Book of Mormon Studies Podcast: Ether Text with Rachael Johnson

Rosalynde Welch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Maxwell Institute's Book of Mormon Studies podcast. My name is Rosalynde Welch and I'm joined today by Dr. Rachael Johnson. Rachael is a postdoctoral fellow here at the Maxwell Institute. She has the coolest area of research. I love it whenever she shares anything with us. Her area of study is materialism, not the way you might think, not materialism as in like consumerism--but the idea that the entire cosmos is made of matter, this distinctive Latter-day Saint teaching. So, materialism and embodiment in our own Latter-day Saint theology and in early modern Catholicism. It's a really, cool project. She's incredibly smart. We're so happy to have Dr. Johnson with us on the podcast today. Welcome, Rachael.

Rachael Johnson: It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

Welch: Today we are going to be talking about the Book of Ether. Today we're focusing solely on the Book of Ether and we're going to try to dig into it and provide a kind of introduction to our listeners as they begin their own studies of the Book of Ether. So, we're going to provide some new lenses and some new ways of thinking about what they might encounter here in the Book of Ether. This very mysterious, very different, unique part of the Book of Mormon. It really stands alone. There's nothing else quite like it in the entire book. So, before we talk about specifics, Rachael, help us know what kind of context can prepare us to understand what we're about to encounter when we open the book.

Johnson: Yeah, like you said, this really is such an unusual text. We basically have these 24 gold plates that were discovered by some Nephites in the land of Zarahemla that appear to be the records of an ancient pre-Abrahamic civilization who fled the Old World after the fall of a tower. They don't specifically name Babel, but that's what it's inferred to be by many people. And so, this is a pre-Abrahamic civilization, so before the law of Moses, before the covenant with Abraham, before really knowledge of Christ. And so, it's really fascinating to see their relationship emerging with Christ as He agrees and covenants to kind of shepherd them and guide them provisionally, contingently upon their own actions and agency.

And to see Moroni's strong editorial voice in trying to kind of translate culturally and religiously this people for not only his own readership, but for the modern Gentile readership of today that he is referring to throughout his commentary in the text.

Welch: Yeah, yeah, that's a really important point and we're going to be coming back to that continually: that this is a book that's written for latter-day Gentiles in particular. So we'll, we'll get back to that a lot, but in a lot of ways when we finally get here to the book of Ether after the book of Mormon. So, we've seen the conclusion of Nephite civilization, kind of the, the very tragic, um, very sad end, and then we see Moroni kind of finish up the last chapters of the internal Book of Mormon and introduce himself. Finally, we get here to the Book of Ether and really, it's the answer to a mystery, right? There's been this kind of mystery growing and brewing throughout the whole Book of Mormon up to this point around precisely what you point to, these mysterious 24 gold plates. And, if you remember, it started even earlier than that, right? Back in...

Johnson: Right, with the stone that they found that had engravings on it that the first king, Mosiah, was asked to translate. Yeah.

Welch: Yes, yeah. So, the Mulekites, the Mulekites had found this really intriguing stone with some sort of engravings on it. They couldn't make--and it was the record of Coriantumr, who was the last king of the Jaredites whom they had known for a while--but they of course couldn't read this stone. So, when the Mulekites and the Nephites come together in Zarahemla, King Mosiah, I translates them and so they begin to know just a little something: that there was a whole other people that lived here in this place before them.

A bit later, they actually discover not only the 24 gold plates as you mentioned, but they find a whole land that's covered with these bones and the remnants of this old, ruined civilization. And obviously this is incredibly intriguing and there's a kind of mystique that grows up around who were the people that lived here before us, how did they die? And that's, I think, an open question in the Nephite mind. Then as you say, King Mosiah II translates the 24 gold Jaredite plates, but he doesn't really let them go out among the people yet, right? And we don't find out why until later. We find out later on that actual Christ himself has said, you know, the record of the brother of Jared's vision cannot go out to the people until after I have come.”

And so, you know, this kind of intriguing mystery, I think, has captured the imagination of the Nephites throughout. And finally, finally here near the end of the Book of Mormon, we get to see what was in those plates and we get the full story. Who were those people? How did they die? And as you pointed out, Moroni has a very, very urgent message. He sees that there's something extremely relevant, would have been very relevant for his people. And it's now relevant for the people who live in the latter days in that same place. And that message is, you got to be faithful. You got to be faithful to God or this too could be your fate. So, when we get here, finally, there's all this lead up and now finally there's a kind of a sense of fulfillment. We're here, we're going to understand, we're going to know, the mystery is going to be solved.

Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure he'll find it poignant, right? Translating or, you know, describing the civilization that so closely mirrors his own experience being a survivor, witnessing the destruction of his people, just like Coriantumr did. And, you know, the plight of the Jaredites that he's urgently, as you said, warning that it is not repeated by the modern-day readers.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. Well, another way that this book is unique is that it has a different narrator and editor and abridger than what we've seen before. Of course, at the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, we have Nephi in the small plates, then we have Mormon through the large plates. And now we have Moroni. So, kind of a new editorial voice. We heard a little bit of him at the close of the Book of Mormon, but he works a little differently than his father did. Tell us how he chooses to structure the Book of Ether.

Johnson: Yeah, so he kind of divides it into three parts. And he says he's going to kind of skip over a lot of what's in the plates that kind of record the history from Adam to the people involved in the story. And he's saying, you know, that we already know that. I'm not going to go there. But I am going to pick up with the brother Jared, who seems to be a kind of prophet or priest, and his named brother Jared, as they flee the old world, have this migration across the ocean, establish themselves in a promised land, in a choice land. So, we have the kind of lead up once they get established, then it kind of erupts into these dynastic disputes and strife and war and violence and kind of culminates in a third part where Moroni shifts to the teachings of the prophet, Ether, which we get in chapters 12 and 13. And interspersed we have Moroni's active commentary. Grant Hardy pointed out, and you've discussed this too, that he really wants to almost in a way Christianize this message, this text, this people, for readers that will be engaging it with the knowledge of Christ, with His coming and the full knowledge of His, um, salvific role in his mortal ministry. And so, he's, he's trying to kind of bridge, um, this, this pre-Abrahamic context to the modern-day context in which, which we're going to be engaging it.

