there will be mostly English words in there (or Spanish words in Spanish speaking countries, or Mandarin words in China, or etc.). But learning the language of modern science is literally like learning a foreign language.

So this brings us back to the question of what language was the Bible written in. Was it written in English? Why not? Other than the obvious fact that English didn't exist yet. Back when Moses was alive alphabets were still being invented!

Not only did Moses not write the Book of Genesis in English, but God didn't even speak to Moses in English! God spoke in a language that Moses understood! ("well duh qleap42, get to the point.")

God didn't speak to Moses in modern English because its not something Moses would have understood. In the exact same way, God didn't speak to Moses in the language of modern science. He spoke to Moses in a language that Moses could understand. Many people will say that if God had shown Moses the creation in vision, then God had to have shown Moses "the correct" way creation happened. Anything else would mean God was deceiving Moses. 

But these things were shown to Moses in a vision. Lehi in his vision of the tree of life saw the love of God as a tree with fruit on it. The vanity of the world was a great and spacious building without foundation. Did God deceive Lehi by representing "the love of God" as fruit on a tree? Or vanity as a "great and spacious building without foundation"? In the Book of John's Revelation, John saw many things, all of which were symbolic. Did God deceive John by showing him symbolic events about the end of the world?

Furthermore, what is the "correct" scientific understanding that God is supposed to have shown to Moses to not deceive him? The scientific understanding during the 18th dynasty in Egypt? Or was it the science of 7th century BC Babylon? The science of 3rd century BC Greece? 3rd century AD Rome? 11th century China? 16th century Europe? Science of the 19th century? The 20th, or the 21st? Perhaps better the 22nd? Or the 31st?

It's awfully presumptuous of us to think that God should have explained things to Moses in a way that Moses couldn't understand just so that we could. It's awfully presumptuous to think that we currently understand the universe correctly. That the way we see things is the way God sees them. It's awfully presumptuous to think that God can only explain things to people in a way that fits with our understanding of reality. Anything else is wrong and would mean God is deceiving them. That's an awfully prideful way of looking at things.

In the Doctrine and Covenants it mentions that in the last days everything will be reveled, including how the earth was made and the power by which it came to be. An interesting corollary of that is the idea that how the earth was made has not been revealed! That means the story in Genesis is not the story of the literal creation of the world, but symbols in a vision given to Moses so that he could understand. In that way God taught Moses how he, Moses, sits in relation to God. When Moses saw that he realized "that man is nothing, which thing [Moses] never had supposed."

Perhaps we should keep that in mind as we use science to learn things about the universe and how vast it is. When we consider the size and the true scope of reality that we are just now beginning to understand through science, we learn things we never thought possible. The size and scope of the universe is something that I literally deal with on a daily basis. Whenever I see someone, especially Latter-day Saints, insist the earth is only 6,000 years old, or that the earth was created in six 24 hour periods, I just think about just how big the universe really is. I think about how complex it is, from the creation of elements, the formation of stars and galaxies, the complexities of nuclear reactions, neutron stars, gravitational collapse, supernovas, neutron star mergers, basic chemistry, the time it took life to evolve, the complexities of life, the intricacies of evolution, evolutionary niches, the complex reactions that govern our bodies, the chaotic neuron cascades in our brains, not to mention the complexity of history, language, science, culture, and human societies. And there at the center of it all a God who knows and understands it all. Whose hand can hold millions of earths like this. Who watches as millions of earth come into being and millions pass away. God is someone who can know all that, and wants to teach us all of that, but first we have to learn how to understand what He is saying.

In all the vastness of creation it is awfully presumptuous of us to presume that we know how God made the earth because we read something in a book and assumed that we understood what it was saying.

Before we ask questions from Genesis, perhaps we should ask ourselves some questions.

We Already are in Hell

In this past conference Elder Dale Renlund spoke on a topic that is very familiar to anyone who has spent time studying theology, the problem of evil. He told of a conversation he had with a man while visiting Rwanda. The man asked the classic question,

“If there were a God, wouldn’t He have done something about [the genocide]?”

Elder Renlund explain the issue in this way, "For this man—and for many of us—suffering and brutal unfairness can seem incompatible with the reality of a kind, loving Heavenly Father.... This dichotomy is as old as mankind and cannot be explained in a simple sound bite or on a bumper sticker." Elder Renlund spoke about specific examples of unfairness and how to keep our faith in the face of such terrible evils. So while he spoke on examples of evil in the world, he didn't address the context of how we view the world.

Inherent in the man's question is an assumption about this world and the role and nature of God that he expected God to just do something to prevent the evil in the world. If there is something I have learned many times over, it is that the hardest mental exercise is recognizing and challenging our own assumptions. Almost everyone who considers the question, "Why does God allow such terrible things like the Rwandan genocide to happen?" fails to follow that up with the question, "What is it that makes me think that God should do anything about it?"

The simplest answer to this is that God is good, and good people should stop evil from happening, and God has the power to stop it. But the issue for the believer is that God is still there and loves us, but did not stop the evil. So from the perspective of a believer how should we resolve this issue.

To start I will ask a question to consider, and finding the answer will be left up to the interested reader.

The more interesting question is not, "Why does God allow evil to happen?", but,

"What is God doing to fix the evil that exists?"

When believers are faced with the problem of evil we seem to forget that God has already given us a framework to understand the problem of evil. Perhaps because we are so prone to view the story of Adam and Eve as a literal story that we fail to consider the symbolic meaning of the story.

Fundamentally we find ourselves in a fallen world. The name Adam in Hebrew is literally the word for humanity. From story of the Garden of Eden we learn that we, all humanity, are cut off from the presence of God. We are quite literally left to ourselves. Perhaps we do not consider the full implications of that. We, humanity, are responsible for all the evil that we do. We cannot say that we live in a fallen world, cut off from the presence of God, and then expect God to actively take charge of everything that happens in the world.

