Podcasts are back! And on iTunes! Today, Ezekiel

We do have some work to do with iTunes in terms of getting the descriptors and links and such correct, but the important thing is, you can now subscribe and new podcasts will download automatically. Search iTunes podcasts for “One Eternal Round” “Patheos” or Spackman, and you’ll get there. Or try this link.

Transcript
[audio:http://media.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Media/MormonPodcastEzekiel.mp3]
Notes and Links

What effects does the Babylonian exile have on the Jews?

1) Language change: Hebrew> Aramaic.

2) Loss of sacred space leads to emphasizing other aspects of the religion not dependent on sacred space.Psalm 137

3) Reexamination of their history, theology and doctrine. Peter Enns on Chronicles (part 1 of several. I’ve been talking about Enns on the blog. Part 1 on faith and scholarship; Part 2 on “myth”; Part 3 on encultured prophets and interpreters, using Genesis as an example)

4) Religious and cultural influence of their environment.

(See David Bokovoy on Satan in the Book of Mormon)

As a priest,

“much of [Ezekiel’s]  prophecy deals with issues of holiness and purity. Like Jeremiah, he has a distinct persona that emerges in the book, but it is a different person from that of his contemporary. Ezekiel’s reaction to the fall of Jerusalem is to recoil in horror at the impurity of the city, which he sees as the primary cause of its downfall.” -John Collins, Introduction  To the Hebrew Bible

Ezekiel 22:26, God says that Israel’s “priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”

On Ezekiel 37 and the Book of Mormon, see Kevin Barney’s explanation here.