Welch: Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's worth underscoring. On a first read through the book of Ether, you're going to see Jesus all over the place, right? So, you can think this is an extremely Christ-centric book, and it very much is as we have it now. But when you start to pull back the layers and look at it in terms of its structure, as you've pointed out, you can see that most of the discussion of Christ comes from Moroni himself.

The big exception to that, of course, is that the brother of Jared has this incredible vision of Jesus Christ. But as you'll remember, after he has the vision, he's commanded, “I want you to write it down, but then I want you to seal it up.” It can't be known. So, his people didn't know about his vision and didn't know about everything that he had learned. And so, then you go through kind of the middle of the book, and you can sort of be like, where's the Savior here? Where's Christ? And there are prophets, there's instructions and commandments to repent and there's prayer. Prayer is a big part of the Jaredite religion. But they don't seem to have a very developed understanding of Christianity, of who Jesus Christ is, of the atonement and of baptism, of the ordinances that we think of as part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, as you say, I think Moroni, it probably took him a while to figure out, well, what is the relevance of this? Nephite culture, of course, had an extremely developed Christian theology.

So, then Moroni looks at this ancient record and says, well, what does this have to do with anything, right? Where is the Savior here? So, I think he does a lot of work and that's why he intrudes a bit more obtrusively than his father did, right? To sort of say, this is what I want you to notice. This is how it's relevant. Look, who the brother of Jared saw, that's the same Savior who visited the Nephites. And so, he does all this kind of interpretive work for us to help us see how it's relevant. One way to think about the structure of the book of Ether is by looking at Moroni's editorial comments. And there are six of these, as I think you said, they tend to be really, really concentrated at the beginning of the book of Ether. He speaks up in chapter one, in chapter two, in chapter three. All of chapters four and five are all Moroni's voice. After that, it tends to, he's less, he interrupts less frequently. So, we see him again in chapter eight and then all of chapter 12 is Moroni's own voice. So that's one way to kind of divide up the book is according to Moroni's comments.

Well, let's talk about some of these characters. There are so many. Who are the main characters that we can get to know here in the Book of Ether?

Johnson: Yeah, I think as you mentioned, to me the prominent characters are Moroni himself as the editor, the brother of Jared, and his incredible vision that we can touch on in a little bit. I also think the land itself is a prominent actor. In fact, one of the most important subjects, I think, in this book as God is continually telling them, “I have a land preserved and I am going to make sure that whoever inhabits this land will merit the land, will be faithful to me and conditional on that faithfulness, they can enjoy this land or be swept away”. And so, the land really kind of takes a prominent place in this text. I think for me, those are the prominent characters, you know, the Gentile readers, the latter-day readers that Moroni addresses is also a kind of very self -conscious sense of, you know, myself being a participant in this text as well.

Welch: Yeah, I absolutely love that you've given us the land itself as a kind of character in the Book of Ether. And I think you're right. It's really the land which is central. The people will come and go. And this must have been an insight that Moroni had as well, right, as he was working with this text, is that if I'm trying to figure out how this is relevant both to my own people and the record that has come before it, and to the readers, what is the one unifying factor? It's the place. It's this place. All three of those groups of people inhabit this place. So, in a way, especially here in the book of Ether, the place itself takes center stage.

And it's called the choice land, right? This is something that we hear again and again. And the point is, right, that this is God's land. This is the Lord's place that He has prepared. It's going to have a central role in events that happen leading up to the return of Christ. So, it's crucial that He protect it and that the people who live there will serve Him. And so, this is the point that gets made again and again. I've invited you to this place, the Lord says. It's a choice land. I want you to come here and I want you to prosper. However, you are not entitled to this land. This land is my land. And if you don't serve me, then the consequences of your own actions will sweep you off. And there's another people that will come and they will serve me, at least for a time. So, we see this cycle between the Jaredites who come, they're swept off as they destroy themselves.

The Lehites come, they divide into the Nephites and the Lamanites, the Nephites are destroyed. The Lamanites persist, however, that's important. And then thinking all the way back to Nephi's dream, right, in 1st Nephi 12 and 13, a new group of people come. It's what the Book of Mormon calls the Gentiles, right? Gentiles, settlers of European descent who now live here, the people among whom the Book of Mormon will come forth. Joseph Smith, his family, the early converts to the church, these are the Gentiles. And I imagine what it must have been like for them to read the Book of Mormon. They lived during a time in Jacksonian America where there was this idea of manifest destiny, right? That this land, it belongs to us. It's just obvious, right? God has given this land to our people. It's ours. And this, of course, was the justification for the displacement of the native peoples who lived here. For those early members of the church who read the Book of Mormon, they would have gotten just the opposite message, right? An extremely strong message against the idea of manifest destiny. And that idea is, no, this land is not yours. This land is mine.

Welch: And there’s a special role in the future, in the end times, for the native inhabitants of this land. So, you are here, you are tenants in this land only. And if you choose not to serve me, then you will lose the privilege of being here. So, there's a kind of implicit warning to the early readers of the Book of Mormon. For those of us who still live here in the Americas, I think this is a promise that still applies to us as well.

So, you're exactly right that I think the choice land takes center stage. And when we notice that we can see how radical the message of the Book of Mormon was for its early readers. This land is the Lord's. You are not entitled to it.

Johnson: Yeah, exactly. There's this really evocative scripture at one point in the book of Ether where the Lord says, kind of, you know, there is a sense of agency here where he says, if you ripen in your sin, right, and you just kind of fall off, right, this tree, this rooted in this land, you know, that's, I'm warning you, you know, this is what will happen. And so, there is a strong message against a kind of entitlement, a kind of we're the center stage, we're the big story. That does not happen here.