The story of the fall, especially as it is reiterated in the temple endowment ceremony, is trying to teach us the reality of the world we live in. As believers we must confront this fact, in this world there exists both good and evil, and whether we have more good or evil depends on us. In the endowment ceremony God himself does not come down to confront the evil of the world, but sends messengers.

We say that we currently live in a telestial world, and we must consider the implications of that statement. In D&C 76 we learn that those in the telestial kingdom do not experience the presence of celestial beings, but only receive "through the ministration of the terrestrial." Those in the telestial kingdom are "they who are thrust down to hell."

This means that the telestial world we live in is literally the location of hell.

In classical Christianity the standard view is that there is the earth, and then there are heaven and hell. The usually unspoken assumption is that earth is the middle point of glory. In Dante's Inferno the earth (or at least the surface) is the dividing line between heaven and hell. But in LDS theology our view is a little more lopsided. True to the view presented in the story of the expulsion from paradise, we live in a "fallen" world out of the presence of God. As explained in the Book of Mormon, separation from God is a kind of death, and "hell", or the second death, is a permanent separation from God.

From this perspective our current state is not that different from those who are "thrust down to hell." In the revelation on the Degrees of Glory the telestial glory, or our current temporary state, is the lowest degree of glory. There is not much below us since we have "fallen" after all and considering all the terrible depravities committed by humanity there is not much further for us to fall.

The classical idea of heaven and hell have worked its way into LDS theology in how we talk about the spirit world. There we speak of spirit paradise and spirit prison, but those ideas are not really found in our scriptures. In D&C 138 it mentions that all spirits, including the righteous considered their state as being in prison or bondage. It was not until Jesus appeared to the saints gathered together awaiting his coming were they given the hope that they could be released from their "prison". Even in the spirit world all of humanity was cut off from the presence of God, and we would have stayed that way if it had not been for Jesus Christ. Thus everyone, including the righteous found themselves in "spirit prison" or "hell" after their death.

This is rather interesting because in the Old Testament it does not mention separate places, such as heaven and hell, for the righteous and the sinners. There is only one place, sheol, where all the dead go. Only after the death and resurrection of Jesus could there be a division in the world of spirits to divide the righteous in the presence of God from those who are not. This means that for those who die there is no real change in their spiritual state. Thus "hell", or spiritual separation from God, is simply a continuation after death of our current separation from God.

With this context we can return to the original question, "How can God allow evil in the world?" The simplest bumper sticker answer is, "Because this world is Hell." With one exception there is nothing lower in glory, or goodness than this world. We are the furthest we can get from God.

This view of things should change how we view the world we live in. The amount of goodness or evil in the world depends on us. Through the ministering of angels, prophets, and apostles, we are shown what we must do to rise in our progression from a telestial world with all its pain and evil to a celestial and more perfect world. This is the symbolic teaching of the endowment ceremony. Because we are already out of the presence of God there really is nowhere else to go but up.

Many believers have it in their mind that God will come and cast out the wicked and thrust them down to hell. But right now, before the final judgement, there is not really anything worse than living in a world outside the presence of God. There is no worse hell to be thrust down into than to be left to witness the worst depravities of humanity. We already are in hell.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ perhaps our message should not be "Repent or you will be punished and thrust down to hell!", but it should be, "Repent and fix the world you live in or you will be forced to continue to live in the hell of your own creation."

Whether we live in paradise or hell, that depends on us.

Faith is the Fundamental Substance of Reality

Something we do without realizing it is to interpret the scriptures and our faith through the lens of our cultural background. In our culture we are strongly influenced by Protestant theology. I sometimes joke that in the US everyone is a Protestant, even the Catholics. What I mean by that is we have been so thoroughly immersed in Protestant ways of thinking that we don't even realize we are doing it.

One of the places this shows up is how we talk about faith and knowledge. Because of our culture we are making implicit assumptions about what faith is and what it means to know something. Given those fundamental assumptions it is natural for someone to come to the conclusions, or ask the questions that you did.

Let me give an example of how we can unconsciously make an assumption that can lead to a paradox.

There is something called the "heap paradox". Suppose you have a heap of sand. In this particular heap there are 15,000,000 grains of sand. If you take a single grain of sand from the heap so that you now only have 14,999,999 grains, is it still a heap?

Any rational person would look at the sand sitting in a pile and say, "Yes. That is a heap of sand."

Now you take away another grain so that you have 14,999,998 grains. Is it still a heap? It should be.

Now you keep taking away single grains of sand until there are only 3 left. Can 3 grains of sand make a heap? Any rational person would look at it and say you need to get your eyes checked if you call 3 grains of sand a "heap of sand".

So at what point did the "heap of sand" turn into "not a heap of sand"? You could say that 15,000,000 grains were a heap. You could say that 1,500,000 grains were a heap. But at some point you get down to a minimum number and it stops being a heap. So, at what point did your "heap of sand" turn into "not a heap of sand"?

The inability to determine that is the "heap paradox", and it cannot be resolved.

But there was a problem with our mental exercise. We made a mistake and we didn't even realize it. And that mistake created the paradox.

By definition the number of things in a "heap" is undefined. Yes we can take a heap of sand and count the number of grains and get 12,749,873 grains. But the exact number isn't what makes it a heap. We use the word "heap" to mean a large, unknown, and not easily counted pile of things. The fact that we happen to know the number of things in the heap is unrelated to whether or not we call it a heap.

So, in the heap paradox we subtly shifted the definition of "heap" to include an exact value. Without realizing it we created the paradox.

