My wife and I left Cedar City fairly early this morning, Friday morning, and headed for the town of Monroe, Utah — not far from Richfield — to attend the funeral of her remarkable 91-year-old aunt, who lost a brief battle with cancer after a very active life. We were representing my wife’s father and her siblings. It was good to be there, and to gather with many members of my wife’s extended family at the graveside service after the funeral, as well as at the delicious lunch provided by the Relief Society of the Monroe 3rd Ward.
Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection. And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them. (Doctrine and Covenants 42:45-46)
When they celebrate a life well lived, funerals can be among the most inspiring of our religious services, and this funeral was definitely inspiring. One of the high points, for me, as something that was said by a grandson in the private family prayer before the funeral proper. I’ll paraphrase, but I think that my paraphrase is fairly close: “We will miss our collective mother, aunt, grandmother, and great grandmother,” he said. “But we rejoice that she is now in a place where she can once again be a daughter.”
I loved that thought, which had never previously occurred to me.
Coming through the town of Nephi on the final leg of our journey, we stopped in at Fresh’s Homemade Eatery, a small sandwich shop on Main Street that is owned and operated by a relative of mine. We visited there with his parents (one of my cousins and her husband), and we bought and carried away a haul of tomato soup and fresh bread and salsa and cinnamon rolls and chicken pot pies and sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. A good stop!
An illustration from George Reynolds’s 1888 “The Story of the Book of Mormon”
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
Three new items went up today, Friday, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:
““Upon the Wings of His Spirit”: A Note on Hebrew rûaḤ and 2 Nephi 4:25,” written by Matthew L. Bowen
Abstract: Nephi, in composing his psalm (2 Nephi 4:15–35), incorporates a poetic idiom from Psalm 18:10 (2 Samuel 22:11) and Psalm 104:3 to describe his participation in a form of divine travel. This experience constituted a part of the vision in which he saw “the things which [his] father saw” in the latter’s dream of the tree of life (see 1 Nephi 11:1–3; 14:29–30). Nephi’s use of this idiom becomes readily apparent when the range of meaning for the Hebrew word rûaḥ is considered. Nephi’s experience helps our understanding of other scriptural scenes where similar divine travel is described.
“Sacred Imaginings: Using AI to Construct Temples,” written by Amanda Colleen Brown-Mather
Review of Jeffrey Thayne and Nathan Richardson, Temples of the Imagination: AI-Generated Temples, Human-Generated Insights (Provo, UT: The Interpreter Foundation, Verdant Press, and Eborn Books, 2023). 140 pages, $24.99 (softcover).
Abstract: We’re commanded to seek out of the best books words of wisdom, but how exactly do we seek? What are the best books? Temples of the Imagination uses cutting-edge technology to show its readers one futuristic way to incorporate this spiritual practice into their lives.
“Interpreting Interpreter: Spiritual Wind,” written by Kyler Rasmussen
This post is a summary of the article ““Upon the Wings of His Spirit”: A Note on Hebrew rûaḥ and 2 Nephi 4:25” by Matthew L. Bowen in Volume 58 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.
The Takeaway: Bowen suggests that Nephi used poetic language from Psalms to describe being carried away “upon the wings of his Spirit”, with the word “spirit” potentially using the Hebrew word rûaḥ, which is often translated as “wind.”
I’ve been busy and otherwise occupied this week and, consequently, I neglected to call attention to this item when it appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: A paper entitled “The Choreography of Genesis: A Ritual Reading of the Book of Abraham“ was delivered by David Calabro on Saturday, 5 November 2016, at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2016 Temple on Mount Zion conference, which was devoted to the theme of “Sacred Time, Sacred Space, & Sacred Meaning.” It is now available to you at no charge.
As I say, I’ve been busy and have fallen behind. Here are three more items that, I believe, I neglected to mention here:
“The New Testament in Context: Lesson 35, “Be Perfectly Joined Together” (1 Corinthians 1–7)”
For the 30 July 2023 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson and Martin Tanner discussed New Testament lesson 35, “Be Perfectly Joined Together,” covering 1 Corinthians 1–7.
The other segments of the 30 July 2023 program can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-july-30-2023. Now, though, this segment of the show has also been edited to remove commercial breaks and made available to you at your convenience and at no charge.
The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
Interpreter Radio Show — August 13, 2023
In the 13 August 2023 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, the hosts were Terry Hutchinson and Kevin Christensen. During the final hour of their two-hour program, they were joined by Jared Marcum, the author of a recent article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship entitled “Withstanding Satan’s Siege through Christ’s Iron Rod: The Vision of the Tree of Life in Context of Ancient Siege Warfare.” They discussed Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 37, as well as Kevin’s recent interview on From the Desk about Margaret Barker, Grant Hardy’s recently released Annotated Book of Mormon, and Jared’s article.
The “New Testament in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me New Testament lesson 37, “God Is Not the Author of Confusion, but of Peace” covering 1 Corinthians 14–16, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, August 29, 2023. But the other portions of the show have now been shorn of commercial and other interruptions, archived, and made available to you at no charge.
The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard each and every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. Or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
“Come, Follow Me — New Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 35, August 21-August 27
1 Corinthians 1–7 — “Be Perfectly Joined Together””
Once again, Jonn Claybaugh contributes a concise but helpful set of notes for students and teachers of the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Come, Follow Me — New Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 35, August 21-August 27: 1 Corinthians 1–7 — “Be Perfectly Joined Together””
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In