“The Worth of Souls is Great”

From the Interpreter Foundation: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9: “The Worth of Souls Is Great”: D&C 18

During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there is some background noise. Volumes vary, probably depending upon where the recorder was placed in the room. Many are very low volume but in most cases it’s possible to understand the words. In a couple of cases the ends of one class were put on some space left over from a different class. There’s some mixup around Doctrine and Covenants 90-100 that couldn’t be figured out, so those recordings are as they were on the tapes. Even with these flaws and missing classes, we believe these these will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program.

This week we have one lecture relevant to the February 24 – March 2 Come, Follow Me lesson, “The Worth of Souls Is Great” covering D&C 18.

Also this:  Jonn Claybaugh has generously provided another of his concise set of notes for students and teachers of the Church’s Come, Follow Me curriculum:  Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps (2025): Doctrine and Covenants 18: February 24–March 2: “The Worth of Souls Is Great”

And this:  “James Strang’s Witnesses”

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 26: James Strang was a recent convert to the church who claimed to be the successor of Joseph after the martyrdom. Strang also claimed to have discovered ancient metal plates, What do we know about this man and his claims? This is Episode 26 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . .  These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Executive Producer of Witnesses. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

And don’t miss your opportunity to stream Witnesses at no charge.  (As you may or may not have noticed, the month of February is beginning to wind down.)  Although Witnesses will still be available for streaming, it will not be available for free after the beginning of March.  Undaunted, by contrast, will remain available for free streaming into the foreseeable future.  You can find the relevant links at The Witnesses Initiative.  Don’t be among those unfortunate souls who procrastinate the day of their film-viewing!

Meanwhile, here’s an interesting article from World Religion News that draws from a piece that was published some tome back in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Wikipedia UnReliable Sources: Case Study— How Wikipedia is Rigged to Prevent Balance When It Comes to Religious Articles: Failed efforts to Correct Wikipedia Articles About The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”  We Latter-day Saints face a media environment that is often indifferent to us but, perhaps even more often, openly hostile or at least subtly contemptuous.  That is one of the many reasons why — dare I say it? — the Interpreter Foundation and similar efforts deserve support.  We’re not likely ever to receive sympathetic treatment from Netflix or Hulu or, for that matter, even from the Associated Press.  We need to make our own media statements.

Okay.  I’ve already consciously and quite deliberately departed from my professedly neutral stance on political matters in at least one regard, although I insist upon maintaining my neutrality here on this board as much as conscience and superhuman self-control will permit me to do it.  This exception regards Mr. Donald J. Trump’s now oft-repeated proposal to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and replace them with waiters and guest services personnel and parking valets for an enormous complex of beach-front resorts.  I’m against it.  I’m against it on both practical and moral grounds.  So, having already forsaken neutrality with respect to this issue, I feel entirely free to share the following here:  “American rabbis condemn Trump’s Gaza plan in New York Times ad: Over the course of the week, the two largest American Jewish denominations, the Reform and Conservative movements, also issued statements objecting to Trump’s plan.”

The issue could well be moot, though, if 2024 YR4 strikes Earth in 2032.  It’s not even certain that the ribbon cutting for Mar-a-Gaza will have happened by that point.  After all, given the difficulties of forcibly removing all Gazans and resettling them in Jordan and Egypt (and perhaps also in Marjorie Taylor Greeneland and in the upper regions of the new fifty-first state to the north of us and maybe as mosquito-bait along the Panama Canal) and of removing all of the rubble of the region’s former buildings, the construction of the first garishly-lit Trump Tower may not even have commenced by then.

I’m in the mood:  I’ve always loved “The Merry Minuet,” as performed by the Kingston Trio at the “Hungry i” in San Francisco many years ago.  Once, when my family and I were living in BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, we even performed it for a talent night there.  Given the neighborhood, it seemed somehow apt:

They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain

The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans
The Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don’t like
Anybody very much

But we can be tranquil
And thankful and proud
For man’s been endowed
With a mushroom shaped cloud

And we know for certain
That some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away

They’re rioting in Africa
There’s strife in Iran
What nature doesn’t do to us
Will be done by our fellow man

“In weather news, temperatures reached an unseasonably high 100 million degrees Celsius today.”