Welch: I'd love to talk a little bit more about some of these other characters. What do we see of Moroni? What is his personality like? How does he emerge as a human being, as a person in the book of Ether? I find Moroni to be a compelling, poignant character. He doesn't just show up in this text as a kind of theological interpreter or commentator. We have a whole chapter where he is quite vulnerable about his weakness and about is he up to the task of,

Johnson: translating and writing and preserving such an important message. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Jacob's anxiety where he's saying, I need to unfold these mysteries to you. It's kind of on my shoulders to explain and to, you know, and then he has to kind of check himself with this over anxiety. Like I have to steer away from that, maintain a firmness of mind where I can, you know, do what I can do. I do what I am able to do. And I think Moroni kind of shares a similar sense of, you know, anxiousness or vulnerability about his own role in this. And so that to me makes him a compelling and interesting interpreter for us.

Welch: Yeah, I agree with you. This is the book of Ether and later on we're going to have the book of Moroni that's named for him. But for my money, we see a lot more of Moroni, the person, here in the book of Ether where his own voice kind of breaks through again and again. And just as you say, he has this very heavy sense of responsibility. He's coming to understand the role that “these things,” that's what he calls the work that he's doing, that these things will play in the latter days, an incredibly crucial role. And it seems like that kind of paralyzes him for a while, right? He sort of feels like, I don't know that I'm up to the task. This book is going to be the trigger that starts in motion, the events that are going to bring the Lord back to earth. And I don't know if I can do this. So, we see his anxieties, as you say, and then we see the very close relationship that he has with his Savior, Jesus Christ, and we see how he's comforted and calmed and guided through this task.

Johnson: Yeah, just that beautiful part in the end where he says, I spoke face to face with Jesus and he spoke to me in plain humility, right? Where he has this intimate relationship where Christ condescends in a way to be there with him, to speak in his language. That to me is a beautiful portrayal of Christ's power to kind of contain himself that way to foster that relationship, nourish Moroni.

Welch: Yeah, yeah, it's such a beautiful moment. And you can see how as he has been reading the story of the brother of Jared, he must identify so much with the brother of Jared in lots of ways, primarily that he too has had a face -to -face conversation and dialogue with his Savior and that has changed him. I think he sees his work of bringing forth and writing these things as analogous to the work that the brother of Jared had to do to prepare his people for this great migration and come up with solutions, right? Moroni is looking for solutions too. Like, how am I going to make this relevant? How am I going to give this text the power that it needs to touch people's heart? So, I think he must have felt a strong kinship with the brother of Jared. And that must have meant so much to him.

He must have been an incredibly lonely human being. He really had no community. He must be so hungry for connection. And I think he finds that connection in the past as he reads about the brother of Jared, identifies with him. He finds it in the future, right? He has seen our day, the latter days in such detail.

I think he feels a great kinship with the translator of the plates. He speaks directly to the translator, Joseph Smith, in chapter five. So, I think he feels a real kinship. And of course, it's beautiful that it will be Moroni then who goes and in his angelic form, will guide Joseph through the process of recovering the plates. And so, he will play such a prominent role in the restoration events.

And then most of all, I think he finds comfort in his father. We see that in the Book of Moroni where he remembers and records the words of his father. I think he loves his father deeply and continues to rely for emotional support on the memories of their conversations and their relationship. And then finally, most of all, it seems as though he finds his strength, his rock, and his support in the Lord, in the Savior Jesus Christ. And he turns to him and has a remarkable and remarkably honest and open relationship with the Lord. So, I absolutely love the portrait of Moroni that emerges here in the book of Ether.

How about anything else you'd like to say about the brother of Jared? What kind of a person he was? Anything about him jump out at you?

Johnson: I love that. Yeah, it's interesting that he's not named. I think we get a hint of it, right, when they stop, and they name the land Moriancumr. I think that's a traditional practice of naming places after family names. So maybe that was the precursor to Joseph, then later revealing, oh, his name was actually that. And so, he has this kind of mystical, unnamable quality. And yet it describes him physically. He's, I think, great of stature is how it describes him, Jared, his brother, obviously has a close relationship and leans on him to be the kind of interlocutor with the Lord. He describes and expresses himself in very relatable terms of someone who is shocked and shattered at this kind of direct experience, this direct encounter with Christ and kind of walking us through his reaction to that is interesting.

Welch: Yeah, he must have a real gift for prayer as well. And this is something I thought about. What does it mean to have the spiritual gift of prayer? That isn't one that's listed in kind of the canonical list of spiritual gifts, but I think it is a spiritual gift and it's clear that he has it because Jared is continually asking him to be the mediator with the Lord and he is able to carry on this and develop this remarkable relationship with God. At first, of course, in a cloud. He doesn't see the form of the Lord at all, but that doesn't seem to stop him from talking to Him and approaching Him. And then, of course, he's privileged to see Christ Himself in His bodily form. But I wish I knew more about what made him so good at prayer, because I want to emulate that. That's not my spiritual gift, and I know that my prayer life can improve and it's something on my mind these days. How can I improve my prayer life? The one time where there's a seeming rupture in his relationship with the Lord comes when they arrive at the seashore after the first phase of their migration and they're preparing to embark on the second phase across the great waters. And he doesn't pray for a period. We don't exactly know why, but for four years, he hasn't called upon the Lord and the Lord comes and chastises him for that. Someday, someday I maybe will get more details, but I would love to know more about why he didn't pray and what was it that made him such a gifted prayer.

Johnson: Yeah, I love that. I resonate with that. I have been in the presence of people who I feel like have that gift of prayer where you sense this kind of unguardedness and intimacy and transparency, sincerity in the way they engage the Lord. And I feel that and sense that in the brother of Jared, even as I am puzzled and envious of it.

Welch: Finally, we can think about this character, Ether at the end. It's called, of course, the book of Ether and poor Ether, he doesn't get a lot of airtimes. Two things strike me about Ether from what we're able to glean.

