Jesus is Risen!

One of my favorite Greek Orthodox traditions is how on Easter, they greet each other by saying "Χρίστος ἀνέστη!" To which the reply is "Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!" "Christ is risen!" "Truly he is risen!" This historic fact is the central fact of Christianity. Amid the toil and trials of our lives, if anything is worth celebrating, this fact is. Just because it is simple does not mean it is not true.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this great talk, which deserves to be read in its entirety:

Therefore, in addition to my boundless admiration of His achievements and my adoration of Jesus for what He is—knowing that my superlatives are too shallow to do more than echo his excellence—as one of His Special Witnesses in the fulness of times, I attest to the fulness of His ministry!

How dare some treat His ministry as if it were all beatitudes and no declaratives! How myopic it is to view His ministry as all crucifixion and no resurrection! How provincial to perceive it as all Calvary and no Palmyra! All rejection at a village called Capernaum and no acceptance in the City of Enoch! All relapse and regression in ancient Israel and no Bountiful with its ensuing decades of righteousness!

Jesus Christ is the Jehovah of the Red Sea and of Sinai, the Resurrected Lord, the Spokesman for the Father in the theophany at Palmyra—a Palmyra pageant with a precious audience of one!

He lives today, mercifully granting unto all nations as much light as they can bear and messengers of their own to teach them. (See Alma 29:8.) And who better than the Light of the World can decide the degree of divine disclosure—whether it is to be flashlights or floodlights?

A Small Detail

Sometimes all it takes is a small detail to completely cast a story in a new light. Consider the story of Vashti in the first chapter of Esther. The Septuagint version of Esther 1:5 adds two words τοῦ γάμου making the occasion when all of this occurred not just any feast but Artaxerxes' marriage feast. Vashti thus becomes either the bashful blushing bride who blew it or the headstrong feminist who missed it.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Meanwhile, did not Jesus tell us what to expect by way of heat in the final summer? Did He not also say that He would prove our faith and patience by trial?

Dræpa er Hann Vill

The Viking kings of Norway are depicted in the Konungs skuggsiá

as a rex iustus and God’s representative on earth. As such the king has power over life and death for all his subjects. Those who disobey him violate God’s will. The king "er sva mioc miclaðr oc tighnaðr aiorðu at aller skulu sva luta oc niga til hans sæm til Guðs. hann hævir oc sva mycit vælldi at hann ræðr hværs lifdagum þærs er i hans riki er sva sæm han vill. Lætr þann dræpa er hann vill en þann liva er hann vill." (Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, “Kings, Earls and Chieftains,” in Ideology and Power in the Viking and Middle Ages [Leiden: Brill, 2011], 69.)

The idea that the king has the ability to "kill whomever he will and let live whomever he will" lends itself to certain abuses. On a smaller level, sometimes those in power decide that they can similarly fire and retain whom they will, with similar abuses. Wise organizations limit the ability of individuals to have that sort of power over those they supervise by requiring more than one individual to make those decisions. This does not prevent abuse but makes it more difficult to achieve. Foolish organizations do not so limit individuals and routinize the abuse of power.

In the case of the kings of Norway, they depicted themselves as being like God. Humans tend to make trouble when those who are not really God's representatives think of themselves as having the power of God, whether on a large or a small scale.

Today's Maxwell Quote

Speaking about the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (which would later be renamed the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship) at the FARMS Annual Recognition Banquet, 27 September 1991:

I've never made any secret of my appreciation for FARMS. As I see you grow larger and become more significant, I'll never have any greater appreciation than I did a few years back when our enemies were lobbing all sorts of mortar shells into our Church encampment and among the few guns blazing away were the guns of FARMS. . . . As big and wonderful as you will become and I hope you do, my memories are always nurtured by those moments when so few stood up to respond and among those who did were scholars who have taken the lead in FARMS. . . . This organization, independent as it is, is nevertheless committed, as I see it, to protect and to build up the kingdom of God. . . . I hope you don't underestimate the significance of what you do as articulators of the faith. In praising C. S. Lewis Austin Farrar said the following (and when I think of this quote I think of FARMS), "Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish." An excellent quote. . . . I mention also to you, in the spirit of appreciation, that I believe much of the vindication that will come to the Prophet and to this work of the Restoration, will come by scholars who are committed to the kingdom, who are unequivocally devoted to it. . . . I myself would be reluctant if you ever moved away from what had become your traditional role. Enterprises of scholarship may be like some businesses who fail at enlargement or lose the essence of what they have been successful at doing.

