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<\/a>Newly posted in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cSmooth Words and Slippery Things: Samuel the Lamanite\u2019s Prophetic Use of Hebrew \u1e25lq,\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/a> written by Matthew L. Bowen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Abstract:<\/strong> Samuel the Lamanite expressly drew on the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 30:10) and possibly Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:12) with a clever, powerful wordplay on forms of the Hebrew verbal root <\/em>\u1e25lq: \u1e25\u0103l\u0101q\u00f4t <\/span>(\u201cflattering words,\u201d literally \u201csmooth things\u201d) and <\/em>\u1e25\u0103laqlaqq\u00f4t<\/span> (\u201cslippery [things]\u201d) in Helaman 13:28\u201336. This wordplay established a genetic relationship between yielding oneself to those who \u201cspeak flattering words unto [us]\u201d (Helaman 13:28) and material riches and treasures becoming \u201cslippery that [we] cannot hold them\u201d (Helaman 13:31, 36). This use of smooth\/slippery, closely tied to the discussion in the Hebrew Bible of giving heed to false prophets over true prophets, is thus an apt marker of Samuel\u2019s meaning, and perhaps also of his training. Samuel\u2019s pronouncement of this unique curse, linguistically correlated with rejecting prophetic words, described a loss of worldly wealth and vividly depicted the accompanying spiritual desolation of slippery ways and dark places. Mormon and Moroni offered their latter-day readers a way out of the cycle of \u201cslippery\u201d possessions and destruction that befell the Jaredites and the Nephites: Jesus Christ, who showed us how to lay up treasures in heaven. Mormon\u2019s preservation of Samuel\u2019s prophetic wordplay stands as a significant, additional confirmation of the ancient provenance of the text.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And this just went up on the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s website: \u00a0\u201cInterpreting Interpreter<\/em>: Slippery Wordplay,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a>:<\/p>\n This post is a summary of the article \u201cSmooth Words and Slippery Things: Samuel the Lamanite\u2019s Prophetic Use of Hebrew \u1e25lq<\/em><\/a>\u201d by Matthew L. Bowen in Volume 66 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. All of the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> articles may be seen at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/category\/summaries\/<\/a>. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em>series is available at https:\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/HAayuJs8IvM<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Takeaway: <\/strong>Bowen highlights potential wordplay in Samuel the Lamanite\u2019s sermon in Helaman 13\u2014based on the Hebrew terms for \u201cflattering words\u201d and \u201cslippery\u201d treasures\u2014that emphasizes how giving heed to false prophets can lead to a loss of worldly and spiritual treasures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Another take on an important story: \u00a0\u201cChurch of Jesus Christ sees record growth in global membership:\u00a0Record-high convert baptisms during the past 12 months mark a milestone year for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And an important milestone is coming on Sunday: \u00a0\u201cWatch the 5,000th Episode of \u2018Music & the Spoken Word\u2019 on July 13\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n We traveled down to Cochrane, Alberta, late this afternoon \u2014 it\u2019s about an hour from Canmore, back to the east, in the direction of Calgary \u2014 to have dinner and visit with a former student of mine and his family. \u00a0(I omit his name, as I always do in such cases, so that innocent parties will be spared the tender mercies of my obsessive anonymous online critics.) \u00a0Their home backs onto the Bow River, and we enjoyed a meal of barbecued meats \u2014 he\u2019s a hunter, among other extremely interesting things \u2014 and corn on the cob outside, and then roasted marshmallows down below in their backyard. \u00a0And there was good conversation.<\/p>\n He was one of the students in the intensive Arabic program that I led in Jerusalem many years ago, and he and my sons formed a very special bond during those months in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. \u00a0So it\u2019s nice to run into him and his family from time to time, wherever they happen to be at any given moment. \u00a0They\u2019ve lived in multiple countries around the world \u2014 including a lengthy stint in Cairo, where he served as the president of the Latter-day Saint branch there. \u00a0They are great people.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know whether you can access this 2018 article from The Atlantic<\/em> or not, but I read it for the first time last night and really enjoyed it: \u00a0\u201cWhy Earth\u2019s History Appears So Miraculous: The strange, cosmic reason our evolutionary path will look ever luckier the longer we survive,\u201d<\/a> written by Peter Brannen<\/a>. \u00a0Here\u2019s a passage from it that caught my eye:<\/p>\n [O]ur radio telescopes have reported only a stark silence from our cosmic neighborhood. Perhaps we\u2019re truly extreme oddballs, held aloft by a near-impossible history\u2014one free from deadly migrating gas giants and solar-system chaos<\/a>, but also filled with freakishly favorable accidents, like a cataclysmic impact early in our history that created a strange, gigantic moon<\/a> that stabilized our orbit and allowed complex life to flourish. As the solar system continued to shake out, we somehow ended up with just the right amount of water to lubricate plate tectonics<\/a>, keeping the climate habitable over hundreds of millions of years<\/a> and preventing a Venus-style planetary resurfacing catastrophe, but not so much water that we wound up on a lifeless water world<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But don\u2019t let that passage mislead you. \u00a0The article isn\u2019t actually about cosmic fine-tuning or intelligent design. \u00a0Not even remotely. \u00a0In fact, I think it\u2019s an article that might disturb or worry you. \u00a0Give it a look, if you can.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just barely old enough to dimly remember when polio was a very real fear for American children and when, although the desperate panic was beginning to fade, we were still required to receive vaccinations. \u00a0I\u2019m quite pleased with the fact that the disease never paralyzed or crippled me or put me in an iron lung. \u00a0That\u2019s one of the reasons that I\u2019m not happy about the rise of anti-vaxxers in Utah and across the United States, nor about the rise of one particular anti-vaxxer to running the United States federal Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n\n
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