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Abide: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5

Abide: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5

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Transcript

“In the beginning.” Even readers who don’t regularly read scripture will recognize that famous phrase. Creation and re-creation are at the center of Genesis, Moses, and Abraham, showing the process of continual renewal and improvement at the center of Latter-day Saint cosmology. That last word, cosmology, means the study of the origin and development of the universe. It seems, at least to me, that cosmology should also mean the origins and development of our own universes. How do we become the people we’re meant to be? How do we create our lives in ways that put everything in their proper place, including our relationships to God, to the scriptures, and to one another?

Joseph Stuart: “In the beginning.” Even readers who don’t regularly read scripture will recognize that famous phrase. Creation and re-creation are at the center of Genesis, Moses, and Abraham, showing the process of continual renewal and improvement at the center of Latter-day Saint cosmology. That last word, cosmology, means the study of the origin and development of the universe. It seems, at least to me, that cosmology should also mean the origins and development of our own universes. How do we become the people we’re meant to be? How do we create our lives in ways that put everything in their proper place, including our relationships to God, to the scriptures, and to one another?

My name is Joseph Stuart. I'm the Public Communications Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a Research Associate at the Maxwell Institute, and each week we will be discussing the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to “Inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas.” We also encourage you to follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at the handle @byumaxwell.

Kristian, today we're reading Genesis 1 and 2, Moses 2 and 3, and Abraham 4 and 5, what's going on in this block of scripture?

Heal: These two chapters recount the creation of the world, all creatures and humanity and then focus on the creation of humanity and their existence in the Garden of Eden. For Latter-day Saints, the story exists in these multiple accounts, each slightly different, illustrating the vitality and value I think of the ongoing restoration that President Nelson has been teaching us about. Brigham Young, interestingly taught that no revelation is ever received in its fullness. This recounting of the story of creation, I think, teaches us what happens when revelations -about particular ideas- are received again and again, and grow incrementally over time. This is also the first week where we start reading the Old Testament. Last week, we were just in Moses and Abraham. The Old Testament is called by one scholar, “the First Testament”, which I think reframes our sense of its sort of place in our own scriptural understanding. As the angels said, to Mary, “fear not”. We don't need to be afraid when we're reading the Old Testament. These are the scriptures that Jesus taught from. And as Paul reminds us, in his letter to Timothy, the second letter, the Old Testament was given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the people of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished, under all good works. I'm excited to be in the Old Testament today.

Stuart: I am as well, I'm also thinking, though, about literature around understanding creation accounts, and really understanding the Old Testament and the Bible that have been put together by Protestant and Catholic scholars. I think it's important as these scholars do, to set expectations for sources and for scripture. For instance, people from the ancient Near-East thought about history in very different ways and thought about truth and authority in ways that are different from our own. While there's the old adage, the past is a foreign place, “They do things differently there.” It's also important to remember that they thought differently, they're not just doing things differently. So when we look at the creation accounts, and we wonder why are there seemingly different accounts? Why isn't there an internally consistent story all the way through? We can think to ourselves, they're trying to accomplish different things for different audiences with their words, in the same way that historians operate, if everyone says that something happened in the exact same way over time, my first assumption is that everyone colluded together to make sure that they had all of the details straight, because people tell stories differently to different audiences, and based on their own perspectives. For instance, Richard Bushman once wrote a great article about…about how we might read First Nephi, if we took it from Laman and Lemuel’s perspective, rather than Nephi. And so you can imagine how different that would be. It's the same thing with the different sources that are used to construct Genesis from the original accounts. I was also struck in reading about how Protestants and Catholics think about the Bible, is that it's often the same way that Latter-day Saints discussed accounts of the First Vision. Which is to say that there are differences in accounts, there are different ways of thinking about things, different audiences are being engaged, but it's crucial to keep in mind of the overall message that they tell is what's most important to us in the long run. So for instance, there are parts of Genesis that give different details or different narrative accounts. And in the First Vision, there are different details given. But at the end of the day, we're looking for what leads us back to the covenant path. How do we recognize our Heavenly Parents' love for us? The Atonement of their son? How do we move forward knowing that we, as well as others, have the ability to become better people through the Atonement of Jesus Christ? It's important to recognize that Latter-day Saints are not the only the religious group that grapples with scripture, with authority, and what the source of truth is, and how and where to trust it.

Heal: Yeah, you're bringing up some really kind of interesting issues. And we see that right in the outset, with Genesis chapter 1, where in the description of the creation of the world, our immediate impulse is to compare this description with a contemporary scientific account. And depending on our view of scripture, that can cause us some problems. Where we start to want to either line things up, or force things to fit, or try and think of scripture as being something other than is. “Scripture is not a scientific description,” as one scholar said, “but a theological affirmation.” That idea of scripture being an affirmation of a particular truth, of a particular insight, is, is the way to approach, I think, the creation account and scripture more broadly. It allows us to ask the question, not is this historically accurate, but what is God affirming? What is God teaching me in this one particular moment?