What to Say When Your Tang is Toungled Up

I found a rather amusing collection of garbled phrases. My current favorite:

I have a date with a gorgeous read-head.

This is exactly the sort of thing that Oscar Wilde did in his plays, only with Wilde it was on purpose.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Isn't it interesting that at a time when we ought to know better about the limitations of what legislation can do to change human behavior, that some women prefer legal power to righteous influence? Some may choose to ignore or to rechannel the maternal instinct, but they cannot rise above it. Isn't it interesting that the secular world now directs our attention (with certain justifications to be sure) to the unmet needs of women, when the most common tragedy in the modern home is the malfunctioning father who so often leaves his post untended and who is so often insensitive to the needs of his wife? Isn't it interesting with regard to the matter of individual fulfillment, a natural and basic human need, that some fail to observe that one of the great advantages of being fulfilled is that one does not have to spend all of his or her time thinking about being fulfilled? Those I know and admire, who have deep and abiding testimonies, do show differences in certain preferences and in some dimension of their life-styles, but on things that really matter, they are incredibly alike!

Today's Maxwell Quote

From That My Family Should Partake (1974), 37:

When we stop acknowledging the existence of fixed value points in the scheme of things, we stop navigating by these points. And having stopped steering, to use a simple analogy, there is, at first, the naive, excited exclamation: "Look! No hands!" But this will be followed by the shocked realization: "Help! No brakes!" This latter condition is one of the major challenges of our society now: "No brakes!" We all seem to be expecting someone else to stop us, collectively, from doing the things we know are, historically, stupid.

More Trouble at Harvard

Harvey Silvergate, a lawyer who serves as the current Board chairman of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and his two research assistants have a chilling analysis of events at Harvard. The situation began last year when over a hundred students were caught cheating on a final exam. If true, that is bad.

During the investigation, however, an internal memo discussing possible punishments for the students was leaked. That is not good.

Then, according to Suilvergate, the head of the Administrative Board (Ad Board) at Harvard launched an internal witch hunt, including searching the email messages of all of Harvard's resident deans. Silvergate notes that Harvard's

complicated and contradictory codes and classifications, rife with ambiguity, put immense power into the hands of administrators to exact revenge against subordinates who cross them. That is how, in an astonishing act of institutional cannibalism, Harvard’s resident deans found themselves victimized by the same disciplinary apparatus of which they themselves are a part.

When caught having done the investigation, Harvard claimed to be protecting the students, even though the original leak had mentioned no individual cases or students by name.

those familiar with Harvard’s disciplinary structure understand full-well that what the secrecy protects is not the students but the administrators themselves, who run a retrograde disciplinary system in which facts and due process matter little and administrative power is everything.

So it is that

A student going public about his own disciplinary hearing commits an independent offense that can get him thrown out of school. Yet the Ad Board maintains the fiction that the secrecy—politely dubbed “confidentiality”—is for the protection of the student. But at Harvard, as everywhere else, secrecy is rarely for the benefit of those who have to endure the exercise of unrestrained power; rather, it protects those who exercise such power.

I draw a distinction here between confidentiality as it exists in the Church and how it might exist in a university. In the Church, the repentance process is protected by confidentiality because it might be difficult for people to finish the repentance process, which enables people to come back to full faith and confidence, if their sins were made public. A university is not the Church. The same conditions do not apply particularly since the idea of repentance is not widely condoned in the academy. Thus those trying to argue from a secular academic position cannot use the repentance model of the Church for the university.

Silvergate, whose organization monitors hundreds of schools including BYU, draws the following conclusions:

The Harvard email search scandal is only the latest demonstration of the power of Harvard’s administrators and lawyers over the faculty and staff, and should be a wake-up call to spur a rebellion against the unholy trends destroying liberal arts institutions in Cambridge and all over the country.

and:

Chances are that this latest student and faculty reaction against the draconian and disrespectful measure engaged in by university administrators will fade—but it is only a matter of time until the next invasion of faculty and student prerogatives by academia’s new overlords.

So administration is supposed to protect students from faculty abuses, and such can exist, but who protects people from abuses by administration?

Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1979), 64:

Someone has recently coined what is called the Gadarene Swine Law, which is, simply put, that just because a group is in formation does not mean that it is going in the right direction. (Paul Dickson, The Official Rules [New York: Delacorte Press], p. 67.)