One is just his courage, his courage to be a witness. We saw the same courage in Mormon, right? In the internal book of Mormon as Mormon was willing, was called and was willing to respond to the call to be a witness to the worst possible sites that you can imagine, right? His own people being slaughtered. And, and Ether is the same. He, we're told that during the day he kind of hides in the cavity of a rock for protection, but at night, you know, he could just stay in that cave, or he could split, right? He could just leave this place, but he doesn't. He stays. And at night he goes out to witness and to see and to mourn the death of his people and to write it for us. It must have been incredibly painful to see and incredibly painful to write. But he understood it to be important that the history of his people be memorialized and be thus kind of immortalized in a way, right? By writing down what he saw on these plates that are going to persist, because they are on metal. In a way, he's given his people an afterlife, right? They won't be forgotten. Somebody else will know and will see his people whom he loves.

Johnson: Yeah, and I think now that you've mentioned the gift of prayer, maybe there is also a spiritual gift of witnessing. It requires such a capacity to bear, to hold to not break under the weight of our own kind of emotional response to what we're witnessing. To just kind of carry that, it reminds me, you know, there's kind of a close association in my mind between poets and prophets. And in the Romantic period, there's this, elevated role of the poet as one who just experiences everything, who almost has an obligation to humanity as a translator of humanity to experience the full range of joy and suffering. And it reminds me a little bit about this prophetic role he's playing as a witness and just opening himself up to that full range of pain and compassion without being, you know, consumed, or overcome by it. I think that requires a kind of spiritual firmness and strength that, again, is on my bucket list of spiritual gifts to try to cultivate because it's hard.

Welch: I agree. And I think that's like the main theme of the Book of Moroni that follows, which is how is it that we can live through the worst possible times and witness the unimaginable and not be destroyed by it? And I think that Mormon and Moroni's answer is that it's a gift of God. It's a gift of faith, it's a gift of hope, and it's the gift of charity, most of all the gift of love. And those are what make us capable of doing what we're called to do, which is to witness steadfastly, but not be destroyed by it.

Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the literary forms. And I'm a literary scholar, you're an historian. This is always my favorite part of the conversation. So, I'll let you sit back here for a minute, Rachel, but I want you to jump in if you have anything to say. And let's talk about some of the forms, the literary and textual forms that show up in the Book of Ether. I think the most prominent one is one that we've already talked about rather extensively, and that is, Moroni's repeated direct address to the readers of the book. He breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to us.

And it's not just that, though--there's something else really, really cool that happens, which is not only that he speaks directly to modern readers, but he shows us that when, as we're reading, prophecy is being fulfilled. It reminds me--do you remember this? --this moment, it's in Luke chapter four. And I've talked about it before on this podcast because it's one of my favorite moments of all time in scripture. It's where Jesus goes back to Nazareth, and he goes into the synagogue, and he mounts the bema there and he reads the passage that is the chosen reading for that day. And it's this messianic passage that says, you know, I've come among you to restore sight to the blind and to liberate the captive. And so, he reads this beautiful passage from Isaiah and then he turns to the people, and it says, the eyes of the whole congregation were just fastened on him. He rolls the scroll back up, he goes back down, and he says, this day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And it's this electrifying moment where we can see prophecy being fulfilled in real time, and they are a part of it.

And I think Moroni achieves the very same effect here as he is speaking directly to us. Not only does he speak to us and warn us, but he says, you will know that the Lord's work is commencing in the latter days when you receive and read these things. And that prophecy is still in effect. So, to this day, every time that we open, and we read the book of Ether.

Welch: We are a part of prophecy being fulfilled. We're a part of the mission of the Book of Mormon in the latter days to prepare the world by bringing peoples together, to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ. And it never fails to thrill me when I read that and realize I'm here. I'm a witness. I'm a witness to prophecy being fulfilled.

Johnson: Yeah, and how it binds us across time, you know, in, you know, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children. You know, like, there's this motif of because prophecy bridges time, there is a sense of connection. Not only, you know, this isn't just something we're doing and enacting for our mission, but it's just part of a whole, part of a threaded element throughout time in which we are picking up the strand that started long before us. And it's beautiful. I find that to be a lovely element to think about as well.

Welch: Yeah, yeah, it's one of these ways that we can outsmart time, right? Being a part of the fulfillment of prophecy is one way, because in that moment, the events that were foreseen millennia or centuries ago, or maybe days ago are being fulfilled. So, there's a way in which those two moments are brought together and we can escape the clutches of time.

Maybe another thing we can talk about just briefly as throughout the Book of Mormon, there's lots of intertextuality in the Book of Ether, moments where it's almost like a hyperlink as you're reading it and either a passage or an event clearly alludes to a passage or an event in the Bible. And so, the Book of Mormon and the Bible are closely intertwined. They're meant to be read together; they're meant to mutually reinforce one another. So, it shouldn't surprise us to see that kind of intertextuality in the Book of Mormon. I think some of the major ones that readers will probably recognize is the story of the daughter of Jared, who is kind of this wonderful yet salacious story of the emergence of secret combinations among the Jaredite people. And she is right at the start of that where she realizes that she can gain power for her father by dancing, seducing a potential assassin. This of course is very reminiscent of the story that we see in Matthew 14 about Salome and who dances to get the head of John the Baptist. So, we see that moment and we're invited to compare those two and say, okay, what can we learn by putting these two stories in conversation with each other? We also see strong intertextual allusions to the Hebrews chapter 11 in ether chapter 12 as they both kind of give a gallery of heroes of faith, right? Heroes of faith who are examples for us. Another one that readers will probably notice is one of the most beloved verses in the book of ether, which is ether chapter 12 verse 27, which is about grace and about weakness, an important theme that we'll come back to. But that has strong echoes of 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9. My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. So, I love to find those moments where the Book of Mormon invites me to return to the Bible and to see what I can learn by putting these two verses in conversation with each other. It's a very efficient way for the Book of Mormon to kind of import a lot of meaning without having to spell it all out by just intertextually alluding to the Bible itself.

