Newly Discovered Temple Writing In 2 Nephi feat. Dave Butler

Dave Butler and Greg Matsen team up again to discuss the temple writing of Nephi in 2 Nephi. Nephi knew of the ancient Israelite temple drama and the Royal Procession.

Lehi knew of the temple ordinances and exhorted his sons in gospel instruction using temple ordinances. Did Nephi write all of his books a temple poetry?

 Raw Transcript

it's then interesting that this leads right into second Nephi 2 where we get the most concise discussion of what the
story of the temple is I think we should have recognized a long time ago that this is an ordinance and that Lehi is
using the language of this ordinance to exhort his sons some things really we should have noticed and this is one of
the things really we should have noticed
[Music]
well this is another great one with Dave Butler we go over the Poetry of Nephi
and as you go through and you you you dig in a little bit with what uh Dave uh
works on here with the early parts of the early chapters of second Nephi you see what Nephi is doing he is writing in
Temple imagery and we both contribute a little bit to this as as we run through this
but you're going to see how Nephi is talking about the temple he in fact he's talking about the temple drama in my
mind the ancient Israelite Temple drama as he writes this and composes I mean
really composes his writings here this episode is brought to you by scripture notes as I go through and I study things
like the ancient Israelite Temple drama or second Nephi and looking at Temple imagery and drama throughout the
scriptures there is no better tool for me than scripture notes you may be using a certain application I know which one
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try the product out scripture notes.com here we go all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am
your host in this episode we bring back my friend Dave but we are going to talk about the Book of Mormon it was written
on purpose Nephi is a poet and it is great literature Dave welcome to the
show hey thanks Greg for having me uh back appreciate being here okay we're going to go over kind of anchoring in
second ne4 but we're going to talk a little about the temple uh uh how Nephi
is structuring the Book of Mormon of this portion of the Book of Mormon where do you want to start yeah I want to
start in second Lei one uh we are going to talk about the temple uh in in uh at
least a couple different aspects here mhm so uh secondi 1 uh really 1 through3
are lehi's farewell discourse and um this is a uh traditional
Israelite uh literary Trope okay it's a literary literary cliche Moses reaches
the end of his days David reaches the end of his days what do you do you gather everybody Benjamin reaches the
end of his days you gather everybody together and you give your great farewell address and this is you know summing up your your career and your
wisdom so it's strictly in order that Lehi would do it now uh there is uh uh
there's a level of this that I think and I you and I may have talked about this I've certainly talked about it um in in
other contexts that I think we tend to miss and and let me give you the headline first and then we'll read it
and see it um and and again we are talking about uh Nephi as a poet um
uh so a we want to see the the poetic work in this chapter itself but also we
want to see how this connects to second e54 in particular MH so uh the headline
is uh Lehi is using um uh an ordinance to structure this uh
this piece secondi chapter one of the fair well addressed and frankly this is look some of the temple stuff that we
don't recognize in the Book of Mormon I I get why we don't recognize it because it's in sort of old Israelite modes
right like it's it's not obvious to an LDS person who who even someone who's
gone to their endowment that a throne would be a temple image for example you have to sort of connect with the Old Testament and think about some stuff um
or or or or the manur right these are things that are not obvious but some things really we should have noticed
okay yes and this is one of the things really we should have noticed so uh so so Lehi is uh exhorting uh his uh his
sons I'm going to read these verses out of order because because it's sort of easiest to see I'm going to start in verse 15 okay this is second eepi 1
secondi 1:15 and and remember the the the narrative is the The Narrative context
is Lehi is about to die and he knows it because he's he's old he's reached infirmity and this is my this is my last
speech to you and uh in in verse 15 he says behold the Lord hath redeemed my
soul from hell I have beheld his glory and I am encircled about eternally in
the arms of his love now the the scene he is he is we're
about to read him describing is is a scene from the ascent
okay where where does Lehi describing himself in the ascent
well he's describing himself in an embrace mhm in In This Moment In which I am exhorting you my sons he does say I have
been encircled or I will be encircled he says I am encircled right so he this is
at the moment where John 1:12 talks about those who grasp the Lord get the
authority to become the sons of God right this is that this is that moment he is grasping the Lord right he is
