Timestamps:
00:55 – An overview of the The Old Testament.
04:27 – Bryce breaks down the Old Testament into nine time periods.
09:41 – Canonization and the creation of the Greek Septuagint. The authors of the New Testament quoted the Greek version of the Old Testament. The version that Jesus used is unknown.
13:01 – The Old Testament is not one book written by a single author. It is an anthology of books written over centuries by individuals. Later authors sometimes rejected and edited earlier authors. Remnants remain that multiple Gods participated in the creation. The first word in Genesis invites us to consider the Grand Pre-mortal Council.
20:04 – Genesis addresses why the world was created, not how. The purpose of the earth is to create eternal families.
33:18 – Ancient cultures shared the creation story at their temples during the New Year. The time-honored principle of marriage and family are connected to the purposes of creation.
36:23 – Chaos played a role in the formation of the earth. God transformed unorganized matter into something beautiful. The cosmology of the Bible invites modern readers to think about scripture differently.
41:38 – The temple takes us to the creation and the creation takes us to the temple because both take us back to God.
48:48 – Moses 2 and 3 can be read as a single account. This is contrasted with the documentary hypothesis, where scholars believe Genesis 1 and 2 come from two different sources because of differences in the text.
54:46 – Seven eternal lessons in the creation account invite us to find success during our time on earth. Finding balance between work and rest.
1:00:52 – Seek spiritual things first, then temporal.
1:02:13 – Cherubim and a flaming sword foiled Satan’s plan and preserved the space between the trees. God protected our probationary estate. God knew from the very beginning that we would sin and need time to repent.
1:13:41 – Satan’s Plan B is to get us to take away our own or someone else’s probationary state. Toxic perfectionism is addressed. Continual progression is what matters to God.
1:17:29 – The river flowing out of Eden as a symbol for the division found in mortality. We must find ways to be unified.
1:23:37 – Instead of focusing on what we might be missing, our focus should be on all we are blessed to have.
1:30:31 – Pardes is an acronym to describe the ways of reading scripture: Peshat, remez, derash, and sod. The plain reading (peshat), allegorical or hidden reading (remez), the moral or imperative sense or application (derash), and the mystical, esoteric, or temple reading (sod).
1:32:21 – The rib in Genesis 2.22 symbolizes partnership in marriage.
1:40:53 – “Helper” or ʿēzer as found in Genesis 2.18 has often been misread and used to subjugate women. The term translated as “help meet” actually denotes the kind of powerful help that God gives. Eve’s position next to Adam places both in a setting as having dominion over the whole earth. Eve is called “Zoe” in the LXX, the mother of all the living ones. There is no kingdom without Eve.
1:49:38 – Fig leaves can represent covering our sins with bigger and bigger lies.
1:55:24 – Garments are a piece of the temple that we wear to remind us of our connection to the Savior’s atonement.
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You guys are awesome! Thanks for doing this podcast I really look forward to your insights each week.
I really like the information you have presented in this lesson.
As to the creative periods – would I be correct in assuming that we are currently on the 6th day? The reason why I say this is because on the 6th day God created man and woman, they would be tested, if they fell then a Savior would be provided.
I often wondered why God said that he created man in his image and in his likeness, By looking at the Hebrew words, I was left feeling that the reason for this is because we were created in his image-1) to look like our Heavenly parents and 2) likeness- to have some of the same inherent qualities
Any thoughts?
I really loved the episode this week and it gave me a lot to think about (as always). One of my favorite parts was when you mentioned how the Creation story is an invitation to create an Edenic state on earth and that we are to be the gardeners. I loved how you mentioned how Christ is the fulfillment of what Adam and Eve were told to do and that Christ is the Gardener.
It reminded me of the painting by Édouard Manet titled, “Le Christ Jardinier.” Christ is pictured in the painting as a gardener. Over his shoulder he is holding a garden hoe but at first glance it resembles the cross. He holds it effortlessly though, unlike the heavy burden of the cross. A reminder that Christ has overcome all—that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. For me, this painting sort of ties together these ideas in my mind of Christ’s work as the gardener of our lives and of the world, but also his redemption, power, and resurrection. And His fulfillment of prophesies of the Old Testament. Lots of symbolism with your comments on this subject and I absolutely love it!
