1. 2 Nephi 19. This is part 3 of Isaiah's Virgin birth arc, the meaning of the Virgin's child -- he is / will be the Lord, though he's not named as such yet, but given provocative titles. There's a lot of imagery here in which the Nephites could have seen themselves -- the people that have walked in darkness have seen the light, the nation has been multiplied, the leaders of Jerusalem are cut off, etc.
2. 2 Nephi 20. The "day of visitation" is the Day of the Lord, when Yahweh comes in judgment, the day promised and enacted in the Day of Atonement rite. Having seen in 17-19 the birth of the Lord, now we are told what will happen when he returns. Promised punishments for Assyria might have been understood by the Nephites as punishments for Babylon. Interesting that vv. 20-21 promise a return to God, not a return to the land of Israel. Nephi has built a temple for his people, and believes that the presence of God is with them -- did he see this prophecy as already fulfilled, his remnant having returned to God?
3. 2 Nephi 21. The day of visitation continues. The "rod of his mouth" (v. 4) reminds me of the iron rod that is the word of God. Judah will generate righteous leaders again, there will be millennial peace. There's a lot of King David imagery in this chapter: David's kingdom will be restored (Judah and Ephraim won't vex each other), Jesse is David's father, all of David's enemies return to be defeated (Philistines, Edom, Moab, Ammon). The Exodus is made permanent (v. 15).
4. 2 Nephi 22. The Lord is finally emphatically named as the child who has brought judgment and peace in a short psalm.
5. 2 Nephi 23. vv. 4-5, 10 -- the Lord of Hosts is an astral title, the "hosts" are the hosts of heaven, i.e., the angels = the stars and other heavenly bodies. the Day of the Lord will be one of cosmic upheaval, and the kingdom that purports to rule the cosmos ("cosmocrators") will be utterly destroy by the cosmos's true king.
6. 2 Nephi 24. Now we see prophecies of return to the Land, and Nephi must surely have thought of his own people. The sudden switch to "thee" in v. 3 is very intimate and affecting. I wonder if Nephi felt it very personally as he inscribed it: "the Lord shall give thee rest, from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve". v. 5 the iron rod breaks the rod of the oppressor.
7. 2 Nephi 24:12-19 if Nephi is thinking of the apostate priestly hierarchy in Jerusalem who oppressed the visionary men and the prophets, the Lucifer imagery is even more a propos -- in visionary language, angels are priests, so Lucifer the fallen angel is a strong image for a fallen priest. the usurper false priest ascends to heaven (enters the temple and the holy of holies without authorization), but is brought down into the pit, because he is the scapegoat, the rebel angel Azazel (see below about 1 Nephi 11 and the Day of Atonement imagery), at the end a mere carcass of a goat.
Showing posts with label How the Nephites Read Prophecy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How the Nephites Read Prophecy. Show all posts
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
2 Nephi 17-18
So, re-reading these chapters was shocking to me. If what I write about them shocks you, it means you're paying attention.
1. 2 Nephi 17. Ahaz's situation is like that of the Judahites at the end of the monarchy (Zedekiah, etc.), trapped between foreign powers. Ahaz is told to ask a sign of the Lord (DSS Isaiah: a sign of the Lord's mother, remember?). The sign is the Virgin ("the" Virgin, in Hebrew and Greek, not "a" virgin) who shall bear a child, like 1 Nephi 11. Desolation will come on Ahaz and his people.
2. Incidentally, "virgin" in Hebrew is "'almah". This is interesting, because it occurs to me that THREE of the Book of Mormon names might be references to the Virgin. 1) Alma. 2) Nephi, because nfr in Egyptian is fair, nfr was pronounced "something like nafi" by Lehi's time, and the Virgin in 1 Nephi 11:13 is described as "fair". 3) Best of all, Laban is a Hebrew word meaning "white". So actually, "Laban" and "Nephi" are the same name, in Hebrew and Egyptian, "the white one". This is not really surprising, since they're family, and it makes me wonder if Nephi's family had a particular devotion to the Virgin.
(And of course, the entire people of the "Nephites" have a name that calls out devotion to or memory of the Virgin.)
3. 2 Nephi 18. Let me parse this carefully.
A) Note the classic sexual symbols in 18:1. The "man's pen" should be obvious, but a "great roll" is a spiral, a classic symbol of the female generative matrix. This chapter is going to be earthy.
