As you can see from the title, I have very little time to post. Class today was much more fun because we examined everything through the glasses of the gospel (not the Urim and Thummim). I felt much more articulate today which was reassuring.
I want to quickly discuss punctuation. Lots can be revealed if you closely examine the punctuation of the scriptures. Here's one insight that came to me last night. There's the phrase in Genesis and elsewhere that man is commanded to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth." I've always been confused by the use of replenish in that setting, because replenish means to refill or replace and the Earth was not full of people when Adam and Eve were placed there. The problem lay in the vocal inflection that most Latter Day Saints take when they read that passage, which totally ignores the comma between "mutiply" and "and" which would indicate that the verbs "multiply" and "replenish" were part of the same clause and therefore grammatically and spiritually linked in one commandment. But there's a comma! The commandment to multiply is completely separate from the commandment to replenish the Earth! Elsewhere in the creation narrative, it specifically states that God filled the ocean and the dry land with plant and animal life. The commandment to replenish the Earth means that when you harvest or take something from the Earth, you must replace it and refill the gap you left. Therefore when you cut down a tree, plant a new one. When you eat a hen, take care of its chicks. I was very excited when I figured that out.
Okay well it's been eight minutes and I am now late for my tour of the HBLL (from which I am writing), not that I really need the tour.
Anyway, I'm out.
--Christian
P.S. Here is the postly video. Some of you may have seen it. It's brilliant comedy:
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5 comments:
Interesting tidbit with "replenish." In German they just use the verb meaning "to fill," it has absolutely no connotation of re-filling or re-doing anything.
A close reading of the text is very important, Christian. however, we also have to be careful about punctuation. in the hebrew, all the letters were strung together without punctuation. in early greek, writers did not separate words or use punctuation. the separation of words and the use of punctuation have been inserted into the texts by editors, often with great insight. accordingly, we should seriously consider punctuation, but also not let punctuation constrain our examination of the text. further, in the BOFM, for example, the original text dictated by Joseph Smith did not have punctuation. even the printers manuscript that oliver cowdery copied to give to the printer lacked punctuation. the printer, E.B. Grandin, added puncutation, spelling corrections, and the like. while it is nice to get back to the "ur text" (original text), it is often very difficult, and it does not resolve all the issues. Generally speaking, there is no "ur text" - that is there is no original text from the prophet writing it or the original transcription. all we have are copies. also, the church recently re-discovered the "Kirtland Revelation Book" in which many of the revelations of Joseph Smith were recorded. in most cases, the revelations that joseph smith dictated (he virtually never wrote them down himself - a scribe did)were most likely written down on separet pieces of paper, and the subsequently copied into the Kirtland Revelation Book. even in the Kirtland Revelation Book, we see editorial changes, and we see additional changes from the Kirtland Revelation Book to the Doctrine and Covenants, and between different versions of the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith would edit and change earler revelations as his own insight expanded and as subsequent revelations shed light on earlier revelations.
I am glad you are engaging the texts. that is great. you will do great.
good call on the separation between multiply and replenish. Always sounded a bit strange to me, too, but I never looked at it closely.
Even so Daddy, at one point someone took my reading and decided to put in a comma and the church leaders kept it. For whatever reading that comma came to be disregarded in the reading. It's just an interpretation, and I find it helpful.
yeah, I've thought of that passage as three different commandments too. Although, like in German, the french version simply implies a filling, not a refilling. I think it's good to look closely at the text to find new interpretations (or perhaps lost interpretations, as the case may be), as long as we remember that the text we are examining so closely is an interpretation itself. Basically, that we aren't really hearing God's exact words when we read the scriptures.
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