A similar thing has happened in our culture with words like "faith" and "know". Over hundreds of years our understanding has drifted so that, while similar, we are missing something that was present in the original definition of the word we translate as "faith", and what it means to "know" something.

When Hebrews 11:1 is translated into English, because of hundreds of years of Protestant theology, we run into a paradox. In the original Greek the verse is,

Ἔστιν δὲ πίστις ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, πραγμάτων ἔλεγχος οὐ βλεπομένων.

This can correctly be translated as,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (King James Version)

But there are other ways of translating this. For example,

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (New International Version)

or,

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. (New Living Translation)

or,

To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. (Good News Translation)

or,

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. (Christian Standard Bible)

In the KJV the word that is translated as substance is "ὑπόστασις" (hypostasis). In Greek the word hypostasis literally means "to stand (-stasis) under (hypo-)". It means it is the thing that supports or is the source of everything. In philosophy hypostasis is the fundamental substance of reality. It is the thing that makes up everything.

But it can also mean to possess a claim, or to have title (or a deed) to a guaranteed agreement. It entitles someone to what is guaranteed under the particular agreement. (We still use this idea in modern English. If someone has a legal claim that can be heard in court, we say they "have standing". They have standing under the law to claim something such as property, or redress of wrongs.)

So another way of (very loosely) translating Hebrews 11:1 could be,

Our faithfulness gives us standing to actively wait for the proof of things that we cannot see.

Or it could be translated (again very loosely) as,

Our faith is the fundamental substance of reality that we trust gives proof of the things we cannot see [such as God].

So, how does that change the way we talk about faith and what it means "to have faith"? That is the question.

A Different Nativity Story

I wanted to tell a slightly different nativity story. The Bible itself has very little written about the birth of Jesus. It doesn't even mention what time of year it happened. Over the years small additions to the story have been added to help flesh it out. But those were just assumptions created in later European culture. Because of this, and also because of translations issues, a number of items have become part of our "collective memory" about the nativity. For example the assumption that Jesus was born in a stable or barn, even though the Bible never says that. In some cases entire stories have been invented hinging on the mistranslation of a single word.

