{"id":100649,"date":"2023-06-24T17:18:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T23:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=100649"},"modified":"2023-06-24T23:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T05:27:33","slug":"am-i-there-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/06\/am-i-there-yet.html","title":{"rendered":"Am I there yet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Laie Point, on Oahu\u2019s North Shore, not far from the Laie Hawaii Temple, the Polynesian Cultural Center, and the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University, where Matt Bowen teaches
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was otherwise occupied yesterday, so I failed to note the appearance of two new articles on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cThey Shall Be Scattered Again\u201d: Some Notes on JST Genesis 50:24\u201325, 33\u201335\u201d<\/a> was written by Matthew L. Bowen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>This article examines the extension of the etiological wordplay on the name Joseph (in terms of the Hebrew verbs\u00a0<\/em>\u02be\u0101sap\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>y\u0101sap), recurrent in the canonical text of Genesis, into the JST Genesis 50 text, where Joseph learns about and prophesies of a future \u201cJoseph\u201d who would help gather Israel after they had been \u201cscattered again\u201d by the Lord. This article also analyzes the pairing of the prophetic and seeric roles of Moses and the latter-day \u201cJoseph\u201d at the beginning and ending of JST Genesis and explores the significance of this framing. The importance of Moses and Joseph Smith writing the word of the Lord in order to fulfill their prophetic responsibility to \u201cgather\u201d Israel emerges.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cInterpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>: Scattered JST Wordplay,\u201d<\/a> was written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This post is a summary of the article \u201c\u201cThey Shall Be Scattered Again\u201d: Some Notes on JST Genesis 50:24\u201325, 33\u201335<\/a>\u201d by Matthew L. Bowen 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 Bowen argues that the Joseph Smith Translation text of Genesis 50 contains wordplay involving the word Joseph\u2014and the concepts of scattering (again) and gathering\u2014with the prophetic bookends of the JST highlighting both Moses\u2019 and Joseph Smith\u2019s roles in gathering Israel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Dante<\/a>
Dante holds a copy of his \u201cDivine Comedy\u201d in a fresco by Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491). With his right hand, he gestures toward a procession of sinners heading into Hell. Behind him on his right is Mount Purgatory, with repentant sinners toiling upward on its path. Behind him, to his left, is the city of Florence, including the dome of its cathedral and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. In the distance are the celestial spheres through which he will ascend during his tour of Paradise. Thus, all three books of the \u201cDivina Commedia\u201d \u2014 \u201cInferno,\u201d \u201cPurgatorio,\u201d and \u201cParadiso\u201d \u2014 are represented in this painting.\u00a0 \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are few events that I am less enthusiastic about attending than funerals.\u00a0 But there are few events that are, in their way, more inspirational to me than the funerals of good people.\u00a0 Attending them is like reading the final chapter of a satisfying book, but better<\/em>.\u00a0 And also worse, because they sometimes remind me how great a gulf there is between my life and the lives of the people that are being celebrated.\u00a0 (It\u2019s ironic that, while I\u2019m pretty much completely innocent of the crimes and depravities alleged against me daily at the Peterson Obsession Board, I\u2019m deeply flawed in more subtle but fundamental and frustrating ways that quite escape those zealous critics.\u00a0 [Hence, the image of Purgatory above.]\u00a0 If they only knew!)<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m well aware of the principle Nil nisi bonum<\/em> (more completely, De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est<\/em>, roughly \u201cOf the dead nothing but good is to be said\u201d), and I\u2019m fully acquainted with the fact that funeral eulogies invariably emphasize the good and neglect anything bad.\u00a0 After all, the term \u03b5\u1f50\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03af\u03b1<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0eulogia<\/i>, means \u201cgood words.\u201d\u00a0 Referring to his own funeral talks, J. Golden Kimball is said to have reflected that he\u2019d \u201cgiven many a man a ticket to the celestial glory\u201d that he \u201cknew damned well wouldn\u2019t get him more than halfway there.\u201d\u00a0 But I\u2019ve attended more than a few funerals in which I knew from personal experience that the praise being offered to the deceased was not false or exaggerated.\u00a0 My wife and I attended such a funeral this morning, for a long-time member of our ward, Sid Allsop, who led a quietly remarkable long life of service, kindness, and accomplishment:\u00a0 Marvin Sid Allsop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I say that such funerals are inspirational, and they are.\u00a0 But they can also be a bit discouraging.\u00a0 I can try to be better, but fundamental changes are difficult.\u00a0 It\u2019s rather like saying to a marathon runner or to a long-distance swimmer that he could win the race if he would just run faster or swim faster in those last minutes.\u00a0 Easier said than done!\u00a0 If I had it in me to be a vastly better person, I could maybe make the needed improvements.\u00a0 But we\u2019re limited by energy, upbringing, personality traits, areas of unawareness, and so forth.\u00a0 So changes, when they come at all, tend to be small and incremental.<\/p>\n