Stuart: Also, just think about the scientific method and approaches to gaining a testimony, and how at first blush, they may seem to be the same. Try something, observe the results, and then move forward with what you learn. But at the end of the day, your testimony is never going to be quantifiable, your experiences with the spirit are never going to be quantifiable. And I remember what my instructor in Physical Science 100 taught at BYU, which is that he had faith enough in a powerful enough God, that he could work through the natural law of time and physics, to be able to create the earth. That’s stuck with me for a long time. Because I think that sometimes I place limits on God's power. I try to explain away what He's done, when in reality, we can trust that He has the power, He has the foresight to create what He needed to.

Heal: Yeah, that's a really great way, I think, of seeing this because it places the onus on us to be receptive to recognize God's power and our place within, within creation. And as part of, kind of what's going on here, right, in Genesis 1 and 2, and its parallel passages. We are locating ourselves in the world. And God is helping us see ourselves in the world by beginning with this moment of laying a foundation of God creating this world for us to live in, and to have this experience. It's almost as though when we read Genesis 1 that we're dealing with, what one, what scholars call a creation liturgy, something which we repeat, and, and which may have been used in worship services in ancient Israel, that is, in a cadenced way, in a repetitive way, giving us a basis upon which we can build our understanding of our place, the place of Israel, the place of God's covenant people in the world. Thinking of it in those terms, I think, allows us to move away from a sense that we're dealing with a historical document or a scientific document, and to start to think we're in the realm of worship, or in the realm of instruction. And we're in the realm of Revelation. And that’s a message, which certainly comes out, as we read this account in the Book of Moses or the Book of Abraham.

Stuart: Right, the scholar J.Z. Smith has talked about liturgy as a form of creating an ideal in the world around you. So what would happen if everything were perfect, in a perfect way? I also think about the garden narrative that takes place in Genesis 2, in thinking about what's going on with creation, that once the earth is formed, who and what is going to inhabit the earth? At first blush, it seems like maybe there are two creation accounts. What do you think about that, Kristian?

Heal: It does look as though when we get to Genesis chapter 2, verse 4 things are starting again. And most scholars of the Old Testament would see there being as sort of a change at this point, in the stories, many see Genesis chapter 1 being a later account and Genesis 2 and 3 being an earliest story. But I think what's useful and this is where scholars will point out in reading this, it's useful, rather than speaking of these as a second parallel story, to see the one as a more intense or focused emphasis on a particular moment. That moment being creation of humanity, creation and destiny of humanity, and at this place, this event in the garden and how they play that role. So within this second scene of, of creation, as it were, where we focus in on humanity. Humanity is given a vocation, they're given permission to do certain things, and they're given a prohibition, not to do certain things. And this forms a, kind of a, a pattern for all of humanity, Adam and Eve in, in the garden, forming a pattern for all of humanity. And as Christians, as believers, we live our lives in precisely these terms, we have a vocation, we're called to a certain work by God, we're given permission and encouragement of the admonition to do certain things. And we live within the constraints of, of prohibition, there are certain things that we don't do. And I see those in the sense of a former English professor here at BYU called Martin Clark wrote a book called Liberating Form, in which he spoke about the liberation of the form of poetry and how in poetry, the strict meter actually produces these dazzling results. And I see the prohibition of religion in precisely those terms. By providing constraints to this, we're able to then creatively produce these dazzling results in a life of faith.

Stuart: Thank you for pointing out this sort of tripartite or three part aspect of Genesis 2. The vocation, the permission, and the prohibition. And it reminds me of reading The Great Gatsby in high school, where I remember listening to my teacher go on and on about the symbolism of the green light at the end of the dock. And I just remember thinking, sometimes a green light is just a green light. But then as I read the book and read it again in college, and came to understand the way that literature works in evoking themes and forms, and working on bigger concepts, through stories, I came to recognize that, “No, a green light doesn't always have to be a green light.” And I think that it's important for us to recognize that there are themes and patterns and ways of reading the Bible, as literature. There are classes on the Bible as literature at BYU, to help students understand the broader context in which the Bible was produced, in which it was read, because those literary forms are different to us today than they were in, in ancient times. And moving forward to the Moses account, I find it really interesting that God reveals himself as “I God.” It's not the sort of voice from above, “In the beginning,” but rather it's saying, “I God have done this.”