B) This chapter follows right on the prophecy of "the Virgin" bearing a son and is about "the prophetess" bearing a son. I do not think this is an accident. I think this is the second half of the same story.
C) I do not think "the prophetess" was Mrs. Isaiah. The OT refers to various prophetesses (Miriam in Exodus 15:20, Deborah in Judges 4:4, Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14 (and Chronicles), etc.), and none of them is Mrs. Prophet -- they are prophetesses in their own rights. The woman in Isaiah 8 is definitely THE prophetess, in both Greek and Hebrew, in the same way Isaiah 7 talks about THE virgin. It's difficult, reading them back to back, to think they aren't connected. Since 17:14 says "the Virgin shall conceive" and 18:3 says "I went into the Prophetess and she conceived", it's very difficult for me think they aren't, in fact, the same person. Or rather, it seems to me that the Prophetess must have been a figure in Jerusalem something like the High Priest, and just as the High Priest was / represented Yahweh on the Day of Atonement, the Prophetess was / represented the Virgin on certain occasions.
D) The occasion in particular is not an ordinary conjugal encounter. In addition to the fact that it's the object of prophesy and tied to the giving of signs to a king making crucial foreign policy decisions (you think YOU feel pressure, lads? ha!), there are WITNESSES (18:2). This is a formal act, and I think a ritual one. It looks like a hieros gamos, straight out of Anthropology 101 (hieros gamos is fancy Greek for "sacred marriage"), in other words, human priests and priestesses acting out a heavenly marriage (complete, yes, with child-conceiving acts) on behalf of or standing in for the gods. (The Da Vinci Code had an amusing, but not totally false, hieros gamos as one of its plot components.)
E) What would be the point of such a hieros gamos in Jerusalem? I believe that ancient Israel knew a trinity of father-mother-son, which shows pretty clearly in 1 Nephi 11. I think the point of a hieros gamos for ancient Israel would be the sign and miracle of the Virgin, in the person of her servant the Prophetess, conceiving and bearing a child. Who is this child? Nephi tells us, in 1 Nephi 11... the baby, the fruit of the tree, is the Lord Yahweh, the son in the ancient Israelite trinity.
F) Isaiah and the prophetess conceive a son who isn't actually the Lord, but is given a prophetic name to indicate that, despite Yahweh's still-delayed appearance, he's coming soon, with judgment, on the Day of the Lord (reminds me of 2 Nephi 6:13, which defines Yahweh's people as those who wait for him).
G) The prophet, prophetess and the child are "signs and wonders" (18:18). Remember 1 Nephi 19:13, that caught my eye the other day. Maybe what the Judahite leaders in Jerusalem rejected specifically was this "sign and wonder", the Virgin and her child, the Lord.
(H) And of course, the Second Temple Israelites who would become the first Christians remembered the prophecy of the Virgin and her son, and applied it (correctly, per Nephi) to Mary and Jesus. Only later Christians, having lost the plot, concluded that Mary magically and physically remained a virgin her entire life, despite having various children.)
Wow.
I'm thankful for a lot of things today. Let me mention four, quickly: my wife, Emily; my family; my country; and the Book of Mormon, which cuts right through the snarl of the re-writing and deception and age that tangles up the Bible and shines a spotlight on the ancient history of Israel.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
1. 2 Nephi 17. Ahaz's situation is like that of the Judahites at the end of the monarchy (Zedekiah, etc.), trapped between foreign powers. Ahaz is told to ask a sign of the Lord (DSS Isaiah: a sign of the Lord's mother, remember?). The sign is the Virgin ("the" Virgin, in Hebrew and Greek, not "a" virgin) who shall bear a child, like 1 Nephi 11. Desolation will come on Ahaz and his people.
2. Incidentally, "virgin" in Hebrew is "'almah". This is interesting, because it occurs to me that THREE of the Book of Mormon names might be references to the Virgin. 1) Alma. 2) Nephi, because nfr in Egyptian is fair, nfr was pronounced "something like nafi" by Lehi's time, and the Virgin in 1 Nephi 11:13 is described as "fair". 3) Best of all, Laban is a Hebrew word meaning "white". So actually, "Laban" and "Nephi" are the same name, in Hebrew and Egyptian, "the white one". This is not really surprising, since they're family, and it makes me wonder if Nephi's family had a particular devotion to the Virgin.