Thank you as always for the beautiful podcast. It’s always the highlight of my week!
Thanks for the positivity Skye. I think I had Harry Anderson’s art in mind when talking about this. Either way, the image is powerful!
Once Again, Amazing Work. Thank You To Both Of You.
Thanks Daniel. This episode was a lot of fun to work with. It has so much material!
Never thought about how the beginning of the bible/the creation can relate to the beginning of the year as far as getting organized. Love that idea!
Y’all mention a few times how everything relates to the family, and how important the sealing of families is. How would you suggest comforting friends who are infertile when they hear this? I know family is a huge party of the church, but what about those who are not married or can’t have kids? I sometimes think how Christ didn’t have children that we know of in His earth life, so is it REALLY the most important thing? Or rather is coming into Christ the most important, “after all we can do”… If that makes sense.
Great question. I don’t know if we can definitively say one way or another on the status of Jesus and his family. There are certainly traditions in early Christianity and later that delve into these questions (you may want to listen to our podcast on Mary Magdalene – Episode 45)…
I will only say that fertility and family and coming back into God’s presence are continuous themes in much of the early material that is part of the Old Testament. Lehi’s desire to bring his family to the tree in 1 Nephi 8 is a message that has many layers. To those without a spouse or children (there are many in and out of the Church) I would say that from God’s eternal perspective, we are all part of his family and he wants us to partake of the joy that he has experienced (see Moses 1.39). With this I will just leave it there and say that many of the promises or blessings that God desires for his children are eternal in nature, and many things are not always realized in this life. But I continue to believe and have hope. God bless you!
-Mike
I loved this episode, but don’t agree with the documentary hypothesis idea that was presented. There are too many intertextual references to both creation accounts within the first five books of Moses to believe that it was added at a later point; it’s too well connected and the creation accounts are too connected to each other. The first two chapters of Genesis are taking the story of the creation and shining that through a prism; projecting the truth into two images to help us see the creation through the view of the cosmos and through the view of life on earth.
This idea that they the story is purposely told from two different perspectives is further illuminated by a specific aspect of the creation story, the trees in the garden. I have recently noticed that there are indications that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are the same tree. This is supported by the fact that the text only says where the tree of life is located in the center of the garden, but doesn’t say where the other tree is located. Eve says the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is at the center of the garden in the next Chapter. Is she confused? I don’t so. Proverbs calls wisdom (or God’s word) a tree of life. God’s word also gives us understanding of what is right and wrong. Both trees represent the same thing but are two different aspects of the same thing. The first creation story talks about God’s love and life that comes from him. The second creation story talks about man’s obligations; he is given commandments and he is seeing the animals would be a bad mates for him and seeing that Eve would be a good mate (good and bad).
If you read the tree of life account from Lehi, it’s apparent that he believed they were one tree (only one tree in his vision) and those that ate the fruit of the tree of life received knowledge, not eternal life.
One lesson is that we need to first receive God’s love and life. Then we can receive the knowledge of what is right and wrong. If we only use his word to know what is right and wrong and don’t receive his love, joy, life, we will begin to see the bad within ourselves and be ashamed.
Keep up the great work, guys!
Thanks Jason. You are not the first person to disagree with the Documentary Hypothesis! To me it has tremendous explanatory power. To others, not so much.
Thanks for listening to the podcast and for your comment! Hopefully we bring things that you can use in your personal study!
First and foremost, I love this podcast. I am enlightened and enlivened every time. Thank you!
About divine investiture, this concept, in relation to Moses 1 just hasn’t been able to sit right with me and I finally decided I needed to comment. (I tried to ignore it for a few days because I don’t like to comment in this format, so easy to misunderstand)
I can’t help but feel that this concept is fitting God and Christ into our paradigm instead of changing our paradigm to fit what the scriptures are actually saying.