standing at the straight and narrow gate at the veil encircled in the arms the
ritual embrace it's the ritual Embrace so where is everybody else verse
13 so this is the exhortation to the sons and again here's here's my here's
my suggestion we should have recognized this a long long time ago um actually I suspect that
individuals here and there have recognized it and we've had a culture of not talking
about some things oh that ye would aw this is to the sons including zoram and ishmael's
Sons oh that you would awake awake from a deep sleep y even from the sleep of
hell and shake off the awful chains by which you are bound which are the chains
which bind the children of men that they are carried away captive down to the Eternal Gulf of misery and
woe awake and arise from the dust and hear the words of a trembling parent
whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and Silent grave from whence no traveler can return a few more days and
I go the way of all the earth now I'm going I'm just skip some
verses right I'm cherry-picking to get to the images that I want us to see in verse
21 uh about in the middle well I'll read the whole thing and now that my soul might have joy in
you Joy in first Nephi 8 comes from eating of the fruit of the tree of life now that my soul might have joy in you
and that my heart might leave this world with gladness because of you that I might not be brought down with grief and
sorrow to the Grave arrive from the dust my sons and
be men and be determined in one mind and in one heart United in all things that you
might not come down into captivity verse 23 this is the last one I'll read here
awake my sons put on the armor of righteousness shake off the chains with
which you are bound come forth out of obscurity and arise from the dust now where Lehi is is he's standing
in at the veil he's embracing the Lord sacred ritual Embrace his exhortation from the son to
the sons is awake and arise from the dust so his sons are someone who is
sleeping in the dust and then he tells them become men which is to say become
Adam put on the armor of righteousness so awake arise get dressed and come
forth out of obscurity and obscurity does not mean lack of being famous uh it means Darkness come out of Darkness uh
in in the light this is the same uh this is the same image in second Nephi 324
where he says if you don't understand my words you haven't asked or knocked you're not brought out of Darkness or
you're not brought into the light but you perish outside in the Darkness right so um so thing number one I think
we should have recognized a long time ago that this is an ordinance and that and that Lehi is using the language of
this ordinance to exhort his sons right
uh this all by itself has some interesting uh aspects to it because one
of the things that it implies is um and and whether this was true historically
or I don't know but in the narrative I think what it implies is that the sons would recognize the imagery right if
Lehi is giving this speech to them this is your last pitch right you're next thing is you're you're gone the last
thing you're saying to your sons you you I think you're going to make the most effective uh persuasive pitch you
possibly can speaking to them in a bunch of language that goes over their head is not it no no they know exactly what he's
talking about they know exactly what he's talking about right at least as characters in this in this in this
narrative so that's interesting two it's interesting that we see sort of oh this is I think a strong example of this kind
of process um or this technique of hey I am going to talk I'm going to I'm going
to give a sermon and in I'm going to encode the sermon I'm going to put in here ordinance language that the
audience whether the audience is lamon lamel Nephi Sam ishmail zoram Etc or
whether the audience Is Us us should recognize right to sort of to uh uh to
give more meaning to make it more authoritative right you're speaking as one who has Authority not as not as the
scribes MH so uh so so there's poetic craft there and whether whether it's in
lehi's actual speech that he maybe actually gave in the year
584 BC or whatever or whether the art is in Nephi right we we can't really see
through to the we don't have CCTV footage we don't really know what happened we have Nephi's document right
so maybe maybe lehi's speech was not this powerful but Nephi made it this
good right because he's a poet and this is his dad so okay this is this is the first
thing we want to see is that is that lehi's farewell discourse uh has this
Temple aspect by the way and I don't I don't I don't think and not to dwell on it but like
then interesting that this leads right into second Nephi 2 where we get uh the
most concise discussion of what the story of the temple is man uh Adam felt
that men might be men are that they have joy right I was just going to say this it's interesting also I mean if you go
back to verse 13 yeah that's leading up to where you started with 15 yeah right with with the ritual Embrace
yeah in my mind as I go through this and I I use a lot of the imagery of of of the Garden of Eden yeah to understand
sometimes what they're saying uh he says this is 13 oh that you would awake awake from a deep sleep even from the sleep of
