Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

Some things are popular precisely because they make no demands upon the individual and produce a false sense of freedom. Yet there is no real liberty in license, and no real emancipation by avoiding personal responsibilities. The world’s intellectual pressures are relentless, too! Elder Albert E. Bowen of the Quorum of the Twelve observed how some, “to gain favor, to enhance [their] popularity, to avoid giving offense, … have adopted the theories of men and tried to integrate them with the teachings of the Son of God, and they will not mix” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1952, p. 66).

Matthew 24:5

Matthew 24:4-5 are really one long sentence:

Βλέπετε μή τις ὑμᾶς πλανήσῃ· πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐλεύσονται ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου λέγοντες, Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ Χριστός, καὶ πολλοὺς πλανήσουσιν.

Watch lest someone deceive you, for many shall come in my name saying: I am the Christ, and many will be deceived. (Matthew 24:4–5)

Two things interest me about this passage for the moment. The first is that Jesus is saying that those who claim to be Christ are taking his name. He is therefore claiming to be the Christ.

The second thing is that many will be led astray by individuals claiming (falsely) to be Christ. They will claim to be him and claim his prerogatives, but they will do so illegitimately. They will lead individuals astray. Jesus warns his followers not to be led astray.

For Christians this creates a balancing act between faith and skepticism. Setting aside those who actually claim to be Christ, there are those who claim to be Christ's and yet are not. They also can lead someone astray. In the end, Christ will tell those who falsely claim to be his that he does not recognize them or their deeds (Matthew 7:21-23). So the dilemma that leaves the Christians is: How does one know when one who claims to act for Christ is actually authorized by him?

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

Continuing the sampling of the societal spectrum, there are the lukewarm Church members who lack dedication and who are not valiant in their testimony of Jesus (see D&C 76:79). These often fear losing either their place in the secular synagogue or missing out on the praise of men (see John 12:42–43). Some members are like the earlier Amulek, who was called and would not hear; he really “knew,” yet he “would not know” (Alma 10:6). These members, like Amulek, may even have experienced feeling the redeeming, loving power of God, but they do not “feel so now” (Alma 5:26).

Sumerian Tyrants

Normally we look at Sumerian kings through either through their royal inscriptions or their administrative records, both official portraits. Piotr Michalowski has some interesting observations about the flip side of those documents:

An Old Babylonian copy of an inscription placed on an illustrated stele with representations of scenes from victory over the highland land of Zabšali contains these words:

(Šu-Sin) killed both the strong and the weak, heads of the just and wicked he piled up like (heaps) of grain, corpses of their people he piled up like sheaves. . . . their established cities and villages he turned into (empty) tells, destroyed their walls, blinded all the young men of the cities he had conquered, and made them serve in the orchards of Enlil, Ninlil, and in the orchards of all the great gods; he donated all the women of the cities he had conquered to the weaving establishments of Enlil, Ninlil, and the great gods.

These seemingly contradictory portraits of a Sumerian sovereign are, of course, hardly unique as far as tyrants are concerned. And yet the word "tyrant" is scarcely, if ever, used in describing ancient Mesopotamian kings. Instead, they are usually portrayed, in the manner of their own propaganda, as heroic and patriotic, bringing together quarrelling smaller political units for the common good. . .  . In the study of early Mesopotamia, we invariably favor periods of centralization of authority, if for no other reason than that such times provide more ample documentation. But this sort of centralization is the anomaly rather than the norm; in the third and early-second millennia, it accounts for 250 years or so at most. We may celebrate the various civil accomplishments of the famous kings associated with these times—namely, Sargon, Naram-Sin, Šulgi, or Hammurabi—but we should also remember the piles of corpses and shattered lives that they left in their wake. (Piotr Michalowski, The Correspondence of the Kings of Ur (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 11-12.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

Furthermore, not only must we forgo erosive popularity, but we are to be unsurprised when “at that day shall he [Satan] rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good” (2 Ne. 28:20).

Church standards remain constant in a time when some actually call good evil and evil good! (See Isa. 5:20.) No wonder the Latter-day Saints “must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them” (Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 12:272). Since there is not much chance that the fingers of scorn will be diverted, we should “[heed] them not” (1 Ne. 8:33). Ironically, among those pointing fingers of scorn are a few that once grasped the iron rod. As Lehi envisioned, these defectors become ashamed, fall away, and become aligned with the popular taunting multitude in the great and spacious building (see 1 Ne. 8:27, 33).

It's 1984 BC

Piotr Michalowski makes the following observation:

Although contemporary evidence is still sparse, it appears that sometime under Ur-Namma and Šulgi the masters of the academies wiped the literary slate clean and discarded all but a few of the old compositions that went back to Early Dynastic times. They kept most of the lexical teaching tools but discarded old narratives, replacing them with materials written in honor of the contemporary ruling house—royal hymns, stories about their Uruk ancestors, and so on. (Piotr Michalowski, The Correspondence of the Kings of Ur (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 9.)

