Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

21:1-2 - When I think about how extensive this law of Moses is with all of it’s 600+ rules, I have to remember that ancient societies were different, and even now we have so many laws, the code of Hammurabi as an example of another set of laws to govern ancient society. The law of Moses, as given by God, begins with slavery, which is a tough subject in our society today, especially considering our own problematic history of African slavery in our recent past. Interestingly, TB notes that as God gives Israel the laws with which they are to govern their society, “what we should take immediate notice of is that God has just turned the common world social ladder upside down. Unlike any civil or social system ever devised by man, the one given to Israel by Yehoveh BEGINS by its concern with dealing fairly with those who are the lowest on the social scale: slaves.” I thought that this was an interesting point to make, that the law STARTED with how to treat the most disenfranchised of the com...

There are a few more points that the IM makes about the Law of Moses (the 600+ rules that governed the Hebrew way of life anciently). The first point is that, as a preparatory gospel, all facets point to Christ. The IM notes, “when you study the law of Moses you can expect to find (1) a witness of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice and (2) gospel principles illustrated in the laws given.” It goes on to say that even though these same rules aren’t required of disciples today, the purpose and principles are the same. For instance, the IM notes that anciently animal sacrifices were required but then when Christ came, he fulfilled that requirement and instituted the sacrament instead. The IM says, “the practice of blood sacrifice was fulfilled when Jesus came and the tokens of the sacrament were given in place of the old law. But the principle was as true when the tokens were animals offered on the altar as it is now when the tokens are bread and water blessed by the priesthood. The ...

After receiving the Ten Words or Commandments, chapter 21 goes into to more rules. TB notes that by the time of Christ, the Pharisees observed over 600 additional laws in order to be considered observant. I don’t know if all 600 were accepted by the general Israelite population or how they got to that point, so I guess we’ll see. He also notes that the setting forth of these laws in the first 5 books of the Bible is appropriate because all 5 of these books combined is called the Torah, which being interpreted means “Law.” TB devotes an entire lecture (about 45 minutes) to the topic of why ancient Hebrews obeyed this law and it was interesting, but I don’t know how much I want to get into it here. He says that ancient Hebrews did not give too much energy to the topic of what happens after death. This was interesting considering that they had lived in Egypt for 400 years and Egypt had an obsession with the after life and what all that entailed. So the Hebrews would have had to either i...

20:18-26 – After the discussion of the Ten Commandments or the Ten Words, we have to go back to the end of chapter 19 to get set the xcene again. The Lord had called Moses and the people forth from the camp to speak to God directly. Moses, I think, is pretty used to God’s presence and what all it entails to speak to Him, but the people are pretty freaked out about it. And for how much they complain about Moses, when the time comes to speak to God themselves, they are pretty quick to get scared and back off, asking Moses, “speak thou with us, and we will head: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” I wonder if this was at all validating for Moses, to have the people who complained about him this whole time to be scared of the entity that he encounters regularly. Probably not, that’s probably just an emotion that I would experience. The people “saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking,” and decided that Moses was the one who ...

20:17 – The tenth and final “word” is “thou shalt not covet.” This one is super pervasive but subtle and extremely destructive, I’ve struggled with it a lot. I’ve mentioned before that I grew up poor, like going hungry poor, and have worked everyday after school since I was 11 years old so make sure I had enough money for food and clothes. I’ve always worked extremely hard and I have a pretty good life. I struggle when people have “more” materially than I do but have worked for it WAY less. Like I fought and clawed for my condo that has flooded 9 times since I moved in, I did everything I could to support my children alone, and it was really hard. My daughter sees what it took for me to provide even the most mediocre life for her, but my son is still an angry teenager and hates me for his circumstances, and I don’t blame him but it does hurt my feelings. All of this is to say that when someone has a nice house or gets to stay at home with their kids or has a loving husband or loves t...

20:16 – the ninth word is “thou shalt not bear false witness.” This seems more specific than the rest, but I think there is a lot that can go into it. TB says that this is strictly speaking about court proceedings, which kind of can go into the last word where adultery could be convicted, initially, by simply a husband’s word. Thus the severity of the consequences for lying in court can be extreme. He also notes that the word “Torah” means law, so it would make sense that at least some of these “commandments” would pertain to the specifics of the law. I think making it strictly about legal, court issues is too specific to be mentioned as general rules for all the people, so I’m going to go with there being more to it than simply that. The IM has a pretty good interpretation, saying, “to bear false witness is to testify to or pass along report, insinuations, speculations, or rumors as if they were true, to the hurt of a fellow human being. Sometimes the practice stems from a lack of c...

20:15 – The 8th word is very simple “thou shalt not steal.” This is another one where there is a spectrum of the obvious “stealing” but then can go down a rabbit hole in to the deepest pits of taking what doesn’t belong to us. I get why stealing might be tempting and because there is a spectrum I don’t think that I’m 100% in the clear for this either. Like I went to Costco last week and the food court’s soda machine didn’t work so they set out cans of soda to take. My son grabbed me a soda too even though I didn’t order anything to drink but I just said screw it and took it. Was that wrong? Yeah, to be fair, I didn’t think that he was going to get a drink because he told me he wasn’t but when he got one and I didn’t see it until after I had opened it. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying it’s a spectrum and I feel like all we can do it our best. I think the obvious stealing, taking something we know doesn’t belong to us and keeping it for our own, we know is wrong. But then there are...

20:14 – The seventh word is simple which is “thou shalt not commit adultery.” This one seems pretty straight forward, I mean there is very little that can be misinterpreted. Adultery is a conscious decision to have sex with someone who is not your spouse. It can’t be done on accident, if it is done without consent that that is rape and we aren’t talking about that at all. It is a very deliberate choice to take an action that is expressly forbidden. The IM has several paragraphs about “the covenant of marriage” and “the power of reproduction,” but I don’t feel like it is anything that I haven’t heard a thousand times before. I don’t think there are very many people out there who think adultery is great, despite the fact that probably a significant majority of people do it. This is a topic that has effected me personally in almost every aspect of my personal and family history, so I’m a little bit jaded about it. Anyway, it’s such an interesting concept because it’s forbidden by God an...