Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The JST

Major Doctrinal Contributions of the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) by Robert J. Matthews
(Dr. Matthews was dean of Religious Education and professor of ancient scripture at BYU when this was published.  This is a very small part of that talk).
“Frequently people ask me if the Joseph Smith corrections are supported in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.  An answer to that seems to be that if the JST offered no more than the biblical manuscript or if it were completely supported by them, there would have been no need for a JST. Of course it is not supported by the manuscripts. That reminds me of an experience I have every now and again when I go for a haircut.
Often some unappreciative young man has preceded me in the chair that has more hair than three men ought to have. Generally some comment is made about my own contrasting lack of hair, and I say to the barber, ‘Make me look like him.’ The barber laughs, and the answer is always the same. He looks at me and says, ‘It is too late for that.’
And that is why the existing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts cannot provide the light and truth that once were there and why there had to be a restoration of the Bible if a correct Bible were to be had. Present Bible manuscripts simply do not have the luxuriant supply of doctrine that the original had. It is too late for them to do so. They lost it centuries ago…
The JST is a witness for Jesus Christ. It is a witness for the divine calling of Joseph Smith as a prophet and apostle of Jesus Christ. Many people seem to go about it backwards. They want to test Joseph Smith by the content of the inadequate manuscripts.  Actually the restoration of the gospel in this dispensation is as great as any other dispensation and can stand on its own record. Joseph Smith had an independent revelation of his own. The Book of Mormon and the JST are the proper standards by which to measure the accuracy of the ancient Bible. We are not measuring the prophets, but the quality of the ancient record that tells about them.”

Sunday, February 15, 2015

A War Story

Priesthood Perspective (Pres. Monson, Apr. 2012 Gen. Conf. Priesthood Session)
During World War II, in the early part of 1944, an experience involving the priesthood took place as United States marines were taking Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands and located in the Pacific Ocean about midway between Australia and Hawaii.
What took place in this regard was related by a correspondent—not a member of the Church—who worked for a newspaper in Hawaii. In the 1944 newspaper article he wrote following the experience, he explained that he and other correspondents were in the second wave behind the marines at Kwajalein Atoll.
As they advanced, they noticed a young marine floating face down in the water, obviously badly wounded. The shallow water around him was red with his blood. And then they noticed another marine moving toward his wounded comrade. The second marine was also wounded, with his left arm hanging helplessly by his side. He lifted up the head of the one who was floating in the water in order to keep him from drowning. In a panicky voice he called for help. The correspondents looked again at the boy he was supporting and called back, “Son, there is nothing we can do for this boy.”
“Then,” wrote the correspondent, “I saw something that I had never seen before.” This boy, badly wounded himself, made his way to the shore with the seemingly lifeless body of his fellow marine. He “put the head of his companion on his knee. … What a picture that was—these two mortally wounded boys—both … clean, wonderful-looking young men, even in their distressing situation. And the one boy bowed his head over the other and said, ‘I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the priesthood, to remain alive until I can get medical help.’”
The correspondent concluded his article: “The three of us [the two marines and I] are here in the hospital. The doctors don’t know [how they made it alive], but I know.”  (In Ernest Eberhard Jr., “Giving Our Young Men the Proper Priesthood Perspective,” typescript, July 19, 1971, 4–5, Church History Library).

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Humorist

Brethren…Not many people think of Pres. Young as a humorist, but he had his moments.
The Humor of Brigham Young (Part of a talk given by Ron Esplin at Education Week in about 2008, Dr. Ronald Kent Esplin is the managing editor of The Joseph Smith Papers)
“Brigham Young had a sense of humor…For example, a Mrs. Green decided that there was a better religion that met her needs rather than the Latter-day Saint religion and she wanted her name removed from the records of the Church.  She wrote Brigham Young requesting this.  Pres. Young responded, ‘This day we have searched the records of the Church for baptisms for the remission of sins and not finding your name therein, we were saved the necessity of removing your name there from.  Therefore, you may rest assured that your sins are not forgiven you and enjoy the benefits thereof; your brother in the gospel, Brigham Young.’
Next, Brigham tried to handle with humor, a very serious charge.  It was rumored that Brigham had said, about the recently deceased President of the United States, Zachery Taylor, that he was dead and gone and that Brigham was glad of it.  In actuality, there were very few people that were mourning Pres. Taylor.  He was not a very popular president and he had been a bloody general during the Mexican War.  That was not the issue, but rather the unpatriotic maligning of the president of the United States.
Brigham wrote an answer to these and other charges.  Newly elected Pres. Millard Fillmore told Pres. Young that he must answer these charges or ‘I cannot keep you as governor,’ he admonished.  Willard Richards and others helped to write a hand written answer in a hundred page letter, that they called ‘beating against the air.’  Pres. Young replied, ‘How can we answer these frivolous charges, except in the same currency...’ 
This being the case, Brigham then said, ‘I didn’t say that about Zach Taylor, it was Heber Kimball and he didn’t really say that but he was with the non-Mormon judge who left town who said it and Heber Kimball just bore testimony of the truthfulness of it.  Now I know this is a proverbial feathers to the wind and gather them all up situation and it can’t be done.  But, we’re a sporting people.  I propose this.  I think the judge should go to (Hades) and find out if Zach is there.  Now if he gets there and Zach Taylor is not there, I, Brigham Young, will confess that Heber Kimball will acknowledge a false prophecy.  But if he is there and we think he is, he’ll have to foot the bill himself and get out of (Hades) the best way he can.’” 