And then maybe here's the very last thing that I'll mention. And that is the idea of apocalypse or apocalyptic. And this is a kind of literary form that describes the end of the world, right? Describes what the end of the world will be like.

In the Book of Mormon, we see it in Nephi's vision more than anything else, 1 Nephi chapters 11 through 15 or so, where he sees the events at the end of the world. The Revelation of John, the Book of Revelation in the New Testament is the other sort of prime example of this literary genre of apocalypse. It tends to be full of kind of good and evil, very binary opposition where all the people are divided into two opposing camps, one is good, one is bad. It tends to be quite violent, right? Lots of violent imagery describing the destruction at the end of times. But it is a story that has, while the earth is purified and cleansed and the wicked are swept away, the earth is prepared for the coming of Christ.

So, we see that here in the book of Ether as well, right? And we see it in two different ways. One is in chapter 13 where Ether prophesies, right, of the events at the last days. But then we see it, a kind of apocalypse, happen in real time at the end of his people's experience at the extinction of the Jaredites. We see the people divided into two camps, right? They were all divided, one or the other, very binary organization of the people. And then this kind of horrendous, horrific, violent end of the people. What's different about this one, though, is that Ether doesn't seem to distinguish between the good guys strongly or cleanly,

Welch: and the bad guys, right? He sort of sees that human nature is flawed and that rarely is there a moment where there's a group that is all good and there's a group that is all bad. Typically, what we do in those moments is we tend to see our group as the good guys, and we see our enemies as the bad guys and we're quick to excuse all the flaws on our side and quick to point out all the evil and the flaws on the other side.

Johnson: And typically, what we do in those moments is we tend to see our group as the good guys, and we see our enemies as the bad guys. And click to.

Welch: But Ether really doesn't do that, right? He really takes a much more kind of sober view and he sees both sides as kind of irredeemably lost and flawed. So, there's a real kind of tragic element to his apocalypse.

Johnson: Yeah, it reminds me of when the brother of Jared is praying to the Lord and he uses this kind of interesting tense that stands out to me where he's saying, you know that our natures have become evil continually. And it's this kind of strange continuous state of motion, a kind of gravitational pull, not so much a black and white state of we are fallen, we're corrupt, but continually we are becoming, we are drawn in this direction. And I kind of here that echoed in Ether where there's not really, right, the good guys or bad guys so much as this tendency that drives all of us towards this gravitational pull towards sin that we need to kind of pull out and, you know, invoke the Lord and His grace to help us avoid that pull.

It’s right after the brother of Jared says that, you know, because of the fall of our natures, the fall, our natures have become evil continually. Nevertheless, you have given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires. And that to me is quite extraordinary where he's saying the fall has not made all of our desires depraved or wrong. Even given this tendency, there is something intact and whole within us and our desires that justifies and requires that we keep that relationship with you alive, that we keep invoking and calling upon you. So, I find it hopeful. There is a kind of odd hopefulness, sometimes in pessimistic standards and expectations of, you know, it's sometimes the most optimistic ideas of human nature that leads to the direst consequences when we don't live up to them. But when it's tempered, right, by this kind of a tempered idea of the fall and our impulses and our direction, yet there is something still whole. There is something in our desires that is pure and able to be worthy of responded to by the Lord. He wants to give us what we desire.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. And that, and I think the most, the most hopeful reading of all is that it is only through this kind of engagement and grappling with darkness and with sin that we can grow morally to become like our heavenly parents. And that of course is, is what we're, we're headed for. This is the glorious message of the restoration is that we can become like our heavenly parents, but we can only do it through embodiment and through hands -on engagement with temptation, with sin, with mistakes. It's only through those bumps and bruises and the crucial experience and learning that only comes through experience that we can develop those qualities in ourselves. Well, that's a nice transition then into thinking somewhere about the themes, some of the more theological or historical themes in the book of Ether. Rachael, what really jumps out to you?

Johnson: Exactly. Yeah. Well, because of my interest in embodiment, I'm really drawn to that vision at the opening of chapter three. Even as I wrestle with it, I don't really have a lot conclusively to say about it so much as that I think it's important.

And so, what we basically have in this vision with the brother of Jared and Christ is that, you know, the context is they are indeed, right? They...Jared asks the brother of Jared to ask if they're going to be driven from the land and if so, where, and how. And so, as part of that answer, the brother of Jared is told to prepare barges and to take this oceanic migration. And he has this engagement with the Lord about how to do that, how to solve the problems of ventilation and light.

And I think there's a lot of that's interesting about that exchange, but to focus for a second on, what comes out of that almost as a side note that becomes the main story is when the Lord asks the brother of Jared to use his agency and to kind of think of a solution of how he wants to solve this problem of light and he goes to the mountain and he chisels out some stones and brings them to the Lord and it's so fascinating because he asks directly, “With thy finger, will you touch these stones and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness?" And so, you know, there's a way in which it's surprising. The Lord gives them exactly what he asks for and yet it absolutely shocks him. So, what's going on here is that what seems obviously more metaphorical for Jared, the brother of Jared at this point, right? He has spoken with the Lord, but only in a cloud, in this kind of very non corporeal but material form up to this point. And so, my impression is that he is kind of saying, yes, channel your power through material form with the finger perhaps being more metaphorical. And so, what happens is that he then touches them with his finger, and he's shocked by the flesh and blood of that finger. And so, what was once metaphor is now reality. What might have been accommodation, God appearing in material form, whether it's through clouds or a voice, is now seen to be, no, this is His form. It's not just an accommodation to your humanity. There is something eternally and divinely true about Christ's body, His corporeal human body.