So I wrote this as an alternative nativity story. Some of the things included are my own interpolations, but in many cases I tried to use the best historical understanding that we have. In some places I have tried to use different words than is normal to make you pause and actually think about what is being said.

~~~~~oo0o000o0oo~~~~~

More than two thousand years ago a young couple about to be married had an unexpected surprise. It turned out that the soon-to-be-wife was pregnant. In their small community in Galilee this would have been quite a scandal, and in the culture at the time the shame of having a child out of wedlock would have followed her throughout her life. For her, while it was still a surprise, she had been warned about her coming pregnancy by an angel. In a great act of faith she accepted what the angel told her and said that she would be the Lord's servant. For the next few months she stayed with her cousin who also had a miraculous experience and received a promise that after many years of infertility she too would have a child. Together they rejoiced in what they had been called to do.

After several months Mary traveled back to her home and to her waiting fiance. The soon-to-be-husband and unknowing soon-to-be-new-adoptive-father found out that his soon-to-be-wife was pregnant, in a very impossible way, with what people would say was his first child. But he knew differently because he was a man of honor. After some thought he decided to do the honorable thing, as demanded by his culture, and break off the engagement. Being a kind, though honorable man, he didn't want to make a public display and wanted to keep everything "private". But again God interceded. In a dream an angel commanded him to ignore the honor based values taught to him by his culture, and to do a more holy thing so that a greater good could be done.

Joseph may have been a man of honor, but he was also a man of faith. He accepted what God had commanded him to do and married the woman who would come to be known as the Mother of God.

In their small community they would have been aware of the whisperings and gossip around them. Concerned with how it would affect the child he would raise, Joseph considered moving back with his family several days' journey to the south. Wanting to know what would be best for the child because the angel had told him the child would be a savior and ruler in Israel, even God Himself. There was a scripture known to the faithful that said the Ruler and Shepherd of Israel will be born in Bethlehem. This scripture came as an answer to his prayer to know whether he should move his new family.

Joseph took that as a sign that he was the right man to make sure the prophecy would be fulfilled. He was from Bethlehem and he had family there. Taking his young wife, and soon-to-be-mother, he set out on a journey of faith. He was a man of faith and was doing what he had been commanded by the angel. Also doing what he knew to be true from the scriptures. He knew it had to be this way.

Shortly after arriving at the house of relatives his wife went into labor. With the women in Joseph's extended family there to assist, Mary gave birth to the Son of God, the future Savior of not just Israel, but of the whole Earth. Despite his relative's generous accommodations there was not enough room in their guest room for the young couple, a new baby, and the others staying there. Mary needed rest and could not sleep if Jesus was woken up every few minutes by the others in the room. To help Jesus sleep they wrapped him tightly in some cloth and placed him, outside, in a disused stone watering trough for some animals. Not a very auspicious beginning for the King of Heaven.

Before long they heard hushed talking coming from outside and went out to find a group of shepherds had entered the fenced in yard by the house and were reverently observing the baby lying in the manger. The shepherds told them that they were visited by a host of angels proclaiming a covenant of peace between the kingdoms of the earth and the Kingdom of God, and that God would extend mercy to all people, even though they had sinned. And they instantly went looking for the Savior of the World, and just as the angel had said, they found the child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

On that night something changed. A sequence of events began that will ultimately culminate with God fulfilling the covenant he made with all humanity. The gulf of sin and alienation between all of humanity and God has been bridged. And God, through his Son, offers eternal life to all those who are faithful and willing to take upon them the name of The Son. As Christians we have taken His name upon us and faithfully await the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, where, as promised, we will dwell in peace.

Misusing a Scripture about Worshiping Idols

It finally happened. Someone tried to use a scripture about Asherah poles to justify their particular belief. Five years ago I wrote about a hypothetic argument about planting trees near a temple. In Deuteronomy there is a verse that says,

"Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God." Deuteronomy 16:21

Conceivably someone who did not understand the context could argue that this verse applied to modern day temples and that trees near the temple were forbidden. But in context, and translated correctly, this verse forbids Asherah poles, or groves near holy places. This commandment was directed at a common Canaanite religious practice, and directed the Israelites to not worship the goddess Asherah.

Recently I came across someone who said their father considered Christmas trees to be "of the devil" and pagan because Jeremiah 10:2-5 forbids it. In the King James Version the critical verses read,

2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

In this case the father interpreted these verses to be an condemnation of Christmas ("the customs of the people") and Christmas trees ("for one cutteth a tree out of the forest"). But with a little bit of historical knowledge (and a slightly better translation) we find that this is actually condemnation against worshiping wooden idols, such as wooden statues of the goddess Asherah.

A more modern translation (New Revised Standard Version) of these verses reads,

2 Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the way of the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;
4 people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good.

Because someone did not understand the historical context of this passage, they interpreted it to mean that Christmas trees were forbidden. This is why we need to learn the context of the scriptures or we will think things like, God condemns Christmas trees, and miss the original teaching of, don't worship dumb idols who can't do anything for you or answer your prayers.

The καιρός of the Second Coming, Not the Χρόνος of the Second Coming

I have been seeing a large number of posts and comments about the time of the second coming and whether it will happen in a few years or not. Hopefully this post can change the way we think about the second coming.

A famous American writer once told a story of two fish swimming along. Another fish swimming by nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two fish keep swimming until one looks at the other and says, "What the #$!& is water?”

We are surrounded by our own culture and many times it determines how we think and view the world without us realizing it. In our culture time is something that structures our world. If you have to go to work, you are expected to be there at a certain time. Church meetings are scheduled at a specific time (and not Mormon standard time). TV shows air at preset times. Your GPS can tell you down to the minute how long it will take you to get somewhere. You can track the progress of a package being delivered. What ever device you are using to read this on has a clock that is synchronized over the internet by an official clock somewhere.

Our concept of time is something we are so embedded in that we have a hard time realizing that our concept of time is unique in all of human history. Up until a few hundred years ago the smallest unit of time anyone really used was the hour, and even that was a little hard to measure. For most of human history time was measured by the position of the sun, moon, and stars. The extreme modern obsession we have with exact times did not exist until recently.

Time in the ancient world, the world of the Bible, was a very different thing. For us time is something that increments up. Events start at some time, other events follow, and then things happen after that. There is a specific order to events. We want to keep things in chronological order. If you study history you will probably study it in chronological order, or will study a specific time period according to the years on a calendar.