Hell hell's important to understand hell is given imagery in several different
ways and Lehi uses this consistently well Nephi borrows it and uses it
consistently uh in certain ways one of those ways is in a gulf yeah right yes
and and if you and and just like you're talking about the ascent the experience of the ascent here there is an
Ascent tone to lehi's dream where he is going toward the Tree
of Life yep and of course in that Vision there is a gulf yep and it is a gulf
where where uh you know it it's a it's a fiery Gulf M that ascends I don't remember the
exact words of it that ascends up yeah but that's what stands in front of or to
the side of we'll say but somewhere next to the Tree of Life yeah absolutely right and and on the other side of that
is is the is the great and spacious building okay that Gulf is separates the two of
those hell in anciently is is is often
times a metaphor for judgment yeah right that is that is Judgment that you're
that you're going through and it can be a gulf a valley is used often times
David ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death which is really hell yeah right it's spiritual
death I will fear no evil right I don't need to fear evil I don't need to fear judgment right for thou art with me yep
right so you get this right here where he's talking about hell and then shaking
off the chain from which you're bound of hell and then down at the bottom of 13 of course you get you know carried down
captive down to the Eternal Gulf of misery and woe yeah and so you've got
this Ascent as you're describing this exactly where it's supposed to be yeah
right these are and you get the same thing in the Garden of Eden which is the
fiery swords of the cherubim that stand right in front of the Tree of Life judgment is placed
after they after Adam and Eve partake of the fruit they know the difference
between good and evil they have just ushered in judgment yeah into into the
plan the cheram stand in front with a fiery swords and and now how do you get
through that right that becomes the whole problem of the gospel and the good news is we can get past the Cherub them
yeah with a savior we can get past the Gulf of hell with a savior so that that kind of it fits perfectly to what
exactly you're saying here it's right into the ascent there yeah no I appreciate that and I was thinking in terms of of obviously trying to to sort
of highlight the images that people are um maybe familiar with from their own experience but you're exactly right
first Nephi there's the river and it says people wander off and get drowned but when Nephi is talking about it later
he talks he says there's it's flaming it's flaming telling telling the brothers Layman and lemel and if you go
to Alma is it 12 where Alma's actually speaking not AMC and in in
amanah great discourse on the Garden of Eden yeah and right there you'll see him talk about judgment yeah and and fiery
things right and hell right as he talks about the chable yeah the same spot 100%
And he Helman 3 has this image and it's all over second Nei 9 I think Jacob talks about a lake of of fire uh third I
think the word gulf actually appears in Helman 3 where it's like verse 29 and 30 maybe um where it says you have to lay
hold upon the word of Christ okay and and then it says which is which is quick
and powerful and and quick does not mean fast quick means alive you have to
that's what that is there we go you have to lay hold upon the word which is aive right it is alive and it pulls you over
the gulf and lands you in the Kingdom right and that's and that's exactly it's
interesting because because you try to sort of reconstruct well how did you know I know the experience that I go
through how how what was lehi's Nephi's experience like and it seems like you
had to cross the Gulf and maybe the decision was you know it's actually
easier to get over the spacious building the palace looks nice it's full of all the people I don't have to jump the
fiery Gulf you know um yeah so that's awesome I appreciate that let's um let's
look at second Nephi 4 so uh this is sometimes called the psalm of Nephi and
I'll talk a little bit about that name in a minute um there
's the wonderful thing about this is the way it connects forward backward to
Second Nei one and also forward to Second ne5 it acts as this wonderful
kind of hinge piece um uh where we see Nephi uh uh kind of pivot um and I'll
start with um I'll start with one I may I may read
several verses here but I'll start with with with one verse uh 33 um in fact actually just one line in
it so so this is um Nephi is pleading with the Lord
right uh and he says oh Lord wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy
righteousness um this I believe is the same imagery
that we started with with Lehi in second Nephi 11:15 mhm this is the Embrace in
fact this is this is such an interesting it is um it's not even just a plea for
an embrace it's a plea for an extremely intimate embrace it's so it's it's such
a close hug I want to be inside your robe like your the robe is circling me
right um and uh now you know does does that indicate
that the passage that here we're looking at Ascent yeah we get language where
Nephi is exhorting himself to awake in verse 28 Awake My Soul right um give