And this is something that Christians have wrestled with forever, and Jews as well, right, with this enigmatic Genesis scripture that we are made in the image and likeness of God. And it's safe to say, I think, that very few people would have interpreted that to mean that we are physically resembling the image and likeness of God. Usually, they try to find it in the intellect or the soul, some other form. But to identify a kind of physical likeness or resemblance, was really, for example, Philo of Alexandria said, you know, even though humans bear the closest resemblance of earthly things to God, no one should infer this likeness from characteristics of the body for God does not have a human shape and the human body is not God-like. He's an early Christian theologian, a church father. And so, for centuries, right, you know, in our context, right, this is pre-Abrahamic, so I'm not saying he's engaging with any of these ideas, but I think there must have been some sense.

Johnson: that God is so much bigger and vaster than what could be contained in human form. Yet here he is, here Christ is in his pre -incarnate but fully corporeal in subtle, spiritualized way in a human form. So, I find that so evocative and rich. I think Stephen Webb was a wonderful thinker and theologian who thought a lot about the Latter -day Saint belief in Christ's pre -mortal yet embodied form. And he finds in that really a kind of elegant metaphysical solution to all sorts of things, to believe that in Christ is somehow eternally united matter and spirit through this human corporeal form. And I think that invites us to pay attention to the human form in ways that other traditions might not be quite as motivated to do as we are given Christ's human form.

Welch: Yeah. Well, it seems like there's two ways to see it, right? Kind of a good news bad news way. Like the good news is as the Lord says to him, don't you see you're made in my image. That gives a kind of dignity and inherent goodness to the human body. So rather than seeing our bodies as just dead weight or baggage or dirty or sort of inherently evil, we're invited to see them as the image of God. One of the ways that we bear the stamp of the divine image in us. And that seems like incredibly good news, right? Incredibly empowering.

But there's maybe another side of it. And I think it's ultimately good news too, but there's something that's more powerful about a totally transcendent God who could like maybe to take on any form that he wanted to or could transcend form altogether. To see that the pre -mortal God, right? Christ, Jehovah, had a body that was just like ours. It doesn't seem to have been any bigger. It doesn't seem to have been any more powerful. He says that finger that I saw was just like a human finger. So, if you're used to the thought of a totally omnipotent God who can do anything, anywhere, at any time, then this might be bad news for a minute, right? Because you realize that this is a God who must use a different kind of power.

He can't use overwhelming, overpowering transcendent force because he has a corporeal form like we do. I want to be quick to say, you know, of course, God has a glorified body, and he seems to relate to matter and time differently than we do. So, God is certainly powerful. But it's not the same as the kind of transcendent, omnipotent God. This is a God who uses love as his power, who uses long -suffering and persuasion and gentleness as his power. I think that's good news in the end, but I think it takes a minute to adjust your mind frame, especially when maybe in an ancient mindset where you expect your God to be kind of overwhelmingly powerful, a kind of superhuman. Instead, we see that God works by small means and that he uses love to draw us to him rather than by using force to compel us.

Johnson: Yeah, and I do think it raises questions that I haven't quite sorted out yet about the nature of that power, the limitations and the, well, what we might perceive as limitations. The Brother of Jared even uses that language, right, where something about the, you know, which might appear small to our minds, but it really is great. So, there's this sense of expectations and hierarchies about how power is supposed to manifest and how it's supposed to work. But it does make me wonder. I feel like there's two kinds of strands in Latter -day Saint theology about the body. One is a kind of more embryonic evolutionary idea of bodies where this is just kind of the natural state for spiritual matter to become kind of empowered and enriched in physical, coarser matter and then progress to a kind of resurrected matter where God and Christ themselves have participated in this kind of evolution, so to speak. And they are inviting us into that same process and shepherding us through it and somehow making it possible for us to join. And that kind of tension, that hinge is where I'm curious about what is it about Christ's body? What is it about Christ's incarnation and resurrection that somehow changes the game for us. Because if it's all just kind of natural and organic, you know, what is Christ's role? What do we mean by his incarnation and resurrection? And so, I'm still really wrestling and engaging with these ideas of what does his body mean for our body? And is it the same as God's body, right? Is there a kind of uniqueness to Christ's incarnation and resurrection that maybe gives us new categories to think about when it comes to matter and embodiment. And I'm not sure, and I really enjoy wrestling with those questions. I'd to hear your thoughts on that.

Welch: I think you're exactly right that for traditional Christians, the incarnation is this great mystery, right? How? And to be honest, and this is not putting down traditional Christian theology at all, but it's never really solved, right? It's called a mystery. It's a mystery that in the end really cannot be explained. How it is that an immaterial, transcendent God could or would take on kind of finite corporeal material form that comes to exist in history in time. For us, that's not where the mystery lies, right? For us, that always makes sense because we know that God the Father is material, has a human form, and there's a way in which this was the path for Christ to walk in the footsteps of his Father, right? Christ himself says, I do nothing but what the Father, I've seen the Father before me do, right? So, he's just walking in the footsteps of the Father. And there's not a mystery. There's incredible gratitude. There's incredible joy and celebration and incredible sense of identification and solidarity with the Savior for choosing to do that. But it's not really a mystery in the same way.

So where does the mystery reside in Latter -day Saint theology of embodiment? I think the mystery then comes in the sense of unity, right? How is it that we can really be one with the Father? How can the Father and the Son be one? How can they indwell each other? And how can we then be in them as well if they are material beings? It seems to me that that's partly where the mystery resides for us. And that's the problem that our theology gives us to solve.

And we know that however it is, it'll be done in material concrete ways, right? When I say concrete, know that there of course is a form of matter that is spirit, that's finer. So, it's not that everything is always tangible, but it must be done in ways that can happen in this world and in the conditions of this world. And I think that's where kind of the mystery lies, the mystery of unity. How do we come back together when we are separate?