In the world of the Bible how people interacted with time was very different. There was no exactness. Meetings or events didn't start at exact times. No one was checking the clock to see if a meeting should start, because there were no clocks! (None in the sense that we know them.) A festival, or feast, or celebration, or meeting would start when the necessary people were there to start it.

In Hebrew the word for time is יום, or Yom. The concept of yom is simple, but for us it can be confusing. Yom can be translated, depending on context as "day", "year", "age", "epoch", "season", or just an undefined amount of time. In one way we use the word "day" in the same way when we say, "Back in my day...."

In Greek time is broken down into two separate concepts. Greeks used the word Χρόνος (chronos) to talk about time as we are familiar with it. When King Herod asked the wise men what time they saw the sign of Christ's birth (as recorded by Matthew, which was written in Greek), he was asking them about the chronos of the event. It was something that could be put on a calendar. Time, as it relates to chronos has a start and an end. Or it could be used to indicate the time "before" something happened. But chronos could be an undefined amount of time, but it was still something that could be put on a calendar.

The other Greek word that gets translated into English as "time" is καιρός (kairos). While you could put kairos down on a calendar, it doesn't refer to a specific time. It refers to the right or opportune time. A comedian telling a joke has to time it right to make people laugh. Comedic timing isn't a chronos, thing, it's a kairos. When growing food in a garden you don't follow an exact schedule. You plant the garden when the time and weather conditions are right, and you harvest the food when it is ripe. If it's not ripe, you just have to wait. It's not something you can sit down with the plants and work out a day when they will be ready. This is a case of kairos.

The Apostles who recorded the words of Jesus used the word kairos to talk about the time of the "harvest". There wasn't a chronos for the time of harvest, there was a kairos. The time wasn't set. It depended on the conditions of the wheat. At times the apostles would call the saints to action saying that now was the kairos to act, now was the right time. It wasn't because they had reached the correct date set in heaven for it. The conditions were right to preach and convert many people. They had to take advantage of that moment before it passed.

When it came to the second coming, Jesus and the apostles never spoke of the chronos of the second coming. They only spoke of the kairos, the unknown time that it would be the right moment for it to happen.

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time (kairos) will come. (Mark 13:32-33)

Even speaking of the "time of the gentiles" it was not a specific set period of time. There would be a beginning and end to the time of the gentiles. But those times were not, and are not set.

And importantly some of the critical "times" used by people to try to predict the chronos of the second coming, are not chronos at all, but kairos.

14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time (kairos), and times (kairos plural), and half a time (half a kairos). (Revelation 12:14)

These times are not set times (chronos). They are movable times (kairos) that depend on certain conditions.

With this view, God does not have a "millennial" planner that He keeps hidden so that no one will know when He has scheduled the second coming. God is waiting and watching for the correct moment of the second coming. It is not a set time, and Jesus warned us against those who thought they knew the chronos or even the kairos of the second coming. God is not bound by any timetable. There is only one who knows the correct conditions (kairos) for the second coming, and that is God, and he will act when the conditions are right.

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Additional materials/reading:

Here's all the times chronos appears in the Bible (New Testament). You can check out how it is used and how it is translated.

https://biblehub.com/str/greek/5550.htm

When you separate the two concepts some things in the Bible start making a lot more sense.

Letter to My Congressman

Dear Representative Allen,

I was shocked at the news yesterday that U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops cleared Lafayette Park of people for the sole purpose of providing President Trump the opportunity of having his picture taken in front of St. John's Church while holding the Holy Bible. The use of St. John's Church as a backdrop for his picture was not authorized by the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Right Rev. Budde, or any other church leader. Other church members providing Christian service on the steps of the church were forcefully removed by U.S. Park Police employing tear gas.

This is a gross violation of religious liberty and a crass disregard of respect for constitutional principles. As a man of faith I was dismayed at the sight of the President of the United States, who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, so callously disregarding his oath of office and basic Christian charity for the inconsequential purpose of having his picture taken. To add to it he sought to use the Holy Word of God as a prop for his violation of a sacred space.

Throughout history church buildings have been used as sanctuaries in times of crisis, fear, and violence. Some of the worst atrocities in history have come when political leaders transgressed the sanctity of sacred spaces. While no church buildings were burned yesterday, or believers martyred, the President of the United States did violence to our religious liberty and assailed the wall of protection that provides safety to believers from the encroachments of Government power. The sacred space of a House of Worship should never be used as platform to proclaim violence on the children of God.

For my entire life, when I first came of age, I voted with a conviction that religious liberty must be preserved as a fundamental right. In the 2016 the Republican Party platform it states, "We believe in the Constitution as our founding document." If that was true then, surely the foundation of Republicanism has shifted like sand since then. I find no condemnation of the President's actions, nor of any defense of sacred spaces from those who proclaim the Constitution as their founding document. But as for me and my house, our principles are placed on a sure foundation that will not wash away with the changing tide of political expediency. I believe that constitutional freedoms must be protected and respected, not gassed and harassed.

Representative Allen, you proclaim to be a man of faith. Now is the time to live your religion and make good on your faith. The actions of the President must be condemned and not defended. I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who provides cover and defense to someone who uses their office to violate the sanctity of a House of Worship. The rights written in our Constitution define the character of our government. How we treat those rights define who we are.

Sincerely,

[quantumleap42], PhD

A New Christian Symbol

Last night President Russell M. Nelson announced a new symbol for the Church of Jesus Christ to use. The new symbol has a depiction of Jesus under an arch symbolically representing the tomb. He is standing upon a corner stone with the name of the Church on it. If we take the simplest form of this symbol there are many other meanings that we can give it. Like many symbols of religions through out the world it is very simple, but can contain intense meanings.

Here are possible interpretations of this symbol:

• It is the door of the empty tomb after the resurrection of Jesus.
• It is an open door to the Church, inviting others to enter.
• It is gateway leading us into the path of Eternal Life. The gateway is baptism, which is symbolic of the grave and of resurrection.
• It is the windows of heaven.
• It is a doorway to a new life.
• It is an open door of fellowship and friendship. Our door is always open.
• The stone is the corner stone representing Christ.
• The stone is the Rock upon which we should build.
• It is the foundation of the Church and the Gospel.
• It is the welcome mat to our homes.
• It contains the steps to the doorway to heaven.

It's a very simple symbol but can have many meanings.

The Body of the Church is a Temple

