Count Belisarius

Way too late last night, I finished Robert Graves' 1938 novel, Count Belisarius. My edition was a battered 1966 paperback reprinting I bought at some booksale years ago and finally have read.

If Graves' depiction of this era in history, the world of sixth century Byzantine Rome, is to be believed, there perhaps never existed a stupider, less grateful sovereign than Emperor Justinian, nor a better, less-appreciated general than Belisarius. Time after time, the general saved the Eastern empire from its enemies, only to be punished again and again by his myopic, jealous emperor, against whom he never would raise a finger, however justified. I heard echoes of the Saul-David story, and even of Stowes' Uncle Tom-Simon Lagree portrayal. Evil is ever resentful of good. The more patient in suffering the good, the more incandescent in fury true evil becomes.

They say every writer is a product of his or her times. But Graves' novel didn't feel dated, other than one odd reference to primitive communism.

Now, time to move on, to a very strange old book given to me by a good friend, Chuck B., who knows that I love strange old books. Mystical Theology and the Celestial Hierarchies purports to have been written by Dionysius the Areopagite of New Testament fame, but is believed by scholars to have been composed sometime around the 5th Century A.D.

Meditations on China

I read some pages in Chinese history today. I thought about a program I recently watched detailing the incredible feats of engineering now underway in that land -- highways, bridges, dams and cities that dwarf anything in the West.

For thousands of years, the land we in the West call "China" was at once a place of immense mystery and incredible innovation. Clock mechanisms, paper, silk, gunpowder,sailing technology, ship rudders, the compass and other inventions enriched her culture and then crossed the borders into the West. Her explorers traveled the world.

Then she turned inward. She became weak. The rising West took full advantage and China suffered. And she has never forgotten.

Now we are in 2011 and China has again become the colossus of Asia. She has, her admirers will say, finally regained her historic, rightful place in the world. There's just one problem. She's carried with her into the new century the ragged remnants of a Western political disease called communism -- jettisoned most of its basic philosophy but hung onto its most loathsome symptom, an obsession with tyrannical control over her own people. She insists on it, for stability.

Who knows what the future holds? Will the Middle Kingdom ultimately become a democracy, allowing full freedom of speech, worship and the press? Or will it forever manage to alienate those inalienable rights?

China must also now share the globe with nations unborn in the days when she, Persia and Imperial Rome alone ruled the world. That day has passed forever. How will she behave amongst new friends, foes and rivals? Will the global community ultimately bless or curse her modern rise to power?

Ask a Tasman, if you can still find one, how enlightened the British Empire was in its behavior towards his ancestors ... or a Cherokee how the rising U.S. nation treated his people ... and these are the "good guys" of history. What will be said of China? The page is yet unwritten.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/world-new/2011/jul/25/tdmain02-china-sets-its-sights-on-moon-mars-venus-ar-1194042/

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.