Old Wine in New Bottles

1 Nephi 10

2011-10-05T08:26:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 3:: "they should be destroyed, even that great city, Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon" Red; "they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity" Blue; "they should possess again the land of their inheritance." Blue
verse 4:: "a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews—even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world." Blue
verse 6:: "all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be" Red; "save they should rely on this Redeemer." Blue
verse 8:: "he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" Green
verse 10:: "the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world. Blue
verse 11:: "should make himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the Gentiles" Blue; "rise from the dead" Green
verse 13:: "unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the earth." Red
verse 14:: "they should be gathered together again" Blue
verse 18:: "For he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world." Blue
verse 19:: "the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost" Blue; "the course of the Lord is one eternal round" Blue
verse 21:: "Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever." Red

Commentary
This chapter is almost a rainbow in my Book of Mormon. It probably would be closer to one if I had chosen more than three colors. :D It was hard to decide upon some things, like verse 8. Is being mightier than John the Baptist an attribute? It seems like it's something… so it went green.

So, it's quite possible I broke my rule of not marking the same things twice in the same chapter here. There was just so many destructions and gatherings that I just kept marking. So, uh… sorry. Never said I was perfect. :)

Verse 18. Blue? Green? Being the same forever, is that "Christlike"? Or just a neutral attribute? I'll be honest, I have no clue. But since it's a very common verse that we all associate with Christ, I made it blue. Ironic that the verse that I struggle choosing a color also happens to be pretty much the thesis of this project…

Second half of verse 19… perhaps should be green?

The more I mark red things in the Book of Mormon, which are mainly, "I will destroy the wicked," the more I think that all the destruction in the OT probably follows the same pattern and will make more sense. The difference, I hypothesize, is that we won't necessarily see the wickedness nor the warnings for every single person/city. And we'll see the destruction firsthand instead of just reading that God will destroy it.

1 Nephi 9

2011-09-29T11:35:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:: "And all these things did my father see, and hear, and speak… and also a great many more things." Blue
verse 3:: "I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should, make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people." Blue
verse 5:: "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for aw use purpose in him, which purpose I know not." Green
verse 6:: "he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men" Blue; "he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words." Green

Commentary

A short chapter, but one chock full of Christ. I was interested in all the green. It's the first time I've had so much. (Only two sections, sure. But two out of six is a full third of this chapter!)

1 Nephi 8

2011-09-28T11:26:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 2:: "Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision." Blue

Commentary
I was really very surprised at this one. This chapter is the vision of the Tree of Life. I expected it to be colored brightly in my scriptures. And trust me, I sure tried to make it so. But as it's written, it's all prose. It's all a story. Where I'm looking for direct references to the attributes of Christ, marking, "And it came to pass that I beheld a tree" didn't actually make any sense at all. Sure, as a good, Sunday School attending girl, I know what that tree means and that it should be marked since it represents the love of God, but it doesn't say that. In good news, I know it will say that in a few chapters when Laman and Lemuel say, "Huh?!" (And really, thank goodness they did.) So it turns out, this is a rather colorless chapter in my Book of Mormon.

And because this entry is so short, I thought I'd share a discovery I made. In general, I am the kind of reader who can easily focus on the story, or rather, the prose, of scriptures. Whenever we're in story-mode, I'm right on board and reading the scriptures is easy. On the other hand, when it starts talking about more abstract concepts (or the poetry, for lack of a better term), my mind starts to wander and I have a really hard time focusing. This has always been the case. I've been struggling my whole life to figure out how to better pay attention to probably the most critical passages of scripture.

This project, however, has made me do a complete 180. Because I know the stories of the scriptures so well, and I know that what I'm looking for for this project generally isn't in the prose sections, I find myself skimming over the stories and instead focusing on the poetry passages—because I know it's in the poetry passages that I find who Christ really is and what I should be emulating. This is a huge accomplishment for me. It was rather startling when I first realized I was skimming stories and slowing down and focusing more on poetry.

Now I know for a certainty that I really was inspired to do this project. And I know it was for multiple reasons. I am so grateful to a Savior who loves me so much and knows me so well as to inspire a project that will help me grow and learn in the many different facets of life that I need so much.

1 Nephi 7

2011-09-27T10:25:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:: "the Lord spake unto him again" Blue; "it was not meet for him, Lehi, that he should take his family into the wilderness alone; but that his sons should take daughters to wife" Blue
verse 5:: "the Lord did soften the heart of Ishmael, and also his household" Blue
verse 11:: "what great things the Lord hath done for us, in delivering us out of the hands of Laban, and also that we should obtain the record?" Blue
verse 12:: "the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men" Blue
verse 14:: "the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them." Red
verse 18:: "the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet" Blue

Commentary

I debated making verse 1 two separate entries. But I thought it was important a) that the Lord spoke to Lehi and b) that He thought it was important that Lehi's sons had families. The second entry in verse one seemed a little bit like inferring the attributes of Christ instead of looking at blatant ones, but I'm going to count it anyway.

