{"id":83441,"date":"2020-03-09T14:04:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T20:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=83441"},"modified":"2020-03-10T01:03:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T07:03:08","slug":"enoch-the-seer-and-some-who-evidently-cant-see-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/03\/enoch-the-seer-and-some-who-evidently-cant-see-at-all.html","title":{"rendered":"“Enoch the Seer” (and Some Who Evidently Can’t See At All)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Hoet's<\/a>
\u201cGod Took Enoch,\u201d by Gerard Hoet (1728) \u00a0 \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In God\u2019s Image and Likeness 2<\/em>:\u00a0<\/em>Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel:\u00a0Moses 6:13-25: Enoch, the Seer<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in\u00a0In God\u2019s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel<\/em>\u00a0(2014) by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0In this chapter, the authors review what some have called the \u201cmost remarkable religious document published in the nineteenth century,\u201d giving the first part of a two-part account of the life and ministry of Enoch. The chapter begins with a description of Enoch\u2019s prophetic commission, which has strong affinities with ancient texts inside and outside the Bible. This is followed by a description of Enoch\u2019s preaching mission, whose accounts of wickedness, battles, and the taking up of Enoch\u2019s people to heaven has remarkable resonances with the Book of Giants, an Enoch account found in Qumran in 1948.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The classical Greek Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two or three years ago, an article appeared in Time<\/em> about New Zealand\u2019s then-new and quite young ex-Mormon prime minister, the politically progressive Jacinda Ardern:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJacinda Ardern, New Zealand\u2019s 37-Year-Old Leader, Rolls Up Her Sleeves\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The article was plainly very admiring of Ms. Ardern and correspondingly contemptuous of the unfashionable and regressive Latter-day Saints. \u00a0Among other things, it described the Hamilton New Zealand Temple as looking \u201clike a Parthenon reimagined by Stalinist architects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fascinated by such things. \u00a0So that you yourself can compare it to the photograph of the Parthenon, above, here\u2019s a photograph of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Aotearoa's<\/a>
The Hamilton New Zealand Temple \u00a0 \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As my New Zealand friend Kiwi57, who first brought the article to my attention, observed, \u201cI suppose that apart from the fact that the Parthenon is made of stone, has gable ends, columns, no spire and no windows, while the Hamilton NZ Temple is made of concrete, has no gables and no columns, a spire and windows, the two might look exactly alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve contemplated such silliness over the years. \u00a0Why is it, I\u2019ve wondered, that certain authors seem to feel absolutely no obligation to get even basic facts correct when writing about the Latter-day Saints?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple times, for instance, I\u2019ve read the flat declaration that nobody else was ever able to see the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated; Joseph Smith, you see, refused to show<\/em> the plates to anybody<\/em>. \u00a0But shouldn\u2019t there be at least some slight nod in the direction of the testimonies of the Three and Eight Witnesses, which have appeared in every edition of the Book of Mormon, in every language, since its first publication in 1830?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my favorite examples of the gross carelessness that often characterizes journalistic and other writing about the Mormons<\/a> comes from a mystery, set in Utah, that I once thumbed through in an airport bookstore. \u00a0(I may be mistaken, but I think it may have been\u00a0Bone Hunter<\/em>, a novel published in 2000 by Sarah Andrews.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In it, the heroine of the novel is trying to figure out what it is about the Salt Lake Temple that she finds so horribly creepy. \u00a0And then it hits her: \u00a0It\u2019s the fact that the temple has absolutely no windows!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Plainly, the Salt Lake Temple is completely devoid of windows. It is, in fact, essentially a solid block of unbroken, windowless granite. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s also Peter Bart\u2019s<\/a> excruciatingly awful 1981 novel Thy Kingdom Come<\/em>. \u00a0A friend and I had dinner with Bart one night; he could not understand why Latter-day Saints hadn\u2019t warmed up to his portrayal of them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The classic Mormon-related mystery, though, is certainly Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s A Study in Scarlet<\/em>, which deals, among other things, with the Church\u2019s presiding Council of Four.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Honestly, I just don\u2019t understand why people write such things, or how such things survive the editorial process and reach publication.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0 \u00a0 Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 In God\u2019s Image and Likeness 2:\u00a0Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel:\u00a0Moses 6:13-25: Enoch, the Seer Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in\u00a0In God\u2019s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel\u00a0(2014) by Jeffrey M. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1739,5736,788,55,2208,9017,2292,641],"class_list":["post-83441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-architecture","tag-enoch","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-new-zealand","tag-parthenon","tag-stalin","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\n"Enoch the Seer" (and Some Who Evidently Can't See At All)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   In God\u2019s Image and Likeness 2:\u00a0Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel:\u00a0Moses\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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