Tag: Genesis 1
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“Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?”
Samuel the Lamanite’s prophecies and creation themes In my last post, I connected the curse of ‘slippery treasure’ with Cain. I also compared the taking away of the word and the Spirit in Helaman 13:8 with a loss of seed and water for a farmer. It’s a grim prospect, similar to the curse given to…
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Tying together Creation-Covenant themes about division – part 2
In part 1 of this series we took a look at how the creation account and the story of Cain and Abel offer rich, contrasting symbolism which can help us understand God’s working with His people. In this post, we’ll explore specific examples in the Book of Mormon. The most important takeaway lesson for me…
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More about “heaps”
This post is a follow up to my recent post about the covenant connotations of the term ‘heaps’ (see here). In that post, I focused on the bivalent uses of ‘heaps’ as a noun, demonstrating either God’s miraculous power or the people’s vain attempts to get gain. This post will focus on ‘heaping’ as a…
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The Cosmic Mountain, part 4
In this post, we progress from Jacob’s ladder to the sacred Buddhist Mount Meru.
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The Cosmic Mountain, Part 3
The Cosmic Mountain Series continues. In this part, we look at the basic layout of the molten sea of Solomon’s temple, the camp of Israel, and compare these with God’s mandate to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
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Alma-2 and the temple — part 1
Every so often I hear members of the church and critics confidently claim that the Book of Mormon contains nothing about the temple. This is not true at all, and the more I study the Book of Mormon, the more examples I find. Given the highly symbolic nature of the temple, these examples are easiest…
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Thoughts on Joseph, part 1
You meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done. (Genesis 50:20, EXB) Image by Robert T. Barrett (source) My personal study of the Old Testament this year has been richly rewarding. The story of Joseph has taken on multiple layers of deeper…
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"the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"
The creation account The phrase in the heading has always been a bit mysterious. You may recognize it from the second verse of Genesis. The creation is a fascinating account chock full of symbolism. What to make of this phrase? Two important things are worth mentioning for a start. “Spirit” in this phrase is from…
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"Formless," "functionless" and "dark" — the connection between the pre-creation state, covenant rebellion, and the desert
Mortality is a place of co-existing contrasts held in tension by the agency of man. This is not a coincidence, it is by design: 24 And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and…
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Creating a covenant people
In this post, I will just elaborate on something Lord Wilmore wrote in his series on the endowment pattern. Here, he explained how new names are part of this pattern. I will just repeat and extend the quote from the NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible If creation is the act of bringing something into existence,…