(And of course, the entire people of the "Nephites" have a name that calls out devotion to or memory of the Virgin.)
3. 2 Nephi 18. Let me parse this carefully.
A) Note the classic sexual symbols in 18:1. The "man's pen" should be obvious, but a "great roll" is a spiral, a classic symbol of the female generative matrix. This chapter is going to be earthy.
B) This chapter follows right on the prophecy of "the Virgin" bearing a son and is about "the prophetess" bearing a son. I do not think this is an accident. I think this is the second half of the same story.
C) I do not think "the prophetess" was Mrs. Isaiah. The OT refers to various prophetesses (Miriam in Exodus 15:20, Deborah in Judges 4:4, Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14 (and Chronicles), etc.), and none of them is Mrs. Prophet -- they are prophetesses in their own rights. The woman in Isaiah 8 is definitely THE prophetess, in both Greek and Hebrew, in the same way Isaiah 7 talks about THE virgin. It's difficult, reading them back to back, to think they aren't connected. Since 17:14 says "the Virgin shall conceive" and 18:3 says "I went into the Prophetess and she conceived", it's very difficult for me think they aren't, in fact, the same person. Or rather, it seems to me that the Prophetess must have been a figure in Jerusalem something like the High Priest, and just as the High Priest was / represented Yahweh on the Day of Atonement, the Prophetess was / represented the Virgin on certain occasions.
D) The occasion in particular is not an ordinary conjugal encounter. In addition to the fact that it's the object of prophesy and tied to the giving of signs to a king making crucial foreign policy decisions (you think YOU feel pressure, lads? ha!), there are WITNESSES (18:2). This is a formal act, and I think a ritual one. It looks like a hieros gamos, straight out of Anthropology 101 (hieros gamos is fancy Greek for "sacred marriage"), in other words, human priests and priestesses acting out a heavenly marriage (complete, yes, with child-conceiving acts) on behalf of or standing in for the gods. (The Da Vinci Code had an amusing, but not totally false, hieros gamos as one of its plot components.)
E) What would be the point of such a hieros gamos in Jerusalem? I believe that ancient Israel knew a trinity of father-mother-son, which shows pretty clearly in 1 Nephi 11. I think the point of a hieros gamos for ancient Israel would be the sign and miracle of the Virgin, in the person of her servant the Prophetess, conceiving and bearing a child. Who is this child? Nephi tells us, in 1 Nephi 11... the baby, the fruit of the tree, is the Lord Yahweh, the son in the ancient Israelite trinity.
F) Isaiah and the prophetess conceive a son who isn't actually the Lord, but is given a prophetic name to indicate that, despite Yahweh's still-delayed appearance, he's coming soon, with judgment, on the Day of the Lord (reminds me of 2 Nephi 6:13, which defines Yahweh's people as those who wait for him).
G) The prophet, prophetess and the child are "signs and wonders" (18:18). Remember 1 Nephi 19:13, that caught my eye the other day. Maybe what the Judahite leaders in Jerusalem rejected specifically was this "sign and wonder", the Virgin and her child, the Lord.
(H) And of course, the Second Temple Israelites who would become the first Christians remembered the prophecy of the Virgin and her son, and applied it (correctly, per Nephi) to Mary and Jesus. Only later Christians, having lost the plot, concluded that Mary magically and physically remained a virgin her entire life, despite having various children.)
Wow.
I'm thankful for a lot of things today. Let me mention four, quickly: my wife, Emily; my family; my country; and the Book of Mormon, which cuts right through the snarl of the re-writing and deception and age that tangles up the Bible and shines a spotlight on the ancient history of Israel.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
2 Nephi 11-16
1. 11:4 (the "law of Moses" telling of the "coming of Christ") is very distinctively true of the Day of Atonement rite, which we have seen is very prominent in several places in 1 and 2 Nephi.