1 Nephi 6

2011-09-26T10:22:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

Commentary

Well, here's something I didn't expect. A chapter with no references to Christlike attributes. I'm sure that I could imply some, but that's not the purpose of this blog. I want the blatant references. It's already a big enough project with just those. I am a little sad, though, that I won't be able to say, "There is a reference to Christlike Attributes in every single chapter in the Standard Works." Oh well.

But I'm curious, did any of you see one that I missed?

1 Nephi 5

2011-09-25T10:22:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 4:: "goodness of God" Blue
verse 5:: "the Lord will deliver my sons out of the hands of LAban, and bring them down again unto us in the wilderness." Blue
verse 8:: "the Lord hath commanded my husband to flee into the wilderness" Blue; "the Lord hath protected my sons and delivered them out of the hands of Laban" Blue; "given them power whereby they could accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded them." Blue
verse 15:: "they were also led out of captivity" Blue
verse 17:: "he was filled with the Spirit, and began to prophesy concerning his seed" Blue
verse 18:: "these plates of brass should go forth unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people who were of his seed." Blue
verse 19:: "these plates of brass should never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by time." Blue

Commentary

Well, this is the first chapter (I think) that is all blue. I kind of expect more of these kinds of chapters from the Book of Mormon.

I wasn't sure about marking both verse 5 and verse 8. They're both saying the same thing about Christ and I usually don't mark the same thing in the same chapter. (If it says the same thing in a different chapter, I'll still mark it.) But since one came from Lehi as an, "I know he'll do this" sort of way while trying to comfort his wife and the other came from Sariah as an, "I know he did this" sort of way, I decided to mark both.

1 Nephi 4

2011-09-18T22:21:00.002-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:: "he is mightier than all the earth" Green
verse 3:: "the Lord is able to deliver us" Blue
verse 6:: "I was led by the Spirit" Blue
verse 10:: "I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban." Red
verse 11:: "the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands." Red
verse 13:: "the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes." Red
verse 14:: "Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise." Blue
verse 31:: "also having received much strength of the Lord" Blue

Commentary

Verse 6 made me wonder, if the Spirit does something, is it a Christlike attribute? I talked to BJ about it and he pointed out that I would mark if Christ destroyed the wicked, so I should also mark when He leads the righteous, which He does through the Spirit. So I did.

I chose to make verse 11 red for the same reasoning that I used in 1 Nephi 3:29.

Verse 31 was another difficult decision. I've started to question my logic behind the color blue. Am I marking Christlike attributes that are "nice" and typically of how we view the NT Christ? Or am I marking the Christlike attributes that are "nice" that I can possibly emulate? Because, let's be honest, I can't give anyone strength. So if I'm going with the latter, verse 31 should be green instead of blue. I didn't have a decision, so I just marked it blue because it was a "good" attribute. But now that I think about it more, I realize that the majority of the red things I can't emulate, either. I can't deliver someone into someone else's hands to be destroyed. I can't destroy the wicked. So this is officially going with the former. Red for the stereotypically OT Christ and Blue for the NT Christ. And green for the things that are attributes but aren't "good" or "bad". Which is what I've been doing all along without really realizing it.

Lastly, the sudden lack of markings in this chapter surprised me. In the first 14 verses we have 7 markings. That's one every other verse. Which in general (all 4 chapters I've done) is pretty typical. But then it really gets into narrative of Nephi's encounter with Zoram and stops referring specifically to Christ. It's kind of surprising and kind of not that narrative has less focus on Christ. It'll be interesting to see how much more I learn this time around since I have a harder time focusing on the non-narrative scripture passages.

A few questions I have in general (that have nothing to do with the attributes of Christ):

Why in the world did Nephi cut off Laban's head and then take off his garments? Wasn't there blood everywhere? Wasn't Zoram even the least bit suspicious when "Laban" showed up with blood on his garments? Or was that just something common enough to not be worthy of note to Zoram? (Which, I admit if true, is rather disturbing to me.)
Why did Nephi take Zoram with him to meet his brothers? In verse 36 it says, "Now we were desirous that he should tarry with us for this cause, that the Jews might not know concerning our flight into the wilderness, lest they should pursue us and destroy us." Ok, that's fine. But a) hasn't their estate been completely empty for a week or so? Hasn't anyone noticed? Were they that anti-social? Was the society set up so that people often went weeks between social interactions? Were there servants left behind that lied to anyone that came to visit? But also, couldn't all of this have been avoided if "Laban" had just left Zoram at the treasury? Why did he, verse 25, "[bid] him that he should follow [him]"? The only reason Zoram ever suspected it was Nephi that killed Laban is because he saw Nephi's brothers. Had they just parted ways at the treasury, he wouldn't have had any clue and Nephi's family would still have been safe.