Leaders to Managers Viking Style

[One of my more popular posts has some comments on Hugh Nibley’s essay on leaders and managers. Recently Jón Viðar Sigurðsson published an interesting essay called “Kings, Earls and Cheiftains. Rulers of Norway, Orkney and Iceland c. 900-1300,” in Ideology and Power in the Viking and Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 69-108. I found much in Sigurðsson’s essay that fit well with the ideas that Nibley put forward and that interact with some scriptural passages. Page numbers after quotations refer to Sigurðsson’s article unless otherwise specified.]

Anyone who has read the Old Norse sagas will often discover what appears to be a rough and tumble lawless society that seems to be a sort of paradise of libertarian anarchy. Many of the sagas are set at the very beginning of the settlement of Iceland when there were few people who often took the law into their own hands out of necessity. Nevertheless there was a sense of civilization and rules to follow. More importantly, and this is clear from the sagas, there were leaders to follow. In Norway there were kings to follow. In fact, the sagas, such as Laxdæla Saga connect the establishment of a kingdom in Norway with the settlement of Iceland as many of the settlers were finding refuge from their expulsion from Norway. The Norwegian kings are always in the background of the sagas, even those taking place in Iceland, and their reigns serve as a chronological peg for the sagas (83-84). While the Vikings in Iceland did not have kings, they did have chieftains (goði).

When comparing the description of earls and chieftains with that of kings one clear difference emerges: the kings, who were at the top of the social hierarchy in the Old Norse society, do not only appear with a greater number of personal qualities than other secular leaders, but their qualities are also usually better than those of other rulers and depicted in greater detail. Kings are taller and stronger, more beautiful, wiser, more just, more generous and more victorious than other rulers (72-73).

Not only do the kings usually have twice the number of qualities, but the type of qualities are different:

In descriptions of the earls of Orkney and the kings of Norway, especially of the kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries, their ware skills are usually stressed. This is in clear contrast to the descriptions of the Icelandic chieftains. Their ability to fight in battles and to lead men in war is almost never mentioned. (74).

In both societies, leaders kept retainers, but this was short lived:

At the end of the Viking Age, only kings and princes could afford to keep a band of retainers. (74).

The term for retainer (húskarl) was originally a household term, they developed from the domestic sphere and were imported into the military and royal sphere.

Like the relationship between the owner of the farm and his servant, the bond between the king and follower was a reciprocal one, but the ties that bound retainer and king were stronger than those between the housecarl and farm owner. The follower and the master were bound by ties of friendship and loyalty. The retainer was expected to fight for his master in war, to be loyal to him in all legal disputes, and to obey his orders. In return, the master protected and supported his retainers. It was primarily freemen who could become retainers. They lived with their leader and ate at his table. The band of retainers constituted a brotherhood with a code of honour, and in addition to the duties towards his leader, the retainer had responsibilities towards his comrades. (74-75).

In Norway, this was relationship was codified in the law. In the twelfth century, Iceland began to follow the Norwegian system though on a smaller scale. They were called “home men” (heimamenn) but they were

men who did not work on the farm or have any specific duties in the management of it. . . . they were the chieftains’ bodyguards; they were expected to follow them through thick and thin, and to fight by their side in battles (75).

Nevertheless,

the power struggle in Iceland was only in a few cases decided on the battlefield, it was usually first and foremost a question of non-physical tactics and manoeuvres. The sagas mainly point to the shrewdness of the chieftains as an explanation of why some chieftains survived the power struggles while others failed. (76).

Thus,

In sagas depicting Icelandic chieftains their appearance and physical attributes are less important than their mental qualities. (79).

Besides wisdom,

The sagas stress the generosity of the rulers. . . . Feasts and gifts were used to build up power and create or renew ties of friendship. Powerful secular leaders were described as vinsælir, which meant they had many friends. Amongst the rulers there was competition for the position of the most generous leader. The straightforward reason was that when a ruler was generous more men wanted to become his friends and supporters. (77-78).

These supporters included the relatives and kinsmen, which were called frændr (singular frændi, the participle of frjá meaning “to love,” which goes into English as friend). Supporters were thus those who loved their leaders. Leaders had to earn or win the love of their followers. When Ketill gathers his frændr at the beginning of the Laxdæla Saga, he consults with them about their course of action and lays out the options available and gives the reasons for his proposed decision and asks them for their support. They are allowed a chance to offer their counsel before a decision is finalized. It was a decision that the frændr could agree to and live with, or they would part ways.