2. 2 Nephi 12. Nephi might read 12:2-3 as a reference to the temple he himself has built. 12:6 reminds me of the appearances of the word "strange" in 1 Nephi 8 -- does Nephi think the Judahites have ruined themselves with foreign ways? 12:10 we have dust again -- the wicked hide in the dust, with the serpent of Genesis, and the righteous arise out of it. 12:11 the Judahites of the great and spacious building will be humbled. 12:12 the Day of the Lord is the Day of Atonement, and the high priest coming from the temple is the Lord returning. 12:15 the Enoch people described the temple at Jerusalem as a "tower" (1 Enoch 89:50, and check out E. Isaac's translation, included in Charlesworth: "Then that house became great and spacious; a lofty building was built upon it for that sheep, as well as a tall and great tower upon it for the Lord of the sheep; that house was low but the tower was really elevated and lofty. Then the Lord of the sheep stood upon that tower, and they offered a full table before him." (remember that this is from the Animal Apocalypse, and the sheep are the Israelites) !!!!).
3. 2 Nephi 13. More judgment on the Judahites that drove Lehi out. This stuff must have really resonated with the Nephites. How did they feel? Vindicated? Comforted that they got away from this judgment? 13:3 the "captain of fifty" here should remind us of Laban. 12:13 reminds me of the strange paths of 1 Nephi 8; the leaders are to blame. some juridical imagery in the second half of this chapter. 13:26 remember that "gates" are where the courts met (Ruth 4), so the image of the gates "lamenting" is an image of the judges removed from power and turned into plaintiffs.
4. 2 Nephi 14. 14:1 I wonder again if Lehi was a polygamist. did 14:3 console Nephi that some of his father's fellow-visionary men survived? (note that what they are called is hagioi / qadosh -- "holy", "saints", "angels"). 14:5-6 Isaiah ties the Exodus story to the temple. he's not the first to do so; in the book of Exodus, the story of the Exodus is then reflected in the building of the tabernacle and in temple imagery (the waters from the rock, the throne of God, the nehushtan/serpents). and Nephi's two great motifs have been Temple and Exodus, so these verses must have tied it all together for Nephi; his own exodus was over, and shadow and refuge were finally to be had in the temple he had built.
5. 2 Nephi 15. more judgment on the Judahites. I wonder if Nephi thought of himself and his people as the ensign.
6. 2 Nephi 16. here we have the first great temple vision recorded in the OT. when Nephi says that Isaiah saw the Redeemer, as he and Jacob also did (11:2-3), I wonder if this is what he was talking about -- that all three men were temple visionaries with access to and visions of Yahweh seen in the Holy of Holies. in any case, Nephi must have felt a lot of sympathy (and projected sympathy for his father and brother) with this narrative of a prophet's calling. 16:11-13 and did Nephi read these as applying to his own people? Jerusalem wasted, the Nephites "far away", a "tenth" to "return"?
2. 2 Nephi 12. Nephi might read 12:2-3 as a reference to the temple he himself has built. 12:6 reminds me of the appearances of the word "strange" in 1 Nephi 8 -- does Nephi think the Judahites have ruined themselves with foreign ways? 12:10 we have dust again -- the wicked hide in the dust, with the serpent of Genesis, and the righteous arise out of it. 12:11 the Judahites of the great and spacious building will be humbled. 12:12 the Day of the Lord is the Day of Atonement, and the high priest coming from the temple is the Lord returning. 12:15 the Enoch people described the temple at Jerusalem as a "tower" (1 Enoch 89:50, and check out E. Isaac's translation, included in Charlesworth: "Then that house became great and spacious; a lofty building was built upon it for that sheep, as well as a tall and great tower upon it for the Lord of the sheep; that house was low but the tower was really elevated and lofty. Then the Lord of the sheep stood upon that tower, and they offered a full table before him." (remember that this is from the Animal Apocalypse, and the sheep are the Israelites) !!!!).
3. 2 Nephi 13. More judgment on the Judahites that drove Lehi out. This stuff must have really resonated with the Nephites. How did they feel? Vindicated? Comforted that they got away from this judgment? 13:3 the "captain of fifty" here should remind us of Laban. 12:13 reminds me of the strange paths of 1 Nephi 8; the leaders are to blame. some juridical imagery in the second half of this chapter. 13:26 remember that "gates" are where the courts met (Ruth 4), so the image of the gates "lamenting" is an image of the judges removed from power and turned into plaintiffs.