Anyway, nothing really testimony-shattering or -making, but things that have always made me shake my head a little at Nephi's reasoning when reading this chapter.

1 Nephi 3

2011-09-17T10:00:00.000-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 2:: "I have dreamed a dream" Blue
verse 4:: "seek the records" Blue
verse 6:: "thou shalt be favored of the Lord" Blue
verse 7:: "the lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them." Blue
verse 17:: Jerusalem must be destroyed, because of the wickedness of the people." Red
verse 19:: "wisdom in God" Blue
verse 29:: "an angel of the Lord came" Blue; "the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands" Red

Verse 4 was hard. Does commanding them to go seek records count as a Christlike quality? If so, should it be deemed green for purposes of this project? I finally considered it blue because we are currently commanded to keep a journal and do family history and such. Records are a very important part of our church and it seems very stereotypically Christlike to make sure that records are kept as a high priority. And especially that Lehi and his family would have that record to teach their children after they left Jerusalem.

Verse 29 was even harder, at least the red part. I mean, delivering Laban into Nephi and Co.'s hands seems like a very nice thing to do. Especially since it was an essential part of fulfilling His original commandment to get the plates, after their last two fails. But how is it any different from any other nation or people being destroyed because they were wicked? It's not. And destruction is not a typical Christlike quality. So delivering someone, even a wicked someone, to their death, especially at the hand of an innocent person is going to have to go under red.

This chapter had even fewer qualities to mark. Only 8 in 31 verses. That's almost only 1 in 4. But then again, it was also quite heavy in story. I get the feeling that 2 Nephi is going to get a lot heavier than these.

1 Nephi 2

2011-09-16T13:30:00.001-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:: "the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream" Blue
verse 12:: "that God who had created them" Blue
verse 16:: "mysteries of God" Green; "soften my heart" Blue
verse 17:: "the Lord had manifested unto me by his Holy Spirit" Blue
verse 19:: "the Lord spake unto me" Blue
verse 20:: "ye shall prosper" Blue; "led to a land of promise" Blue; "I have prepared for you" Blue
verse 21:: "cut off from the presence of the Lord" Red
verse 22:: "thou shalt be made a ruler and a teacher over thy brethren" Blue
verse 23:: "I will curse them even with a sore curse" Red
verse 24:: "they shall be a scourge until thy seed" Red

Commentary

This chapter had far fewer attributes, especially at the beginning. At first this shocked me because after chapter 1 being chock full, I just expected the rest to be, too. But turns out, when you get into stories about people, you sometimes go several verses in between attributes of Christ.

Verse 24 was a little hard for me to choose a color. The Lamanites being a scourge unto the Nephites seems like both a good and bad thing. In one way, he's giving a blessing to the Nephites, "If you forget me, I'll send you a reminder." But on the other hand, it's definitely mean, too. "If you forget me, I'll spank you." (Ok, not really spank, but you get the idea.) It just doesn't seem "Christlike." I mean, that's not how we're taught to treat people. If you catch someone not living correctly, you're not supposed to give them more trials to humble them. It's just not traditionally what I consider Christlike, so I put it under red in the end.

Verse 22 I had similar problems with. Is it really Christlike to put someone over someone else? Especially if you're taking a younger brother and giving him the rights of the older brother? But then I looked at it as Christ rewarding someone for being righteous and knowing that He often has someone younger fulfilling something we'd traditionally think is for older people. Just look at missionaries. When I stop to think about it, I'm amazed that so many adult, middle aged and old, people get baptized every year because they were taught by 19-year olds. It boggles the mind. But that is how Christ works, so ultimately put it under blue.

Maybe I should make a purple category for, "I can see this being blue or red." And if I do mark something purple, I have to explain it in the commentary section. :) I'll still with red and blue for now, but if it happens often, I'll change.

