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Models Of Motherhood Expansive Mothering In The Old Testament, Avram R. Shannon, Thora Florence Shannon
Models Of Motherhood Expansive Mothering In The Old Testament, Avram R. Shannon, Thora Florence Shannon
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Motherhood, both in the scriptures and in our own experiences, is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but it can sometimes be a fraught category. Societal and religious expectations on mothers can be overwhelming and can lead to despair, difficulty, and marginalization.[1] Motherhood is often defined as a narrow range of nurturing behaviors such as bearing, nursing, feeding, and fulfilling other physical needs of children.[2] Some people have used the Old Testament to proscribe women's roles to motherhood and then to define their roles of motherhood as a limited range of these mostly physical acts of childcare.[3] While these are vitally …
Saving A Child (Exodus 1-2), Kevin L. Tolley
Saving A Child (Exodus 1-2), Kevin L. Tolley
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Exodus is arguably the most essential book in the Hebrew Bible because it depicts the pivotal events in Israel’s history and the definitive institutions of its religion. These themes have reverberated through all subsequent Jewish and Christian history.[1] Nahum Sarna wrote that the Exodus narrative “profoundly influenced ethical and social consciousness” in the Torah and was the “motivation for protecting and promoting the interests and rights of the stranger and disadvantaged of society.”[2]
Sinners In The Hands Of The Unknown God, Dainel K. Judd
Sinners In The Hands Of The Unknown God, Dainel K. Judd
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Many readers will recognize the title of this article as a merging of phrases from two well-known sermons in Christian history. The first five words of the title come from Reverand Jonathan Edwards’s eighteenth-century sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The last three words form a phrase from the testimony of the Apostle Paul to the ancient Athenians wherein he spoke of “THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23).
Is The Bible Reliable?, Eric A. Eliason
Is The Bible Reliable?, Eric A. Eliason
BYU Studies
The eighth article of faith proclaims, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.” This statement by itself suggests that the Bible as we have it may or may not be fully and reliably the word of God. In 1 Nephi 13:28, we read, “Many plain and precious things [were] taken away.” This passage more expressly indicates that the Bible we have now is indeed not as complete as originally intended. Joseph Smith elaborated on this theme with his statement that “ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have …
Trinity And Monotheism: A Historical And Theological Review Of The Origins And Substance Of The Doctrine, Jason Robert Combs
Trinity And Monotheism: A Historical And Theological Review Of The Origins And Substance Of The Doctrine, Jason Robert Combs
BYU Studies
The history of Christian beliefs about the nature of God is complex. It would be helpful for Latter-day Saints and other Christians to have a simple, straightforward introduction to this topic. A. Keith Thompson, professor of law and the associate dean at the Sydney School of Law of the University of Notre Dame Australia, who previously worked as international legal counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, set out to write such a book. Motivated in part by his interfaith work and by his own religious beliefs as a Latter-day Saint, Thompson wrote Trinity and Monotheism to …
Lost Sheep, Lost Coins, And Lost Meanings, Jenny Rebecca Rytting
Lost Sheep, Lost Coins, And Lost Meanings, Jenny Rebecca Rytting
BYU Studies
Three of the best known and most loved of Jesus’s parables occur together in the fifteenth chapter of Luke as a response to the Pharisees’ disapproval of Jesus’s association with sinners: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin (also known as the lost drachma or lost groat), and the lost (or prodigal) son. In the teaching and preaching traditions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, these parables (especially the first two) have primarily been interpreted as a call for missionary work, particularly reactivation. For example, President David O. McKay suggested that the three parables represent …
Joseph Smith’S Translation: The Words And Worlds Of Early Mormonism, Samuel Morris Brown, Kent P. Jackson, Reviewer
Joseph Smith’S Translation: The Words And Worlds Of Early Mormonism, Samuel Morris Brown, Kent P. Jackson, Reviewer
BYU Studies
Samuel Morris Brown’s Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism announces a sweeping objective: to place all of Joseph Smith’s prophetic projects under a single heading: translation. The thesis of the book is that “translation as a source of scriptural texts” is mirrored in “translation as a process by which humans became assimilable to the divine presence” (ix). “Translation was about more than words and sentences. Translation was also concerned with the transformation of human beings and the worlds they were capable of inhabiting. These twin senses of translation run together in early Latter-day Saint thought” (4).
