By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF JAMES

Kevin Barney

1. James 1:2

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations many afflictions;

    The Greek word peirasmos “testing” (rendered here as “temptations” in the KJV) can mean either a trial from without or a temptation from within. Smith takes it in the former sense, “many afflictions” where the Greek literally and similarly says “various trials.” Many modern translations have something like the NIV “trials of many kinds.” 

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH[‘S REVISION OF HEBREWS 10-13

Kevin Barney

1. Hebrews 10:1

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices, which they offered continually year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

    The Law contains a foreshadowing of the true Atonement, but not “the very image” (like a statue). “Year by year continually” seems to suggest that the author is speaking specifically of the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement, which occurred but once per year. But the author of Hebrews is grouping all the sacrifices together, not specifying annual sacrifices only. Moving the adverb “continually” from following “year by year” to preceding it makes this clearer. Many modern translations do the same.

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

The Church Education System has just finalized new hiring standards for the BYUs’ religion departments. The new standards have a laudable purpose: they mean to “strengthen[] the faith and deepen[] the conviction” of students at the BYUs. Unfortunately, the new hiring standards will do just the opposite: they undermine the legitimacy and power of the church.

Before I go into that, though, a couple caveats: first, the document is real. Bruce Hafen referred to it a year and a half ago in an address to BYU’s religion faculty. But it hasn’t been publicly released. The linked PDF is made up of screenshots. But I have been assured by multiple people that I trust that it is real.

Second, yes, it’s dated a year and a half ago. I have similar confirmation from friends that, while it has existed since June 2019, it has just been implemented. Partly that because, in light of the pandemic, there really hasn’t been any hiring in a year and a half. Partly it’s because it took that much time to figure out how to implement it.

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF HEBREWS 7-9

Kevin Barney

1. Hebrews 7:3

For this Melchizedek was ordained a priest after the order of the Son of God, which order was without Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but. And all those who are ordained unto this priesthood are made like unto the Son of God; abideth, abiding a priest continually.

    The author of the letter to the Hebrews begins chapter 7 by quoting from the Septuagint version of Genesis 14:18-20. (Hebrews does not mention Melchizedek providing Abraham with bread and wine because that was not relevant to the author’s point here.) This letter seems to have been intended for a group of Essenes, and part of the argument was that Jesus had a superior priesthood to that of Levi. The author uses Melchizedek as an illustration of his point. The JST here makes three adjustments to this text: (i) Anciently there were a variety of traditions swirling about the figure Melchizedek. In many such traditions he was a human king (as he is portrayed in the scriptural account), but over time there arose some traditions that eventually understood him to be more than human. The JST of this verse is largely devoted to clarifying that, while Melchizedek was certainly an important and righteous human king and priest, he was nonetheless human, not supra-human. The JST reorganizes the text to have all the supra-human descriptions of Melchizedek (such as a series of terms with alpha-privative (a-) indicating negation: apator, ametor, agenealogetos “without father, without mother, without genealogy”) apply instead to the order of the priesthood, not to the man Melchizedek. (ii) Although we refer to the higher priesthood by the name Melchizedek, properly it is the priesthood after the order of the Son of God, as explained in D&C 107:1-4. (iii) The JST also clarifies that this priesthood may be widely held by mortal human beings.

    Paradigm Classification B (Midrashic Commentary)

On the first Sunday of December in 1903, a headline in the Salt Lake Tribune announced the startling news, NORTH POLE DISCOVERED—six years before explorer Robert Peary’s famous, if disputed, expedition. According to the article, a Mr. O.J.S. Lindelof had, on a recent trip to Europe, been given a waterlogged manuscript that he brought back with him to Salt Lake City. When he finally got around to reading it, the manuscript turned out to be a record of the discovery of the North Pole by a San Francisco-based expedition some years earlier. Unlike Peary, who discovered an uninhabitable frozen wasteland, the explorers in Lindelof’s manuscript describe a verdant, densely populated region that has been hidden from the rest of the world for thousands of years.