In the Church of Jesus Christ we quote 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 to show that we should be respectful to our bodies and not "defile" them. It is a scripture mastery scripture in Seminary, and some of us could quote them from memory. They are the basis of the teaching that our bodies are temples of God and you shouldn't "defile" them with tattoos, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or fornication, an idea that is drilled into the heads of our youth.

But do we really understand these verses? Let's take a closer look at them.

In the King James Version 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 reads as,

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

And 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 reads,

"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

A simple reading of these supports the idea that our bodies are temples of God, but if we look at the original Greek we can see an entirely different meaning.

In English when we are talking to someone we use the pronoun "you". And if we are talking to more than one person we also use the pronoun "you". English does not have a formal way to differentiate 2nd person singular from 2nd person plural. In other languages there are two different words (for example, "usted" and "ustedes" in Spanish), or two different verb forms to differentiate singular from plural. Greek has different forms for singular and plural 2nd person.

When these verses are translated from Greek the difference between singular and plural pronouns, verbs, and nouns is lost. To clear this up here are the same verses again (using the NRSV translation), with pronouns, verbs, and nouns explicitly labeled as plural or singular.

Do you (plural) not know that you (p) are God’s temple (singular) and that God’s Spirit (s) dwells in you (p)? If anyone destroys God’s temple (s), God will destroy that person. For God’s temple (s) is holy, and you (p) are that temple (s).

And

Or do you (p) not know that your (p) body (s) is a temple (s) of the Holy Spirit (s) within you (p), which you (p) have from God, and that you (p) are not your (p) own? For you (p) were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your (p) body (s).

In these verses Paul is addressing multiple people (plural "you") and calls multiple people to all together be a single temple. Also that multiple people have a single "body" which is a single "temple". In this sense he is not talking about everyone's physical body, but Paul is talking about the "body" of the church. The point that Paul was making is that the body of the congregation is a "temple" of God, and that the Holy Spirit dwells among the congregation, not within the physical bodies of the individual members.

Understanding these verses in this way changes how we interpret them and how we apply them to ourselves. This means that we are being exhorted to not defile the body of the church, not our own bodies. This means that the congregation of the church all together is the temple of God, and not our individual bodies. The difference comes from the fundamental rules of English and how the original Greek is translated.

How can salt lose its flavor?

Answer: It can't. And that's the point.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells his disciples,

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." -- Matthew 5:13

Whenever this verse is discussed in Sunday School someone invariable asks the question, "How does salt lose its flavor?" Then the inevitable answer comes, "This happens when it is mixed with or contaminated by other elements." And then a discussion follows where the participants discuss the need to "keep ourselves pure" from outside influences so that we can be the "salt of the earth", uncontaminated by the world.

By thinking in it this way we are unconsciously tying it to the purity doctrine. In this sense the purpose of being the salt of the earth is to keep the salt uncontaminated by anything and everything. We don't want to dilute it, so we can't mix it with anything.

But if you stop and think about the verse and its context, that is the exact opposite of its meaning. This is an example of looking beyond the mark.

By asking the question, "How does salt lose its flavor?" we are unconsciously projecting our modern worldview onto the Bible. We are making an assumption about how to approach and interpret that verse that subtlety leads us in a wrong direction. To understand this we must know that the question "How does salt lose its flavor?" is a modern question, and was not on the minds of Christians throughout the ages.

In an ancient setting salt was salt. To those listening to Jesus they understood salt as a thing they put on and in their food. They did not think of it as a chemical element that can be mixed with other similar chemicals to change its overall composition. This understanding is a result of our modern worldview.

To people in ancient days, if a white crystalline powder tasted salty, then it was salt. If it didn't, it wasn't. That didn't mean it was mixed with impurities. The question of how the chemical salt (NaCl) could no longer taste salty was a mystery that popped up in Biblical commentaries in the 1800's. There are tales of travelers who went to Palestine and literally went around licking rocks to try and figure out how salt could lose it flavor.

Unfortunately they were being mislead by imposing a modern understanding onto the Bible.

A better way of understanding this verse is like this:

Jesus, "My followers, I want you to be like salt, but for everyone on earth. As you know salt is very important. We use it in our food all the time. What does bread taste like if you don't put salt in it? It tastes terrible and is not good to eat! What does soup or stew or meat taste like without salt? It's very bland! Do you want to eat it? No? I didn't think so!"

"So I want you to be like that! Necessary for everything, and the thing that gives flavor to the people of the earth. I want you to give everyone a reason to enjoy life and not be so bland! Just remember, that is what salt is good for!"

"If salt didn't taste salty what would we use it for? Would we use it for food? No! Would we use it for building? No! Would we use it for jewelry? No! Would we use it for anything? No! We would just throw it out like dirt!"

"I want you to be the salt of the earth. And if salt wasn't salty, there nothing else that can be used to give the earth back the flavor of salt! Without you life would be bland! Give life flavor!"

Unfortunately all that understanding just doesn't fit into a pithy little saying. But with this we get a better sense of what Jesus meant. He didn't want his followers to be untouched by the world. He didn't want them to separate themselves from everything, completely unmixed with the world. He wanted his followers to bring their goodness into the world and make life flavorful!

Hiding the pure salt in a jar so that it never is contaminated makes the salt useless! It is like a lighting a lamp and putting it under a basket! Connecting this verse to the purity doctrine is the exact opposite of its intended purpose.

"The meek are makarioi for they shall inherit the earth."

When I entered into the MTC to learn Spanish for my mission I needed a Spanish to English dictionary to help me along. They gave every missionary a standard English-Spanish dictionary with tens of thousands of words in it but what I really needed was a simple picture dictionary so that I could learn the words for simple things like shoes, toilet, fork, restaurant, waiter, faucet, and kitchen sink. Fortunately they had one that I could buy from the bookstore. It proved very helpful for learning a variety of common words that made conversations easier.

When I got it and showed it to the other missionaries I proudly proclaimed, "It has everything! Including the kitchen sink!" As soon as I said this I turned to the page that showed a kitchen with everything labeled with both the Spanish and English words. Sure enough everything was labeled; the toaster, the oven, the oven mitt, the refrigerator, the pots and pans, everything.

Everything that is, except the kitchen sink. There were words for everything else, just not the kitchen sink. We all thought this was exceptionally weird and a tad ironic that my new dictionary had everything except the kitchen sink.

Over the course of my mission I spoke with many native Spanish speakers to try and learn the word for "kitchen sink". Their responses ranged from awkward realization that they had no idea what that thing they had seen their entire life was called, to indignation that I would ask such a silly question.

The best I ever got was from one companion who said he would call it a pila or pileta, which is a general word for a container that holds water, like a baptismal font (also called a pila, a battery is also a pila). But most people just didn't talk about it. They talked about washing the dishes, and washing their hands. They just never thought to mention the thing they did all that in.

