Study in triplicate

Everyone has their own way of immersing themselves in scripture. Whatever works for you, go for it!

I like to copy out the passage that I am contemplating into a notebook, then write my thoughts. If it's the Bible I am reading, I look up the Greek/Hebrew as the case may be.

Last night, I went a step further. I may try this again if it continues to be enjoyable. I wrote out the KJV passage, from Psalms 119:78, speaking of the proud ones (zedom) who persecute a righteous man/woman.

Then I blew the dust off my Hungarian translation of the Bible (from missionary days), and wrote the passage again, this time in Hungarian. Hungarian being a beautiful, rhythmic language, it read like poetry, which was a pleasure. After that, I got out my Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and carefully wrote out the Hebrew original.

Writing the passage three times, in three different languages, caused me to think carefully about each word in the verse -- and it still remains in my head these many hours later.

As a last step in the learning process, I looked up the verse in Malachi in Tanakh, which I remembered speaks of the proud being burned as stubble. I was quickly able to confirm that "zedom" underlies that text as well.

The finger of God

Perhaps my long, painful journey through Augustine's City of God will have been worth it for this one astounding insight. In Book 16, verse 43, expounding upon the Exodus, Augustine mentions the "finger of God." That is a very rare Biblical term, in Hebrew etsba Elohim, and first appears as a description of God's power against the magicians of Pharoah. In the N.T., it resurfaces, in Greek of course, dactylo theo, in reference to the Spirit of God. (Cf. Luke 11:20 and Matthew 12:28). The scholar R. Steven Notley

http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/Default.aspx?tabid=27&ArticleID=1450

notes that the Greek text, by construction, appears dependent on a Hebrew original. I.e., is a Semitism. He also notes that on Passover, Jews customarily recite an ancient Rabbinical commentary on the concept of the finger of God empowering the Exodus.

Of course, the Book of Mormon has a well-known, singular, finger of God episode, appearing in Ether. The finger of God touches stones upon a mountain, enabling a group of God's chosen to travel across the sea to their promised Land.

Jaredites weren't Hebrews and the Exodus of Israel was still a future event at the time of this theophany. But it is interesting to contemplate God using the same symbolism here as He would later. Can we really credit farm-boy Joseph with such an insight? I doubt he had been to very many Passover sedars when he translated the Book of Mormon, nor was very familiar with St. Augustine.

We have a duty to defend ...

Latter-day Saints have a duty to defend their faith, not by strife but by knowledge and gentle persuasion. We ought to know our scriptures, including the Bible, well enough not to falter at every sling and arrow of attack. Consider:

On a certain website devoted to creating a "crisis of faith" for Mormons in order to save their souls, one of the first suggestions is to assert that every Biblical theophany had witnesses. Joseph Smith had no one with him in the grove when he purported to receive his First Vision. Therefore, his story violated Biblical precedent.

Seems to me this theory falls apart with even a cursory reading of the Bible. Is anyone besides Noah reported to have heard God's direction to build the Ark? Who was with Abraham when he was called to be a father of many nations? Who witnessed the marvelous vision of the Lord to Isaiah, when "His train filled the temple"? Surely, there are many, many more of these.

It is sad, very sad to me, that any of my brothers and sisters in the Church could be so ignorant of the Bible and so weak in their faith as to actually fall prey to such silly attacks. But they do.

The Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We take so much heat for such a self-evident statement. Can the Bible be translated incorrectly? Of course! Anyone with a pen and paper could accomplish that task! Are incorrectly translated passages still the word of God and therefore binding upon us? Did not someone many centuries ago mistakenly translate one of the Ten Commandments?

I have just read a chapter in St. Augustine's City of God in which he struggles for quite a few paragraphs to reconcile differences between the Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint version of the Bible regarding the lifespan of Methusaleh. If the great Christian Augustine could concede that copyists of the Bible before his day could introduce errors into the text -- even dare to consider that some were malicious -- can a Latter-day Saint be faulted for the same belief?

Latter-day Saints do not believe the Bible is corrupt or unreliable, as our critics claim we do. It is precious. It is beautiful. It is living word for our daily lives. But just as it was wrong of uninspired men to close the "Old Testament" canon with Malachi (as the Samaritans do after the Pentateuch), so it is wrong of man to close the lips of God after the Revelation to St. John.

Credibility

I have never deleted any comments to this blog, except for obvious spam. The truth needs no protection.

So I am saddened to stumble across yet another Internet attack-site today posting a copious list of supposed failings of the Mormon Church, complete with at least ten glowing reviews by fans. And yet ... not one criticism of the site or its methods, not even one feeble little possibility of a question or a refutation.

It sounds like the election results from a dictatorship. Most egregious, one of the posters praised the site's "lack of bias." Bias, I am sorry to say, oozed from every nook and cranny of that site.

If you are going to spend your time criticizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at least have the honesty to allow for the possibility that someone somewhere might have a response to your claim.

Otherwise, a truly intelligent mind will see right through you, and you do no favors for the cause of Christ.

Humbled

Twice now, I have been asked to lead the lessons in Elder Quorum, as part of my calling.

Both times, I have had grand ideas but the delivery, to me, seems to fall very short.

Perhaps I am being taught to be more humble, to rely more on the Spirit to be the teacher, and less upon other means, such as props, video clips and my own "wisdom."

Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment but I welcome the chance to try again. This time, I resolve to clear away every visual aid, every prop, everything except the basic scriptures and the lesson manual.

We will have a clutter-free discussion.

Or so I hope.

We might just have a three-minute lesson.

Answer me this ...

I have recently finished reading Augustine's "Confessions" and have now begun to enjoy his "City of God."

I have no doubt that he was sincere in his love for God -- who would doubt that? And I picture God, upon Augustine's arrival in heaven, embracing him in His all-loving arms and thus sweeping away in an instant all the Hellenistic philosophical baggage that encumbered this great man in his search for truth.

"Precious Augustine, I do have a face to look upon you, and for you to see, My child. I do have arms to hold you."

"Why, my child, if you understood My Son to be God, as you did, omniscient and all-powerful as I am, with a body of flesh and bone, as He did testify, and that that Son did not die twice, was it so very hard for you to accept that I, His Father, also possess a body, a perfect, omniscient, all-powerful body but a body none-the-less?"

"No matter now. You have always loved Me, and sought to serve me. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into my rest."

Of temples

"And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple ... and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi ..." -- Malachi 3:1,3.

Please tell me, if temples are part of the old covenant, done away with, and the Mormons are wrong to build them, then how will this Millennial prophecy be fulfilled? To where will the Lord suddenly come?

The Lord repeated a portion of this prophecy in December, 1830, in direct first-person revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, just a few months after the Church of Jesus Christ was restored on the earth.