mordorbund

Mothers Day. The bishop let everyone know that there was some goodies for all the mothers in the ward but wanted to hand out extra goodies to mothers in superlative demographics. Newest mother, most grandchildren, and so on. Being a helpful* teenager, I tried to assist my mother to stand up when the bishop prompted for “oldest mother”. I think even mom was surprised when the ensuing POP echoed loudly across the chapel. *helpful and obnoxious are synonyms, right?

Paul, who teaches the Law is the schoolmaster that brings us to Christ, doesn’t seem to recognize the fulfillment in Jesus until after his miraculous conversion. I think a reading that comports with Paul’s experience and subsequent counsel and actions is that the Law was the instructor (for the lay understanding of schoolmaster) or guardian (my interpretation) until Christ came along as the new instructor. He introduced the curriculum or covenant they follow now. Jacob 4 informs us of the Nephite perspective that the Law of Moses was given with the intent to point their souls to God and Christ. With due respect to the future Paul, Jacob seems to place it in the personhood of Christ, referencing the name of Jesus directly. However, even he seems to recognize that this is hermetic knowledge because he wants his posterity to know that he and his people knew of Christ before His coming. If this is the plain purpose of the Law, then why does the obvious need to be stated? I rather suspect that this personhood of Christ in Jesus was recognized as a mystery among the larger Jewish population but well-known among the Nephites. For those that like to split hairs, Jacob says the intent is to point souls to “Christ” (or God, depending on how you read a pronoun) so he may be talking a bit more generally that the purpose is to instruct people sufficiently that they may develop faith unto salvation. In this respect, I rather think that anyone who can prepare for 2 back-to-back sabbatical years also recognizes that God blessed him sufficiently (perhaps even abundantly) and exercises the kind of faith that reconciles him to God.

Perhaps I can be clearer on the relationship between the Doctrine and Covenants and the KJV. If an elder is sent out to some branches he may be counseled to “strengthen the churches” where he goes or to even “confirm the members in the church”. If leaders wanted it to sound KJV-ish they might say “thou shalt strengthen the churches”. But if they want to actually use KJV verbiage they will lift the words directly from Acts 15:41 where Paul “went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches”. If D&C 24 were received today with the prevalence of the NIV then Joseph Smith might have been told to continue in … strengthening the churches.” Whereas if Young’s Literal Translation carried more cachet he would “continue in … confirming the assemblies.” So my question about foreign translations involves specific wording in languages I know nothing about.

Did the Book of Mormon or Doctrine & Covenants follow the wording of the Reina-Valera?

And how closely did the French translation of restoration scriptures follow the wording of the Louis Segond translation? --if you still have access to both.

Does anyone know how the Church handles the intertextuality problem in other languages? Is there an official Bible translation for other languages? Does the Doctrine & Covenants mirror that language? If there is no official translation, does it follow one of the popular ones? Or does it just ignore them altogether? Some English phrases that sound a little odd: - confirming the churches D&C 24:9, Acts 50:41 - celestial and terrestrial D&C 76, 1 Cor 15:40 - Book of Mormon Isaiah, Isaiah

For starters, I don’t know that there’s a new edition of the scriptures coming out. This is a question I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while. From what I can tell, scripture is given to people in their own language. Or rather, in their own scripture language. The New Testament was written in the Greek of that period and, rather than citing Hebrew references to the Old Testament, the authors quoted from the LXX. Similarly, I mentioned before that the Book of Mormon (and the Doctrine and Covenants for that matter) reference a KJV translation of Old and New Testaments. Further, when working on the New Translation of the Bible, a great number of the changes Joseph Smith made was modernizing the verbs (getting rid of the -eth endings). It strikes me that God wants His teachings in scripture to be approachable. @Anddenex quoted an article saying the KJV is the most doctrinally accurate, but the clause before that quote clarifies that the accuracy comes from latter-day revelation directly quoting the KJV. We know what constitutes “dead works” because we have a section in the D&C about it. For these reasons, I’m not convinced that the KJV has to remain locked in as the Bible of the ongoing restoration so long as that link is maintained. If it was primarily the language or the poetry that God wanted us to get from the Bible (and I have heard some people argue that the difficulty is a feature to force the modern reader to really grapple with the text) then I would think we would be encouraged to follow Joseph Smith’s example and try to learn some Hebrew and Greek. The international Church may use Book of Mormon translations when working with new and potential converts, but in short order they’ll be encouraged to read it in the original language to capture the poetry and literal style. Instead I see the restoration going out to every nation, kindred, people, and yes — even tongue. For the English tongue, the KJV translators have provided a template for about 200 years from now — when restoration scripture is updated ensure that the Bible text uses the same verbiage. That can be done with an in-house translation of the Bible (if the Church has developed a prominence that such a translation is viewed as akin to KJV or NIV and not the New World Translation) but I think it’s more likely that the Church will select a modernish translation that it can have the rights to and match the restoration text to it. Actually, the more I think about the more I think is that we’ll accept Bible illiteracy and not try to preserve the textual links. The KJV will continue to be the Bible in the Gospel Library app, but instructors will be encouraged to use a Bible comfortable to them and their class. The manuals may have a note suggesting the reader reference the modern revelation that springboards from a given verse, but I think really it will just reference the restoration principles. Isaiah passages about Zion will not necessarily refer Church classes to Nephi or the D&C but will still have a discussion about how to strengthen the stakes of Zion. In my mind the link between restoration scripture and the Bible is known by many who make a study of both but not all. For those that are curious, the footnotes do a really good job of mapping those links and serious nerds will see the occasional article in the Church periodical of the time. For everyone else, that connection is already lost. If ever the Church encourages the use of modern translations we'll be less likely to stumble into that relationship but the odd article will prompt those that otherwise missed it to mark their Bibles with those missing connections (and probably JST notes too). That is, until BYU or Book of Mormon Central develops an app that augments your digital Bible with the KJV footnotes.