The discussion Ketill initiates in Laxdæla Saga is interesting in another way. It centers on whether the group should submit to the Norwegian king and become his vassals. Ketill rejects this because, he argues, the group can expect no trausts from the king. The Old Norse term traust is the origin of the English term trust, but it means more than that. As E. V. Gordon points out, traust includes “help, protection, support, confidence” (Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd. ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957], 390). One could trust one’s leader because they would provide help, protection and support which in turn inspired confidence. The leader’s actions showed that he was trustworthy. The Old English cognate is treow, of which the modern form is true. The leader needed to be true to his followers if he expected his followers to be true to him.

Loyalty was understood to follow certain conventions:

If the reigning king was not capable of fulfilling his obligations towards his friends, they were entitled to change sides. . . . There are not critical remarks . . . about the ‘traitors’ who turned away. (79).

In the twelfth century, however, the rex iustus ideology was introduced to Norway. In this ideology the king was

a rex iustus and God’s representative on earth. As such the king has power over life and death for all his subjects. Those who disobey him violate God’s will. The king "er sva mioc miclaðr oc tighnaðr aiorðu at aller skulu sva luta oc niga til hans sæm til Guðs. hann hævir oc sva mycit vælldi at hann ræðr hværs lifdagum þærs er i hans riki er sva sæm han vill. Lætr þann dræpa er hann vill en þann liva er hann vill." (69.)

The king was now supposedly deriving his power from God and did not have to build it up from below anymore. This meant that the king’s personal qualities, ideologically, were less important. The king was now God’s representative on earth with power over life and death for all his subjects. (84-85).

As a result,

The kin-based aristocracy was transformed into a service aristocracy which received its power from the king, who in turn derived his from God. (85).

This meant that the aristocracy did not need to build up their power anymore through their ability to protect, and with the aid of gifts and feasts, since the support of the householders was no longer essential for their higher positions in society. Thus feasting and extensive exchange of gifts between chieftains and householders gradually declined. The strong and critical mutual vertical ties of friendship between chieftains and householders disappeared. Previously, the chieftains had been obliged to defend and assist their supporters. As the kin’s servants, however, they had to prosecute and punish those who had formerly been their friends. The duty of the aristocracy was to govern rather than to lead. These changes meant that the personal qualities which had been so important to build power previously now became more or less superfluous. (86).

The rex iustus ideology thus turn the aristocracy into managers instead of leaders. So, for the Vikings, leaders built their support through their personal qualities and because they had to support as well as be supported by their followers. The rex iustus ideology change that and they only had to please their superiors. Instead of protecting those under them, they persecuted them. The rex iustus ideology thus gave a new direction to the rulers who could now prosper because of their lack of leadership rather than be held back by it.

It is little wonder that so many of the sagas were written at this time, looking back on a time when Vikings were leaders rather than sycophantic servants.

***

All of this provides a helpful backdrop in considering some statements from the Doctrine and Covenants.

The idea with the rex iustus was that the ruler was the representative of God and should be followed by virtue of his position whether or not his position was just. This idea is rejected by God: “No power and influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood” (D&C 121:41). Instead a leader is expected to develop those qualities of mind and character that will make people want to follow him (D&C 121:41-43) so that the follower “may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death” (D&C 121:44). The individual who uses his appointed position to gratify his own pride and vain ambition “to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness” will find that there is an end to “the authority of that man.” (D&C 121:37). People will not willingly follow such an individual and thus he loses any authority over them. A leader cannot betray his followers and expect them to follow him; he will have lost his authority.

While in the Church the priesthood is given “by prophecy and by revelation” and thus from the top down (management), God expects those in such positions to build support from the bottom up (leadership). Thus in the Gospel, the leader is expected to serve not to be served. They must earn the trust of those they are supposed to lead rather than expect that it will come automatically by virtue of their position.

In the Church, we usually give a new leader the benefit of the doubt and are willing, at least initially, to follow them simply because of their position. Trust and goodwill, however, can be destroyed or erode away by failure to serve and support and persuade followers. If followers perceive that a priesthood leader is untrustworthy, then they will not trust him. Thus a leader needs to be true, not only to God and the Gospel, but also to the people he serves.

To have managers in the Church, rather than leaders, is not following the commandments that God has given us.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Whom the Lord Loveth (2003), 63:

The Joshuas of the twenty-first century will be righteous fathers and mothers the world over. These are the unsung but nevertheless real heroes and heroines of our time. . . . There are no attention-getting press releases or news conferences held by such parents declaring "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).

