Click to Listen: Episode 58: Helaman 7-9
Happy New Year’s Mymos!
In this one Nephi v2.0 gets on his prayer tower, which sounds an awful lot like one of those evil Nehor towers, or maybe he’s a Muslim, who knows. He then lives up to his namesake by telling everyone how evil they are and then prophecies about the new Chief Judge getting murdered, or did he plot the murder himself? What a conspiracy!
“Drink” Count – 51
8 and a half beers!
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My Book of Mormon 
December 29, 2014 at 4:17 am
I’m not sure how enthusiastically I should take up the challenge of annoying everyone by posting on every single episode. But as I have a thing or two to say about this one, I’ll go along with it, for now. Be careful what you wish for…
So, Mulek, did we miss his story? Kind of, but that’s to be expected, because that story was told rather piecemeal. Way, way back, in the Book of Omni, we first met Zarahemla and his people, and we were told that they originally came out of Jerusalem at the time Zedekiah, king of Judah, was taken captive into Babylon. It wasn’t until Mosiah chapter 25 that we learned Zarahemla was a descendent of someone named Mulek. It wasn’t until just recently, in Helaman chapter 6, we learned that the land northward was called the land of Mulek, because that’s the location where Mulek and his people arrived in the promised land, and we also learn that Mulek was apparently a son of Zedekiah, the king of Judah. And here, we get Nephi’s reference to Mulek as proof that Jerusalem was destroyed, because Mulek and his people (eh, let’s call them Mulekites, why not?) must have seen it happen, then came to America, eventually joined up with the Nephites. and told them all about it.
Oh yeah, and Lehi, way back in 2 Nephi chapter 1, said, “For, behold… I have seen a vision, in which I know that Jerusalem is destroyed.” Nephi probably doesn’t even care that the Mulekites could confirm that was true. If Daddy Lehi had a fever dream about it happening, it must have happened, and ye can not dispute it!
A quick note on the land of Zarahemla being back in Nephite hands. There was a throw-away verse right at the end of Helaman chapter 5 which says the Lamanites yielded up the Nephite lands they had taken. Even though they’d won half the Nephite lands in war, once they turned good, they said to hell with it, let’s just go back to our pre-war borders instead of being meanies about it.
Yeah, it is a stretch to say that Moses prophesied about Jesus just because of the brazen serpent incident. The LDS conception of the Old Testament is that all the big prophets knew the whole story of Jesus coming, just like our Book of Mormon prophets do, but the Old Testament doesn’t have explicit mentions of Jesus’s mission, because the Israelites were of course too wicked to deserve to hear the full story, and/or because Satan put it into the hearts of wicked scribes to remove any such plain references to Jesus from the scriptures in the process of copying them down, which is obviously the only way Zenos, Zenoch, Neum, and Ezias couldn’t make the final cut, as awesome as the Book of Mormon says they were.
But as for Abraham, well, Jesus himself perhaps seemed to think Abraham was a Jesus freak, since he says in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Then Jesus almost got stoned for that remark, but slipped on his cloak of invisibility at the last second to tip-toe away from the mob safely.
Heh. A thing or two…
December 29, 2014 at 1:21 pm
I love the Duke’s comments. Keep it up!
Other Christians do consider Old Testament events to be indications of Christ’s coming ministry.
Jesus speaking to Nicodemus in John 3:14… “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:”
However, one could argue that Jesus was prooftexting to support his own argument about his mission. I don’t know of any Old Testament era prophets to have looked at Old Testament events and have said they specifically typify Jesus, even though things like the pascal lamb represent a forthcoming Jewish Messiah. Claiming all these OT events point to Christ generally comes along much later, during or after the ministry of Jesus himself, perpetuated by Jesus’ followers. But not with Nephi. He’s one of the few who can claim dibs on saying it earlier.
January 1, 2015 at 8:13 am
Just a couple of quick things I wanted to point out because they are fairly obscure and can be missed. The gospels (and in fact all of Christian tradition) is the idea of taking Old Testament scriptures and post-hoc attaching meanings to them; though they mostly borrowed from a tradition already begun by the Jews themselves, this is why the gospels themselves attempt to use Old Testament scriptures as proofs of Christ, as Tina mentioned the John passage above. The Jews were not originally expecting a messiah at all, not even in Isaiah (who by the was is Ezias/Esias: it is the Greek version of the name and Joseph did not understand the convention in the Bible of using the Greek names in the New Testament, which is also why he doesn’t realize that Jesus Christ is not the name of Jesus, but became so later on, and also why he thinks Elijah and Elias are separate people). The Jews began to expect a messiah starting with Jerhemiah, and even more so with Daniel. Try reading Richard Carrier’s book “On the Historicity of Jesus” which is about the proof of Jesus (from the perspective that he probably was never a real person, but a mythical being set into history like Romulus, Osiris and Dionysus). That book doesn’t spoil anything related to the church or Book of Mormon, but goes through the New Testament and the foundation of Jewish and cultural beliefs and practices of the time.
Also, I just wanted to say that I’m loving the podcast. I’m currently unable to leave the church for reasons I can’t really mention, but I can’t stand the self-righteousness of the church, and it feels great to listen to someone bash the church without having any of the background necessary to see a lot of the mistakes, though it also strikes at the ego a bit and makes me wonder why I never noticed some things sooner. Also, I love the gay jokes, I think that they are hilarious (and I’m gay, so rest assured they aren’t at all offensive). Thanks a lot for the work you do David.
January 13, 2015 at 4:08 pm
Esias is Greek for Isaiah, which makes it really weird that it’s in the Book of Mormon even with the alternate spelling, and doubly strange because it basically leads to naming the same prophet twice in a row. (This isn’t the only time that Joseph Smith is linked with this sort of error. but it would be spoilers to say when it happens again. The other time doesn’t involve misspelling though).
Listening to this podcast, sometimes I end up pausing it because of “wait a minute!” sort of epiphanies or observations that I didn’t know about as a believer. I keep reiterating how awesome I think this podcast is on different media, but it really has been a refreshing perspective to what I was raised with.