1 Nephi 1

2011-08-29T14:40:00.003-06:00

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:: "having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days" Blue; "goodness...of God" Blue; "mysteries of God" Green
verse 4:: "the great city of Jerusalem must be destroyed" Red
verse 6:: Lehi prayed and received a vision Blue
verse 8:: Lehi prayed again and received a vision Blue
verse 12:: "he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord" Blue
verse 13:: "it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof" Red; "many should perish by the sword" Red; "many should be carried away captive into Babylon" Red
verse 14:: "my father had read and seen many great and marvelous things" Blue; "thy throne is high in the heavens" Green; "thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth" Blue; "because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish" Blue
verse 19:: "the redemption of the world" Blue
verse 20:: "the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen" Blue

Commentary

I expected the Book of Mormon to be pretty neutral in the Blue and Red department. Since in general, the Book of Mormon is the third piece of the puzzle that helps us to understand both the Old and New Testaments better. But somehow, I really expected it to still be largely blue. No one complains about the Book of Mormon having an angry god that they just can't understand. So I was surprised when I ended up marking 4 reds in the first chapter. That's 40% of the first chapter (discounting the one green)! So I spent a little time looking more into the reds and realized that it's a common thing in the Book of Mormon to say, "the wicked will be destroyed" and focus on being righteous so you're not one of the ones destroyed. But every event I can think of where the wicked are destroyed it's either factually provable (Jerusalem) and we learn about it in other scriptures or we're more intimately connected with the cities that are destroyed and agree that yes, they are in fact wicked and they have been warned and they knew better. So it's not as harsh a blow as it feels like in the Old Testament. At least, that's my current hypothesis. After one chapter. :) But I do think the BoM will end up having more red than I expected. I wonder (hope) if it will be the same in the NT.

As a note, if the scriptures referred to the same event, specifically, multiple times in one chapter, I only marked it once. (Like referring to a single vision multiple times.) If the same kind of event happened multiple times, I marked it each time (Lehi received multiple visions). If I marked something once, then a specific detail about that event was given later, I marked both. ("Jerusalem must be destroyed" and "many should perish by the sword") Lastly, I'm imperfect, so I may occasionally break my own rules. Feel free to correct me.

Christlike Attributes Project

2011-08-26T12:50:00.000-06:00

The god of the Old Testament is typically seen as harsh, cruel, vindictive. The God of the New Testament is typically seen as kind, merciful, forgiving. The god of both books is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. How can these seemingly opposite gods actually be one and the same? And if they are the same, how do we reconcile the "mean" traits with our definition of being Christlike?

That's what this project is about. I want to learn more about who Christ really is. I want to reconcile the two extremes. To do so, I have decided to go through the standard works and pull out all the attributes of Christ and compare them. But that task is very overwhelming. How do you go about categorizing hundreds of different attributes and comparing them? How can you organize such a task? By simplifying it, of course.

The more I think about this, the more I realize it isn't necessarily a matter of mean vs. nice. Rather, it's often a matter of justice vs. mercy. All of the stories I could think of where God seemed cruel or harsh could be seen as God being just without any mercy. Perhaps it's an over-simplistic view, but it's a good place to start. And it's not perfect. (Please note that below I'm saying Mercy or "Christlike".) And perhaps as I get in deeper with this project, I'll change my tactics. But for now, after a lot of thought and discussion, this is where I'm going to start.

Because there are so many different viewpoints in this world, I would love for anyone who is willing to help me out here. Here's how this is going to work. Every day (hopefully. Being realistic, I'll probably skip some days.) I am going to read one chapter of scripture and highlight the various attributes of Christ in my scriptures and rank them accordingly:

Blue. Mercy (or, what we typically think of as Christlike)
Red. Just (or what we don't typically think of as Christlike. Doom, gloom, destruction… y'know.)
Green. Other attributes of Christ that don't really fit this scale, but I want to mark anyway.

Unfortunately, putting stories and verses in those categories isn't an exact science. Which is why I need your help. I will put up a new post for every chapter and put in my findings and thoughts. I will leave comments open (though any tasteless, rude or demeaning comments (or just plain spam) will be deleted) to anyone who would like to comment, agree, or disagree with my findings. I want to hear other people's opinions and views. What may seem merciful to me may seem just to you. I want to hear that. Perhaps I only look at one person in the story and call it just and you look at someone else in the story and call it merciful. I want that brought to my attention. When I get to the end of this, I don't want to look back at my conclusions and see Christlike Attributes According to Tianna. I want to see them through the eyes of many.

So please, feel free to join with me in my quest. Don't feel like you have to read every chapter with me, but read when you can and comment when you want. I'd love any input.