Biblical Hesed And Nephite Covenant Culture, Noel B. Reynolds
Biblical Hesed And Nephite Covenant Culture, Noel B. Reynolds
BYU Studies
The devastating late-nineteenth-century attack on traditional assumptions concerning the preexilic dating of the Pentateuch may have provoked the eventual explosion of twentieth-century scholarly investigation of the covenant culture of the Old Testament. Covenantal texts related to Abraham, Moses, David, and others had long been assumed to be foundational for the religion of ancient Israel, however limited modern understanding of that covenant culture might have been. But the new scholarly paradigm that dated those texts to 621 BC or later gave rise to a wave of skeptical scholarship about the whole tradition of divine covenants as the basis for ancient Israelite …
Teachings Of Church Leaders On Christ’S Final Seven Statements, John Hilton Iii, Megan Cutler, Emily K. Hyde
Teachings Of Church Leaders On Christ’S Final Seven Statements, John Hilton Iii, Megan Cutler, Emily K. Hyde
Faculty Publications
In 1929 Reverend James Reid wrote about the Savior’s directive from the Sermon on the Mount to “pray for them that despitefully use you” (Matthew 5:44). Although many might feel this is an impossible task, Reid offers a reminder: “Yet the words stand, and challenge us today, because He who spoke them passed His own test, and passed it triumphantly. . . . For, as [Luke] tells us, when they crucified Him, and had done their devilish work on his poor body. . . . His first word [on the cross] was a literal prayer for His enemies, ‘Father, forgive …
Connections Between The Jerusalem Center And The Local Israeli Academy, Jeffrey R. Chadwick
Connections Between The Jerusalem Center And The Local Israeli Academy, Jeffrey R. Chadwick
BYU Studies
It is a privilege to participate in this symposium marking the thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 dedication of the Jerusalem Center. It is also a privilege to have been a repeating member of the BYU Jerusalem faculty since 1982, two years before the ceremony which broke ground for the Jerusalem Center in the summer of 1984. I vividly remember watching the various phases of the Center’s construction (fig. 1) and being among the first to live and teach in the beautiful new building when it was occupied by students in 1987.
Student Panel Discussion, David Rolph Seely, April Giddings Cobb, Julie Jenkins Elcock, Heidi Hatch Gilbert, Christopher Meldrum, Raven Alard Ngatuvai, Richard Reber
Student Panel Discussion, David Rolph Seely, April Giddings Cobb, Julie Jenkins Elcock, Heidi Hatch Gilbert, Christopher Meldrum, Raven Alard Ngatuvai, Richard Reber
BYU Studies
The Jerusalem Center has lots of different functions, but it was made for students. Our family has been there both at times when the Jerusalem Center was closed to students and when it had students in residence. There’s nothing emptier or sadder than the Jerusalem Center without students.