As the Tribune reported, “it tells of finding a white and civilized people; tells of their customs, habits, wars, and dissentions, their flora and their fauna, and gives a complete record of their country from the time they arrived until the record was sealed up.”  And, as the book’s subtitle reveals, these are not just ordinary people living in a hidden population center around the North Pole. They speak a form of Hebrew and make sacrifices to “the God of Abraham” (97)—because, as the narrator concludes, they are indeed the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel (9). 

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF HEBREWS 1-6

Kevin Barney

1-2. Hebrews 1:6-7 

And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him, who maketh his ministers as a flame of fire. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire Angels are ministering spirts.

    The separation of “firstbegotten” into two words, “first begotten,” is a modernization (modern editions of the KJV typically use a hyphen here). Verse 7 is a quotation from Psalms 104:4. The expression “who maketh his ministers a flame of fire” is moved forward and changed to “as a flame of fire.” This reflects a JST tendency to change a metaphor into a simile by adding the word “as” so as to be clear that the comparison is not to be taken literally. The first part of the quote, “Who maketh his angels spirits,” is changed to “Angels are ministering spirits.” The JST revision seems to be based on the idea that angels are already spirits, so “making them” spirits is nonsensical, and is replaced with a definitional “Angels are ministering spirits.” Most modern  translations render something like “who makes his angels winds” (as Greek pneuma may be translated spirit, wind or breath),  which is a natural force paralleling the natural force of “a flame of fire.” 

    Paradigm Classifications A-1 and A-3 (Paraphrase of English KJV Text and Modernization)

This guest post is from Christina Taber-Kewene, OG BCC Permablogger and self-described “writer, business owner and very pandemic-depressed mother of four trying to survive February.”

I thought I had done an adequate mothering job in preparing for Valentine’s Day this year. I remembered more than a week ahead to order craft supplies from Target so we could make and mail cards for the grandparents, although not before all the pre-made ones were sold out and not in time to have them delivered before the Sunday afternoon I had set aside for crafting. Fortunately, my Sunday morning walking buddy is better stocked than I, and she loaded me up with enough stickers and doilies to get us through the first round of card making.

The first time I heard Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese was in a therapist’s office nearly a decade ago. It was our first session, and I was trying to explain the crippling perfectionism that has often accompanied my spiritual life. The man nodded understandingly, then offered this passage as an antidote:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

As I heard the words I felt my heart swell, then promptly clamp down. Clearly, I thought, this guy doesn’t get Mormonism. I called the office later to see if they had any LDS therapists. They didn’t, so I didn’t go back. 

First, before we go on, let us reiterate that the First Presidency has disavowed all teachings, beliefs, and doctrines promoted by Church leaders in connection with temple and priesthood restriction against Black people, including that “black skin or dark skin is the sign of a curse.” [n1] These ideas are a pernicious cancer upon the Body of Christ.

I recently had a conversation with a friend, where I indicated that the best response to questions about the temple and priesthood restriction that endured from 1852 to 1978 was to admit that it was a mistake. This friend was uncomfortable with this position and suggested that the evidence was indicative that despite teaching false and destructive ideas about the restriction, Church leaders nevertheless were following God’s will to instate the restriction. In this post I am going to respond to the primary arguments for this.

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I’ve been saving up some book reviews for you. Here is the first. Enjoy.

N. T. Wright: Paul: A Biography.
San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018. xiii plus 464 pages.

N. T. Wright has produced many monographs on the Apostle Paul. His believing perspective makes his work friendly to Latter-day Saints as does Joseph Smith’s claim that he often felt like his life had some sympathetic mirroring of Paul’s life. That said, the life of Paul is largely mysterious. The sources are nowhere dense.[1] What do we have? The Pauline Corpus (letters of Paul in the New Testament (NT)–with complications noted below). And the Acts of the Apostles following the Gospel of Luke in the NT. Wright is expert at dealing with this material and the context of Paul’s life in terms of Roman and Greek thought and history, and Second Temple Judaism. In some sense his work on Paul’s theology and thought led naturally to the present volume.

