![\"Henry](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2023\/06\/Great_Gate_Hampton_Court_Palace-1-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Two new articles appeared earlier today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctrine and Covenants 21: Metanarrative of the Restoration,\u201d<\/a> written by Steven L. Olsen<\/a><\/p>\n Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Joseph Smith dictated Doctrine\u00a0and\u00a0Covenants 21 at the inaugural meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ on April\u00a06, 1830. The present study examines the literary craftsmanship of the revelation to plumb the depths of its role in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The analysis explores the meaning of patterns of usage in the text from the most specific (diction, syntax, figures of speech) to the most general (tone, rhetoric, and structural logic). The hypothesis of this study is that Doctrine and Covenants 21 provides a\u00a0metanarrative of the Restoration \u2014 that is, a\u00a0set of governing principles and guidelines for keeping the official record of the gospel\u2019s final dispensation.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cInterpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>: A D&C 21 Deep Dive,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a><\/p>\n This post is a summary of the article \u201cDoctrine and Covenants 21: Metanarrative of the Restoration<\/a>\u201d by Steven L. Olsen in Volume 57 of\u00a0Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. An introduction to the Interpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>\u00a0series is available at\u00a0https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Takeaway:<\/strong>\u00a0 Olsen presents a nearly word-by-word analysis of D&C 21, with an emphasis on what it can teach us about Joseph\u2019s (and our) role in the restoration, and on the blessings attached to heeding commandments delivered through modern prophets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We spent much of our day today at Hampton Court Palace<\/a>, which exists in three basic phases: The Tudor portion of the palace is chiefly associated with Henry VIII (and, briefly, with Anne Boleyn), although it was originally built and owned by Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, who served not only as the most powerful clergyman in England but as Henry\u2019s Lord Chancellor.\u00a0 When Wolsey fell from royal favor in 1529, he was stripped of all civil offices and Hampton Court was taken from him.\u00a0 (\u201cIf I had served God as diligently as I have done the King,\u201d Wolsey is reported to have commented, \u201che would not have given me over in my grey hairs.\u201d)\u00a0 The cardinal died of natural causes near Leicester, on his way to answer charges of treason against the king.<\/p>\n Queen Mary I (\u201cBloody Mary\u201d) and Queen Elizabeth I also lived there.\u00a0 One of the docents told us that Will Shakespeare\u2019s theater troupe performed A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em> before Elizabeth at Hampton Court and, later, performed Hamlet<\/em> there for James I \u2014 who also directed the creation of the King James Bible after a conference held at Hampton Court.<\/p>\n Another section of the palace, designed by the great Sir Christopher Wren, dates from the time of William III and Mary II (more familiarly known, even in the United States<\/a>, simply as \u201cWilliam and Mary\u201d).\u00a0 Sir Christopher\u2019s initial plan was to knock the Tudor structure altogether down and replace it; fortunately, budgetary constraints obliged him to preserve most of the older palace.\u00a0 Lastly, the Georgian portion of the complex was created under the two last monarchs to reside at Hampton Court, George I and George II, and their stunningly dysfunctional family.<\/p>\n The entire palace complex is interesting, as are its grounds, but my wife and I were particularly attentive to, and I was certainly most interested in, the Tudor buildings.\u00a0 We even had our lunch in what was once Elizabeth I\u2019s \u201cprivy kitchen.\u201d\u00a0 (She apparently really loved exotic foods, but moved the kitchen further away from the royal living quarters because she didn\u2019t want to smell the cooking while it was underway.)<\/p>\n I am, to put it mildly, not a fan of Henry VIII.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know anybody today who is<\/em>.\u00a0 But it can certainly be said that he lived large.\u00a0 He partook, largely<\/em>, of everything that being the monarch of an increasingly prosperous nation could afford him.\u00a0 Sometimes, I\u2019ve wondered how he\u2019s doing right now.\u00a0 But thinking about him today made me think, as I often do, of the passage of time:<\/p>\n I\u2019m fortunate to have heard of the Restoration; he was not.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll focus on more this-worldly things.<\/p>\n Although he was the king of England and an absolute monarch, Henry never had central heating or air conditioning or indoor plumbing.\u00a0 He probably never enjoyed a banana or a tomato.\u00a0 He certainly never enjoyed a taco or a burrito or a carrot cake or Thai curry.\u00a0 The medicine of his day, if it can be called \u201cmedicine\u201d at all, couldn\u2019t cure a headache or a toothache, and he suffered from many serious health issues that we today could easily treat.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t only the headsman who visited his friends and family; he also lost wives and children and courtiers to disease and to childbirth.\u00a0 He never watched television or saw a movie.\u00a0 He never heard any work by Mozart or Beethoven or Brahms or the Beatles.\u00a0 He never rode in a car.\u00a0 He never visited the French Riviera, let alone the Bahamas or Hawaii.\u00a0 He never flew in an airplane or made a telephone call or surfed the web.\u00a0 He never ate in an Indian restaurant.\u00a0 He never saw a play by Shakespeare or read a novel by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or anything at all by C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien.<\/p>\n He never conceived of or thought about a hundred thousand things that vastly enrich our world but that we take thoughtlessly for granted.\u00a0 So I wonder what unthinkable things will come when, eventually and to the delight of some of my critics, I\u2019m<\/em> gone.\u00a0 I can no more imagine those things, probably, than the Tudors could have imagined space travel, GPS navigation, the Beach Boys, personal computers, or stadium lighting.\u00a0 So, in that sense, I won\u2019t \u201cmiss\u201d them, any more than Henry VIII missed Wagnerian opera or spaghetti.\u00a0 Still, I\u2019m casually curious.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also true that Henry missed out on the English Civil War, the Great Plague of London, the First and Second World Wars, the rise of the National Socialist, fascist, and Marxist totalitarian states in the twentieth century, and the Kardashians.\u00a0 So maybe I\u2019m<\/em> the lucky one.\u00a0 What will my children and grandchildren encounter?\u00a0 On balance, will it be good or bad, better or worse?\u00a0 Or will it simply be a mix of the two?\u00a0 I can only pray.<\/p>\n I find myself thinking right now of an exchange between Frodo and Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201cI wish it need not have happened in my time,\u201d said Frodo.<\/p>\n \u201cSo do I,\u201d said Gandalf, \u201cand so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This is really sad:\u00a0\u00a0Antisemitism is alive and well on the FIRM Foundation website (UPDATE: sort of<\/i>)<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I know.\u00a0 I know<\/em>.\u00a0 You desperately need another inflammatory fix from the never-disappointing, always appalling Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122.\u00a0 Happily, I\u2019m here to oblige you:\u00a0 \u201cSchool Children Move from Floors to Desks in Shifwankula, Zambia: A donation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> provides the school with nine new classrooms, 500 school desks and eight new flushing latrines.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Posted from Wokingham, Berkshire, England<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 Two new articles appeared earlier today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u201cDoctrine and Covenants 21: Metanarrative of the Restoration,\u201d written by Steven L. Olsen Abstract:\u00a0Joseph Smith dictated Doctrine\u00a0and\u00a0Covenants 21 at the inaugural meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ on April\u00a06, 1830. The present study examines the literary craftsmanship of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":100529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31774,11932,36254,12266,36260,36257],"class_list":["post-100523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anne-boleyn","tag-george","tag-hampton-court","tag-henry-viii","tag-william-and-mary","tag-wolsey"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>