The Nephite Prophets’ Understanding Of Faith And Faithfulness, Noel B. Reynolds
The Nephite Prophets’ Understanding Of Faith And Faithfulness, Noel B. Reynolds
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Readers of the Book of Mormon agree that faith in Jesus Christ is a basic principle of the gospel, or doctrine of Christ, taught therein. And they agree, at least superficially, on the meaning of the word faith to the extent that is allowed by their modern, westernized worldview and background in New Testament Christianity. However, as I engaged in an in-depth study of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Nephites understood it, I realized that (1) our modern cultural understandings shield us from those of the Nephite prophets in many ways, (2) the Nephite concept of faith is …
“With Strong Hand And With Outstretched Arm” (Deuteronomy 4:34); “With Outstretched Hand And With Strong Arm” (Jeremiah 21:5): Chiasmus In Deuteronomy And Jeremiah, David Rolph Seely
“With Strong Hand And With Outstretched Arm” (Deuteronomy 4:34); “With Outstretched Hand And With Strong Arm” (Jeremiah 21:5): Chiasmus In Deuteronomy And Jeremiah, David Rolph Seely
BYU Studies
The title of this paper presents an example of a textual interplay between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah in which Jeremiah quotes a well-known formula from Deuteronomy “with strong hand and with outstretched arm” (Deut 4:34) in an inverted form “With outstretched hand and with strong arm” (Jer 21:5). Images of the “strong hand” and “outstretched arm” are found in various Egyptian and Mesopotamian textual traditions as well as iconography.1 These images appear separately in various biblical sources but appear as a combination first in Deuteronomy (4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 11:2; 26:8) and then later in deuteronomistic literature (1 Kgs 8:42; Jer 32:21; …
Rethinking The Structure Of The “Farewell Discourse” (John 13–17) Through A Chiastic Lens, Wayne Brouwer
Rethinking The Structure Of The “Farewell Discourse” (John 13–17) Through A Chiastic Lens, Wayne Brouwer
BYU Studies
Briefly stated, my thesis is this: although it is very difficult to read the mind of the Evangelist, or the redactor who brought elements of previously written material into the shape of the gospel as we have it today, it appears that the repetitive and reflexive elements of the Johannine farewell discourse fit together into a large chiasm1 bounded by expressions of spiritual intimacy with God on either end (the foot washing episode of ch. 13 and the prayer of ch. 17) and channeled toward the challenge to “abide” in Jesus at the center (15:1–17). In outline, it could be …
At The Intersection Of Scribal Training And Theological Profundity: Chiasm As An Editorial Technique In The Primeval History And Deuteronomy, Bernard M. Levinson
At The Intersection Of Scribal Training And Theological Profundity: Chiasm As An Editorial Technique In The Primeval History And Deuteronomy, Bernard M. Levinson
BYU Studies
There can be little doubt that ancient Near Eastern scribes, including those in ancient Israel, were well-trained in a wide range of technical devices associated with the composition, copying, transmission, editing, collation, revision, reworking, and interpretation of texts.1 My focus in the present study will be on one of the most interesting of these devices, the literary chiasm, in which textual content is ordered in an ABC::CʹBʹAʹ chiastic, or “x-shaped,” pattern. In many cases, once this pattern is recognized within a chapter or literary unit, an ostensibly haphazard or difficult to follow textual sequence gains a sense of order, as …
From “Linguistic Turn” And Hebrews Scholarship To Anadiplosis Iterata: The Enigma Of A Structure, Gabriella Gelardini
From “Linguistic Turn” And Hebrews Scholarship To Anadiplosis Iterata: The Enigma Of A Structure, Gabriella Gelardini
BYU Studies
In 1963, when the “linguistic turn” had evidently taken hold of New Testament studies, Albert Vanhoye, a linguistically trained Catholic priest, published a monograph entitled La structure littéraire de l’épître aux Hébreux.1 The manifold reactions to his refined literary-rhetorical approach and conclusions in favor of a concentric structure oscillated between euphoric approval and offensive disapproval. Along with its translation into German (1979/1980) and a decade later into English (1989), Vanhoye’s study influenced and stimulated Hebrews scholarship like none other in the twentieth century.