4. 2 Nephi 14. 14:1 I wonder again if Lehi was a polygamist. did 14:3 console Nephi that some of his father's fellow-visionary men survived? (note that what they are called is hagioi / qadosh -- "holy", "saints", "angels"). 14:5-6 Isaiah ties the Exodus story to the temple. he's not the first to do so; in the book of Exodus, the story of the Exodus is then reflected in the building of the tabernacle and in temple imagery (the waters from the rock, the throne of God, the nehushtan/serpents). and Nephi's two great motifs have been Temple and Exodus, so these verses must have tied it all together for Nephi; his own exodus was over, and shadow and refuge were finally to be had in the temple he had built.
5. 2 Nephi 15. more judgment on the Judahites. I wonder if Nephi thought of himself and his people as the ensign.
6. 2 Nephi 16. here we have the first great temple vision recorded in the OT. when Nephi says that Isaiah saw the Redeemer, as he and Jacob also did (11:2-3), I wonder if this is what he was talking about -- that all three men were temple visionaries with access to and visions of Yahweh seen in the Holy of Holies. in any case, Nephi must have felt a lot of sympathy (and projected sympathy for his father and brother) with this narrative of a prophet's calling. 16:11-13 and did Nephi read these as applying to his own people? Jerusalem wasted, the Nephites "far away", a "tenth" to "return"?
Monday, November 21, 2011
2 Nephi 5-8
1. 5:5 Nephi repeats the Lehi maneuver in all respects. They even take "tents" (v. 7) and "seed" (v. 11). One really gets the impression that Nephi's (and Lehi's?) background must have been in metallurgy (2:14-15).
2. 5:6 Those who flee are again those who believe in "revelations" (the "visionary men" and "prophets") (v. 6). Does this mean the Laman-Lemuel group is dominated by the Deuteronomists? Is that where Sherem and his doctrine might have come from? Does Nephi hasten to tell us that his people keep the law of Moses because the Laman-Lemuel group accuse him otherwise (v. 10)?
3. After all the temple imagery so far, it should now be no surprise at all that Nephi is quick to tell us he built a temple (5:16).
4. Nephi tells us that Laman and Lemuel were cut off from the Lord's presence in 5:20, right after he tells us that he built a temple (5:16) and he acted as king (5:18). This makes PERFECT sense in terms of ancient Israelite ideas -- the presence of YHWH was in the temple, and king and high priests were both "anointed", i.e., "Messiahs", because they were / represented YHWH. Check out Psalm 2:7, in which the King is the Lord's begotten.
5. A discussion of the fate of the Lamanites' culture follows. We talked in class about the Egyptian pun built into the Lamanites becoming "black" as opposed to the "Nephites" (nfrw?) being "fair"... now we see that fate being tied into covenants and explicitly to the possession or non-possession of a temple. Those having a temple are fair, washed white in the blood of the Lamb, encircled in the robe of the Lord's righteousness -- those not having a temple and having rejected revelation have "skins of blackness". I think it's unwarranted to infer that this is a record of people in the Americas actually physically changing color.
6. Jacob's speech in 2 Nephi 6:2-4 starts out all temply, too. He refers to the order of his priesthood, Nephi's kingship and all the things he's taught, "from the creation of the world", things which are to come, the great temple-prophet Isaiah, "learning" God's name (which can only be spoken in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement) and "glorifying" it ("glory" being a phenomenon of the Holy of Holies). What is the context of this talk? Much of the speech is reminiscent of Nephi's Day of Atonement vision and preaching in 1 Nephi 11-15 -- is this a Day of Atonement address?
7. We probably read 6:6-7 as verses being fulfilled in modern days, or yet to be fulfilled. I wonder if Jacob read them to encourage his people with respect to their relationships with the (unnamed to us) populations around them? Maybe the Nephi party received help from an indigenous population (remember "corn"? doesn't exist in the wild, so someone taught the Nephites to cultivate it...), and Jacob taught them to read Isaiah as a prophecy of the help they received, and to welcome them into the church (vv. 12-13)?
8. Again, I am trying to read the Isaiah passages (2 Nephi 7-8) as Nephite self-image. I think they fit very, very well. Chapter 7: God has not set the Nephites aside, despite the persecutions they have suffered. Chapter 8: take comfort from Abraham and God's covenants with you, God will comfort and rescue, etc. I wonder if the Nephites had any thoughts about who the two sons were (8:19-20)? Nephi and Jacob, maybe?
