jchandle writes

  Biblical Detour: this blog has focused a lot on the Hebrew Bible lately, but the Come Follow Me study this week didn’t include any Bible chapters. I read Moses 7, but I don’t have anything much to say about it–mostly I’m just wrestling with a few unsavory pieces of the text. Instead, here’s some writing I did because I was asked to summarize a talk from General Conference for our ward’s 5th Sunday Discussion.  In Pursuit of Perfection Do you ever feel like if only you did all the gospel things, you would literally be perfected?  Like read your scriptures, individually and as a family. Say your prayers. Give an honest tithe. Fast. Give fast offerings. Hold fast to the iron rod. Be fastidious in the work of God  Feast upon the words of Christ and never postpone a prompting. Do your ministering, higher and holier. Attend all your meetings, and prepare for those meetings, and do whatever the spirit tells you in those meetings. Arise from your bed early and plan out you...

This was kind of a hard week to glean insight from the Bible-portion of Come Follow Me. I found myself reading all of Genesis 5 the first morning, then identifying the name meanings of all the people in it, then trying to find meaning in all the numbers (and learning that the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint disagree on those numbers) then kind of flailing.  I eventually found it quite useful to take the advice of the movie James and the Giant Peach and “Try looking at it another way.” So without any more intro, here are 5 ways to look at Genesis 5. Priestly Genealogy Compare the structure of Genesis 5 to the Structure of Genesis 1. Both describe successive periods of earthly history. Both repeat elements in the description of each period described (“Thus all the days of <Patriarch> were <# of Years>; and he died” Vs. “And there was evening and there was morning, the <numbered> day.”). Compare Genesis 2:4, which is possibly the end of the Priestly Creation story ...

 I'm learning a lot about the Bible as I begin this 2-year deep dive into it. In the process, I'm learning the meaning of a lot of words that I didn't really hear much of growing up. So I thought I'd make a list and explain these terms so that maybe you can understand them better as well.  This list of explanations is sort-of a glossary of my current-yet-developing understanding, so feel free to correct me if I've gotten things wrong (sources appreciated so I can learn more). The Christian terms are mostly stuff I picked up in a Christian History class in college, but everything else is pretty new to me over the last 4 months.  Tanakh -  The Hebrew Bible, as identified with Judaisim. This name is an acronym for Torah (literally 'Instruction' or 'Law', the books of Moses), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings), the three main parts of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Old Testament -  The Hebrew Bible, as identified with Christianity. The term has fall...

  Every Sunday I participate in a family history research power hour hosted by my ward. I’ve found researching my own family history to be very rewarding. I long for information about my ancestors and am thrilled when I find it. Over the past week in particular I’ve felt a great desire to find my own personal origins in my family history–like who in my family tree loves poetry or singing too loud in church? Dani and I are proud of our admittedly chaotic/ameture garden, and I was specifically thrilled to have a successful potato harvest this fall in light of my potato-farming great-grandparents. And this desire to connect the details of the lives of those who came before me percolated into my Bible study this week. I found myself interested in what the original authors intended of the text as usual, but also in how the text applies to me, the sometimes conflicting impulses of my heart, and the intellectual realms I was most drawn to in college. And Genesis 3-4 and even Moses 4-5 del...

  If you were in charge of writing a creation myth–a story about the foundation of the world that would guide how people think about the world for millennia–what would you include? Yes, you could pray about it and seek what God wants you to write, but imagine he is leaving the task mostly to you. You don’t know how the earth was REALLY, scientifically formed. Shoot, you don’t even know what it looks like from a distance. You just have your imagination, your philosophy of life, and the hope that your myth will explain what’s important and promote what is good at both individual and societal levels.  This was essentially the task of the writers of Genesis 1 and the writers of Genesis 2. Scholars widely believe that these stories, written by distinct individuals or groups and separated by centuries, were not meant as word-for-word scientific or historical accounts, but rather as mythological means of transmitting Truth (with a capital T), not just the facts. I’ve been thinking ab...

  I’m going to be studying and writing about the Hebrew Bible for all of 2022. If anybody is following along with my posts, I want to share the guidelines I’m trying to follow so you’ll know what I’m coming from. My approach is also evolving (It’s shifted already and it’s the first week of the year), so I appreciate feedback on my personal study guidelines and want to set expectations that this is exegesis in motion :) What are your guiding principles for studying the scriptures this year?  Don’t think about Jesus.  The original audiences wouldn’t have understood these texts to allude to anyone like Jesus. The church might teach that ancient biblical authors knew and worshiped Christ as their redeemer, but there isn’t evidence of that in the text. I want to avoid christianizing or Mormonizing material that didn’t have that in mind. Paradoxically, I think this will actually increase my understanding of the New Testament and my appreciation for early Christianity next year ...

  In The Religion of Israel , Yehezkel Kaufmann argues that the monotheistic religion of ancient Israel was not simply the inevitable evolution of the polytheism of the ancient near east, but a religious revolution. It was a unique theological innovation, totally distinct and totally incompatible with polytheism. Polytheism as held by the ancients in Mesopotamia is characterized by the following among other features:  A primordial metadivine realm, which is morally neutral  Numerous gods which are born in some way from the metadivine realm Competition between gods Complex mythologies or stories about the lives, deaths, and resurrections of gods Theogonies, detailing the birth of gods Magic, including the ability of some humans to become gods by manipulating the inherent magic of the world Sexual relationships between gods that form the basis of creation Humans subservient to gods, sometimes created as slaves to do the work gods don’t want to do Human children of gods What...