A change

2011-08-26T11:00:00.000-06:00

I originally had a specific goal for this blog, as I laid out in my first post. Clearly that didn't happen, as it was written over a year ago and nothing else ever posted. I've made a decision that this is just going to be my religious blog where I write anything religious I want. Many will have themes such as stories (my original intent) or a specific project I'm working on. I'll label all of my posts to make it easier to find specific entries. Thanks for understanding, all of the zero of you out there reading. :)

Welcome to the Old Testament!

2010-06-22T22:42:00.000-06:00

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU in 2007. I first got into the major when I read a historical fiction novel that took place during the time of the Gospels. I loved learning about the history and culture of the Jews. It helped me understand the Gospels so much more. I then took a religion class at BYU that actually made me learn. Like, there was homework and studying and tests! Hard tests! This wasn't Seminary anymore, my friends. And in that class I learned SO MUCH! (Ben S., if you're reading this, you may gloat at proving me wrong about BYU religion teachers, specifically the one you made me take NT from.) I was shocked and amazed at how much more alive the New Testament was to me after learning little tidbits about the culture. So I became a Jewish Studies minor.

After a few semesters I realized that I disliked my major and loved my minor. And then they opened the Ancient Near Eastern Studies major. I debated and debated switching majors. The one I was in would actually make money, while ANES would not. I had already switched majors WAY too many times. But I was already pretty much convinced that my bachelor's degree was simply going to be a piece of paper to enable me to have a bigger paycheck later. It didn't matter what it was in. And honestly? The topic intrigued me like no other.

The ANES major is split into two emphases: Greek (New Testament) and Biblical Hebrew (Old Testament). I was torn. Greek sounded way too hard, but the New Testament was what I had fallen in love with! Besides, the Old Testament is just intimidating. I had already started taking Biblical Hebrew for my Jewish Studies minor and I really liked it, so I decided to stick with that route. So while I studied both the Old and New Testament, their respective histories, cultures, geography, etc., my focus and my language studies were in the Old Testament.

In 2007 I went to the Jerusalem Center. I had already finished all of my required classes, but I put off graduation to do a study abroad. I did a Spring term, and let me tell you, those classes were tough! There was a lot of reading and studying required. I had two advantages above most of the other students at the center: 1) I had been focused on the Bible for over two years so a lot of the classes were a review and 2) Even if I failed all of the classes there, I knew I'd still be able to graduate. So I spent a lot more time enjoying the experience. I did, however, do my homework and tried to get the best grades I could. I just decided it wasn't worth losing a lot of sleep or tourism over. I mean, I was in Jerusalem! I wanted to enjoy it.

I wasn't surprised when I remembered the stories in detail (especially since I had the same religion teacher that got me started) and reviewed more than learned. What I hadn't expected was how well I explained the stories to others. Many of my classmates would seek me out, asking me to tell them some of the stories they were expected to know. Somehow my brand of storytelling helped them to remember and understand the stories more than they had on their own. I loved it. Even when I'd tell the same story over and over to different people, I got a thrill out of helping other people understand the stories that I already loved.

Recently I've been in a position to help explain these stories again. Twice I've done so in writing (one was in college, but I've been sharing it with people again lately) and much more often I've actually told the stories. I've had many people express interest in learning more. Enough that I decided to write this blog. I partially do so selfishly. I want to remember the things I've learned. I want an excuse to put these back in the forefront of my mind. I want to be able to teach my children. I don't want them to reach an age where I can teach them and realize that I've forgotten it all. I've already found myself forgetting things. And I do get a thrill when I help people understand a story. I love it when people tell me that a story that has never made sense to them suddenly is clear. Amidst all of my selfishness in writing this blog, I hope that I help someone else along the way.

Because of my current calling* in the Primary (and because many of the people interested are Primary teachers), I've decided to base this blog on the current Senior Primary lesson (they're studying the Old Testament this year). Unfortunately, I realize that people may be on different lessons. Ward and Stake conferences can put different wards in different lessons and the optional Easter lesson can put even different classes in the same Primary on different lessons. I will start with the lesson that the class I just finished teaching is on. If your class is ahead of me, leave me a comment. If I get enough people one lesson ahead, I'll jump ahead to that lesson.

I also reserve the right to tell any other stories I want along the way or to even skip one if I have good reason. (But if I skip one, I'll tell you. You retain the right to whine and complain if you really wanted to hear that particular story.)

Oh, and if you haven't noticed, I tend to write a lot. Get used to it. That's my style and most of my stories will be long. I apologize. But I'm not sorry enough to change my ways.

*I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All of my stories will be biased towards the LDS religion and geared towards an LDS audience. However, I do welcome readers of other religions. If I ever say anything that doesn't make sense to you, please comment so that I can explain myself.