place no more for the enemy of my soul Nephi is on a journey he has to part of that journey is he has to awake and part
of that journey is his footsteps are dogged by the enemy of his soul and he and he's and he wants to uh uh reject uh
exhorts himself to uh reject that enemy um he says may the Gates of Hell be shut
before me uh but oh Lord wilt thou not shut the gates of righteousness before
me right he's he's not in the Embrace he wants the Embrace he wants to enter into
the gate that his father talked about yeah this is kind of a response to Lehi in a sense right it is 100% a response
to Lehi it is 100 wil thou encircle me in the robe of thy righteousness uh make
my path uh straight before me um uh hedge not up my way uh I will not
put my trust in the arm of Flesh uh what does that mean it means he's trusting in the arm of God right this is the Embrace
image or the grip uh image um I will cry unto thee my God the rock of my
righteousness behold my voice shall forever Ascend up unto thee my rock and
uh my everlasting God right now rock is specifically um heal and 52 says the
rock is Jesus Christ but the rock is specifically this is the foundation stone this is this is a a God in his
Temple image the Ben B Stone it it's it yeah it's or even uh I I've kind of come
to look at it a little bit like uh the foundation stone where the Ark of
the Covenant is laid yes yeah yeah 100% and and um absolutely this is a response
to what Lehi uh has been saying um let's articulate that and then there then it
turns out there's sort of two levels so um Lehi exhorts his sons right follow me
awake arise become men don't fall into the Gulf put on the armor of righteousness follow what I'm doing I am
in the Lord's Embrace and Nephi is saying yes yes that is what I want Lord
help me do this keep the gate open I want to enter I and embrace me right as you embrac my father now
one level of sort of literary genius I think that just escapes us is that
um this Psalm exists in two times it
actually exists in more times but forget about us take us and Joseph out of the picture just think about Nephi this
exists in two times one time it exists in is in the chronological narrative
right so Lehi has just died now some bad stuff is other stuff is going to happened to Nephi right and and in that
moment we are to imagine him saying yes Father I want to follow you right please
God let me H follow my father I also understand this language of of
initiation and Ascent right the other time in which this
exists is at the time when Nephi is writing it or causing it to be written right which is very different
it's about 40ish years later yeah he's no longer the young guy who was crazy
enough to climb the wall and Chomp off laan's head right uh he's he's he's uh
he's old and he's seen he's seen troubles all his days right his brothers
tried to kill him he finally had to split with them he's he's you know um I
think Jacob talks about you know we already had Wars with
lonit yeah against our our cousins right so um and in that context we have to
imagine this passage also right which is to say uh Lehi when he was old exhorted
his sons to follow him now Nephi yeah in the story he's talking about when he was
a young man wanting to but he as a writer he is an old man and he is saying
right now my end cannot be very far away and you know I I see what my father saw
and yes I want what you what you had right I I want to follow you father
still right um which is extremely narratively subtle uh I I I uh I
submit so um well there's parallels here about about you know you get off and
it's interesting because it's it fits right in with the of his writings where he follows the instruction of his father
and Layman emial don't yeah right he just kind of get that consistently throughout I follow the one who is gone
going through the ascent who's going to the Tree of Life who wants the ritual Embrace I want the same thing yeah you
know my brothers don't yeah yeah 100% And I think a big
part I think an important aspect to see about first Nephi is that it is it is
Nephi's story it's his Claim about why did the prophetic mantle fall
to me wh why when we got to um Bountiful
why was I the one that God summoned up to the mountain and said here's this boat after a curious fashion that you're
going to build right why also did it fall to me we're going to get to this in second E55 here uh why did it fault to
me to become king right to uh to build a temple to take on that rule right and
and it is the story absolutely of obedience to his father obedience to God
being willing to do the sometimes apparently crazy things right um that uh
uh that put him in that position yeah let me bring up a couple more things here as I go through this because this
is uh I think pretty interesting here um a couple of things just in as I go
through this chapter and looking within the framework that you're giving us here uh he goes into 26 oh then I have seen
so great things if the Lord in his condescension under the children of men hath visited men in so much Mercy why
should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley there you go the valley of sorrow or hell yeah and my flesh waste
waste away you know the condescension here is Christ and and and again to me it's