Once, when I was serving in an ecclesiastical position that involved frequent interviews with college-age young people, I encountered at least two returned missionaries who told me confidently, and separately, of their plans to be \u201cperfect\u201d \u2014 their word \u2014 by the age of twenty-five or, at the latest, thirty.\u00a0 I tried to be supportive and not disrespectful.\u00a0 (Successfully, I hope.)\u00a0 But I tried to gently let them know that, while I admired their idealism and commitment, the road to perfection might be at least a little bit longer and steeper than they imagined.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Niche<\/a>
Allen Hansen\u2019s photo of the book cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over very nearly the past eleven years, I\u2019ve received thousands of email messages from an anonymous admirer reminding me that I\u2019m ugly, a loser, an embarrassment to my family, a blight on academia, a joke, childish and immature, a mindless and dishonest bootlicker to the Brethren, a mercenary hack, an exploiter of poor tithe payers, and so forth. (The themes seldom vary much.\u00a0 Lately, my correspondent has been averaging probably about five or six such notes daily, although the number of them sent in a day has sometimes risen to at least thirteen.)<\/p>\n

In that light, it\u2019s occasionally a relief to be reminded that my life hasn\u2019t been a complete<\/em> waste of food and oxygen and other valuable resources.\u00a0 Back in the 1990s, for instance, I conceived and founded the Islamic Translation Series at Brigham Young University, which eventually grew into the more comprehensive Middle Eastern Texts Initiative.\u00a0 As it happens, the second book that we published in the project was a dual-language Arabic-English translation of al-Ghazali\u2019s late eleventh- or early twelfth-century Mishkat al-Anwar<\/em> (\u201cThe Niche of Lights\u201d), translated by David Buchman.\u00a0 And now, Allen Hansen, an Israeli-American Latter-day Saint, has kindly sent me a note about the reception of that book by an Israeli scholar,\u00a0 I hope that Allen won\u2019t mind my reproducing what he sent to me:<\/p>\n

Daniel, I came across something you\u2019d appreciate. I just had delivered a copy of al-Ghazali\u2019s Mishkat al-Anwar<\/em> translated into Hebrew by Avi Elqayam. This was published by Magnes Press, a top-tier academic press in Israel. It is what the Hebrew University uses. This edition also includes the two medieval Hebrew translations of Mishkat al-Anwar<\/em>. Anyway, The section on translations has nothing but good things to say about Buchman\u2019s English translation METI published! Elqayam\u2019s really interesting. He\u2019s a professor of Jewish and Muslim mysticism who for the past few years has been engaging in reviving Jewish-Muslim Sufi spirituality to enrich both traditions and encourage peace. He\u2019s been translating a lot of Muslim works, such as al-Hallaj\u2019s Diwan<\/em> and other writings. I thought you\u2019d be happy to know that people are using METI texts not only for academic purposes, but for spiritual and cultural enrichment. That was one of you original goals, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was, indeed.\u00a0 And I do indeed appreciate his note.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two translations into English of the Mishkat al-Anwar<\/em>. Gairdner\u2019s is an idiomatic translation, whereas Buchman\u2019s is more literal. Gairdner\u2019s English translation follows the 1907 Cairo edition. Buchman\u2019s was translated according to Afifi\u2019s critical edition, Cairo, 1964.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I was otherwise occupied yesterday, so I failed to note the appearance of two new articles on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u201c\u201cThey Shall Be Scattered Again\u201d: Some Notes on JST Genesis 50:24\u201325, 33\u201335\u201d was written by Matthew L. Bowen. 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