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Funny, Touching, Titanic

Funny, Touching, Titanic

Last updated on: October 9, 2022 at 10:51 pm by Dan Peterson

Funny, Touching, Titanic 2022-10-09T22:51:25-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Among our other activities today, we strolled through theVictorian magnificence of the Halifax Public Gardens.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

Two new articles appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of them is the latest article to appear in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:

““Unto the Taking Away of Their Stumbling Blocks”: The Taking Away and Keeping Back of Plain and Precious Things and Their Restoration in 1 Nephi 13–15,” written by Matthew L. Bowen

Abstract: In the latter part (1 Nephi 13–14) of his vision of the tree of life (1 Nephi 11–14), Nephi is shown the unauthorized human diminution of scripture and the gospel by the Gentile “great and abominable church” — that plain and precious things/words, teachings, and covenants were “taken away” or otherwise “kept back” from the texts that became the Bible and how people lived out its teachings. He also saw how the Lord would act to restore those lost words, teachings, and covenants among the Gentiles “unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks” (1 Nephi 14:1). The iterative language of 1 Nephi 13 describing the “taking away” and “keeping back” of scripture bears a strong resemblance to the prohibitions of the Deuteronomic canon-formula texts (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:31 [MT 13:1]). It also echoes the etiological meanings attached to the name Joseph in Genesis 30:23–24 in terms of “taking away” and “adding.” Nephi’s prophecies of scripture and gospel restoration on account of which “[the Gentiles] shall be no more [cf. Hebrew lōʾ yôsîpû … ʿôd*] brought down into captivity, and the house of Israel shall no more [wĕlōʾ yôsîpû … ʿôd] be confounded” (1 Nephi 14:2) and “after that they were restored, they should no more be confounded [(wĕ)lōʾ yôsîpû … ʿôd], neither should they be scattered again [wĕlōʾ yôsîpû … ʿôd]” (1 Nephi 15:20) depend on the language of Isaiah. Like other Isaiah-based prophecies of Nephi (e.g., 2 Nephi 25:17, 21; 29:1–2), they echo the name of the prophet through whom lost scripture and gospel covenants would be restored — i.e., through a “Joseph.”*

“Interpreting Interpreter: Joseph-Based Stumbling-Block Removal,” written by Kyler Rasmussen

This post is a summary of the article ““Unto the Taking Away of Their Stumbling Blocks”: The Taking Away and Keeping Back of Plain and Precious Things and Their Restoration in 1 Nephi 13–15” by Matthew L. Bowen in Volume 53 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

The Takeaway: Bowen argues that the Book of Mormon’s description of truths being “taken away” or “kept back” from the Bible resemble prohibitions against “diminish[ing] ought from [God’s word], and that the underlying Hebrew words could be echoes of the name “Joseph”, with those echoes also present within covenant promises to return those harmed by lost truths back into God’s fold.

Willy Stöwer, “Der Untergang der Titanic” (1912); Wikimedia Commons public domain image

We spent the day in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia, today. Because it is a deep water port that is ice free in the winter, several vessels were sent out from Halifax in 1912 to recover bodies of the victims of the Titanic disaster, which occurred roughly seven hundred nautical miles out in the North Atlantic. Altogether, 150 of the Titanic victims are buried in Halifax, the large majority of them in Fairview Lawn Cemetery, which we visited this morning. The story still moves people, including me, after more than 110 years. But our very good guide, Adina B., told us one amusing story from the grim event: About ten of the bodies brought to Halifax were identified, usually on the basis of materials that were found with them (e.g., wallets, staff name badges, and the like), as Jewish, and they were buried in a small Jewish cemetery near Fairview Lawn.

One of them, though, turned out to be a Roman Catholic who had kidnapped his kids from his estranged wife, assumed a false Jewish identity, and even taken to wearing a Star of David. He was running away with them to America. He died in the disaster, but his two children survived. Shortly thereafter, when photographs of them were published back in the United Kingdom in a bid to find their family, their mother recognized them.

But his family was upset that he had been buried in a Jewish cemetery. They worried that his burial in unconsecrated ground might threaten his position in eternity. (I wonder if they were equally upset at the fact that he had kidnapped his children, their grandchildren, and that he was absconding with them to another hemisphere when fate intervened.) Anyway, they wanted him exhumed and reburied in a Christian graveyard. But Orthodox Jewish teaching evidently forbids the exhuming of the dead. So things were at an impasse. Eventually, though, Jewish and Catholic leaders in Halifax brokered a deal that left both sides satisfied: The local rabbi and the local bishop met at the grave, the rabbi said some sort of prayer, and then the bishop consecrated the grave and the soil around it for a few inches in every direction. Thus, Adina B. says — and I have no reason to doubt her — this is the only place, perhaps in the world, where a consecrated Catholic cemetery (consisting of one single grave) sits within and surrounded by an Orthodox Jewish cemetery.

At least two other Titanic-related graves in Fairview Lawn Cemetery itself probably deserve special mention. The first belongs to “J. Dawson.” Joseph Dawson, if I recall correctly, worked in the engine room of the Titanic and was in his early to mid-twenties when he died. He is not to be confused with Jack Dawson, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio opposite Kate Winslet in the 1997 film version of Titanic and who is utterly and absolutely fictional. Yet he has been so confused. According to Adina B., women still come and place flowers and other mementos at Joseph Dawson’s grave and stand there weeping, especially in the spring at around the anniversary of Titanic‘s sinking. Fortunately, it’s not so common as it was in the years immediately following the film’s release. But I do hope that the real J. Dawson is aware of the attention that he’s receiving, and that he appreciates it.

The other Titanic grave that I’ll mention here is one that formerly belonged to “An Unknown Child.” He is now known through DNA analysis to have been Sidney Leslie Goodwin, who died at somewhat less than two years of age. For various reasons, he caught the attention of the men on the retrieval boats and of the people of Halifax, and people still place toys and trinkets on his grave to this day. There were some items there this morning, and Adina B. told of coming there once and seeing a dilapidated stuffed bunny with a note attached in a child’s handwriting, wishing little Sidney joy of a companion who had given him much happiness. She herself placed a small stone on the grave marker — and I was not, therefore, very surprised when she told me a bit later that she is Jewish.

It’s difficult not to be touched by such stories. And there are others. I’m not quite done reporting on our visit to Halifax.

Posted from off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada

Fairview Lawn Cemetery

graves

Halifax Public Gardens

plain and precious things

Sidney Leslie Goodwin

stumbling block

stumbling blocks

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