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A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF 2 TIMOTHY

Kevin Barney

1. 2 Timothy 2:5

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

    This revision was based on the italics. The italicized conjunction “yet” has the sense of “but at the same time,” but that nuance is already implicit in the sentence and does not need to be explicitly stated. The Anchor Bible has “And also, if anyone competes in an athletic contest he won’t be crowned unless he competes by the rules.” See Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 364. Although some older translations use “yet” based on KJV influence, modern translations generally do not use that word here.

    Paradigm Classification A-2 (Suspicion of Italicized Text)

In 1937 young Gordon Hinckley, who had been charged with reforming and centralizing the mission programs as part of his job with the Radio, Publicity and Missionary Literature Committee, helped publish the Missionary’s Hand Book. Missionaries were getting younger and younger, and this was the first handbook used by all missionaries in the church (others were produced regionally for specific missions). It holds counsel, advice, regulations, and instructions on administering the liturgies of the church—the first document published by the church that did so. In just a few years, Hinckley had the additional challenge of making a small volume to be carried by a different set of young Latter-day Saints far from home. He needed to produce a handbook for living the Gospel during military service.

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COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF 1 TIMOTHY

Kevin Barney

1. 1 Timothy 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Savior and our hope;

    Two italicized words are removed, and the revision Americanizes the British spelling of “Saviour”  to “Savior” (which drops the u, making it easier to pronounce on sight). But the most substantive change is to avoid predicating the word Savior of God, but predicating that word of Jesus instead. Most commonly in both the New Testament and Christian tradition generally the word “Savior” (Greek soter, Latin salvator) is predicated of Jesus Christ. In the letters of Timothy and Titus, however, there are a handful of places where “Savior” is predicated of God rather than Jesus. In the Hebrew Bible God is often described as a savior, so this is not really that unusual, but it does conflict with common modern usage, and so Smith reworked the passage to make Jesus Christ the Savior rather that God the Father.

    Paradigm Classifications A-2, A-3 and C-1 (Suspicion of Italicized Text, Modernization and Harmonization within the Biblical Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF 1 THESSALONIANS

Kevin Barney

1. 1 Thessalonians 1:1

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, servants of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, unto the church of the Thessalonians; which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    This modification was spurred in part by the italics, but the main driver of the revision is the word “in,”; i.e., that the church at Thessalonica was somehow “in God.” Note that, apart from deleting italicized words and moving some text, the main result of this revision is to delete (and thus avoid) the preposition “in.” Saying the church is “in God” is an obscure statement; what does it mean? The exact phrase is found only here and in 2 Thessalonians 1:1. “In God” (en theo) is unusual for Paul, and may be analogous to “in Christ,” but “in God” (in the sense of the church being or existing in God) is not normal Pauline usage. It is possible that the preposition should be read in an instrumental sense; i.e., “the assembly of the Thessalonians brought into being by God.” For discussion, see the Anchor Bible volume, Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 99. The vast majority of modern translations follow the KJV and render Greek en literally with its English cognate, “in,” thus giving the reader little help in understanding the expression. A number of modern translations render en “in union with” or “united” or “the people of” or “belonging to,” which are plausible suggestions. See CJB, CEV, GW, GNT, ISV, TLB, MSG, NIRV, NLV, NLT, and VOICE. 

    Paradigm Classifications A-1 and A-2 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text and Suspicion of Italicized Text)

The most recent issue of the Journal of Mormon History just dropped. There are a number of articles, essays, and reviews that are very compelling. I recommend becoming a subscriber and checking it out. I have an article that I want to talk about, but first I want to point to Paul Reeve’s article in the same issue.