Johnson: Yeah, yeah, I think while our understanding of God's embodiment certainly makes him more knowable, intelligible, and relatable, there is still this mystery left to us of, okay, then in what ways are we joining with him? What is the role of the spirit and that form of embodiment in, you know, either the kind of Trinitarian relationship or the relationship that we are invited into with God, I think is live. And so, I think it might be helpful to see our ideas of embodiment as kind of tipping the scales, right, where we have the choice of kind of clarity and certainty in one direction and a kind of dynamic, you know, kind of unfolding theology on the other. And I think we can embrace that dynamic even as we also kind of traded around where we have a kind of knowable, ontologically similar God that might seem to require the relinquishment of some forms of kind of like transcendent power. But really exploring what that opens for us instead, I think is exciting and interesting to pursue.

Welch: Amen to that. What other themes jump out at you here in the book of Ether, Rachel?

Johnson: Yeah, I think, I mean, speaking of persons and bodies, I think the way in which agency is treated is interesting to me here in the book of Ether. I'm really struck by how the relationship between the Jaredites and God, to me, looks like it's initiated, not in the way we see between God and Abraham where God kind of calls Abraham and chooses him and selects him for being the progenitor of a nation. Instead, what we see is Jared asking the brother, his brother, to call upon the Lord in the context of the kind of confounding of languages that's happening around them and they want to kind of salvage their own family and importantly friends to be preserved from this kind of confusion and this inability to communicate. And so basically, it's driven by this kind of question, and he goes to the Lord and in the end the Lord says, “it came to pass the Lord did hear the brother of Jared and had compassion and said into him, go and prepare flocks, gather your family and friends. I will take you to a choice land." And then he says, this I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me. And so, there's really a powerful sense of agency being able to initiate this kind of relationship with God.

Even as a few verses later in chapter two, I find it decentered again. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there's this interesting passage where the Lord is saying, I will help prepare you for this journey. You're going to be as a whale during the sea. “The mountain waves shall dash upon you, but I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth and the rains and floods have I sent forth." So, side note, this is some different kind of power and embodiment than what we can do. But then again, the next verse he says, “I'll prepare you against the waves of the sea and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come.” And so, there's this kind of playing around with tenses. Something's already been set in motion. Something is coming and I can work with you. I will respond to you. I will prepare you. But in a way, there's a kind of bigger story that's happening outside their own agency, outside their own preferences and desires. And so, I see the juxtaposition of that interesting in the book of Ether.

Welch: Yeah, yeah, I really like your point that the brother of Jared exercises a lot of initiative in relationship to the Lord, right? In a way it's as if kind of all along the Lord has been preparing the brother of Jared to understand their essential likeness, right? He really encourages and allows the brother of Jared to take the lead. He does not answer every question or do everything for him when the brother of Jared comes to him, you know, very famously, right, comes to him with the problem about light and air. He's like, okay, you're right, that's a problem. What do you want me to do about it? And he lets the brother of Jared take the lead in coming up with a solution. So, it's very much a give and take. And it's almost as though he's been preparing him to understand we do have an essential likeness. I am your Lord, but we are like each other in some ways. And I think maybe the Lord has been carefully preparing him along the way by allowing him maximum agency in their interactions to that point.

Johnson: Yeah, and that really helps me read the Lord's rebuke to him a little differently when he says, you know, this great sin, you haven't called upon me, you haven't prayed. And to me, it's less of a, you need to pray, and it's more of a, you initiated this relationship with me, and then, you know, left. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you ghosted me. And so, I really see this kind of relational reciprocity being part of what the Lord is trying to teach the brother of Jared that we have, he wants us, he wants to call us into that. And we are capable of initiating that in some ways, or at least in some respects, but that creates a kind of interpersonal, you know, similitude, but also a set of interpersonal, I don't know if I want to say obligations, but you know, there's a dynamic there. There's a reciprocity there. Yeah, yeah.

Welch: Truly relational. Yeah. That's wonderful. I hadn't picked that out before, but it really, it helps me see the continuity between what precedes the theophany and what happens during that encounter. That's great, we must talk about grace and weakness as this beautiful married pair in the Book of Mormon. Wherever we see grace, we also see weakness. Jacob, way back at the beginning of the Book of Mormon was kind of the first one to develop this idea. And Moroni clearly knows the work of Jacob. And he understands that, or he comes, the Lord leads him, gently leads him to understand that our weakness is not a bug. It's a feature, right? That God gives us weakness because that is the place where his grace can shine forth. Because we are weak, God can show us that he can do his work. If we were strong, we'd have no need for God and we'd take credit for all that we do. But because we are weak, we can confess the hand of the Lord in our lives. And so, there's a sense in which, you know, we Latter -day Saints, especially in Americans in general, we are all about the self -improvement. And I'm about the self -improvement too. I think, you know, the Restoration teaches us as we've been discussing that we can become more like our heavenly parents and that's what we are invited to do. But in the end, I don't think we're meant to one by one, white knuckled, check off every weakness or ask the Lord to take from us every single fault that we have. I don't think that's what he means by weaknesses. I think we can work on ameliorating our faults, but there still will remain a kind of essential or constitutive weakness or limitation that we will never--and don't want to in the end--rid ourselves of because it is there that God's grace shines forth. It's there that he can reach out and touch us.

Johnson: And I think that that might explain why he doesn't pluralize weaknesses, right? It is not itemizable. He is not asking us to go through a list of our weaknesses and take care of them, right? It is just the state, like you said, the kind of constitutive state in which we find ourselves. And so that I think frees us in some ways to embrace the limitations and the kind of frailty alongside the powerful agency that's been on display throughout this book. In this kind of equilibrium as we try to grow towards Christ and grow in our divine nature even as we see that constitutive weakness, as you said, as a kind of enabling force of our interdependence with the Lord.

Welch: Yes, I think you put your finger on it. It's that interdependence. Ultimately, grace is a name for God's love, right? It's a name for the quality of the love that Christ and our Father have for us. And so, our weakness is what allows us to need and seek out and reach for that love from our Savior. And it's also what draws us to one another with that same kind of love. I think this is also what Mormon will teach us in the book of Moroni, in Moroni 7, is that it's the same love that's a gift from God. We need to pray to have it in our hearts, and then we use it to reach out and to draw others to us, and it's through those interdependent, mutually salvific relationships. This is all anticipating Joseph's restoration of temple ordinances, isn't it in a way that we need each other, and we come to God only together, only together.