9. 2 Nephi 8 has lots of temple imagery, appropriately for a Day of Atonement address. Covenants, cosmic structure, creation, putting on garments, arising from the dust.
2. 5:6 Those who flee are again those who believe in "revelations" (the "visionary men" and "prophets") (v. 6). Does this mean the Laman-Lemuel group is dominated by the Deuteronomists? Is that where Sherem and his doctrine might have come from? Does Nephi hasten to tell us that his people keep the law of Moses because the Laman-Lemuel group accuse him otherwise (v. 10)?
3. After all the temple imagery so far, it should now be no surprise at all that Nephi is quick to tell us he built a temple (5:16).
4. Nephi tells us that Laman and Lemuel were cut off from the Lord's presence in 5:20, right after he tells us that he built a temple (5:16) and he acted as king (5:18). This makes PERFECT sense in terms of ancient Israelite ideas -- the presence of YHWH was in the temple, and king and high priests were both "anointed", i.e., "Messiahs", because they were / represented YHWH. Check out Psalm 2:7, in which the King is the Lord's begotten.
5. A discussion of the fate of the Lamanites' culture follows. We talked in class about the Egyptian pun built into the Lamanites becoming "black" as opposed to the "Nephites" (nfrw?) being "fair"... now we see that fate being tied into covenants and explicitly to the possession or non-possession of a temple. Those having a temple are fair, washed white in the blood of the Lamb, encircled in the robe of the Lord's righteousness -- those not having a temple and having rejected revelation have "skins of blackness". I think it's unwarranted to infer that this is a record of people in the Americas actually physically changing color.
6. Jacob's speech in 2 Nephi 6:2-4 starts out all temply, too. He refers to the order of his priesthood, Nephi's kingship and all the things he's taught, "from the creation of the world", things which are to come, the great temple-prophet Isaiah, "learning" God's name (which can only be spoken in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement) and "glorifying" it ("glory" being a phenomenon of the Holy of Holies). What is the context of this talk? Much of the speech is reminiscent of Nephi's Day of Atonement vision and preaching in 1 Nephi 11-15 -- is this a Day of Atonement address?
7. We probably read 6:6-7 as verses being fulfilled in modern days, or yet to be fulfilled. I wonder if Jacob read them to encourage his people with respect to their relationships with the (unnamed to us) populations around them? Maybe the Nephi party received help from an indigenous population (remember "corn"? doesn't exist in the wild, so someone taught the Nephites to cultivate it...), and Jacob taught them to read Isaiah as a prophecy of the help they received, and to welcome them into the church (vv. 12-13)?
8. Again, I am trying to read the Isaiah passages (2 Nephi 7-8) as Nephite self-image. I think they fit very, very well. Chapter 7: God has not set the Nephites aside, despite the persecutions they have suffered. Chapter 8: take comfort from Abraham and God's covenants with you, God will comfort and rescue, etc. I wonder if the Nephites had any thoughts about who the two sons were (8:19-20)? Nephi and Jacob, maybe?
9. 2 Nephi 8 has lots of temple imagery, appropriately for a Day of Atonement address. Covenants, cosmic structure, creation, putting on garments, arising from the dust.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
1 Nephi 21-22
1. I've always sort of read the Isaiah passages by thinking "okay, here's Isaiah," and trying to think back to 8th century Jerusalem -- this time, I want to focus on what Nephi is seeing in the texts he copies. It's really easy to see Nephi's selt-image in chapter 21. So much so, I wonder who he thinks of as the prisoners, and those in darkness (v. 9). His righteous family? Laman and Lemuel and theirs? The people "who are in the east" in verse 13 might be all of the above. The verses about children (19-26) are really poignant.
2. The whole arc 19:22 to 22:1 is another recurrence of the book motif in 1 Nephi.
3. The word "nations" (22:3) appears a lot in the KJV OT. It almost always translates "goyim", meaning "gentiles". Makes me wonder about the wonder about the words underlying the "mighty nation among the Gentiles" in verse 7. "goy mehagoyim", maybe? "A mighty and most gentilic nation"? I dunno, but interesting.