Heal: Yeah, this is another kind of interesting aspect of, of the book of Moses, that changes our perspective. And by changing our perspective, from a sort of a third person, external narrator to having God speak to us directly, it suddenly has an impact. There's an immediacy to it, an intimacy to it, which I think is really, really compelling, and changes the way I think this story comes, speaks to us, and speaks directly to us. This is something that we are, it's unusual, we don't find the phrase “I God” in, in scriptures, we are more used to “I the Lord,” in, in the King James translation. Which is actually replete, which is actually translating something similar to “I God,” but there's this potency to God's direct voice, which is really quite compelling. I think in the, in the Abraham account, we see a shift in the way that, that the creation is presented. We're now dealing with a kind of a corporate Council of Gods. Gods are speaking in plural, and this again, expresses this ongoing revelation of what creation, we're getting to a different aspect of creation. The “I God” has this kind of immediacy, has this power. But when we talk about, “We will go down,” and, “We will do these things.” Now we're starting to feel as though we're seeing a different view of heaven, a different, a different insight into that pre-existence.

Stuart: And I wonder if this connects too, to Moses 1:39 about God's work and glory being the immortality and eternal life of man. Is thinking about God working together with us in our salvation, that what he finds joy in, the measure of His creation, is to help us to live the measure of ours and saying “We” changes things. It goes from saying “I God,” this sort of imperious looking down, “I did this,” to “We” thinking about it in teamwork. Switching gears for a minute, I just want to take a moment to say that it isn't particularly helpful when you're teaching temple prep to say read Genesis and read the Pearl of Great Price. This was something that my well-meaning temple prep teacher said. And first of all, they're just completely different accounts. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be reading for, so I felt more confused and more apprehensive of going into the temple, on what should have been a day where I felt very confident going in. And I'm grateful that I made those covenants. The church has produced a lot of resources, some of which we'll link to in the shownotes, about how to understand the endowment and how to prepare for the temple. There are many resources to do that. And in fact, after going through the temple, then it may be more helpful to go back through Genesis and Moses and Abraham because you better understand what is going on.

Heal: When we come to speaking about the temple, the first, the first step that we're making in understanding the temple is appreciating that there is such a thing as a temple liturgy, there is, and we don't think in those terms as Latter-day Saints. Famously, James E. Talmage described the temple liturgy as including a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period. So we know that there's going to be, and we can tell people coming to the temple that the creation is, plays a central role in the temple liturgy. It also talks about the condition of our first parents, goes on Elder Talmage, in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and disobedience and consequent expulsion from that blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, and the plan of redemption by which the Great Transgression may be atoned. This gives us a sense, I think studying creation does give us a preparation for, for the temple liturgy, but I think you're exactly right, that the better thing is to go from the temple liturgy, back into these creation narratives, and to allow those to distill and to seep in. And let there be a conversation between the liturgy itself and the text of scripture that we have. And that can produce some wonderful insight.

Stuart: Certainly, and Joseph Smith continued to say more about creation accounts throughout his life, including famously in the King Follett discourse, which is a funeral sermon that was delivered in 1844.

Heal: Now, this is the next point in which we have, as we sort of track Joseph, Joseph Smith's discussions of creation, we have this beautiful moment in which he does an exegesis of the first three words of the Hebrew Bible, “Bereshit Bara Elohim.” “In the beginning, God created,” in traditional translations. And he unpacks this, using the insights from his hard won knowledge of Hebrew and his prophetic insights from Revelation. And as the first publisher can has it, he unpacked it to read the head, God called together the gods, and in, and sat in grand council, the grand council sat in yonder heavens, and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created at that time. And so, all of, we have this wonderfully now kind of expansive and, and specific view of, of the gods preparing to, for this next act of creation, amongst all of their other acts of creation, which is really compelling.

Stuart: I agree. In another account, as reported by Willard Richards, Joseph Smith also says, “In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the gods, and concocted a scheme to create this world.” And it brings to mind something else that Joseph Smith said that, with a little craftiness, we could save the entire human family. And I like the phrasing “concocting a scheme” and “with a little craftiness,” because it suggests a knowledge of the rules and then doing your best to get the best result from the rules. I think that we can also think about creating a, concocting a scheme as creating a plan. And thinking about it is something with a great reward at the end. And so God called us together and presented a plan whereby we would receive a great reward if we prove faithful. And so I think sometimes we limit who we think God is going to save. I remember asking a group of BYU students, when I was teaching one summer, “What percentage of the human family do you think is going to be saved?” And no one went above 30%. In my mind, what's the point of a plan that only saves 30% of the people that it's meant to save? And so while I'm not putting an exact number on it, that's certainly not my position, I have faith in a God who seeks to save all of us and will do everything in his power through the Atonement of His Son to draw us again closer to him.