So, according to Michalowski, the Ur III kings were not only reformers but systematically rewrote the historical and literary record. Fortunately they overlooked Lagash which has provided a treasure trove of inscriptional material unedited by the Ur III censors. The problem with Orwell's novel 1984 is that it aimed to be futuristic.

One irony, however, is that most of our literary accounts of the Ur III period come from the Old Babylonian period and have a tendency to depict the Ur III monarchs in less than flattering terms.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

There are real dangers—subtle and obvious—when members fall into lockstep with the world’s ways. In so many respects, the world’s ways head in opposite directions from gospel destinations. Moreover, as a covenant people, our behavioral loyalties are to be with the Lord, not with the Caesars of this world. But the tugs of the world are real and persistent. Besides, following the fashions of the world is merely to pursue eventual obsolescence, “for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31).

An Interesting Observation from a Strange Place

Occasionally one finds interesting observations in the oddest places. This is one such:

It should also be noted that European and North American academia in general suffered during the inter-war period because of severe economic decline and the rise of fascist dictatorships that restricted and corrupted education and research.

And the unlikely source for this observation is:

L. R. Siddall, The Reign of Adad-nirari III (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 3.

 

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

There are a few among us who believe in God but do not want to let Him be God; they would limit Him in terms of character and attributes. Reassuringly, in two adjoining verses, the Lord said tersely, “I am able to do mine own work” (2 Ne. 27:20–21). Brothers and sisters, that is about as nice a way as God could say to us that He can handle it!

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Sermons Not Spoken (1985), 11:

For the academician in his search for truth and in his efforts for its preservation or dissemination, the admiration and esteem of his peers is both useful and desirable. But these too can be easily corrupted into an inordinate desire for "the praise of men." Sophistry can come to be preferred to simplicity. The language of scholarship, necessary in its realm, can come to be preferred to the language of faith. Once again, even for the person of faith, the incessant requirements of such associations can come to cloud one's perspective.

A Book of Abraham Bullseye

Middle Bronze Age autobiographies from Syria are, in the words of A. L. Oppenheim, "without parallel in texts of this type from Mesopotamia and Egypt." They are very distinct in form and features. They also differ considerably from the same kinds of texts from the same area from a later date. As it turns out, however, those distinct features appear in the Book of Abraham which depicts Abraham as coming from Middle Bronze Age Syria.

I explore the connections in an article, which just appeared on Friday. The article is:

John Gee, "Abraham and Idrimi," Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22/1 (2013): 34-39.

I do not know that it has appeared in electronic form, but it has appeared in print. (Interested parties can find the reference for the Oppenheim quote in the article.)

So here is the problem. The Book of Abraham was published by Joseph Smith in 1842. The first Middle Bronze Age Syrian autobiography was published in 1949. If Joseph Smith had made up the Book of Abraham, he would have had to compose an autobiography set in a certain time and place and use the correct literary features and publish it a hundred years before anyone else would publish one from an archaeological dig. The process by which he may or may not have done it is simply irrelevant. None of the proposed processes can account for the literary parallels.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

Those who “live without God in the world” anxiously glean their few and fleeting satisfactions, but they are unable to find real happiness (see Mosiah 27:31; Morm. 2:13). Today many are caught up in one form or another of the “club-and-pub” culture. Others focus on the popular and pervasive substitutes for real religion—sports and politics. All this is accompanied by political churning as you and I watch the secular “Princes come, Princes go, An hour of pomp and show they know.”

A God of Miracles

For some reason I am reminded today of this conference talk from a dozen years ago. I am also reminded of this talk, which immediately followed it (and which I am also reminded of every time I see a potato plant. If you don't understand why, you need to read it or watch it again.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this article:

We cannot improve the world if we are conformed to the world (see Rom. 12:2). The gospel represents constancy amid change, not compliant adaptation to changing fashions and trends. Firm followers of Jesus, therefore, will not be mere chameleons—adapting their colors to match the ever-changing circumstances by simply blending in.

Ours is a day when “every man walketh in his own way” (D&C 1:16). Thus there is also a special need to consider how dangerous pleasing oneself can be; it may be the most dangerous form of preening, lulling us into the fatal illusion one commentator aptly described:

“For if God is a socially conscious political being whose views invariably correspond to our own prejudices on every essential point of doctrine, he demands of us no more than our politics require. Besides, if God is finite, progressive, and Pure Love, we may as well skip church next Sunday and go to the movies. For if we have nothing to fear from this all-loving, all-forbearing, all-forgiving God, how would our worship of him constitute more than self-congratulation for our own moral standards? As an atheist, I like this God. It is good to see him every morning while I am shaving” (Eugene D. Genovese, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” The New Republic, 11 May 1992, p. 38; emphasis added).

Report on the FAIR Conference

Yesterday and the day before FAIR held their annual conference. I was at the first one, ages ago, crammed into a little room that held about fifteen people. I have not always been able to attend, but it is a good group of people. I was surprised at some of the people who turned up. I will only talk about a few of the presentations that I think are worth a more careful look. When these become available, they should be looked at with care.

Ron Barney laid out a very careful argument that Joseph Smith had a natural inclination to keep his visions secret. Almost all of the evidence I had seen before, but Barney put it together in a very interesting and compelling way.

Ralph Hancock, a very careful thinker, argued that political and religious spheres overlap in certain areas and cannot be kept completely separate. It is important to know where these areas of overlap are and the dangers of certain political assumptions to religious freedoms. Hancock used labels for political ideologies that come from political science, and carefully explained what these meant since the same vocabulary is used in journalism to mean very different things. Hancock then explained how the assumptions behind certain political ideologies is at odds with the gospel and particularly with the Proclamation on the Family. He then argued that those who would defend the Church would have to expose the fuzzy thinking and bad assumptions behind any political ideology that would accept the assumptions that he identified. The one he focused on was the notion that the greatest good was for humans to decide for themselves what the greatest good was. He showed how this assumption runs counter to religion and undermines the family.

Apparently some individual or individuals was offended by Hancock's lucid reasoning and either did not understand his argument, or is more committed to a political ideology than either the gospel or the Church of Jesus Christ. As a result this person or persons complained to Scott Gordon and brought forth a hasty and garbled non-apology. I feel sorry for the misguided individual(s), but I also think that Professor Hancock deserved to be treated better.

Robert Kirby gave a very funny talk, but was also serious about some of the lines that those who engage in humor might impose on themselves. Some things need to be kept sacred and serious; other things do not. He provided his own ideas about some of the lines that need to be drawn. He also talked a bit about how easy it was for those with power to abuse it using examples from his days as a policeman.

Don Bradley talked about how the First Vision interacted with Joseph Smith's home environment. He also noted how the First Vision was the beginning of Joseph Smith's experience with being a seer. Again although I had seen most of the evidence before, Bradley put it together in a new, interesting and persuasive way.

There were other good presentations and I am certain that FAIR will make them available.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Whom the Lord Loveth (2003), 91:

Among other things, a real disciple is willing, if necessary, to be part of a righteous behavioral minority, enduring the tauntings and cultural disapproval of those who walk in the wide and broad way. Such is part of the lot of the "few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:14; 3 Nephi 14:14).

By holdingfast to the iron rod, disciples will not wander, nor will they give undue heed to the "fiery darts" (1 Nephi 15:24; 8:33).

Matthew 24:4

Jesus begins his eschatological oration by saying:

Watch that none of you err. (Matthew 24:4)

The term that he uses for erring is πλανήσῃ. This verb is used in the Book of Enoch to describe the erring messengers. It is also the same root where the term planet comes from; a planet is a wandering star. The warning is against wandering away from what Jesus lays down.

In looking at the last days, it is not uncommon for individuals to wander off the right way, and Jesus does not want his disciples to stray from the path. Why they might wander is related in the next verse.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From For the Power is in Them (1970), 23-24:

It is often asked, "Where are the great Mormon painters, sculptors, artists, etc.?" It is presumptive for one with such "middlebrow" tastes to attempt a response, but perhaps a "middlebrow" has some special clinical detachment. For instance, since Church members now constitute about .001% of the world's population, it is not statistically likely that we will have any Michaelangelos or Beethovens—let alone several.

Perhaps, some say, there is reason to expect us to over-produce so that we account for at least a few blips on the cultural radar screen. But I know of no scriptural promise that suggests such overproduction. But it is often said, shouldn't we at least "try harder?" Perhaps, yet the commitment to family and the chores of the Kingdom mitigate against the harsh, unrelenting disciplines that even genius requires.

There appears, however, to be no written hostility to the arts, though there may be and probably are attitudinal deterrents among individual members. In fact, there is scriptural affirmation: "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." The rising generation of bright, talented young Church members may give us both "models" or artists who can do their home teaching and still play in Carnegie Hall. Meanwhile, a middle brow question: Is there a divine music or art? If so, the Church ought to reflect it and even to originate some of it. But does God really have a favorite school of painting, or musical composition? Or are such things a matter of preference, not principle? "There is beauty all around" and "we seek after these things." We clearly have an affirmative obligation to appreciate and to see and, presumably, to create as best a small culture can.

Matthew 24:3

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples about future events. What provokes the discourse are three questions:

When Jesus sat down upon the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately saying: Tell us:

•  When shall these things [the destruction of the Jerusalem temple] be?
•  And what is the sign of thy appearance?
•  And of the end of the world?

The chapter reads very differently depending on whether one takes the questions as three separate questions (as I have here) or combines them some way (such as considering the appearance of Christ as the end of the world). What signs one looks for depends on how one reads the question or questions.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Sermons Not Spoken (1985), 65-66:

We should recognize that certain scriptures commingle prophecies which bear upon different time periods. The classic example is chapter 24 of Matthew, in which Jesus prophesying both about events which were to happen soon and events then quite distant.

The destruction of the temple (see Matthew 24:1-12) occurred within a few decades, but the foreseen calamities preceding the Second Coming (see, for instance, Matthew 24:21, 22) were still centuries away.