![\"Laie's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/BYU_Hawaii_14080027043.jpg\")
<\/a>Newly up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0Conversations with Interpreter<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cMatthew Bowen and Upon All Nations: Nephi and Isaiah on the Nations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n For this episode we talk with Matthew L. Bowen about his article \u201cUpon All the Nations\u201d: The g\u00f4yim<\/em> in Nephi\u2019s Rendition of Isaiah 2 (2 Nephi 12) in Literary Context.\u201d Dr. Bowen discusses places where Nephi\u2019s version of Isaiah 2, preserved in 2 Nephi 12, differs from Isaiah in the received Hebrew. He argues that this reflects Nephi\u2019s focus on all nations and desire to spread the gospel message to everyone, everywhere. This strongly reflects the vision of the Book of Mormon as a book to all nations and also gives readers of the Book of Mormon cause to reflect on the great mercy of Jesus Christ. One of Nephi\u2019s primary messages is that the redemption and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is available to all of humanity, showing a wideness of focus that reflects God\u2019s love for his children.<\/p>\n The article is available for reading at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/journal\/upon-all-the-nations-the-goyim-in-nephis-rendition-of-isaiah-2-2-nephi-12-in-literary-context<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the fall of 1974, a BYU philosophy professor of mine was back on the east coast for a conference or something just prior to the dedication of the Washington DC Temple. \u00a0While there, he picked up a copy of the student newspaper at Georgetown University that recounted a student-journalist\u2019s visit to the Temple\u2019s public open house, and he shared the article with me. \u00a0It was, as I recall, deeply contemptuous. \u00a0Surprised and mightily displeased because the vast temple didn\u2019t feature the enormous cathedral-like interior that the reporter expected but was, rather, divided for the most part into many smaller rooms, the article referred to the Temple as \u201cGod\u2019s hotel-motel in suburban Maryland.\u201d<\/p>\n I remember, too, the article\u2019s contemptuous mockery of Edward E. Drury, Jr., who would go on to serve for four years as the Temple\u2019s first president. \u00a0As I recall, President Drury had retired as an executive with the company that made Singer sewing machines \u2014 we don\u2019t have a professional clergy \u2014 and the student-journalist from Georgetown found his career in business solid ground to deride him.<\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing that the author had been invited to attend a special day at the beginning of the Temple\u2019s open house for journalists and\/or VIPs, because President Drury was there personally to greet the visitors, which was almost certainly a special thing. \u00a0(The open house drew more than three quarters of a million people.)<\/p>\n Anyway, the Georgetown article mentioned shaking hands with President Drury, remarking that the Temple president\u2019s hand had almost certainly sold lots and lots of sewing machines over the years.<\/p>\n That ill-natured jibe has remained in my memory for all of the decades since. \u00a0Since Georgetown is a Jesuit school, I wondered if it had ever occurred to the writer of the article that the hands of the apostle Peter \u2014 aka, the first pope? \u2014 had probably mended a great many fishing nets in his day.<\/p>\n I despise such elitist snobbery. \u00a0And I thought of that piece from decades ago yet again when I saw this article in National Review<\/em>, to which you may or may not be able to gain access: \u00a0\u201cJimmy Kimmel\u2019s Grating Contempt for the Working Class: His mockery of Markwayne Mullin was revealing.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Jimmy Kimmel made light of the new Secretary of Homeland Security because the former congressman and senator now turned cabinet secretary has only an Associate in Applied Science degree in plumbing from the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology and actually worked as a plumber in his earlier days.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not necessarily a fan of either Markwayne Mullin or the current Department of Homeland Security, but I absolutely detest such arrogant nose-in-the-air disdain for Lesser People. \u00a0And I couldn\u2019t help but think of a famous quotation from the late great William F. Buckley Jr. (who was himself a wealthy patrician who had been educated, among other places, in France and England and at Yale University): \u00a0\u201cI would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory,\u201d Buckley once said, \u201cthan by the Harvard University faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that he was merely reflecting the traditional rivalry between Harvard and Yale but, rather, that he was commenting on the assumption of proud academic elites that they know better, and actually are better, than the common herd. \u00a0I don\u2019t share that assumption. \u00a0Given my own \u201cclass background,\u201d I could hardly do so.<\/p>\n Although I\u2019ve never watched so much as five seconds of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/em>, my inbox is routinely cluttered by news of scandals and intrigues and backstabbing among the show\u2019s cast. \u00a0I wonder if the Brethren have ever regretted calling these particular women to serve as the Church\u2019s official representatives to the mass entertainment media. \u00a0Does anybody want to bet that they\u2019ll be released at the coming General Conference?<\/p>\n We went to a wedding reception tonight in American Fork, and, yesterday evening, to a wedding reception down in Nephi. \u00a0People seem to be marrying all over the place.<\/p>\n We spent the morning and much of the afternoon in Sandy, in a meeting of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s board of directors. \u00a0It\u2019s amazing how much is going on under the auspices of the Foundation, especially given its prophesied death<\/a> back around the beginning of 2014.<\/p>\n Yesterday, I attended a pair of lectures in the Tanner Building at Brigham Young University that were sponsored by BYU\u2019s chapter of the Adam Smith Society. \u00a0The first speaker was Dr. Gale Pooley<\/a>, whom I had never met. \u00a0He read a paper on Adam Smith, modern economic theory, and Joseph Smith that I really, really liked. \u00a0I hope to see it published eventually for a Latter-day Saint audience. \u00a0The second speaker was my friend Mark Skousen<\/a>, who had notified me of the lectures. \u00a0He addressed the question of whether or not Joseph Smith was a utopian socialist. \u00a0His answer? \u00a0Joseph was<\/em> a utopian socialist, and he wasn\u2019t<\/em>. \u00a0Joseph\u2019s views changed over time, he argued, and they moved away by the end of his life from an early interest in communal living. \u00a0On the other hand, he contended, Brigham Young remained<\/em> interested in such ideas \u2014 which is an interesting view, given the fact that Brigham is often (wrongly) condemned by some of his critics as having been a greedy, materialistic, and self-serving man.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Newly up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0Conversations with Interpreter: \u00a0\u201cMatthew Bowen and Upon All Nations: Nephi and Isaiah on the Nations\u201d For this episode we talk with Matthew L. Bowen about his article \u201cUpon All the Nations\u201d: The g\u00f4yim in Nephi\u2019s Rendition of Isaiah 2 (2 Nephi 12) in Literary Context.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":30796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,201,2905,788,6177,38414],"class_list":["post-115477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-isaiah","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-nephi","tag-secret-lives-of-mormon-wives"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>