The Other Purim Plot

The Septuagint version of Esther is noted for its additions. The first chapter, for example, has a dozen and a half verses missing from the Masoretic text. These verses tell of an apocalyptic dream that Mordecai has warning him of the danger that the king was in. This warning enables Mordecai to be in a position where he can overhear the conspiracy against the king:

And Mordecai snuck quietly into the courtyard with Gabatha and Tharra, the two eunuchs of the king show were guarding the courtyard. So he heard their plans and discovered their plots and he learned that they were preparing their hands to overthrow Artaxerxes, the king, and he disclosed to the king concerning them (Esther 1:1m-n LXX).

In this case, the king does not get the revelation or dream about the plot. Instead, it comes to "a Jewish man living in the city of Susa" (Esther 1:1b LXX), an ordinary man living an ordinary life, who just happens to listen and respond when God inspires him.

The inspiration he receives leads him to be where he needs to become a credible witness of the plot to assassinate the king.

Note that Mordecai is somehow able to get access to the king and report what is happening personally (Esther 1:1n LXX), in spite of Artaxerxes ruling over 127 countries (Esther 1:1s LXX). The conspirators were part of the government administration. Can one imagine what might have happened if Mordecai had to go through bureaucratic channels, especially if those channels ran through Gabatha or Tharra?

Gabatha and Tharra were trusted members of the administration. If asked, they would have claimed they were loyal to the administration that they were plotting to overthrow.

Conspiracies of this sort cannot be treated like typical petty problems patiently pushed through the bureaucratic machine. They require different means to be thwarted.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Some . . . cast off on intellectual and behavioral bungee cords in search of new sensations, only to be jerked about by the old heresies and the old sins.

An Ensign for the Nations II

Last week I discussed Isaiah 11:12 and the idea that the ensign could also be understood as a sign or miracle. As interesting as it is, the Septuagint does not have the most interesting take on Isaiah 11:12. That honor goes to the Aramaic, and not the Syriac version either (Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic), which is no more informative than the Septuagint. The more interesting reading belongs to the Targum Jonathan. This is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic from around the time of Jesus. It is generally thought to preserve the folk understanding of the biblical text from Palestine in the first century A.D. The passage in question consists of three words:

wa-zqup 'at la-`amamaya'

One could translate this as "and a sign will be lifted up to the nations" but other understandings are possible. The term 'at has a slightly wider meaning than sign or miracle. In Genesis 1:14, the term is used for the constellations. The term can also be used for letter as a unit of writing, not as a synonym for epistle.

The verb zqap also means to crucify or to hang. And aleph-taw, the two letters used to write 'at are the first and last letters of the Aramaic alphabet. There is an Aramaic saying about going from aleph to tav meaning from beginning to end. The Greek equivalent would be alpha and omega. That provokes some interesting speculation, but not any that would not be appropriate for a Sunday.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Whom the Lord Loveth (2003), 56:

Without a moral compass, agency goes awry. Strangely, provincial pride is then mistaken for genuine individuality. The broad way leading to the wide gate is well traveled, including by some self-styled rugged individualists who scarcely notice they are actually part of a crowd (Matthew 7:13).

Addendum to Onchsheshonqy 7/15

In my earlier discussion of Onchsheshonqy, I neglected to point out that the word translated boss could also mean superior or supervisor. In an academic context I have known of some supervisors who want their graduate students to worship them. If the graduate student refuses to worship the supervisor, the supervisor seeks to destroy the graduate student. This is also idolatry.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

A few dealings with student dissenters taught me (too late to help them, I'm sorry to say) that my silent disgust did not necessarily teach them. It often created distance. Unexplained indignation is not always communication. True, silence in some circumstances is a powerful reprover, but not in other situations. To withhold deserved reproof, and the reasons therefore, may be to withhold a warning that is urgently needed. Reproof is often a last railing before an erring individual goes over the edge of the cliff.

A.D. 282

For the events of A.D. 282, it is worth quoting Harold Mattingly's entry on Carus from the older Oxford Classical Dictionary (p. 210):

Carus, Marcus Aurelius (PW 77), born at Narbo, praetorian prefect of Probus, rebelled in Raetia in A.D. 282, and, after Probus had been murdered by his troops, announced to the Senate his accession as Emperor. Leaving Carinus as Caesar in the west, Carus marched east against Persia with his younger son and Caesar, Numerian. On the way he defeated the Quadi and Sarmatae on the Danube. Carus invaded Persia and captured Ctesiphon, but, venturing on a further advance, was killed, perhaps by treachery on the part of Aper, the praetorian prefect.

Don't these Roman Emperors learn anything?