Introduction, Donald W. Parry, John W. Welch
Introduction, Donald W. Parry, John W. Welch
BYU Studies
This book comprises fourteen of the papers presented at “Chiasmus: An Open Conference on the State of the Art,” held at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, on August 15–16, 2017. That date marked the fiftieth anniversary of events in Germany and Austria which soon grew into the publication of Chiasmus in Antiquity: Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), edited by John W. Welch. Generated forty years ago, that widely-cited volume with a preface by David Noel Freedman featured contributions by authors including Yehuda T. Radday, Jonah Frankel, Bezael Porten, Wilford G. E. Watson, John W. Welch, and Robert F. Smith, …
Chiastic Structuring Of Large Texts: 2 Nephi As A Case Study, Noel B. Reynolds
Chiastic Structuring Of Large Texts: 2 Nephi As A Case Study, Noel B. Reynolds
BYU Studies
In 1967, John W. Welch was serving as a missionary in Germany and noticed a scholar’s explanation of chiasmus as a rhetorical structure that recurs in various parts of the Bible. While the penchant for parallelism that characterized Old Testament writers was widely recognized by that time, the discovery that reverse parallelism was also commonly used by New Testament writers was relatively recent and not yet widely accepted. Welch was no ordinary missionary in terms of his scholarly and scriptural preparation, and he immediately saw the possibility that Nephi and his successors may have been familiar with that rhetorical pattern …
Recovering The World Of The Bible, Dana M. Pike
Recovering The World Of The Bible, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
The pillar of light that fell upon Joseph Smith in the woods near Palmyra, New York, in the spring of 1820 ushered in a new dispensation of the gospel.1 But that light, which shone “above the brightness of the sun” (Joseph Smith–History 1:16), did not just enlighten the world as far as religion is concerned. The light emanating from the pillar in which the Father and Son stood symbolically represents the latter-day, divine illumination of many aspects of life on this earth—past, present, and future.
Israelite Inscriptions From The Time Of Jeremiah And Lehi, Dana M. Pike
Israelite Inscriptions From The Time Of Jeremiah And Lehi, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
The greater the number of sources the better when investigating the history and culture of people in antiquity. Narrative and prophetic texts in the Bible and 1 Nephi have great value in helping us understand the milieu in which Jeremiah and Lehi received and fulfilled their prophetic missions, but these records are not our only documentary sources. A number of Israelite inscriptions dating to the period of 640–586 b.c., the general time of Jeremiah and Lehi, provide additional glimpses into this pivotal and primarily tragic period in Israelite history.
Seek Ye Words Of Wisdom, Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, Gaye Strathearn, Shon D. Hopkin
Seek Ye Words Of Wisdom, Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, Gaye Strathearn, Shon D. Hopkin
Interpreter Foundation Books
Stephen David Ricks is a professor of Hebrew and cognate learning in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he has taught for almost four decades (1981–). It was at BYU, in a freshman Book of Mormon class, that he first met Shirley Smith. Four years later, after they had both served German- speaking missions (Stephen in Switzerland and Shirley in Southern Germany), they were married in the Provo Utah Temple in 1974. They are now the proud parents of six children—three girls and three boys, all of whom are married—and have twenty …
“By Study And Also By Faith”, J Gordon Daines Iii
“By Study And Also By Faith”, J Gordon Daines Iii
BYU Studies
At their inception, universities were places where all branches of learning—both the sacred and the secular—were studied. At the great medieval universities, for instance, faith and academic excellence were intertwined,1 and this strong connection continued in the universities of the New World. Most American research universities began as religiously affiliated colleges whose missions were to develop Christian character and foster faith in order to prepare men for the ministry or work in the government.2 But, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing over the course of the twentieth century, the vast majority of these research universities abandoned …
The Teachings Of Church Leaders Regarding The Crucifixion Of Jesus Christ: 1852–2018, John Hilton Iii, Emily K. Hyde, Mckenna Grace Trussel
The Teachings Of Church Leaders Regarding The Crucifixion Of Jesus Christ: 1852–2018, John Hilton Iii, Emily K. Hyde, Mckenna Grace Trussel
Faculty Publications
