Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

TB and the IM both note that chapters 8, 9, and 10 are all just records of Moses carrying out the instructions that had been given by God in the previous chapters starting all the way back starting in Exodus 25 and onward. I’m not going to go over very much because it’s already been covered in such depth previously, so I’ll only hit the highlights. First, I think that it was important to note that TB goes over the time line saying that the time that has past between Leviticus chapter 7 and chapter 8 is significant. While we read these chapters consecutively now at whatever rate we want, he says that the time that passes between the two “the Golden Calf Incident occurred and the Wilderness Tabernacle was constructed, so a lot has happened between the close of chapter 7 and the beginning of chapter .” Significantly, at the beginning of chapter 8, Aaron and his sons are being washed and cleaned prior to beginning their work in the temple. TB notes that this is significant because just a...

Chapter 6 and 7 go together and are basically just a re-hashing of all the sacrifices and offerings again but as instruction to the officiating priests. TB says that the previous discussions of the ordinances are meant to be addressed to the lay audience, whereas chapters 6 and 7 are for specifically for the instruction of the Levite priests who were to perform the ordinances. I’m not going to go over the sacrifices again because I feel like I covered them pretty in depth before so I’m just going to point out the few aspects that I thought were interesting. First is from chapter 6 verse 13 which is referencing the fire on the altar that is used to burn up the sacrifices. It says, “the fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” So basically one of the jobs of the priests is to stand guard day and night to make sure that the fire on the altar doesn’t go out. I assumed that it was symbolic like the Olympic torch that was never supposed to go out even in the 4 yea...

5:14-19 - What I wanted to do originally was get a really deep understanding about these different sacrifices, what they were for, what animals were acceptable, etc but as time has gone on, I don’t think that this is a good use of my mental capacity, because it is so limited, I want to focus on other stuff with it. So I’m going to just kind of go over the sacrifices and pick up what I can that is useful. What’s intereting is that Leviticus chapter 5 only has 19 verses on the church’s website but TB references to it having at least 26 verses in his lecture. Anyway, this next sacrifice is done with a “ram without blemish”. The purpose of this offering is to appease God for any sins that the people commit accidentally, meaning that this is meant to cover them for any sins that they committed that they didn’t or don’t know is a sin. The IM clarifies that this offering has to do with two different things, “Sin and Trespass-offerings”. The Sin offering has to do with our fallen natures and...

5:1-13 – The first 13 verses of chapter 5 are a continuation of the Purification offering talked about in chapter 4. Again, these are sins that are committed without knowing it, or because of the fallen world that we are in. The IM notes that the reasons for making this type of offering, as explained in chapter 5, are “omission (failure to report a crime one has witnessed), oversight (unconscious defilement), and rashness (thoughtless oath making).” This is like if someone accidentally stepped on a dead animal while walking. To be honest, I didn’t really follow everything that they were talking about with which sins were to be resolved through which sacrificial offering TB did make a point that I thought was pretty on point. He noted the same thing I did, that there were a lot of sacrifices for a lot of different sins and he said that going in depth with all of them felt like we were slicing the onion really thin with this. I appreciated that because that’s exactly how I feel about, t...

I’ve waited to talk about this next chapter because TB had two whole lectures on it and I thought that maybe it was way more in depth or there was some secret message within it, plus I’ve been busy with personal stuff. Of note before we begin is that TB says, and the IM references this also, that chapter 4 and 5 go together hand in hand. Even though both TB and the IM have a lot of material on this chapter, I’m just going to stick with the parts that I think are noteworthy. The scriptures refer to this 4th sacrifice as a “sin offering” but both TB and the IM note that the sins this sacrifice is covering are only unintentional sins, ones committed “through ignorance.” TB says that a more accurate description would be “Purification offering.” The term “sin offering” implies someone who is trying to be forgiven for sins committed knowingly, so “purification” more means ridding the offerer of impurities brought upon them by committed errors they didn’t know were wrong because we live in ...