Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

2:1-4 - The problem with starting into Moses’ story is that he’s such an important and epic figure that he’s the main player in a large world religion (Judaism), and crucial in main others (Christianity and Islam). The IM emphasizes his importance, saying, “So great was Moses that forever after the Lord and His people have used him as a standard, or model, of a prophet. Even Jesus Christ was called a prophet like unto Moses. Indeed, Moses was a similitude or living symbol of Jesus Christ… The key to Moses’ character is his meekness, the capacity to be molded by the Lord and His Spirit… The True Moses was one of the mightiest men of God in all time… He walked and talking with God, received of divine glory while yet in mortality, was called a son of God, and was in the similitude of the Only Begotten. He saw the mysteries of the heaves and much of creation, and received laws from God beyond any other ancient man of whom we have record.” Not only was Moses a spiritual giant, but historic...

1:15-17 - The new Pharoah in Egypt has a couple of problems, first is that there is a large population of foreigners living within Egypt’s borders. Because this minority population is ethnically the same as the previous foreign rulers, there is a lot of bitterness, but also Pharoah’s not sure where their loyalties lie if an enemy threatened Egypt. Interestingly, and not what I would have picked, Pharoah decides to solve this problem by enslaving them and forcing all the men to become brick makers and construction workers. His solution backfires, unsurprisingly, because not only will these slaves absolutely not be loyal to their oppressors, but he didn’t factor in that these enslaved people had been chosen by God to be special. That special election by God to the Hebrews means that in the face of persecution, they thrived, and the population exploded, which is the opposite of what Pharoah wanted to have happen. Pharoah makes another error in judgment at this point because instead of re...

1:8-10 - The political system that the Hebrews walked into when Jacob first left Canaan for Egypt was uniquely suited to them, Goshen was prime real estate for shepherding, the land was incredibly fertile, and they were ethnically cousins to the ruling party, the Hyksos. This lasted about 200 years, so even though Joseph and all that generation died, the Hyksos remained in power so surely Joseph’s legacy and loyalty was rewarded with favorable action until the new ruling class took over. I’m not exactly sure how the power structure changed from foreign Hyksos rule over Egypt to an actual Egyptian pharaoh, but my guess is that it wasn’t a peaceful affair, and all the information that we get is that “there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” I always wondered at this statement because I thought “Joseph played such a crucial role in the survival of Egypt and the world during the famine, it would be in the history books, surely a new ruler wouldn’t take over who had ab...

1:1-7 - New Year, new book of the Old Testament. I was despairing a little bit thinking that I had squandered two years just on Genesis, and while it’s true, I was not as vigilant as I could have been with writing, I went back through as saw that we had also gone through most of the Pearl of Great Price as well, so that at least counts for something. Anyway, the second book of the OT is called “Exodus” in English, which makes sense because it’s the account of the Hebrews “exiting” Egypt. Interestingly, however, the Hebrew name of this book is “Sh’mot” which means “names,” just like the first verse says, “Now these are the names of the children of Israel,” and it goes on to list the 12 sons of Israel, and then just kind of abruptly says, “And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.” So now we are on to Jacob’s grandkids, and they “were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.” The IM brings up...

50:1-13 -It must have been such a difficult thing for Jospeh when Jacob died because he obviously loved his father very much, and not only did he love him, but he probably felt very much like the time he did have with him was so limited through no fault of his own. It was very unfair, that both Joseph and Jacob were robbed of their time together, and that must have been very apparent at this point. That’s what I would have done, spiral, be angry and bitter. Joseph breaks down and cries for his father, “and wept upon him, and kissed him.” I don’t get it, it’s very foreign to me, but Joseph is certainly struggling with it at this point. Joseph orders “his servants the physicians to embalm his father,” and they did, but even though this sentence seems insignificant, TB points out that it is actually very important. By this point, the Egyptians have perfected the art of embalming the dead, but it was a religious ceremony, meaning that the embalming was done by the priests of Osiris, which...

49:16- - After having blessed all the sons of Leah, we now get to the four sons of the concubines, beginning with Dan, the oldest of the four. Jacob makes a statement that seems so benign to me, but apparently is loaded with meaning, “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.” Sounds to me like he’s going to be a judge, incorrect. This word “judge” was the word used when Rachel named him after he was born, saying, “God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.” TB clarifies for us though that this did not mean that the tribe of Dan was going to be a group of court room presiders, but instead that they would be constantly judged by God. The territory that the tribe of Dan was given shared a border with the Philistines which resulted in Dan being fierce fighters. The bit about the snake might suggest that this indicates the struggle that Danites had with idolatry, with a significant portion of their popula...

Two things, first two years ago, I worked really hard to finish up with the book of Revelations so that I could be done by the end of 2021 and start into the Old Testament in 2022. With that being said, now two years later, at the end of 2023, I basically only have 2 chapters left in Genesis and I’d really like to go into 2024 moving on from Genesis and going into whatever the other books in the Old Testament have to offer, so let’s hope for the best with that. Secondly, I wish I had done a little bit more research before making the last post, because after listening to more lectures, etc there is a lot more information that I wanted to include about each blessing. I really like the way that TB did it, because as he went through the blessings, he pulls together other references and then looks at the history of each tribe to see how each blessing was fulfilled. It was very instructive, actuall y, I think that it was the best of his lectures that I’ve heard so far, and I highly recomme...