![\"Westin](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2023\/11\/wv-sjdwv-ocean-view-exterior-19453-Classic-Hor-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a>(Borrowed from the Westin website, which I hope and trust constitutes \u201cfair use.\u201d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Today, the most concentrated amount of sheer cuteness in this region spent substantial time in a swimming pool alongside the beach. \u00a0We were privileged to be there, as well.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0\u201cThe Temple: Ancient and Restored<\/em>: Psalm 24 and the Two YHWHs at the Gate of the Temple,\u201d<\/a> written by David J. Larsen<\/a><\/p>\n Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Ancient and Restored<\/em>, Proceedings of the Second Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference \u201cThe Temple on Mount Zion,\u201d 25 October 2014 (2016) edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Donald W. Parry. For more information, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/books\/the-temple-ancient-and-restored\/<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs I write these words today, Israel is bombing the positions of Arabs in Gaza; Hamas is firing rockets at Israel.\u201d \u00a0(Boris Johnson, The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History<\/em> [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014], 315)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll now share some notes here from Walker Wright and Don Bradley, \u201c\u2018None That Doeth Good\u2019: Early Evidence of the First Vision in JST Psalm 14,\u201d BYU Studies Quarterly<\/em> 61\/3 (2022): 123-140. \u00a0First, though, a bit of context:<\/p>\n For several decades, critics of the Restoration have often alleged that it was a late invention of Joseph Smith and\/or that the accounts of it are fatally inconsistent and\/or that it demonstrably evolved in the telling, such that no confidence can be placed in the surviving accounts of it. \u00a0In this article, Walker Wright and Don Bradley argue that the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible or JST, often formerly called the \u201cInspired Version,\u201d constitutes early, if indirect, corroborating evidence for the authenticity of the First Vision.<\/p>\n They acknowledge (at 123 n. 2) that Doctrine and Covenants 20:5-8, which was apparently received sometime between the summer of 1829 and its recording shortly after 6 April 1830, also represents early evidence for the First Vision, and very specifically to the forgiveness of sins described in Joseph Smith\u2019s 1832 and 1835 accounts of it:<\/p>\n After it was truly manifested unto this first elder that he had received a remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world; but after repenting, and humbling himself sincerely, through faith, God ministered unto him by an holy angel, whose countenance was as lightning, and whose garments were pure and white above all other whiteness; and gave unto him commandments which inspired him; and gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to translate the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But their focus in this article is on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible and, most particularly, on its alterations to the fourteenth psalm.<\/p>\n Numerous elements found in later accounts appear in JST Psalm 14, indicating that the fundamental First Vision narrative remained far more consistent across time than has been assumed. \u00a0(127)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Along the way, this sentence also caught my notice:<\/p>\n A distinction between Smith\u2019s reported vision and many contemporaneous visions was its very literal sensory and corporeal character, which may have contributed to its rejection. \u00a0(129 n. 19)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As did this passage, in which the authors seem to suggest that Joseph\u2019s own experience, in which he literally saw the Father as the Father introduced the Son, motivated the specific revision of John 1:18 that appears in the JST:<\/p>\n The statement in KJV John 1:18, \u201cHe hath declared him,\u201d carries some ambiguity regarding the referents of \u201che\u201d and \u201chim.\u201d \u00a0While the statement is most naturally read to indicate that the Son has declared the Father, it can also be read to say that the Father has declared the Son. \u00a0Joseph\u2019s revision to the passage indicates that he understood it to carry the second meaning and saw this as offering a proviso on which the Father can be seen \u2014 when he declares the Son. \u00a0Joseph therefore reorganized the passage to make this its clear reading. \u00a0(129 n. 20)<\/p>\n In line with such evidence in Joseph Smith\u2019s 1832 account of the First Vision, Smith\u2019s revisions to the Bible discussed here evidence that all three of the supposedly late-developed elements of the First Vision actually predate even this \u201cearliest\u201d First Vision account. \u00a0(131)<\/p>\n After comparing Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision with the divine encounter experienced by the Lord\u2019s servant in JST Psalm 14, it is difficult to disagree with Joseph Fielding McConkie\u2019s judgment: \u00a0\u201cThe JST rendering of this Psalm reads like another account of the First Vision.\u201d \u00a0(138)<\/p>\n It is worth noting that [Joseph Fielding] McConkie\u2019s father, Bruce R. McConkie, recommended in 1980 that JST Psalm 14 be canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. \u00a0(138 n. 53)<\/p>\n Already by 1831-1832, Joseph Smith\u2019s translation of John 1:18 and 1 John 4:12 intimates that he connected his First Vision with the idea of seeing God the Father and of God the Father bearing witness: \u00a0\u201cThis is My Beloved Son\u201d (JS-H 1:17). \u00a0In his 1832\/33 translation of Psalm 14, Joseph reinforces that God the Father was part of the First Vision and weaves in further elements of the First Vision that will not appear in his formal accounts thereof for several years.<\/p>\n All of this attests to a much more consistent First Vision narrative than is often assumed. \u00a0John Welch and James Allen have observed, \u201cThere is . . . striking consistency throughout the [First Vision] narratives; they combine impressively to give a consistent and coherent picture. \u00a0A high percentage of the elements . . . sporadically appear in multiple accounts, both early and late, showing a high degree of independent, cumulative, concurrent corroboration. among these accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n This observation holds even beyond the formal accounts of the First Vision. \u00a0From Joseph Smith\u2019s inspired 1831\/32 translation of John 1:18 to his private 1844 testimony to Alexander Neibaur, Joseph\u2019s words give evidence that the Father had borne witness of the Son. \u00a0And from his 1832\/33 translation of Psalm 14 to that same testimony to Neibaur shortly before the martyrdom (and even Brigham Young\u2019s recollection after the martyrdom), he affirms that the Son told him, \u201cAll are gone aside,\u201d and none were doing good, \u201cno, not one.\u201d \u00a0Joseph Smith\u2019s translation of the Bible thus bears witnesses that he was consistent in attesting to these events from the beginning of his prophetic career to the end. \u00a0(139)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The crimes committed by theism and theists continue to accumulate with appalling speed. \u00a0Here are five more specimens of theistic horror that have been drawn from the exhausting but plainly inexhaustible Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n \u201cChurch of Jesus Christ Provides 1,200 Chicago Residents with Warm Clothes:\u00a0Local Latter-day Saints and the Humanitarian Center distribute 22,000 pounds of clothing, coats and blankets\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cLight the World Giving Machines Light Up Times Square:\u00a0This is one of 61 locations around the world for the popular red giving-focused vending machines\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cChurch Thanks Humanitarian Partners in Albania:\u00a0First partner appreciation event held in Tirana, Albania\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
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