Friday, February 06, 2015

Have You Seen This?



http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=YjntXYDPw44&sns=em

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

The People of New Zealand


Two Questions

1. How old was Chief Captain Moroni when he died?

Answer:  (From Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon Volume 3, by Robert Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, page 328).  “Moroni died at a rather young age, approximately forty-four years old.”  (See Alma 43:17 and compare with Alma 63:3)  (Bro. Ray’s comment: Perhaps battle weary?)

2. Who was the father of the Polynesians?

Answer: (From same reference as above, this time from pages 328 to 329).  “In the Church it is generally held that Hagoth (Alma 63:5) was the father of the Polynesians, that his expeditions to the isles of the sea were a part of the foreordained plan whereby the descendants of father Lehi, as children of Abraham, might be spread to all nations and thus fulfill God’s covenant with the father of the faithful.  (Abraham 2:8-11)

In speaking to the Saints in Samoa, President Spencer W. Kimball said: “I thought to read to you a sacred scripture, which pertains especially to you, the islanders of the Pacific.  It is in the 63rd Chapter of Alma. (He then read Alma 63:4, 7-10)  And so it seems to me rather clear that your ancestors moved northward and crossed a part of the South Pacific.  You did not bring your records with you, but you brought much food and provisions.  And so we have a great congregation of people in the South Seas who came from the land southward and went to the land northward, which could have been Hawaii.

Then the further settlement could have been a move southward again to all of these islands and even to New Zealand.  The Lord knows what he is doing when he sends his people from one place to another.  That was the scattering of Israel.  Some of them remained in America and went from Alaska to the southern point.  Others of you came this direction.” (Samoa Area Conference Report, February 1976, page 15) 

To another group of Saints in the South Seas, President Kimball observed:  “President Joseph F. Smith, the 6th president of the Church reported, ‘You brothers and sisters from New Zealand, I want you to know that you are from the people of Hagoth.’ For New Zealand Saints, that was that.  A prophet of the Lord had spoken…It is reasonable to conclude that Hagoth and his associates were about nineteen centuries on the islands from about 55 B.C. to 1854 before the gospel began to reach them.  They had lost all the plain and precious things which the Savior brought to the earth, for they were likely on the islands when Christ was born in Jerusalem.”  (Temple View Area Conference Report, Feb. 1976, page 3)

In Alma 63:8 it tells us: “we suppose that they were drowned in the depths of the sea.”  “This is one of the subtle testimonies of the truthfulness of this record.  Had Joseph Smith simply been creating the Book of Mormon, fabricating it, rather than translating it, he probably would not have inserted such ideas into the narrative.  Here we see that Mormon, a powerful prophet-editor, was simply unaware of what became of Hagoth and his followers.  Living almost five centuries after their departure from the promised land, Mormon could have inquired as to their whereabouts, but presumably he had not done so, or if he had, he had not learned by revelation what become of those people.”

Monday, February 02, 2015

Lessons Learned


The following two comments are from the 2010 General Conference:

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland commented:  “As we encourage missionaries to do, I had saved money and sold personal belongings to pay my own way as best I could. I thought I had enough money, but I wasn’t sure how it would be in the final months of my mission. With that question on my mind, I nevertheless blissfully left my family for the greatest experience anyone could hope to have. I loved my mission as I am sure no young man has ever loved one before or since.

Then I returned home just as my parents were called to serve a mission of their own. What would I do now? How in the world could I pay for a college education? How could I possibly pay for board and room? And how could I realize the great dream of my heart, to marry the breathtakingly perfect Patricia Terry? I don’t mind admitting that I was discouraged and frightened.

Hesitantly I went to the local bank and asked the manager, a family friend, how much was in my account. He looked surprised and said, “Why, Jeff, it’s all in your account. Didn’t they tell you? Your parents wanted to do what little they could to help you get started when you got home. They didn’t withdraw a cent during your mission. I supposed that you knew.”

Well, I didn’t know. What I do know is that my dad, a self-educated accountant, a “bookkeeper” as they were called in our little town, with very few clients, probably never wore a new suit or a new shirt or a new pair of shoes for two years so his son could have all of those for his mission. Furthermore, what I did not know but then came to know was that my mother, who had never worked out of the home in her married life, took a job at a local department store so that my mission expenses could be met. And not one word of that was ever conveyed to me on my mission. Not a single word was said regarding any of it. How many fathers in this Church have done exactly what my father did? And how many mothers, in these difficult economic times, are still doing what my mother did?”

Then, Elder D. Todd Christofferson writes, “As a youth I visited the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. One of my favorite stops was the LDS Church pavilion with its impressive replica of the Salt Lake Temple spires. There for the first time I saw the film Man’s Search for Happiness. The movie’s depiction of the plan of salvation, narrated by Elder Richard L. Evans, had a significant impact on many visitors, including me. Among other things, Elder Evans said:

“Life offers you two precious gifts—one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will. You are free to exchange your allotment of time for thrills. You may trade it for base desires. You may invest it in greed. …

“Yours is the freedom to choose. But these are no bargains, for in them you find no lasting satisfaction.

“Every day, every hour, every minute of your span of mortal years must sometime be accounted for. And it is in this life that you walk by faith and prove yourself able to choose good over evil, right over wrong, enduring happiness over mere amusement. And your eternal reward will be according to your choosing.

“A prophet of God has said: ‘Men are that they might have joy’—a joy that includes a fullness of life, a life dedicated to service, to love and harmony in the home, and the fruits of honest toil—an acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—of its requirements and commandments.

“Only in these will you find true happiness, the happiness which doesn’t fade with the lights and the music and the crowds.”