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A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF PHILIPPIANS

Kevin Barney

1. Philippians 1:4

Always in every prayer of mine, for the steadfastness of you all, making request with joy,

    The KJV is ambiguous in the second half of the verse as to who is doing the praying. Does “for you all making request with joy” refer to a prayer Paul is making or a prayer the people themselves are making? In the English of the KJV it is not clear. The JST adds commas to clarify that this is Paul’s prayer on behalf of the people. Further, is Paul’s prayer one of petition or thanksgiving? The JST suggests it is both. Adding “the steadfastness of” makes it clear this is a prayer of thanks for the people and all the good they have done, while “making request” are words of Paul’s petition on their behalf. Note how the AMPC expresses this more clearly than the KJV: “In every prayer of mine I always make my entreaty and petition for you all with joy (delight).” (Emphasis in original.)

Paradigm Classification A-1 (Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A friend shot me a note this week with a question about the “Articles and Covenants.” Revised and included in our Doctrine and Covenants as Section 20, this is the document that functioned as a sort of General Handbook of Instructions and creed for the early church. This document, like most of the Doctrine and Covenants, was crystallized in 1835, however beliefs and policy change (we do have a living church and continued revelation). That presents situations were current practice doesn’t always line up with the text. My friend asked about the duties of priests in verses 46-52, which seem to indicate (in 50-51) that priests shouldn’t administer the sacrament when an Elder is present.

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Yesterday I got some sort of a reminder, I think on Facebook, that this Sunday begins the new D&C curriculum year, so I thought I would read the assigned text, which is D&C 1. So I’m reading along and I come to verse 13: “And the anger of the Lord is kindled, and his sword is bathed in heaven, and it shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth.” And I was struck by the expression “his sword is bathed in heaven”; what the heck is that supposed to mean?

An old friend of mine sent me this story; it has no great message, but it is worth pondering, in these post-Christmas days, as we wait the beginning of, we all fervently hope, a much better year. Enjoy!

Some of us may be familiar with Jorge Cocco Santángelo, an 84-year-old Argentinian Mormon artist who, after a lengthy career making and teaching art in Argentina, Spain, and Mexico, was recently “discovered” by our community. Since much of his recent work depicts the life of Jesus, it has found admirers far beyond his co-religionists; for example, shortly before the covid lockdowns began, the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas held an exhibition of his work. Recently, he was commissioned to do paintings for some Christmas postage stamps (not USPS), which should come out next year.

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It’s the twenty-fourth of December. Three generations are gathered around the piano in the family room singing Christmas carols. Light from the windows illuminates soft flakes falling silently to the ground. Just as silently, unnoticed by the youngest in the room, grandmother and grandfather exit the room. A while later—no one can recall exactly how long; time seems suspended on this most anticipated evening of the year—young ears pick out the ringing of a bell. The music stops and there is a rush for the door. Small feet pad down the hallway, eager hands throw open the living room door and wide eyes take in the splendour of a decorated tree lit with candles where once the sofa had stood, at its base a pile of wrapped gifts—the Christkind has come!

In honor of Joseph Smith’s birthday, I thought I would post another installment in my recent attempt to write commentaries on the JST revisions to some of the New Testament epistles. I hope you enjoy this installment, and Merry Christmas!

I decided to take a crack at another commentary on the JST of a book of the New Testament, going with Galatians (following 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians). Since the letters of Paul are organized from longest to shortest, the books keep getting shorter and therefore less intimidating to write a commentary on (1 Cor. had 68 vereses, but 2 Cor. had only about a third as many, and Galatians had only a little over half as many as 2 Cor.) I’m not sure whether I’ll keep churning these things out, but I might do a few more. I think it’s a lot of fun to try to get into Joseph’s head and figure out where he was going with these revisions. And I continue to be impressed by what he did (as in not perfect by any means, but very thoughtful). I checked these against Clarke and saw no likely influence from that source.