there's a a a very strong connection here with the Tree of Life yeah uh if
you go back to first Nephi 11 um and then here this is really interesting to
me because this is something I I I I talk a lot about
and um when you go to 32 speaking of an Ascent the ascent is
not just a Visionary framework mhm it is a ritual framework right now now
we could say that as far as uh you know our Temple experience sure right but in
ancient Israel it was a drama experience as well oh yeah right okay and so you go
to 32 and you have May the Gates of Hell be shut continually before me because that my heart is broken and my spirit is
contrite that's one of my pet peeves with everyone that has always existed that is not a replacement for animal
sacrifice yeah right this has broken heart and contrite spirit has always been a part of a sacrifice right y oh
Lord will because this is what we're looking at like you said 500 plus years before Christ yep oh Lord wil thou not
shut the gates of thy righteousness before me this is the gate coming into the temple and even the city that I may
walk in the path of the Low Valley all right there again I've got to go through the low valley first the death that I
may be strict in the Plain Road now what is the road oh Lord wil thou encircle me around
in the robe of righteousness so there's there's your discussion what you're saying here but just down below this uh
okay well I'll keep going oh Lord wilt thou make a way for mine Escape before mine enemies this is part of the
Israelite drama right you you have the king that comes in he is going to fight the
adversary it it may be Satan himself it might be the amalekites in the drama or
whoever they're the Canaanites somebody that they're going to be fighting you've got to overcome the ad
adversary um it's not a matter of beating the adversarii in battle by the way because the king always dies in that
battle Yeah it's him it's him dying and then resurrecting 3 days later yeah okay
that's the overcoming or the escape and then this comes in wilt thou make my
path straight before me well where have we heard that before uh Elma 40 is an example or sorry Elma Isaiah 40 40 sure
and then you're coming into the New Testament ties to that yeah John it's John yeah okay so this is the ironic
priest preparing the way of the king that's the path yeah
right it's the and the Royal and the Royal procession yeah the Royal procession is the ascent to the to the
temple yeah right so you've got wiel make my path straight before me will th not place a stumbling block in my way
this is part of you know we use this the idea of stumbling block as a sin right
so was the same part of clear the path so that we can bring in the Savior y
right the the king of kings that would come in there but thou but that thou wouldest clear my way before me there's
the way and hedge not up my way but the ways of my enemy um so you've got this
whole this whole framework coming in of the temple drama and the and the Royal
procession within the assent that he's talking about and then one more little thing I noticed here though I haven't
seen this before or thought about this but you also get right here at the end possibly and I don't know if I'm
stretching on this at all but the very end of this is behold my voice shall forever Ascend up unto thee my rock and
rock and my everlasting God you know this is if we are looking at Temple imagery you could possibly be looking at
the idea of the prayer circle here in front of the veil interesting as well interesting okay I love everything you
just said um so I love uh I think you're right actually that um there is not only
sort of some esoteric imagery in here but there's the image of the um we're
talking about sort of in the Fall Festival when the king defeats his enemies maybe it's Rahab the dragon
right the cosmic enemies return he appears to he dies is resurrected comes
back to Jerusalem and is enthroned I I think I think you're right here here's another little bit and this is this is
sort of a tangent uh Aubrey Johnson in his book kingship and ancient Israel suggest that um in the Psalms
there are several little um Divine beings who we miss
because we don't recognize words as names and he thinks that for example that righteousness is one of that
righteousness may have been like a something like an angel right A minor God in in yahweh's court which is
interesting because what we have here is so in Jacob uh second e59 we have Robes of righteousness uh we had armor of
righteousness here we have the gates of righteousness right and of course righteousness is part of the name milisic and I when I see righteousness
in the Book of Mormon one of the questions I always ask is is this is this milisic right are these like the
gates of milkis higher Gates as a as opposed to right so it's interesting
that make straight the path and the sort of ironic pried don't keep the gates of
melkisedek shut yes before me right sort of at least echoing here in this yeah or
or don't keep the gates shut of me where as I would see the gates of righteousness then then you might be
saying are you saying don't shut out the savior in a way right don't shut out the
the uh the King of Kings yeah
yeah um yeah fantastic so I I love that you bring the
