Approaching the Tree
Interpreting 1 Nephi 8
Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8 is an invitation to view again one of the Book of Mormon's best-known texts. From the fresh interactions of an array of artists and scholars, the theological significance of Lehi's dream emerges anew.
Together these able guides show, once more, both book and dream to be rich and deep, and worthy of repeated reflection.
Includes essays and artwork from Benjamin Keogh, Joseph M. Spencer, Jennifer Champoux, J. Kirk Richards, Rose Datoc Dall, Megan Knobloch Geilman, Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, Sarah Winegar, Rev'd Dr. Andrew R. Teal, Hildebrando de Melo, Kimberly Matheson, Caitlin Connolly, Kylie Nielson Turley, José de Faria, Timothy Farrant, Annie Poon, Terryl Givens and Kathleen Peterson.
Approaching the Tree was released December 12, 2023.
Editors
Benjamin Keogh
Joseph M. Spencer
Jennifer Champoux
Table of Contents
- Introduction (Benjamin Keogh)
- Artwork: Pulling Up the Iron Rod (J. Kirk Richards)
- Part I: Visioning the Dream
- Wandering in Strange Roads: Interpretations of Lehi's Dream (Joseph M. Spencer)
- The Thing Which I have Seen: A History of Lehi's Dream in Visual Art (Jennifer Champoux)
- Part II: Re-Visioning the Dream
- Artwork: A Father's Plea (Rose Datoc Dall)
- Lehi and His Dream: A Relational Reading (Benjamin Keogh)
- Artwork: Adaptation of Desire (Megan Knobloch Geilman)
- Lehi's Parable of the Fruitful Tree (Rosalynde Frandsen Welch)
- Artwork: Rod of Hands and Feet (Sarah Winegar)
- Lehi's Dream: Desire for God and Endless Progress (Rev'd Dr. Andrew R. Teal)
- Artwork: Tree of Life 'LDS' (Lehi's Dream Series I, II, III) (Hildebrando de Melo)
- The Tree of Knowledge and the Pedagogy of Lehi's Dream (Kimberly Matheson)
- Artwork: Lehi's Dream (Caitlin Connolly)
- Symbolic Seeds and Separated Sons: Understanding Lehi's Dream as a Setting for Unity and Division (Kylie Nielson Turley)
- Artwork: Lehi's Dream (José de Faria)
- Returning to the Garden: Augustine, Lehi, and the Arboreal Imagery of Eden (Timothy Farrant)
- Artwork: The Dark and Dreary Waste (Annie Poon)
- The Tree of Life: Cacophony, Risk, and Discernment (Terryl Givens)
- Artwork: A Father and Two Sons (Kathleen Peterson)
- Contributors
- Notes
Sample Pages
Scripture should inspire rounds of discovery and rediscovery–of things we missed, of new ways to love, of God's work in the world. The scholars and artists in this book will have Latter-day Saints grateful, again, for an account that some may have thought they had wrung dry. These beautiful minds poignantly remind us of the gospel's inexhaustibility.
This collection of essays is illuminating and well worth the consideration of readers outside the community of Latter-day Saints with theological of Religious Studies interests, for two reasons–firstly to note the remarkable re-play, in the specific passage of the Book of Mormon under consideration, of biblical motifs and typologies reminiscent of traditional Christian approaches to scriptural exegesis, and secondly to observe how the methodological discussions instructively mirror the interpretive processes followed in modern biblical scholarship.
Where is the tree? What is the fruit? And how can I escape that dark and dreary waste? The work gathered here–both in image and in letter–responds to these questions with study and faith. What's more, this work never settles for the secular horizons of historical inquiry and continually presses, instead, the most fundamental questions raised by Lehi's dream: who is God and how is he found? A high-water mark in Book of Mormon scholarship.
Articles
Michael Austin, By Common Consent (11.24.23): https://bycommonconsent.com/2023/11/24/the-tree-of-life-in-art-and-belief/#more-122123
Publication Information
Publication month: December
Publication year: 2023
Page count: 269
Binding: Paperback, full-color
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-0842500593
Subject: Religion
Imprint: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship