Astronomy - Abraham 3

3:1-13 - I’ve been not super interested in the next chronological step, which is Abraham 3, because it talks so much about astronomy and lots of concepts that I can’t really follow. I find it fascinating though, that all these prophets like Alma, Joseph Smith, Moses, and Abraham get lessons in science at some point. I wonder if pondering creation is a natural progression of spiritual learning, like if eventually everyone who grows spiritually will get to a point where learning about the science behind everything is the next logical step. Because I’ve been so reluctant to do a deep dive into this chapter, I’m just going to briefly skim over the parts that stood out to me. First is that the Lord told Abraham that he’s teaching him all this stuff before he goes to Egypt because God wants Abraham to teach them this stuff. If I recall correctly, a lot of our current scientific knowledge has grown over the thousands of years and a lot of it stemmed from what the Egyptians knew, which is interesting if you think about it and puts into perspective the whole “say that you’re my sister” thing because Abraham couldn’t teach if he was dead and also maybe Sarah’s position in the royal court made them more inclined to listen to what he had to say. It’s also interesting to note the power that came with Abraham being shown “those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.” I regularly think about what the earth looked like before people started paving over everything, like what did the Great Barrier Reef look like in all its glory, or what did the mountains look like when they were lush from good rainfall and didn’t have roads and houses on them. If God showed me that kind of stuff, it would probably be so powerful because it demonstrates not only God’s ability to command all the universe, but also his desire for beauty and peace. I always think about the stark contrast of a peaceful valley with beautiful plants and animals just living their existence and then battles being waged in the midst of those beautiful places. Nature is ordered, yes animals kill each other to eat, to survive, but there is no killing for fun, not too much killing over territory, no killing over ego and power and money, that is all a human construct. Just the disconnect between nature and the mess that humans make is a testament to me that there is a God, and that we are just down here making a mess of things, which is a testament to me that there is a devil. 3:14-20 - Abraham is also promised “I will multiply thee, and thy seed after thee… and if thou canst count the number of sands, so shall be the number of thy seeds.” I don’t really find importance in the number of my children, like if someone said that I would have so many descendants that they would be innumerable, that wouldn’t be any kind of motivation for me to do better, like that’s just not important to me. But now that I think about it, I can’t really recall too many other people being promises boundless descendants, mostly just Abraham and that it’s part of the Abrahamic covenant, so maybe it’s not that it was such an amazing promise of reward for Abraham, but that it was a promise that he could have faith in because they had to wait so long to actually be able to have kids. And maybe it’s part of the Abrahamic covenant so that when we hear it thousands of years later, we can feel like we are part of the promise and entitled to the same covenant as well, because we’ve been part of the plan all along. It seem that here is the point where Abraham puts together that his rescue from sacrifice at “the hands of the priest of Elkenah” was divine intervention. Reading Abraham’s account, he points out clearly that God killed the priest and saved Abraham, but it begs the question at what point in his life did Abraham realize that it was the hand of God? Did he figure it out right away because it was so obvious, or was it a more subtle turn of events that it took some time and prompting before he figured it out? 3:21-28 - God dwells in the midst of all this creations, but a part that has always been interesting to me is that of the “intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these were many of the noble and great ones.” God recognized the “good” ones and decided “these I will make my rulers,” and then tells Abraham “thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.” This would be an incredible statement to hear come from the mouth of God, I think it would an existential crisis for me, but in a more positive direction. But of all the noble and great ones, “stood one among them that was like unto God,” and this was the one who was tasked with taking “these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.” There isn’t really a clear transition between the One like God who creating an earth with the materials available and God asking “whom shall I send?” because it begs the question, send who for what, but having heard the story before I know what they are talking about here. There were two volunteers and God chose to send the first volunteer, who we all know is Jesus, and the second volunteer was angry that he didn’t get picked “and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him.” I know that I’ve talked a lot about Satan and those who followed him, etc and I don’t really have the energy to go into it all again right now, but it’s a complicated situation and I hope they get the chance to choose again.