Heal: I love that notion. And I love the way that Joseph's language places us into, back into that world. I think of the patriarchs, where, a world where people argued back with God, a world where people wrestled with God. And here we have him talking about concocting schemes, God concocting schemes. This is a much more world in which we're engaged with the divine in this common task of saving all of humanity. And we're always looking to save more. I think that's the sort of impetus that Joseph Smith had, and that these early prophets and patriarchs had.

Stuart: In reading for this week, I kept noticing that creation comes up all of the time. And as someone who loves a good story, or a good narrative as much as anyone else, it still seems that we focus on creation quite a bit more than we do other aspects of God's plan of salvation for us. Did early Christians and Jews focus on the creation narrative as well, Kristian?

Heal: Yeah, we do find the creation story, as the foundation, is the foundation for both the story of the house of Israel and the foundation story for the, for Christians as they look back and tell their own story which is of a coming of a Messiah and a promising of a Messiah. I was finding interesting reading again in Luke 24, when the, when the risen Christ is walking along the road to Emassus with the apostles. Was talking to them about this, this Jesus, and they didn't really know, they didn't recognize him and know who he was. And in verse 25, then he said unto them, “Oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” And then Jesus, in 26, “Ought Christ not to have suffered these things, and entered into his glory.” And beginning of Moses, the books of Moses, that, that we’re in now, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning Himself. So even Christians, when they went back, when they wanted to explain the story of Jesus began with creation, and soaring Christ, a new creation, and a second Adam. And so there is this desire to see creation as the starting point for all saving narratives.

Stuart: Certainly, and again, like I said, with The Great Gatsby and seeing bigger themes and things like that, something that we're going to focus a lot on in this season is thinking about the archetypes that appear in scripture, seeing the larger themes that are evoked through important figures like Adam and Noah and Esther and Ruth. And thinking about the larger story that God has to tell us about redemption through His Son. I really liked that we’re created in the image of God. It doesn't seem to me that it's about fingers or toes or ears or things like that. It's much more that we are created in God's image and that we have the potential to become like him. What do you think about that Kristian?

Heal: Yeah, this early Christians and, and early Jews and Christians, from the earliest time reading the Bible, read the text very, very carefully, and every word and often case, every letter had significance for these readers. And because the Bible was and is this great revelation of, of God. And so when they read in Genesis 126, that man, mankind/humankind are created in the image and likeness of God, they saw these as actually two different things in the image being looking like God, an image being just like a sort of a statue, a representation but likeness, perhaps indicating more of a qualitative nature. One particular, early Christian, Gregory of Nyssa, who lived in the fourth century, said that, “We possess the image of God by creation, but we acquire the likeness of God by free will.” And in this, he means that through our actions…through our actions of discernment, through the way that we use our will, in the service of God. That's how we can start to become like him. And the creation story gives us a really interesting first step in understanding what God was like. Joseph Smith was particularly interested in the character of God, and understanding the character of God. And this is part of why the creation story is so important because we're getting at some aspects of the character of God, and we start to see what we're aspiring to in this likeness in the Genesis story.

Stuart: I wonder if part of what we're supposed to do in thinking about the image and likeness of God is thinking about our continued place in the stewardship of His creation, or, as it says, in Abraham, that we created. And that we is sort of nebulous, but essentially thinking as humans participating with God in acts of creation, we have a responsibility to care for the earth. President Nelson has said “As beneficiaries of the Divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations.” The Earth is not a renter vehicle that we can use and abuse and then return and pay a little bit of insurance for. It is a godly creation. And as we learned in the Doctrine and Covenants, everything physical was created spiritually beforehand. It is something that we have to care for that we have to be stewards over because we were given responsibility for it when the “we” in Abraham, chapter 3 created the earth.

Heal: Yeah, I think that's a lovely perspective, I think you're exactly right on that. This was his part of us having dominion, not as people who can do what we want with something, but as people who are trying to then step into this image and likeness of God, and do what God would do in these circumstances. And I think this leads us positively to this theology of blessing that we find in Genesis chapter 1, and the beginning of Genesis chapter 2. Three times God blesses, as part of this process of creation. He blesses the creatures that he's made. He blesses humankind, and He blesses the Sabbath. And so we find, I think, in these three blessings that God gives, clear indicators of ways that we, as followers, and as people who are trying to become like God, can be like him. That we can take care of the creatures upon the earth and the earth upon which we live. That we can take care of each other, we can bless each other, we can look for ways to see ourselves in others, to love our enemies, to be good to those who despitefully use us include… as well as loving our families and friends. And also, to think of time. It's interesting that this third blessing is a, is a temporal blessing. We're thinking of each other as kind of a social blessing, a, an environmental blessing. But then we have this kind of temporal blessing, and the way that we think about how our use of time, the way we think about sacred time, I think this is another way that we can start to become, attain to the likeness of God.

Stuart: I can't think of a better place for us to finish than that. Have a blessed week, y'all.

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