Reading: Daniel 2

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say right up front that my approach to this lesson is fundamentally at odds with the manual. That’s because I think that nothing good ever came of apocalyptic scriptural interpretation. On the tamer end of the spectrum are episodes like the Millerite “Great Disappointment” of 1844, when whatever math someone did with the book of Daniel or the book of Revelation turned out to be wrong, but it basically just resulted in people feeling kind of bummed on the day after Jesus was supposed to come. More dangerous are episodes like the Fifth Monarchist rebellion of 1662, which culminated in its leader, Thomas Venner, being hanged, drawn, and quartered, after he’d already been shot 19 times by Royalist forces in the climactic battle. “No King but King Jesus” was their cry; King Charles II was not impressed. If Daniel 2 does predict the downfall of political/religious movements, they ironically tend to be political/religious movements with particular investments in interpreting Daniel 2. Ok, so it was Daniel 8 for the Millerites, but still… [Read more…]

Readings: Ezekiel 18:21-32; 34; 37

This lesson brings together diverse texts from Ezekiel, where the only through-line might be the wisdom of turning to God when everything else lets you down. Ezekiel is a prophet from the time of the Babylonian captivity, so he knew something about being let down by everything else. [Read more…]

Reading: Isaiah 40-49

These chapters are a flashpoint for several reasons, most having to do with context. Scholars generally see Isaiah 40 as the beginning of “Deutero-Isaiah,” because whereas (most of) the earlier chapters of Isaiah assume a location in 8th century BCE Judah, chapter 40 depicts God returning to Jerusalem and its temple after a long absence, and chapters 44 and 45 explicitly name Cyrus (ca. 600-530 BCE), founder of the Persian Empire. For this reason and others, scholars therefore associate these chapters with the exilic or post-exilic period.

These scholarly conclusions have resulted in pushback from some LDS teachers, though. The familiar version of the argument that I’ve heard is that “scholars don’t believe in prophecy,” which implicitly or explicitly equates “prophecy” with “the ability to see the future” by doing such things as naming Cyrus before he was born. Mormon investment in this argument derives from the fact that the Book of Mormon quotes from Deutero-Isaiah, which means that Book of Mormon historicity rests in part on these chapters’ having already been written ca. 600 BCE, before the exile.

In my view, however, texts that try to call Israel to keep worshiping Yahweh as God even though Yahweh apparently didn’t prevent the destruction of the temple or the exile should count as pretty darn prophetic, especially given that predicting the future is a pretty narrow subset of what Hebrew prophets do. I bring this up because class members are likely to have varying degrees of familiarity with these issues, and good teachers should try to be aware of the kinds of questions and objections students might make, even if they’re not voiced. Sunday School that doesn’t attend to the actual needs and concerns of class members is a waste of everyone’s time. [Read more…]

Readings: Jonah and bits of Micah (2:12-13; 4:1-7, 11-13; 5:2-4, 7-8; 6:6-8; 7:18-20)

In addition to their content, these readings provide an occasion to talk about how varied (or not so varied) the Bible as a collection can be. Mormons tend not to think much about the different genres of biblical texts, nor about why such differences might matter for the practical applications we take away from the texts. Put bluntly, what happens when we read Jonah as a satire about prophets rather than as a “straight” story about a prophet? And what difference does it make that Micah repeats a few verses from Isaiah, more or less verbatim? (Or is it the other way around, and we’re assuming that the “major” prophet is the source for the “minor” one? So confusing.) [Read more…]