From the beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (herein referred to as “the Church”), the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been at the heart of its theology. In numerous revelations received by Joseph Smith, the Savior is identified as having been “crucified for the sins of the world” (D&C 53:2; see also 21:9, 35:2, 46:13, 54:1, 76:41). President Brigham Young taught that salvation was only “through the name and ministry of Jesus Christ, and the atonement he made on Mount Calvary.”1 President John Taylor said that Christ “was crucified and put to death to atone for …
The Presentation Of Gender In The Book Of Mormon: A Review Of Literature, Joseph M. Spencer
The Presentation Of Gender In The Book Of Mormon: A Review Of Literature, Joseph M. Spencer
Faculty Publications
To date, the two most important—Certainly the most influential—visual illustrators of the Book of Mormon have been Arnold Friberg and Minerva Teichert. The distance between the ways they render the text into art is real and telling. As Paul Gutjahr notes, "Friberg's most dominant figures are unfailingly men, and almost all of them could have stepped out of the pages of a superhero comic book. By contrast, Teichert "stands out among Mormon artists because of her firm commitment to bringing forward the female elements of the book, carefully evoking the story's feminine side." Although Teichert and Friberg created their paintings …
The Stem Of Salvation And The Rod Of Restoration: Revisiting Biblical Exegesis And Latter-Day Saint Interpretation Of Isaiah 11:1, Jared A. Jepson
The Stem Of Salvation And The Rod Of Restoration: Revisiting Biblical Exegesis And Latter-Day Saint Interpretation Of Isaiah 11:1, Jared A. Jepson
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Students of the Bible in the twenty-first century are like a Charles Dickens character living in the best and worst of times. Today we have the advantage of thousands of years of biblical studies on which to build our interpretations and understandings of the Bible. The formation of modern academic disciplines—such as textual, historical, source, and form criticisms, to name a few—for approaching ancient texts over the past 130 years has greatly enhanced our ability to draw meaning out of the text.1 Yet conversely, thousands of years separate us from when the sacred oracles were first conveyed. Hence, the …
The Imprisonment Of Jeremiah In Its Historical Context, Kevin L. Tolley
The Imprisonment Of Jeremiah In Its Historical Context, Kevin L. Tolley
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
The book of Jeremiah describes the turbulent times in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian conquest of the city. Warring political factions bickered within the city while a looming enemy rapidly approached. Amid this complex political arena, Jeremiah arose as a divine spokesman. His preaching became extremely polarizing. These political factions could be categorized along a spectrum of support and hatred toward the prophet. Jeremiah’s imprisonment ( Jeremiah 38) illustrates some of the various attitudes toward God’s emissary. This scene also demonstrates the political climate and spiritual atmosphere of Jerusalem at the verge of its collapse into the Babylonian exile and …
Study Bibles: An Introduction For Latter-Day Saints, Joshua M. Sears
Study Bibles: An Introduction For Latter-Day Saints, Joshua M. Sears
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Latter-day Saints revere the Bible as “the bedrock of all Christianity” and are instructed to feast upon its teachings regularly.2Although Latter-day Saints appreciate so much about the Bible, many struggle with some of its language and its deeply contextual messages. Fortunately, special editions known as study Bibles can help make the Old and New Testaments much clearer. There are many kinds of study Bibles, but for present purposes we will define them as an edition of the Bible featuring a modern English translation and sophisticated, context-focused study aids—including book introductions, footnotes, and appendixes—that provide textual, historical, cultural, literary, …
The Dead Sea Scrolls And The New Testament, Dana M. Pike
The Dead Sea Scrolls And The New Testament, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
Since their initial discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have generated a great deal ofinterest, ranging from responsible scholarly inquiry to public sensationalism.1 During the years 1947–1956, local Bedouin and eventually archaeologists found scrolls and primarily scroll fragments (many thousands of them) in eleven caves proximate to the small archaeological site of Qumran, near the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Stories of the initial discovery of major scrolls by Bedouin cousins in what is now called Qumran Cave 1 vary in certain details and have been often recounted, as have stories about the intrigue involved in the authentication …