Royal um procession into this because I think
uh second Nephi for also connects forward into second Nei 5 right so on
the one hand what he's saying is I am my father's spiritual
Heir right but also uh a in the in the fact that he is
writing a Psalm and this is something like Psalm 89 okay where you know David
is Anointed and God is on his throne right uh and and by the way the the sort
of hint right that last line you point out my voice shall forever Ascend up unto thee this is right this is a this
is a verbal ex this is not a silent prayer this is like a song I am singing up to you my God
right uh the fact that he is composing a
Psalm and that we have this image of the ascent and we have the image of King
ship right also says hey not only am I my
father's Heir spiritually right I am also
David right I I am I am the king he's preparing the reader right I'm the
writer of Psalms right I am I am the king who returns from the cosmic battle
to ascend the throne right um why does this matter well this matters cuz what
happens in second E55 right and so this is this this is second4 is this perfect transition so
uh th this is where uh so Lehi dies in the beginning of four uh we get the
definitive break right the anger of my brethren their anger did increase against me they did seek to take away my
life what's new um and uh and then here again right
he's he's lehi's Heir the Lord warns him to uh go and flee in the wilderness uh
um now now what does he do he goes to uh a place uh verse 8 uh my people would it
wasn't me the people constrained me that we should call the name of the place Nephi right wherefore we did call it
Nephi uh I think the I think the echo here is the city of David M this is the
place of Nephi and all those who were with me to take upon them to call themselves the people uh people of
Nephi and uh two more things happen here that I want to point out uh one thing uh
verse 16 I Nephi did build a temple right he
set he set us up for the idea that he is the right guy to do this now in some
sense he set us up for the idea way back in first Nei right he learned to build
uh Timbers of curious workmanship from God himself personally
on the mountain mhm right um but in second Nephi 4 he said look I'm you know
I'm and the reason David didn't build the temple is because of David's own wickedness right but I I am uh I am a
psalmist I am the processional King I am the king who ascends into God's embrace
I am therefore the right guy verse 16 to build a temple I did construct it after the manner of the Temple of Solomon 12
also I mean would go along the lines of the one that brings the ark uh verse 12
right I brought the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass and also the ball or Compass yeah you know
the the the uh the items of the nephite arc so to speak yeah fantastic again of
a piece with second Nephi 4 I am the right guy to do this right yeah I I am I am the new David um
and then uh oh what vers is it where he's uh the people
basically constrain him to be king doesn't quite say 18 there because I skipped right over it right um so what
he and Nephi is pretty koi here right it came to pass that they would that I would be their King you know again they
wanted to call the place Nephi they wanted me to be their King I Nephi was desirous I should have no King
nevertheless I did for them according to that which was in my power now later we understand it's in Jacob right we
understand that the kings are were after him we called Nephi thei Nephi what means Nephi was the first king right
he's he's being he's he's saying I didn't want to but they but I did for
them it's funny isn't it he really goes out of his way yeah to to make sure that
he look I I think to say this is not tyrany yeah yeah right I am not constraining
anybody this is not tyranny this is what is wanted of the people yeah you know he really goes out of his way to do that
but we get the same thing with David too right with everybody being called David I mean even down to Christ yeah he is
the davidic king yep the davidic is you know he's being named after David yeah
yeah which um which means beloved by the way which he's also called which means
beloved and interestingly nobody else in the Old Testament is named David we got other names that are repeated nobody
else is named David so there is a there is an interesting possibility possibility only that David
is originally more in the nature of a title right another piece that adds to that is is is we have two different
Giants named Goliath in the Old Testament one is killed by David one is killed by is it elnathan there's a
there's a completely different name and there is a theory that that that's actually David's name name that his gave
him interesting yeah uh and uh that David is basically the title right well
who knows what Nephi's name was that his parents gave him maybe it was Nephi right maybe maybe not I mean it means
the fair One the good one yeah yeah yeah maybe that's a name that he just wanted
to adopt in in the record right or maybe that is like David the title mhm
interesting interesting maybe if we met his his name would be Bob yeah exactly Bob the prophet the prophet um that's a
