Sunday, January 22, 2012

Atonement and Gethsemane

a comment I added to
http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/01/22/atonement-and-mormonism-cultural-over-belief-and-a-poll/

The author of Luke-Acts portrayed a very saintly Jesus who never lost his cool, and seemingly out of nowhere, in Lk 22:43-44 we have him needing the help of an angel and sweating blood. IMHO, the f13 group of manuscripts place these 2 verses, as well as the pericope adulterae, in much more logical places within the gospels. Even then, we still deal with the possibility of a fraudulent insertion.

Outside of that scripture, other NT references to Christ's blood atonement seem to refer directly to the cross. And the meaning of said atonement seems to vary from author to author. Luke seems to indicate that God will vindicate us after we feel guilt for our sins (recognizing our guilt via Christ's innocent death), and seek forgiveness, are baptized, and live a saintly life thereafter. Christ's death only "atones" with the likely late addition of Lk 22:19b-20. (Elsewhere, Luke seems to intentionally rewrite or remove references to Christ "atoning" with his death: Lk 23:47 vs Mk 15:39, Lk 22:26-27 vs Mk 10:43-45. Seems like Luke prefers the perspective that God had the power to forgive all along). Paul indicates that all are guilty, and Christ's atonement reconciles us to God if we believe in his resurrection / participate with him in the resurrection through baptism.

The Book of Mormon says Christ will bleed from every pore (literalizing the "as it were" of Luke) because of "his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people" (Mosiah 3:7), not necessarily because of taking upon himself their sins at that point. It could reasonably fit the role of strong apprehension at what is about to take place, similar to the rest of Christendom. The anguish seems to come in large part due to knowing the true nature and consequences of wickedness -- exactly the kind of which Christ is about to experience (and the Book of Mormon makes clear in Alma 28:14 and throughout, that needless death, destruction, and loss follow sin). Alma 7:11-12 jumps straight from His going "forth, suffering pains, and afflictions, and temptations of every kind" to his taking "upon him death". It seems there that his sufferings were the experiences of mortality, experienced through his life as a mortal rather than something extra happening in Gethsemane. The big deal in this regard throughout the Book of Mormon seems to be that God Himself will choose to become mortal and experience the afflictions of mortality, whereas nowadays we take for granted that a God would become mortal (because after all, aren't mortals gods in embryo?) and maybe thus interpret that God had to do something extra special, like suffer every last pain and wrong in the universe in Gethsemane, for it to be all that special. Alma 7:13, to me, indicates that in His role as a sacrificial substitute, He takes upon Himself our sins, as He dies in our place. The point is driven home in Alma 34:8ff, that since God Himself sacrifices His life ( = His atonement), the sacrifice is thus infinite and eternal, and thus accomplishes everything it needs to.

Moving on, D&C 19 introduces some new ideas, and leaves plenty of room for some interesting interpretations. 19:16 leaves room for the possibility that God suffered "these things" once for all, and v.17 indicates to me that those who sin must suffer in the same way. Verse 18 indicates the type of suffering required of the unrepentant is the same kind of anguish Christ experienced in Gethsemane (it may be argued, not the physical side effects). It follows from above that this anguish is knowledge of what might have been versus what is, due to wickedness. As Joseph Smith later said, "A man is his own tormentor and his own condemner.... The torment of disappointment in the mind of man is as exquisite as a lake burning with fire and brimstone. I say, so is the torment of man." (HC 6:314).

I don't think that such anguish really has to do with atonement per se. I don't know why such anguish was so intense immediately before the atonement happened on the cross, but it certainly makes a few points clear. One is that it points to the importance of what Christ did for us, so that we need not feel such anguish. Instead, we can be forgiven of our sins and have things righted so that the gap between what is and what could have been no longer smarts. (I tend to think of the "cosmic" nature of atonement from Judaism wherein sin reverses God's divine ordering of the cosmos, and leads to chaos, and the blood of the atonement, as applied to representations of heaven and earth in the temple, restores the divine order once more). Another is that suffering has its place, but so does joy. Christ was certainly capable of fully comprehending and mourning the effects of sin at any time of His life, but He chose to do so only at the end, in preparation for what was to come. It's great to know that we need not dwell on the negative.

I fear we mythologize sin, and suffering, in church culture. In turn the nature of the atonement has been complicated in a harmful way. We turn an infinite atonement into an incomprehensible one. Whereas, the only "incomprehensible" thing mentioned in the scriptures is the joy the sons of Mosiah experience in their missionary work (Alma 28:8). And it's incomprehensible to me why we've done this. As if complicating God brings us nearer to Him (which is the approach *ahem* that classical Christianity seems to take).

Monday, January 2, 2012

Comment on goodly parents

I posted this to http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/01/01/goodly-parents-revisited/

You might add the 1828 webster's definition from http://www.1828-dictionary.com/d/search/word,goodly:

GOOD'LY, adv. Excellently.

GOOD'LY, a. Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses.

    1. Pleasant; agreeable; desirable; as goodly days.

    2. Bulky; swelling; affectedly turgid.

Although the apparent meanings of some words in the Book of Mormon seem to diverge from the norm of both King James English and 1820's vernacular..

