Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

Chapter 1 is about burnt offerings that are made to atone for unintentional sins, chapter 2 is about grain offerings which are tributes made to God, and chapter 3 is about a “peace offering.” This is an animal sacrifice similar to a burnt offering except that there can be no birds used as the animals. Another difference between the burnt offering and a peace offering is that while a burnt offering can only use male animals, the peace offering can use either male or female animals. A burnt offering involves almost all of the animal but the peace offering only involves burning the fat that surrounds the liver, kidneys, and entrails. The IM notes that the use of fat in this offering “was indicative of the well-being of the whole animal. It came to represent the consecration of the whole life of the individual to God.” The burnt and grain offerings were more expected and frequent than this peace offering, being completely up to the discretion of the offerer. Another interesting point tha...

While chapter 1 dealt with the burnt offering of animals, either cattle or birds, chapter 2 deals with the offering of grain. Significantly, verse one in the KJV calls is “a meat offering,” but it actually means grain, so this begs the question, how did we get to calling it “meat” in the English translation? The IM says, “the word translated ‘meat offering’ is a Hebrew word meaning ‘a gift’ Used in a sacrificial sense the word refers to a gift of grain, flour, or breads.” TB explains that the Hebrew word for “meat” used here is “Minchah,” which is translated as “meal.” In our English today “meal” means breakfast, lunch, or dinner and with meat featuring a large part of our meals, it came up that way. He also suggested that the translation of “minchah” to “meat” has to do with “resolving a word translation problem that surfaces in the story of the dispute over an offering to God between Cain and Abel, which eventually led to Abel’s death at the hand of Cain.” This has always been an i...

Chapter 1 is packed with sacrificial procedure. It’s interesting because both TB and the IM are full of information about this chapter, even though it’s only 17 verses. I personally didn’t find what they said that important to talk about, but there were a few things I’ll bring up here. A cattle burnt offering is to be a male without blemish, and the offerer brings it to the door of the tabernacle to be sacrificed. The IM said that the door of the tabernacle was the designated sacrifice spot because of the previous problems that the Israelites’ had with idolatry. This makes sense because it took away all ability for anyone other than designated priests to perform different temple ordinances. It created a very controlled environment for temple ordinances for the people. Part of the procedure of sacrifice included “he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering,” before killing it because it symbolically transferred the person’s sins from himself onto the animal. This is like...

The book of Leviticus is what is up next and there are a lot of interesting things about it that are worth discussion. TB spends 2 whole lectures (about 90 minutes) going over just the introduction to the book of Leviticus and there are a couple of points that I think are interesting to point out. First is that the name Leviticus is “after the tribe of Levi… Before Leviticus was called ‘Leviticus’, the Hebrews called it ‘Torat Kohanim’… literally priest teachings. In our western way of thinking, we might say ‘priestly instructions,’ or more to the point, Instruction of the Priests.” This means that this book was originally intended to be an instruction manual for the priests that would be officiating inside of the temple and because those priests had to be of the tribe of Levi, the book became known as Leviticus. One interesting note that TB made was that during that time there were lots of officials or even “priests” who officiated in other religions and that those priests had often...

36,37,38,39,40: I’m not going to cover anything from the last 5 chapters of Exodus because it’s all just a re-iteration of what we’ve already gone over, the specifications for the tabernacle, the temple clothing, etc. One interesting aspect that TB talks about is exactly WHY all this information is recorded a second time. TB asks then answers, saying, “Why this tedious repetition and not just some words stating that just as the Lord had ordered it that is how Israel built it? Because we are speaking of the most important, central, and holy item on the planet. The Sacred Tent has no rival; this is Yehoveh’s one and only sanctuary on Earth. There is nothing like it, and only it’s later replacement, the Temple, is its equal. Therefore excruciating detail is offered to demonstrate that every effort was made to construct the Wilderness Tabernacle according to its blueprints.” It must be because we have SO many temples that it’s hard to look from an outside perspective and think just how s...

35:1-3 - It seems like the rest of the book of Exodus is just a re-iterating of things we’ve already gone over, mostly the commandments are told again, probably because it’s a new covenant after Israel broke their last one. Moses comes down off the mountain and tells the people what God told him, which is the commandments again. The first is “sex days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath o rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.” What is interesting to me, and TB makes a good point of it as well, if why of all the commandments to be emphasized over and over again, why is it keeping the Sabbath day holy the one that is so important? Additionally, why is violation of the Sabbath punishable by death? Even when many other egregious crimes are not, like there are so many mitigating circumstances when it comes to causing the death of ano...

34:18-35 - God continues giving Moses a run down of the commandments, but they are all ones that we’ve previously discussed such as the festivals they are to keep, sacrifice of first born animals, keeping the Sabbath day holy, leavening of bread, blood sacrifices, first fruits, etc. TB goes on a lengthy diatribe about the significance of observing the Sabbath day on Saturday instead of Sunday as being more accurate to the scriptures. I personally don’t think it’s that big of a deal, especially when I belong to an organized religion professing modern revelation that observes the Sabbath on Sunday. Additionally, TB talks about observing God’s specified festivals instead of the ones our society celebrates now, and again, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, more like a “celebrate whatever you want, the date or name is not important, but how you live your daily life.” Moses is up on the mountain for “forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, not drink water.” This is an int...

34:1-3 - The first set of stone tablets in which God inscribed the covenant with Israel, the Ten Commandments, were broken by Moses when he descended the mount with them to find the people losing their mind with a golden calf idol. TB reminds us that this was a symbolic gesture done in ancient middle eastern times to demonstrate to the people that they had broken the covenant they made with God and that it was now null and void. Importantly it seems that the people are still at the base of Mount Sinai and they haven’t yet moved forward toward the promised land, even though God told them it was time to go. I don’t think that was a disobedience thing, it was probably more because it would have taken a significant amount of time to get ready to make that large of a journey with that many people to feed, just like we see with the Nephites and the Jaredites before their long expedition overseas. God instructs Moses to make two more tablets out of stone and take them to the top of mount Si...

33:7-10 - I’m not exactly sure if they are still in Sinai or if they have made it to a new resting place when Moses pitches his tent “afar off from the camp”. The KJV translation calls it the “Tabernacle” but TB gives several reasons for why it almost certainly doesn’t mean THE tabernacle, but instead just a regular tent. First, he notes that the timing is off. The instructions are given for the tabernacle’s construction, but the people just left Sinai and haven’t had time to actually build it yet. Second, the Hebrew word used in theses verses are “ohel… this means, ‘tent’”. Third, it says that Moses was the one who put the tent up and the grandness of the tabernacle would have taken hundreds of people to erect. Fourth, the tabernacle was surrounded by the tribes in a very specific configuration, not outside of the camp. Fifth, Joshua was inside the tent the whole time, and he wouldn’t have been allowed inside the tabernacle because he was not a Levite priest, he was from the tribe of ...

33:1-6 - God is still very angry with Israel for the golden calf incident, but he tells Moses that it’s time for the people to move on from Mount Sinai and onto the promised land. TB suggests that the people had been camped there for about a year at this point. It seems like God’s anger and Him telling the people that it’s time to go to the promised land seems contradictory, but because we have hindsight, we know that wandering in the wilderness for 40 years is the plan, so it makes sense. It seems to me that what actually happens is He says, “it’s time for you guys to move away from this place where you are thriving enough to make golden idols to worship and head into the wilderness for some suffering and reconciliation.” God has withdrawn his covenant from Israel, but He does promise to send “an angel before thee,” which I think is still pretty good. This angel is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting as far as making Canaan a good place for Israel to live, including driving out t...