bigger issue I think you and I have talked about in this in the past but Old Testament and and to some extent Book of Mormon names that we can tell are so on
the nose New Testament too that sometimes you wonder well is that really
if I met that person right in 32 ad or whatever would that really be his name
or is that the name that's applied to him to help us understand in the record or or that he adopts eventually yes
could be right I mean you think about the Native American Running Deer or something you know something some event in their life
becomes their name yeah and sometimes they then then another bigger event happens and they adopt that that newer
name at that point absolutely or the way Isaiah gives names uh to his sons that
are prophetic right um could you not as an adult say you know I'm going to I'm
call me ex right I mean the name Jesus is salvation yes right it is extremely
on the nose yes uh so again maybe his maybe his name was Yeshua right maybe it
was something his name was Gideon and this is this was the name he adopted and preached under to show people who he was
or it's a signed to him because of because of the the writings and the
Prophecies of Salvation that will be brought you know as God Bears his holy
arm you know it's it's yeah sure yeah maybe that's right maybe maybe maybe at
some point my hypothetical Gideon right has a has a
revelatory experience and God says you are right Yeshua right God says call
yourself Nephi I know your name is Barack but in the record we're going to call you Nephi right um a absolutely so
uh yeah so he uh so he so he becomes king by the way I think also it's cuz
cuz the the ACT accusation of kingship right it's uh I think it's first Nephi 15 when um earlier the brothers say well
you want to rule over us but the they I think they first dropped the k word in first Nephi 15 so after lehi's vision
and then Nephi's Vision he goes to explain to his brothers and they say you you know you want to be king or maybe
it's in the early 16 right after it's right after the vision somewhere right this idea does you know Nephi does
become king but all along in the story he's protesting that he does it's not me
right I this is not what I wanted I wanted to be obedient I wanted to to do
the thing my father and God told me to do and the result was I became king but
even here at the end he saying I didn't want it I was constrained and he's koi about the fact he's like I did what was
in my power right and it's not a power play as if among men yeah right it's not
a yeah it's not a power d damic among men it's always I'm defer Nephi I'm
deferring to God I'm deferring to my father the prophet I'm deferring to the spirit you know and and and you know
what he might be saying the back of his mind I I know I'm going to rule yeah
honestly right I do know I'm going to rule I've had maybe the calling yeah already I understand this but this is
not by men it is not me yeah right it is I mean you look at Joseph of Egypt yeah
he's got the vision of they will all bow down to me very early on as he's very young you know um and and he proclaims
it but it's it's not from him yeah right
yeah it's so so another another sort of uh so by way of contrast um if you read the book of
ether the way uh over and over again you get Brothers throwing each other into
prison yeah right uh or going to war against each other and this is this is
historically you know it reads it reads like an account of the byzantines or the Ottomans where you get Haram politics
which are really savage or even after the death of David right ba Sheba is in there politicking trying to get her son
Solomon but you know he's not the only candidate there's Ammon but you know he screws up and you know assaults his
sister he has to die there's Absalom uh who accidentally hangs himself on a tree
right but these are brother who were going after each other to see who's going to get the thr Palace Intrigue
Palace Intrigue NE Nephi's move is uh what God the Lord says to me leave and
so I left right and and that was the maneuver you know again following his
Father's Footsteps doing what God told him to do that ultimately makes him King
brings to path maybe something he has expected for years yeah and and take this stuff with you yeah right this is
yours yeah this is the these you know the the the compass and and and all
those that would be in the nephite ark are are you need to build the temple
yeah this is where you're going this is you're going to build the temple you are going to have a temple people you've got
to keep the covenants in place the priesthood in place and ordinances and and and regardless of what Layman and
limuel are saying about you you're not going to cower still you don't need to take on the the
pride of this but but he doesn't cower to it either yeah and it's interesting
and I'm going to run a quick search because my memory is um that when we get
the nephite point of view sorry the lonite point of view what the lonit say
here it is Elma 20 um uh yeah so this is Loni's father talking
to Loni uh Loni Thou Art going so after monai has converted right the father
hasn't yet he'll get there Thou Art going to deliver these Nephites who are the sons of a liar right that's Nephi
this is the lonite take on Nephi he's a liar behold he robbed our fathers right
