Margaret Barker’s Master Classes on the Hebrew Scriptures

Did you see Six Days in August last night?  If not, don’t fret.  Morning has broken.  (Blackbird has spoken.)  The sun has arisen, with healing in its wings.  You can go to the movie today, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.  Go all three days!

From the perpetually dying Interpreter Foundation:  Margaret Barker’s Master Classes on the Hebrew Scriptures: November 9 and November 16

The Interpreter Foundation is pleased to offer two seminars from noted scholar Dr. Margaret Barker. Her presentations will be on two successive Saturdays, November 9 and November 16, 2024, both beginning at 11 a.m. Mountain Time. Each seminar will feature an illustrated lecture for approximately 50 minutes followed by 15 to 30 minutes for questions. The seminars are free but registration is required.

The Nov. 9 seminar will look at the changes and developments in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures and the work of the scribes who transmitted them.

This will provide the context for the second seminar on Nov. 16. Dr. Barker will examine five examples from Qumran texts of Deuteronomy and Isaiah to explore how and why differences arose, and which of the versions was the more likely to have been used by the first Christians.

This class is for everyone interested in the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. Knowledge of Hebrew is not required.

Kevin Christensen, who has done much to make Dr. Barker’s work known to Latter-day Saints, will introduce her in the seminars. Jeff Lindsay (jlindsay@interpreterfoundation.org) will serve as the host for the events and as the contact person for questions or comments.

Registration

To attend the seminars by Margaret Barker, please register in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. The link you will receive by email should be valid for both events. Registration can be completed on the Zoom website: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIscuitrDsjHtLGDPiichh9PMxKDPmvUjxn.

About Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker is a biblical scholar who developed the method of study known as Temple Theology. She is a former President of the Society for Old Testament Study, a retired Methodist preacher, and the author of 19 books. In July 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded her a Doctor of Divinity degree.

In January 2023, she gave a lecture in Westminster Abbey in London for people involved with the coronation of King Charles III, showing how biblical symbols and themes shaped the coronation ceremony.

She has stirred much interest among Latter-day Saints with her findings relevant to the ancient temple and even on issues relevant to the Book of Mormon.

Margaret Barker’s website is at http://www.margaretbarker.com/. The significance of her work for some Latter-day Saint scholars is discussed in Kevin Christensen, “Twenty Years After ‘Paradigms Regained,’ Part 1: The Ongoing, Plain, and Precious Significance of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship for Latter-day Saint Studies,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, Volume 54 (2022) and “Twenty Years After ‘Paradigms Regained,’ Part 2: Responding to Margaret Barker’s Critics and Why Her Work Should Matter to Latter‑day Saints,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, Volume 56 (2023).

It’s been amusing, in a way, to have read the two or three somewhat extended critiques of Six Days in August that I’ve seen posted (that have been written by critics of the Church who actually appear to have seen it).  I ran across one the other day that contained some real gems.  I’ll call the critic Rupert.  In fairness, he expresses admiration for the film’s score and cinematography.  But that’s about where his approval stops:

Rupert seems to believe that the oxen scene at the film’s beginning involves computer-generated imagery (CGI).  It’s unclear, but he may actually imagine that the oxen themselves are computer-generated.  They aren’t.  Our producer had to work long and hard to find a useable yoke of oxen.  That’s why the scene featuring them was among the last that we filmed.

Rupert is critical of our portrayal of Thomas Sharp as having incited the mob.  (Another critic confusedly laments that we’ve tried to blame all of the problems in Nauvoo on “Thomas Marsh,” who doesn’t appear in the film.)  But Thomas Sharp did incite the mob.  This is historically undeniable.

Rupert even complains about a fly appearing in the scene in which Joseph’s death is announced.  Perhaps he imagines that flies don’t exist in western Illinois?  Or that casting a fly in the film was an anachronism?

He mocks the film for giving Brigham Young’s first wife, Miriam Works, only about thirty seconds of screen time.  But this is simply not true.  (Perhaps Rupert’s watch has run down?) She appears in multiple scenes, each of them longer than thirty seconds.

Rupert reports that his wife thought the movie — and particularly, it seems, the “tree-chopping scene” — somewhat “homoerotic.”  In charity, I think that I probably shouldn’t comment on someone’s perception of friendship between men as, somehow, ipso facto “gay.”  Rupert himself wonders why Brigham spends so much time in the movie with Heber C. Kimball.  It might be, of course, because they were neighbors and best friends in Mendon, New York, from the time before their conversion and because they were fellow apostles.  (When the First Presidency was reorganized after the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young called Heber C. Kimball to serve as his first counselor.)  Such things could potentially have played a role, I suspect . . .

A couple of years after Miriam’s death, Brigham — a young widower with two small daughters — married Mary Ann Angell.  Rupert describes this as “polygamy” but, of course, it wasn’t.  Unless, of course, one labels as a “polygamist” every widow or widower who remarries after the death of a spouse.

Rupert notices with apparent disapproval that Emma seems to be “squeamish” about Joseph’s being tarred and feathered in Ohio.  As if such harmless, innocent hijinks somehow merit her disapproval!

In one scene, Brigham and Heber, who are both greatly weakened by illness, manage to stand up in a wagon as they depart on a mission.  To encourage their wives, they cry out “Hurrah for Israel!”  Rupert denigrates this as a “weird adventure motif.”  Well, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, but the details of the scene are firmly based on actual historical records.

Rupert complains that all of the scenery in Six Days in August looks the same.  I’m not sure why he thinks so.  In any case, the shooting for the film was done in western New York; Ontario, Canada; Tennessee; and Idaho; as well as at the Latter-day Saint Motion Picture Studio in Provo and the “This is the Place Monument” in Salt Lake City.

Although they often appeared with Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young, Rupert somehow never managed to identify Wilford Woodruff or George A. Smith and reports being still confused by them.  That puzzles me, since they’re repeatedly named in the film.

Remembering that the title of the film is Six Days in August, Rupert complains that we completely omitted Day 3.  It seems, though, that he must have nodded off or gone to the restroom at about the one hour and thirty-two minute mark.

Finally, Rupert wants to know why Joseph Smith Jr. isn’t depicted as a factor during the “six days” of maneuvering between Sidney Rigdon and the Twelve that occurred in August 1844 and that provide the title of the movie.  The obvious answer, of course, is that Joseph Smith Jr. is dead by that point.  So I suppose that Rupert really means to ask about Joseph Smith III.  But Joseph III was only eleven years old at the time, and he wasn’t a factor.  The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints wasn’t founded until 1860, fully sixteen years after the events centrally represented in the film.