Johnson: Yeah, and it really gives me permission. There's a lot of talk about self -sufficiency and independence and codependency and all these ideas of needing to stand on our own two feet. And there is certainly a strong element of that even in the book of Ether. For example, Ether says, whether the Lord will that I be translated or I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it matters not if it be so that I am saved. Or to Moroni, it doesn't really matter whether they have charity towards your writing. You have rid your garments of blood. You have discharged your duty. You have done what you need to do. So, there's this kind of independence in a way, but kind of encompassed in this overarching relationship with Christ. And so, this dependence is just something that I, if it's a weakness, I am happy to have it. Like I am happy to have that need to be outside myself, to not be alone and self -sufficient in this kind of self -contained idea of perfection, right, that was so dominant in so much of Western philosophy. It is a weakness that brings a relationship that is more than, I think, more than perfect.

Welch: Well, that is the perfect transition, Rachel, into the last part of our conversation where we're going to share with each other a favorite scripture or a favorite passage from the book of Ether. And Rachel, you've already actually pointed exactly to the scripture that I want to share. And it follows so beautifully on the discussion that we've just been having. So, you know, we understand that we are saved together as, or we're exalted together as families. That's wonderful news, but it can create a lot of anxiety because it can feel like if my family members aren't on the right path, then my own exaltation is at stake. Or even if we don't quite conceive it that way, I think it still can just create a lot of anxiety around the actions and choices of those that we love to the point where we may be tempted to try to control them or try to use some of these other pressuring means, right? Because we understand the importance and we know that we approach the Lord together.

So, I think there's a beautiful, beautiful verse in, in Ether chapter 12 that, that can really provide relief here. Often, we, we love to focus on Ether 12: 27 as you and I have been, and I absolutely love that scripture. Don't sleep though on Ether 12:37, Ether 12:37. This is a powerful verse as well, and I'll tell you why it means so much to me.

So, during this whole second half of chapter 12, as we've alluded to, Moroni is having a crisis and he brings it to the Lord. I love it. And he says, I, you know, I can't do this. And the Lord said, slow down. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. He says, your writing doesn't have to be perfect. You're right. Your writing is weak. It's not perfect, but it will be sufficient. It will be enough for the Gentiles if they have charity. If the Gentiles approach the Book of Mormon,

Welch: with charity and with faith and with hope, then the voice of God will speak to them from it, and it will be enough. It will be more than enough. And so, this is great. But I think then Moroni kind of runs with that for a little bit. He's like, oh yeah, like, just like the brother of Jared would like to move a mountain, right? Because of his faith. And so, the Gentiles are going to have this kind of faith and it's going to be amazing. And then I feel like here, the Lord brings him back down to earth. Okay, so here is Ether 12:37. We'll start with 36. “And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace that they might have charity. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me, if they have not charity, it mattered not unto thee. Thou hast been faithful, wherefore thy garment shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness, thou shalt be made strong even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my father." Now, I don't think what he means is that you’re totally separate and all you must worry about is you. I don't think that's the right message. I think the message is you can detach from the outcome of your efforts, and you can give those efforts in pure love. Right? You can simply give your faithfulness, give your work out of pure love without attachment to anything happening in a certain way. If the Gentiles don't have charity, it doesn't matter to you. You are doing what you are doing out of love and out of obedience, not out of, you know, not only because a certain thing is going to happen. In the end, that's my work. I'll take care of my work. You do what you do. Give it as a gift of love. And that is how your weakness will be made strong. And that's how you'll be brought back to me. And so, I find that just in my own mothering, in my own, you know, my own family ward, in my extended family, I find that so, such a relief. It's not that it doesn't matter, of course it matters, but I can let the Lord do His work and I can offer my best efforts solely out of love. And it mattereth not what they choose because I've given my gift out of love and the Lord will take care of the rest of it and that will be sufficient.

Johnson: Yeah, I love that. I find that so beautiful. And I love how he specifies; it doesn't matter unto thee. Like it matters what they do to me, but you can let this go. Like you can be free of the illusion that you can control what they're going to do. Just unburden yourself from that right now and be free to love. And I love that.

Welch: Yeah, exactly. Well, what do you have for us, Rachael, to bring us home?

Johnson: Oh, mine might be a bit darker in tone, but it's something I draw a lot of strength from, where it's back to this dialogue between the Lord and the brother of Jared when they're discussing the upcoming journey. And I tend to, I can't avoid reading metaphorically into the Lord's descriptions of what lies in store for them. And this might be because honestly, to share probably TMI, I have reoccurring dreams of mountainous waves. Like the fact that they use that phrase, mountain waves, ever since I was a kid, I've had these reoccurring dreams of waves just the size of mountains that are just coming towards me. And I'm always trying to figure out, do I have time to run? Do I have time to get out? And this is the verse where the Lord says, there's no running, right? I will prepare you against the waves of the sea and the winds which have gone forth and the floods which shall come." Like they're coming. The waves are going to come in our lives. The turbulence, the darkness, the winds, that's just not something the Lord is interested in protecting us from but preparing us for. And I find a lot of comfort and a sense of freedom from fear, right? Where there's a sense you can outrun it, but that's always undergirded by this fear of like how and when and where. And just embracing, you know, that fact of our existence and knowing that the Lord is right there, right? He will work with me. He will encourage me to be creative and to find solutions that He will sanctify, and He will improve, and He will complete, as he goes with me, goes before me into the waves. So, I really love that.

Welch: Rachael, that is so beautifully said. And I think that that is, in fact, the perfect place to end our conversation today about the book of Ether. Dr. Rachael Johnson, thank you so much for joining us today on the Maxwell Institute Book of Mormon Studies Podcast.

Johnson: Thanks, Rosalynde.