what now what what did he steal like maybe the answer is the Treasures of the nephite Ark right which which why would
you care it's like it's they're brass well you would care among other things if they were signs of political power
yeah absolutely they're signs of itical power and it's to me this is why I this part of the the the the conflict of The
Book of Mormon is such a big message to us today I believe as people who have
follow the podcast about critical theory yeah right this is this is what it is
this is this is grievance grievance mongering mongering right over what is
true and right yeah right and and I am going to critique and bring down what
exists uh and and use the arguments that
I would use of Pride and lying and everything else against him and against
the Nephites because the entire message of the Book of Mormon is and conflict here is always the same it's
always you're successful you're you're uh doing things properly and in order
and with the right Authority and you take everything you've got everything we don't and it's this const
victim mentality of grievance and and hate toward the Nephites yeah right and
then the message to the Nephites is so what right do you love your enemy yeah
do you love the enemy regardless of all of this you know and and I it to me it's just a it plays out in our our world
today yeah very well yeah it's interesting um and we don't have as much detail
about anything as I would like right but it's interesting there are Wars against the
lamanites um there are also people who who go among them as missionaries M
right um uh or or like zenf who's not a missionary he's just a Explorer Explorer
he likes their culture right he um
uh so the but the response does not seem to be right the response seems to be the agree grieved side whose narrative is
all about you robbed me mhm uh is trying to kill the other side
MH all right that's that's now this is a narrative we have right um a lonite narrative we we infer would
be different right yes definitely yeah but but that's the story we have so I I
I yeah I I like that I think and and by the way I think that grievance mongering the point of it is violence I think the
point of it is not not to teach people history as a critical inquiry mhm right
or history for understanding it's history it's a a uh a a perversion of history for the
purpose of politically mobilizing them of putting them into mobs uh which is
what the denters do they just rally the same exact thing among the ne among the lamanites to come back and fight their
their their own Brothers yeah yeah so yeah that's interesting yeah so so Nephi
here is a poet Nephi is and again as we talk about this and you say he's an
older man when he's actually writing this and he can't help but think okay well he's had 40 years he's probably
been writing these things down and you know a little bit more play byplay after the fact that he you know he's got notes
yeah of his life journals right uh sermons uh uh letters
right and and he's going to bring everything together later and he's going to write first and second Nephi yeah in
a structural you know a framework of let me teach you about this and and and
within my own culture this is how we write this is how the scribes write the
manite scribes or the josephite scribes yeah and and and put it into this
framework and here we see it as you were just describing I mean it's yeah uh and
by the way going to that second E55 the ascent you're talking about well
the ascent eventually second E55 he builds the temple yeah exactly right the culmination of the asent into which he
is the king will will return in the Fall Festival yeah yeah I and I think I think you're exactly right I think we should
imagine um he might even say that he makes the plates with he refers to making the plates with his own hand I
think um this is literary cliche this is what sort of the author of a text always
says maybe in fact you know he did all the work himself I think it's more
likely that he was King it may not have been a huge Kingdom he had something
like a Chancery he had maybe it's only a couple or three people but he had some other people who
could read and write who are helping him who are getting the records in order right and uh uh and
and um it's it's not spontaneous right it's not now now did he maybe
write the psalm of Nephi in the moment may maybe he did sure but I think it's incorporated into a very systematic
deliberately crafted account that does all of these things that we've been talking about at the end of his life
yeah well he'd have to have some of these individuals that that perhaps he's the one training them in this scribal
skill and and other skills that would go along with that school you know obviously because you get down to Benjamin yeah and Benjamin
is writing an Egyptian yeah yeah yeah and he's teaching his kids all about his boys about Egyptian and you're going to
be also scribes yep and keeping these records and so you've got this tradition that's coming all the way down that
Nephi has got to pass along yeah so yeah absolutely awesome fun stuff Dave really
appreciate it thanks for your time love talking about the Book of Mormon or any of the scriptures with you and uh we'll
do it again soon thanks for having me [Music]