To English speakers it may seem odd to not have a common word for something like that, but almost everyone I met had no idea that there was even supposed to be a name for that thing in the kitchen. You did things with it and it had a function all things that they had words for, but requiring that it have a specific name was an idea that was rather foreign to them.

To those who have learned another language being able to understand that these linguistic differences exist is key to understanding how language works. It is common for languages to have words that exist only in that language for objects and concepts that are not shared with other languages. One of the subtleties of learning a different language is not just learning the corresponding word in another language but understanding the words themselves in the context of that language.

When we read the Bible we have to remember that it was not written in English, and sometimes the words used in the original language don't have a direct analog in English. Just like people in Argentina when I asked them what the Spanish word for kitchen sink was and it was in that moment that they realized they had never even thought of having a word for that thing, there are concepts that do not exist in English that exist in Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic.

One such word is μακάριοι (makarioi). In Greek there is a a single word that conveys an idea. In English we have many ways of describing the same idea, and even a few words that are used in a similar way, but every attempt at translation fails in someway. It's not that English speakers have never experienced makarioi, but they may never have thought about it because we don't have a word specifically for that.

In ancient Greek the word makarios (or makar) was used to refer to people who were living a rich life. They were people with a full and satisfying life. In the writings of Plato and Aristotle the term is sometimes translated as "good Sir" or "gentleman" implying someone of nobility with wealth enough that they do not need to labor with their hands. But more than being someone who does not have to constantly worry about their daily bread it is someone who can life a life content with what they are doing.

A philosopher, or statesman, or other rich, noble person may be makarios. But wealth itself was not what made someone makarios. In Greek it also refers to someone who has been favored by the gods. To be someone who was makarios you needed to be living a prosperous life. Someone who could look at their life and be content was makarios.

Thus another translation of makarios is happy. But in English happiness is usually understood to be a momentary emotion. Makarios implies a much more enduring contentedness with your life in general. Generally those who are enduing long term sickness, or hard labor, who must toil cannot have or be makarios. Anciently this was something that only the rich, educated, noble, and powerful could achieve.

In the New Testament the authors turn this around in the Greek version of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus proclaims:

The poor in spirit are makarioi, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Those who mourn are makarioi, for they will be comforted.
The meek are makarioi, for they will inherit the earth.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are makarioi, for they will be filled.
The merciful are makarioi, for they will be shown mercy.
The pure in heart are makarioi, for they will see God.
The peacemakers are makarioi, for they will be called children of God.
Those who are persecuted because of righteousness are makarioi, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Here those who are makarioi are not the rich, educated, nobles who have achieved a contented state in life, it is the poor, the meek, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.

In English this is almost always translated as blessed. And while that does convey part of the concept there is some confusion since we try to treat blessed as a verb while makarioi is an adjective, meaning we look for a subject and a predicate when there is none. When we read these passages in English we tend to unconsciously think "The poor are blessed. Who blesses them? God of course." But the original concept was not that those who are poor and meek will be blessed by God, but rather the poor and the meek are makarios. That is, the poor, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers are living a full and contented life, not just the rich and powerful.

In the end it is the humble and pure in heart who will prosper and will see God.

Sometimes when we read the scriptures in English we unknowingly miss the original meaning. Sometimes the concepts are missed, not because we are incapable are understanding it or have never experienced it, but because our language just doesn't place emphasis on that. Or our language and grammar demand a particular form. When this happens we may unknowingly give undue emphasis to ideas that where never intended.

Parables and Big Fish: Rereading Jonah

In Church lessons when we talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan the discussion centers on what we learn from it, and how it applies to our lives. Sometimes the discussion centers on why Jesus chose a Samaritan to be the protagonist in his parable, but the question of historical or factual accuracy never comes up. In talking about the parable we do not ask if there really was a historical Samaritan who stopped to help a man who was left for dead on the side of the road. Neither do we argue that a Samaritan would never actually stop to help a Jew, nor do we question Jesus for having the priest and the Levite walk by without stopping. Those questions in the story do not distract us from the point of the parable which is that we must treat everyone, even people we may not like, as our neighbor.

We do not mistake the parable for an actual story that must be analyzed for its historicity or whether or not the characters were based on real people. Even though the story is not historical we do not consider it to be untrue. We recognize the purpose of the story is not to convey history but to teach a moral.

This sets the parable of the Good Samaritan apart from some of the other stories in the New Testament. For example the story of Jesus’ baptism is not presented as a story with a moral, but as a historical event. With this story it is appropriate to discuss where exactly it took place, even to point out that it happened because there was much water there. For the story of Christ’s baptism it is appropriate, and probably necessary, to consider the historical context, while the parable of the Good Samaritan can be told independent of the historical context.

In an interview with LDS Perspectives Podcast Benjamin Spackman talked about the concept of genre in the Bible. He made the point that the Bible is a collection of many different stories, prophecies, teachings, laws, sermons, and histories. In essence it is a mix of many different genres and while it may be easy to separate some of the different genres, sometimes we can mistake the genre of a particular book or passage in the Bible and that can lead us to misunderstand the Bible.

If we were to focus our discussion of the Good Samaritan on whether or not it was historically accurate we would miss the point, that it is a parable, or a morality tale. If we were to talk about the baptism of Jesus as only an inspirational metaphor then we would be missing the obvious indicators of it as a historical event.

While some things in the Bible are clearly labeled as a parable or a prophecy or history, there are some things that are not clearly labeled. It is these things that can sometimes cause confusion. If we treat something as literal history when it is a parable, teaching tool, or a social commentary then we run the risk of looking beyond the mark and lose the intent of what we find in the Bible. If we make this mistake then we will go looking for historical events that never happened. We might get caught up in a pointless debate about whether or not there actually were any Samaritans who traveled on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and miss the point entirely.

While it may seem silly to debate the historicity of the Good Samaritan, there are other stories in the Bible that were written to teach a moral and provide social commentary, and not be literal history, but are unfortunately interpreted as history. One such story is the story of Jonah.