Perhaps some of us have been overly zealous in reading far more into the text of the Book of Mormon than we fairly ought to. We use the "therefore" in 1 Ne. 1:1 to connect "goodly" to being "taught somewhat", and then somehow think Nephi is being modest concerning his education, pointing to the "gold, silver, and precious things" that are "exceedingly great" (1 Ne. 3:25) to indicate that Nephi's parents must have been wealthy, therefore must have afforded a great education for themselves and their children, including erudition in Jewish lore and Egyptian hieroglyphics (and, if you follow Nibley et alii down the rabbit hole, an expansive milieu of philosophical schools of thought from across the ancient world). Further speculation leads many to believe that Lehi must have been a merchant of sorts, in order to explain his (speculated) wealth and especially make plausible the host of supposed 'parallels' between his philosophies (esp. that of 2 Ne. 2) and those scattered across time and space in the ancient world.

What happens if instead we emphasize the "somewhat" in 1 Ne. 1:1, and the "exceedingly young" in 1 Ne. 2:16? Can't we just as fairly suppose that Nephi must have been too young to have been formally educated too much before their flight into the wilderness? Then we might speculate that Lehi took pains to educate Nephi (and Jacob and Joseph) in the wilderness. After all, why waste those 8 arduous years in the wilderness (1 Ne. 17:4)? Plus, the early Nephi was more of a visionary than a hands-on, read-the-plates-to-find-my-answers kind of guy. This reading also gives us explanatory power as to why Nephi would have his father inquire of the Lord as to where to get food in the wilderness -- at that time maybe only he could read the writing on "the ball" which seems to be how instructions were given by the Lord (1 Ne. 16:23-30). It also may help explain how Jacob became literate in the same ways Nephi was. Nephi also indicates that they couldn't preserve the language of their fathers without the plates (1 Ne. 3:19). Strange comment if he had any inkling that he could later become a writer and thus preserve their language himself.

Sure, Nephi took a wife (1 Ne. 16:7) at that age, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was barely a teenager or younger. I mean, people speculate that Mary was 12-14 when she married Joseph... and what with the flight in the wilderness, circumstances might have called for early pairing off. Some young folk look like adults, and apparently Nephi was one of them.

Also, consider that "gold, silver, and precious things" is formulaic to symbolize worldly possessions across the Nephite records. If Nephi was as young as he indicates, then perhaps he unconsciously exaggerates when he recalls the "exceedingly great" property that Laban lusted after. Certainly, my perspectives when I was younger were filled with more hyperbole than they are today. This reading, to me, also helps me justify Nephi's tiring of writing his own words and resorting to Isaiah, and also his treatment of himself and his brothers in his writings.

Some food for thought... for those of us, at least, not entirely enraptured by Hugh Nibley's rhetoric.

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EDIT - additional comment
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Per the above discussion, I will continue to maintain that Lehi was not necessarily wealthy, and to me Nephi was pretty unlettered. Arguments in support of Abraham not being the actual physical author of the Book of Abraham might even be applied to Nephi’s authorship. In the Abraham intro, the record purports to be written by the hand of Abraham, but it has been argued by those of Nibley’s ilk that it can mean that Abraham commissioned someone to write for him. 1 Nephi 1:3, 6:1, etc, might be explained this way. Then the peculiar language of certain parts might have better explanation:
1 Nephi 9:1-2 (and elsewhere) first mentions about things that can’t be written on the plates, and then Nephi says, “And now, as I have SPOKEN concerning these plates…”. Note the language in 9:3, “there should be an account engraven” rather than “I should engrave an account”. 2 Nephi 11:1, “these things have I caused to be written”, rather than “these things have I written” (even though in verse 2 it says, “I, Nephi, write more”, that can be explained in the same way as the BoA. To say that you wrote, or even that you wrote with your own hand, doesn’t necessarily mean you physically did it. Then again, he might have done 2 Nephi 11ff himself, given most of it was copying, or in other words, didn’t require as much effort).
It is enough for me to say he was a blacksmith / shipbuilder / architect / hunter / warrior / ruler / visionary / prophet without assuming he also had time to be a great man of letters as well. And maybe what little work he was acquainted with before they left Jerusalem had more to do with blacksmithing than with merchanting. It could better explain his fascination with Laban’s sword, his own great strength, his apparent familiarity with creating tools and manipulating ores and bellows in Bountiful (the first), and his continuing metallurgical forays in the promised land.
Furthermore, if Lehi (and thus Nephi and perhaps Jacob) was as rich or educated as some people seem to assume, I would be more surprised at the tone of the statements of Jacob in 2 Nephi 9:28-30 about riches and learning. I also would be more surprised at Jacob’s method of defeating Sherem, relying on testimony and especially the blanketing argument in Jacob 7:11 rather than proving Sherem wrong by opening up the scriptures. Likewise, the weak dialectic in most of the philosophical portions, like 2 Ne. 11:7. All this being my opinion, of course, but it seems as valid as any other explanations I’ve seen.