The Book of Mormon says God’s way is to appoint “just men” to teach His people. Sorry ladies.

(Not necessarily for Carb, just spring boarding here). This is actually what prompts my question. When the medium gets in the way of the message the medium gets supplanted (when the medium is the message then then the people get supplanted). As far as the Church goes, the Bible is valuable “as far as it is translated correctly”. It may be worth reading as a window to an ancient people, poetry and story telling, or as protolanguage of the early states, but I think the Church uses the KJV 1) to inform modern Saints about God’s dealings with other covenant people and 2) to preserve a context for the revelations of the Restoration (including the Book of Mormon). Other churches have shown that the first goal can be met if the scholars are kept in control or the leaders provide sufficient commentary to control the laity’s understanding. We could work with the NRSV if we want to stay close to our roots. The second goal is difficult with any other translation. As @Just_A_Guy noted some of the phrases and passages in the have meaning because of their intertextuality with the KJV. If we switch to a new translation would it be best to also update the language of the other scriptures to match? Or should the Church treat the context as already lost and cut it loose?

There’s actually another question which I really want to discuss but I wanted to make sure we think through and appreciate what we have. Why do you suppose the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the King James Version of the Bible? It was popular in Joseph Smith’s time, but why has it continued to be used? Keep that response in mind as you answer the following: What does the next LDS edition of the Bible look like? How will it keep those aspects you described above while keeping the text approachable for a new generation?

Avatar checks out.

I’ve written before about the priest-king model I think of with the Nephites. With that background, here’s my take: Not so. Many ordinances were the same, but they may not have had the same offices we do. There’s no indication of a First Presidency for instance. The relationship between the church and state are definitely different. Alma had church authority in the land of Nephi under King Noah. When he began to do something similar in the land of Zarahemla he could only do so with permission from Mosiah. Any church operating needed the king’s permission, and if it was the king’s church it needed his approval. I do think your comparison with the modern church has similarities. I already have authority to baptize, but may only do so when authorized by a bishop. Mosiah Some speculation on my part, but I wonder if this was a way of appeasing the precursor to the king men. By appointing Alma high priest (who then ordains his son as successor) Mosiah may be appeasing future kingmen by creating a role similar to the Levitical order that largely functions apart from the monarchy. In another post I’ve added the following:

Twice a year Grandpa would close the windows and spread fresh horse manure on the lawn. Kept the grass green and the neighbors away.

I think the Interpreter Foundation had an article with some overlap several years back. My Google fu is not powerful enough to find it but the gist was that the scriptures elsewhere contain the phrase “rod of iron” and while it may be a scepter, staff, or crook, only Nephi gets us thinking about it as a handrail. The author then explores some literary implications that follow if we adapt these other meanings.

I’m an hour away in northern Virginia. Depending on when you’re here you might be able to make it to the DC Temple open house* or a fireside my stake is putting on about the history of the DC Temple. *Tickets are required but they are free. The American History Museum has a sunstone from the original Nauvoo temple.

This chapter has some good things too. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-27-work-and-personal-responsibility?lang=eng Doesn’t count. Also, retired people are under severe condemnation.

Here’s a site that compared the best of high school boys versus the best of Olympic women in track and field events: https://boysvswomen.com/ The Olympic athletes don’t fare well.

Maybe they shouldn’t make it so tasty….

I bet those replacement gramps are missing that sweet sweet Q&A cash.

And I applaud you and your fellow mods for keeping this site clean this way. It makes it a really enjoyable experience to come on here when I’m taking a break from working on my home computer where I just made $19410 on the last three weeks. Everyone is able to get this easy work. Message me and I’ll send you the link for rewarding successs!

Interesting…

In fairness, consider the sort of mother who rears a child into a law career….

I gave you a trophy but the emoji says it’s “thanks”.

1760 yards/mile 5280 feet/mile 63360 inches per mile Nice whole numbers. 2.54 centimeters/inch 3.78 liters/gallon Tell me again about nonsense calculations.

Growing up, the kids would work a puzzle while the adults watched football or just chatted. At some point a group would rally for flag football. If any of those ran out there was always some adventure in the woods.