Toward Becoming a Gospel Scholar

September 29, 2010

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Gospel scholars, like all scholars, realize that convenient answers may not always be immediately forthcoming. We would like to know many things about Moses' Hebrew or about life in other galaxies, but answers are not always presently available. Scholars humbly recognize that some problems must be put on a shelf, not forgetting them, but waiting for further information to be found.

Twenty-five years ago, in a graduate seminar, I asked an esteemed New Testament scholar if anyone knew anything about the Jewish background of Caiaphas's argument that "one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not" (John 11:50). I wanted to know the background of that rubric, because we encounter the same principle six hundred years earlier in 1 Nephi 4 with Nephi's slaying of Laban. The New Testament scholar said that he was not aware of anywhere else that this policy or rationale could be found. Concurring with Raymond Brown, he considered it merely a commonsense maxim. I put the question on a shelf for twenty years, but did not forget it. Five years ago, I ran across a recently published study by Roger D. Aus, tracing in great detail the legal history of this principle back into Jewish and biblical sources to an amazing degree (Scholars Press, 1992).

How little people had known about the subject only a few years earlier! Now it is clear that during Nephi's own lifetime, this legal concept was invoked in justifying high political decisions.

Finally, let me say that good scholars have many goals on their radar screen at one time. By keeping many good questions in mind, and by reading and listening widely, answers can show up in the most unexpected places. In scholarship, serendipity is far less accidental than most people think. In a gospel scholarly setting, one may readily agree, with Elder Neal A. Maxwell, that "there are no coincidences." There is purpose and order in the way God works with our minds as well as our spirits. If people go to a sacrament meeting, conference, or Sunday School class looking for nothing, that is usually all they will find.

Good questions are hard to come by. But without them, our study is largely aimless.

Reading the Scriptures

Nothing is more important in becoming a gospel scholar than reading the scriptures. Gospel scholarship is thoroughly grounded in the four standard works. While the words of the living prophets are our source of modern-day direction, the scriptures are essential for gospel scholarship. Knowing what the scriptures say, why they say what they say, and knowing what the original meaning of any passage of scripture was is the point of departure for understanding how modern revelation has utilized, adapted, and sometimes superseded specific scriptural provisions that were applicable in earlier days. Most of the messages of the living prophets, including General Conference addresses, begin with a knowledge of the scripture

Gospel scholarship reads the scriptures very closely. Little details are important in scholarly discussions, even though they may not be of eternal gospel earthshaking significance. It has been said that God is in the details. This applies to gospel scholarship.

Words

I go back, most often, to individual word studies as my point of departure. Words are the building blocks of sentences, chapters, and eventually books. What do the scriptural words mean?

A gospel scholar needs to know as much English, Greek, and Hebrew as possible. This does not mean that every gospel scholar must be expert or even proficient in working with these languages, but even the amateur must be willing to invest time studying words and languages in order to work with the dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, computer programs, and many other tools that are readily available to most readers. All students should be acutely aware of the need to listen for such information in scholarly discourse and to withhold final judgment until questions about the original intent of the words in the scriptures have at least been asked and checked out.

Sometimes these little points help us in understanding the narrative. For example, when Mary places Jesus in a manger because there was no room in the "inn" (Luke 2:7), the Greek word behind this translation probably does not refer to a public house, a pandochion, like a hotel or motel, but rather to a guest room in a private home, a kataluma. Interestingly, the Greek word kataluma appears only in two episodes in the Gospels, the first time in the infancy narrative of Luke and the second time in the passion narrative (Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11). When Jesus and his disciples needed a room in which to eat together at the Last Supper, they borrowed a man's kataluma, his guest room, for the occasion. Apparently, Mary and Joseph preferred to move into the stable portion of their ancestral Bethlehem home rather than share its crowded guest room with other relatives. But it does not appear that some unmentioned innkeeper rudely turned them away.

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