Mormon 5:17 “They were once a delightsome people, and they had Christ for their shepherd; yea, they were led even by God the Father.” I believe this is referring to the time the Nephites were living in a Zion like state, after the Savior set up his church among them in 3 Nephi. This is pretty obvious that both Christ and the Father ministered to these people.
D&C 76:62 referring to the celestial, “these shall dwell in the presence of God and his Christ forever and ever.” Both being mentioned shows that those in this category are ministerd to or in the presence of both, not just Christ. I know we tend to think this category is just for after death, but them in vs 66 it refers to these as inhabiting Zion, like the city of Enoch, it started here on this earth and for Zion, will remain on this earth and more people rise to this level of being.
God the Father spoke to Adam and Eve more then just to introduce the Son. If they were created in his image, in the image of the Son the way Moses was in the Similitude of the Only Begotten then they too were, prior to the fall, in a holier, higher state, clean before the Lord.
I know I may be looking at things a little different here then tradition, but I truly believe by not recognizing God the Father when he presents himself in the scriptures then we are denying him to some small degree and denying a possible greater connection to Him through Christ. I see Him here in Moses 1 and I don’t want to limit his communication with his children. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
Thanks for listening and for such an insightful comment Raeshell.
I do think that Divine Investiture (like many things in scripture – especially the Old Testament) is complicated. I tried to go through some of the complexities with something that seems simple to many – the name of God. Just something like the name of God is complex enough that there are doctoral dissertations that examine the names of God in these texts. We will try and flesh some of these things out in our podcasts, and I do love “geeking out,” but also want to acknowledge that it is complex and we also want to stick to some of the basic things. I think that the concept of Divine Investiture is one of those things: an attempt to systematize and conceptualize the complexity of these texts.
If it doesn’t work for you, know that you are not alone. If something we say doesn’t fit for you, that is the beauty of having multiple point of views. I think this is a good thing: to pick up the scriptures and examine them from different angles and see what they have to teach us. We see them differently over time. We grow. Our views change. I am certainly open to these other views and admit that since I wasn’t there, all I am trying to do is approximate what the message is and to interpret the best I can what the language is working to convey. It is a messy endeavor!
Thanks for your patience with us!
-Mike
You guys do such a great job! Please don’t hear my comment as criticism. I could not imagine the knowledge and work required to put together this podcast each week. I have nothing but respect. It felt important to say, so I did. 🙂 The Scriptures are so layered and its our job to slowly work our way through the layers, so fun isn’t it?! Thanks for all you do and know I will continue to listen as much as possible. Among all the many CFM podcasts out there, you guys are one of my favs. Thank you!!
I loved how you pointed out that Satan’s real plan was to get Adam and Eve to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and then immediately partake of the tree of life, which God interfered and put Cherubim and a flaming sword to guard. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to partake of the Tree of Life, it’s that we need to repent and then partake. I liken it to partaking of the Sacrament. I loved all the Temple insights. As a Temple worker I have had sacred experiences serving in the Temple and this has opened much more understanding to me. Thank you!!!
Thanks for sharing and providing wonderful insights that draw the seeker closer to our Savior. I have a question When I think of the serpent I think about Lucifer in the garden of Eden. In the Doctrine and Covenants, we are told to be wise as serpents, and then Moses put the Brazen Serpent on a pole and asked them to look upon the serpent and to be healed. Is it correct to think of Lucifer portraying the savior as the serpent in the Garden of Eden?
I loved your podcasts. This week’s was so powerful and gave me a lot of food for thought. Thank you for all your hard work. I would love to get the 7 items that you talked about in a list or visual format. I looked at the slide show and the pdf and didn’t see them. Is there a way to get this information. Thanks
Thanks Connie. I am pretty sure if you go to 1:49:00 Bryce breaks down the list as a review before he gets into #7. So hopefully you can get him going through the list of the seven things there. Thanks for listening! – Mike