For many members, discussions about Jonah center on analyzing the motivations and actions of him as a real man, as well as whether or not someone could actually survive for three days in the belly of a whale. That is, the central concern that we have when we discuss Jonah is the historicity of the story. Sometimes we are more concerned with confirming the literal fulfillment of an apparent miracle than we are of learning the central message of the story. While Jonah was a real person, the actual book of Jonah never presents itself as a literal history, and there are some subtle things about it that set it apart from all the other writings of the prophets.

To give Jonah a little perspective we have to realize that Jonah, the historical man, lived less than 50 years before the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria, which capital city was Nineveh. The book of Jonah was not written by Jonah, and was most likely written after Israel was destroyed by armies from Nineveh. So whoever wrote the book of Jonah was making a somewhat ironic point by having Jonah go to Nineveh. In the story everyone, including the pagan sailors and all the illiterate citizens of Nineveh, obeyed God's commands. Everyone, that is, except the Israelite. The one who is supposed to be the most faithful and chosen of God is consistently less faithful than the illiterate (i.e. does not read the scriptures) and superstitious sailors and citizens.

These things, and a few others, mark the story of Jonah as a parable or a social commentary. It is not trying to pass itself off as literal history. For some this would seem to undermine the story of Jonah, but recognizing the genre of the Book of Jonah no more undermines it than recognizing that the story of the Good Samaritan as a parable destroys its lessons and power to teach. But by understanding it for what it is, we can get over the big fish and understand the message of Jonah.

Cheating at Connect the Dots: Failing to see the whole picture of Mormonism

Recently I was reading an article by a historian of Mormon history and it got me thinking about playing connect the dots. You see, playing connect the dots is easy... if you ignore most the dots. Consider the image below. It contains a number of different color dots. The question is, can you see the star in the dots?

How about now? Can you see the star? All I have done is emphasize a few important dots, and now all I have to do is connect the dots.

With the dots now connected the star is easy to see. Sure the dots aren't perfectly aligned with the star but that's only because I didn't take the time fully flesh out the star. With a little more work the misalignment could be fixed and the minor discrepancies could be smoothed over. Only those who are extremely nitpicky will complain about the misalignment, and that only distracts from my point that there is a red star in there.

So why am I talking about a manufactured star and connecting the dots? As historians approach history, by definition, they do not have all the facts, nor were they impartial observers of the totality of events. It is the job of a historian to take as much information as possible and attempt to build a coherent image of the past, or at least a single person or event, based on as much information as possible. Historian effectively play an extremely complicated game of connect the dots.

Their work is very similar to mine, I cannot go directly and observe stars and galaxies close up, nor can I see how they behave over millions and billions of years, so I am reduced to playing a very complicated game of connect the dots.

But in these games there are certain rules. It is easy to connect the dots of history into just about any natural progression of events after the fact. But in doing so we have to be careful not to ignore those things that undermine the point we are trying to make.

For example, I could use the Declaration of Independence, Shays' Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil War, and the modern Tea Party to make the case that the founding principle of the United States is rebellion and distrust of government. I could probably write a fairly convincing argument, backed up with quotes from Thomas Jefferson, centered on the idea that to be American is to rebel.

But in order to make this argument I would have to ignore many other important founding principles of American society, such as representative democracy, constitutional government, separation of powers, personal liberties, and English common law. A similar argument regarding many other aspects of American society showing a coherent progression of history culminating in the latest manifestation of that defining characteristic. In fact most modern political positions attempt to do just that by tying current debates to what are assumed to be foundational principles.

Whenever we do this we run the risk of taking a few minor points of history and trying to superimpose a particular overall shape or interpretation to it. This is even more tempting when a few of the points are not just minor, but seemingly dominate the historical map (just like in the second image above). If I were to make the case that rebellion runs deep in American society I could make that argument quite persuasively using well known events such as the Revolutionary War, but to say that the United States is founded on rebellion ignores the fact that the United States was not organized from rebellion, but under a constitution formed out of democratic compromise. And it ignores the fact that the vast majority of American history did not involve rebellion, but democratic debate and the application of constitutional law.

So when I recently read an article by Grant Shreve entitled How Mormons Have Made Religion Out of Doubt, I thought about how he was connecting the dots. In his article Shreve makes the case that "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded on the idea of an evolving scriptural canon." While this is certainly true because it is a large and important point in LDS thought, he connects this central idea to other contemporary and historical events in such a way that he is effectively playing connect the dots by blatantly ignoring other large and just as important parts of LDS thought.

Shreve uses the story of James Colin Brewster to try to show that "If the church seems to have lost its way, a new revelation may be just around the bend." and that "The legacy of James Colin Brewster and numerous other Mormon dissidents lives on in the Remnant, a diffuse international movement of disaffected Mormons." This Remnant organization that Shreve sees as a natural product of LDS though, "answers the doubts many Mormons harbor by offering more revelations and additional scriptures."

Thus Shreve takes the idea of an open canon and makes the case that these historical and contemporary dissident movements are simply a natural extension of LDS thought. But in making this argument Shreve ignores other important points just as integral to LDS thought. Points such as priesthood authority and keys, and church hierarchy. He does briefly acknowledge these things, but they are not mentioned as foundational and fundamental to LDS thought.

While Shreve uses the concept of the open canon to make his point he completely ignores the actual content of that new canon. Just as someone might argue that the United States was founded on rebellion, they would have to ignore the fact that the United States is actually founded on constitutional democracy. They would have to ignore the bulk of US history and law.

The concepts of priesthood authority and church hierarchy are acknowledged by Shreve, but he views these not as foundational but later additions where Joseph Smith sought to "consolidated revelatory power in himself and a select cadre of elites." Furthermore, the structure of the church is only described in negative terms such as "elaborate", "complex" and made of "byzantine bureaucracies" which "disrupted the mystical and communal experiences of Mormonism’s salad days."

Thus the point that Shreve is trying to make is that the impulse to have new mystical revelations is the natural state of Mormonism, with new prophets popping up "if the church seems to have lost its way" to provide new books of revelation. Thus, based on this reasoning, the Remnant movement is truly following the principle started by Joseph Smith, and the elaborate, complex and byzantine bureaucracies of the modern LDS church only serve to stifle the true expression of Mormonism.

Unfortunately this game of connecting the dots blatantly ignores much of the rest of the content of Mormonism. The "consolidation of revelatory power" was not a late development imposed by Joseph Smith, but rather was an early and foundational principle. If we ignore this fact, we fail to see the whole picture of Mormonism.