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“But for Wales!”

“But for Wales!”

Last updated on: August 23, 2024 at 12:54 pm by Dan Peterson

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“But for Wales!” 2024-08-23T12:54:29-06:00 Dan Peterson

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This hill, Cerro La Vigia, near the town of Catemaco, in the Municipio de Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz, México, has been proposed by some adherents of a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon as the location of the final Jaredite and Nephite battles. I think they may be right. If so, the Nephites knew it as “Cumorah,” and the Jaredites knew it as “Ramah.”
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

It’s Friday, so — once again, as happens with tiresome regularity, new materials have appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

““That They May Know That They Are Not Cast Off Forever”: Jewish Lectionary Elements in the Book of Mormon,” written by Bradley J. Kramer

Abstract: It is not uncommon for Jews who join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to notice connections between certain events in the Book of Mormon and modern Jewish practices associated with the feasts of Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles, and Rosh Hashanah. Aware that traditional Christianity holds not only that Jews were ousted from God’s covenant but that Jewish traditions in support of that covenant are spiritually worthless, these Jews find great comfort in these connections as well as in Book of Mormon statements that affirm their continued inclusion in that covenant. But aren’t there also connections to the modern Jewish lectionary—the order in which Jews today read and explain their scriptures as part of their worship services? And don’t these connections similarly affirm Jewish efforts to uphold that covenant? This article explores these possibilities, first by describing three of the most basic principles behind that lectionary and second by showing how Book of Mormon prophets, Jacob in particular, adhere to these principles in their presentation of passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. In this way, this article shows how the Book of Mormon strengthens its already strong refutation of Christian supersessionism and encourages its readers to value Jews as Jews and to cease all anti-Semitic activities and attitudes.

“Interpreting Interpreter: Following the Jewish Lectionary,” written by Kyler Rasmussen

This post is a summary of the article ““That They May Know That They Are Not Cast Off Forever”: Jewish Lectionary Elements in the Book of Mormon” by Bradley J. Kramer in Volume 62 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

The Takeaway: Kramer identifies sermons from early Book of Mormon prophets that appear to align with modern Jewish practices for using and explaining the scriptures during Sabbath and festival worship, giving primacy to the words of the Torah, emphasizing them with thematically connected passages from the Prophets, and then working to expound those ideas.

May I take just a few seconds to publicly thank Kyler Rasmussen for his impressive devotion and reliability in writing these “Interpreting Interpreter” pieces? He’s written more than a hundred of them now. It’s of such volunteer effort that the Interpreter Foundation is made, and on which it stands. I’m very grateful.

Don Bradley is the speaker in this new very short video feature from the Interpreter Foundation, entitled “You Can Be a Witness.”

We invite you to share these brief videos and, thus, in that way at least, to be a witness.

The 1966 movie poster (Fair Use)

There are many memorable passages in Robert Bolt’s powerful play A Man for All Seasons. One of them is set in the courtroom where, largely on the basis of perjured testimony from Richard Rich, Sir Thomas More will shortly be condemned to death on a false charge of treason. Thomas Cromwell is counsel for the prosecution:

MORE I have one question to ask the witness. (RICH stops) That’s a chain of office you are wearing. (Reluctantly RICH faces him) May I see it? (NORFOLK motions him to approach. MORE examines the medallion) The red dragon. (To CROMWELL) What’s this?

CROMWELL Sir Richard is appointed Attorney-General for Wales.

MORE (Looking into RICH’S face, with pain and amusement) For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!

The movie poster for the 1988 film version of the play, starring and directed by Charlton Heston, which has some strong points in its favor, as well. (Fair Use)

As my inbox has repeatedly delivered links to articles about the forthcoming Hulu series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, I’ve been thinking about the scene that I’ve cited above from Robert Bolt’s great drama and about the scriptural verse (Mark 8:36) that lies behind it. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is merely the latest in an increasingly long list of malign and sensational caricatures of Latter-day Saints, many but not all of them created by Hulu.

Take a look at the trailer here. I don’t think that the trailer really needs further comment from me; it speaks (eloquently) for itself. But I find myself thinking about Robert Bolt’s or Thomas More’s question:

For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!

How do we respond to such offensive distortions of our faith and of our lives as Latter-day Saints? The Church itself released a statement a few days ago that, while it doesn’t explicitly mention The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives by name, certainly has it in mind along with certain other recent and forthcoming media emissions: “Commentary: When Entertainment Media Distorts Faith.”

But we don’t need to wait for the institutional Church to respond, and we shouldn’t wait. (See Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-28.). Some, including me, have taken it upon themselves to respond online to critics. (For one very recent example, see “The True Origins of the CES Letter.”) But, of course, mixing it up with critics isn’t to everybody’s taste. Truth be told, it isn’t even really to mine; it grows wearisome, and sometimes exasperating, even for those of us who have been willing to undertake the effort. But there are many tools to make the task easier: The video shorts being created by the Interpreter Foundation, for instance, are among the very many instruments, both official and unofficial, that can simply be shared on social media by individual members.

The Church has been asking us to make more effective use of social media for many years: “Then and now: A look at Elder Bednar’s invitation 10 years ago to ‘flood the earth’ with gospel messages on social media: Ten years ago Elder David A. Bednar invited Church members to “fill the earth with goodness” using social media to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Individually, we can do little. Collectively, though, we have substantial capacity to do good. We shouldn’t abandon the social media to our enemies, nor, for that matter, to corrupt media fantasies about “real Mormon housewives.”

Temple II, the Maya Temple of the Masks, at Tikal, Guatemala
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Mike Vondran)

I thought that it might be useful for me to share this announcement, which also appears on the webpage of the Interpreter Foundation:

Have you wanted to go on The Interpreter Foundation’s Mesoamerica Tour with Brant Gardner but did not sign up in time? GREAT NEWS! We’ve had some last-minute cancellations. There are four spaces available for those who can sign up before the end of the month.

This is a 14-Day Deluxe Tour hosted by: Brant A. Gardner, escorted by Blake Joseph Allen, and accompanied by Interpreter Foundation board members Dan Peterson, Steve Densley, and Larry Ainsworth. It runs from October 22 – November 4, 2024 and costs $3,799 per person (double occupancy, cash price. Additional fee for credit card payments.) It includes all internal airfare (3 flights), but does not include international round-trip airfare.

The full itinerary can be found here.

Contact Blake Allen at Book of Mormon Tours for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Phone: 801-226-5200

Email: [email protected]

Another principal focus of Latter-day Saint humanitarian work is providing accessible clean water in third-world countries. (LDS Media Library)

I close, however, with yet another chilling example of theistic depravity that I’ve drawn from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: “The Church and Edesia Nutrition Unite to Nourish Children and Mothers: Edesia Nutrition has helped more than 25 million children and mothers in 65 countries”

Will the evils of religion never end? North Korea has peace and quiet. And dark nights, unpolluted by the garish lighting of Latter-day Saint temples. Can the rest of the world not have peace and serenity, too? Is that really too much to ask?

In the lower right hand corner of this NASA public domain photograph is South Korea. It looks like an island, but, of course, it’s not. Note the seeming sea that extends beyond the brilliant lights of Seoul. That’s not ocean water. It’s the atheistic utopia of North Korea, which lies blissfully beyond the reach of Latter-day Saint missionaries.

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