4. (The word "wonders" stuck in my head after yesterday's reading. I looked it up this morning -- it occurs a fair amount in the OT, but the earliest appearances, and many of the later ones, refer specifically to the plagues in Egypt. See, e.g., Exodus 3:20, 4:21, 7:3, 11:9, 11:10. This makes 19:13 a terrifically compact verse implicitly comparing the leaders of Lehi's Jerusalem both to the doubting Ahaz who needed a sign from the Virgin and also to the Pharaoh of Egypt from whom Israel fled. Wow, subtle and spot on.)
5. I wonder what "saith the prophet" means in 22:15? I don't think this quote exists in the scriptures as we have them -- maybe Nephi's paraphrasing Isaiah, or quoting Zenos or someone. Idem for verse 17.
6. It's really interesting to me that Nephi (22:20-21) interprets Moses' prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15 differently from Jesus (according to John 1:21). Nephi applies it to Jesus, but Jesus denies that it applies to him. This bothered someone so much that though they footnoted Deuteronomy in 1 Nephi, they left out John, and in John, they waived footnotes entirely. It doesn't bother me, though. A) I've never been an inerrantist, that's a fool's doctrine and one Joseph Smith never taught. B) One thing we learn from Nephi is that different prophets apply the same scriptural passages different ways.
7. I don't read verses like 22:23 triumphally. I think those are a warning to us.
8. End on the book motif.
2. The whole arc 19:22 to 22:1 is another recurrence of the book motif in 1 Nephi.
3. The word "nations" (22:3) appears a lot in the KJV OT. It almost always translates "goyim", meaning "gentiles". Makes me wonder about the wonder about the words underlying the "mighty nation among the Gentiles" in verse 7. "goy mehagoyim", maybe? "A mighty and most gentilic nation"? I dunno, but interesting.
4. (The word "wonders" stuck in my head after yesterday's reading. I looked it up this morning -- it occurs a fair amount in the OT, but the earliest appearances, and many of the later ones, refer specifically to the plagues in Egypt. See, e.g., Exodus 3:20, 4:21, 7:3, 11:9, 11:10. This makes 19:13 a terrifically compact verse implicitly comparing the leaders of Lehi's Jerusalem both to the doubting Ahaz who needed a sign from the Virgin and also to the Pharaoh of Egypt from whom Israel fled. Wow, subtle and spot on.)
5. I wonder what "saith the prophet" means in 22:15? I don't think this quote exists in the scriptures as we have them -- maybe Nephi's paraphrasing Isaiah, or quoting Zenos or someone. Idem for verse 17.
6. It's really interesting to me that Nephi (22:20-21) interprets Moses' prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15 differently from Jesus (according to John 1:21). Nephi applies it to Jesus, but Jesus denies that it applies to him. This bothered someone so much that though they footnoted Deuteronomy in 1 Nephi, they left out John, and in John, they waived footnotes entirely. It doesn't bother me, though. A) I've never been an inerrantist, that's a fool's doctrine and one Joseph Smith never taught. B) One thing we learn from Nephi is that different prophets apply the same scriptural passages different ways.
7. I don't read verses like 22:23 triumphally. I think those are a warning to us.
8. End on the book motif.
Friday, November 18, 2011
1 Nephi 19-20
1. The book motif is back.
2. 19:13 interesting that the apostates in Jerusalem don't ask for signs -- they reject signs and wonders. Reminds me of Isaiah 7, where Ahaz is told to ask for a sign, refuses, and is given one anyway (and remember that the DSS copy of Isaiah has "ask a sign of the mother of the Lord", in response to which "the" Virgin shall conceive, etc...
3. Trying to read the Isaiah passages strictly for how they might sound to Laman and Lemuel. 20:6 really resonates differently for me now -- about showing us "new" and "hidden things". And of course the end of the chapter sounds themes of fleeing the wickedness of civilization, and the Exodus.
2. 19:13 interesting that the apostates in Jerusalem don't ask for signs -- they reject signs and wonders. Reminds me of Isaiah 7, where Ahaz is told to ask for a sign, refuses, and is given one anyway (and remember that the DSS copy of Isaiah has "ask a sign of the mother of the Lord", in response to which "the" Virgin shall conceive, etc...
3. Trying to read the Isaiah passages strictly for how they might sound to Laman and Lemuel. 20:6 really resonates differently for me now -- about showing us "new" and "hidden things". And of course the end of the chapter sounds themes of fleeing the wickedness of civilization, and the Exodus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)