{"id":88011,"date":"2020-09-11T12:22:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T18:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=88011"},"modified":"2020-09-11T21:46:45","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T03:46:45","slug":"the-waters-of-mormon-baptism-the-love-of-god-and-the-bitter-fountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/09\/the-waters-of-mormon-baptism-the-love-of-god-and-the-bitter-fountain.html","title":{"rendered":"“The Waters of Mormon, Baptism, the Love of God, and the Bitter Fountain”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>
Statue of the apostle at the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura (the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls) in Rome, the traditional site of his burial. Please note the book that he\u2019s carrying. That\u2019s okay. But the sword? Far too martial. He was clearly not an acceptably ecumenical and nice fellow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was really busy yesterday, so I didn\u2019t have time to post a link to the latest iteration of my bi-weekly column for the Deseret News<\/em>.\u00a0 But here it is.\u00a0 This particular installment is unusually autobiographical:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Pope left the Vatican for a meeting of healing: When Pope John Paul II hosted a number of bishops from the ancient non-Catholic churches of the East, the location of the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls was significant\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matthew L. Bowen<\/a> has contributed today\u2019s new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cThat Which They Most Desired\u201d: The Waters of Mormon, Baptism, the Love of God, and the Bitter Fountain\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0Paronomasia in the Hebrew text of Exodus creates narrative links between the name Miriam (Mary) and the \u201cwaters\u201d (<\/em>mayim) of the Re[e]d Sea from which Israel is \u201cpulled\u201d and the nearby \u201cbitter\u201d waters of Marah. Nephi sees Mary (Mariam), the mother of Jesus, associated with the \u201clove of God,\u201d and thus to both \u201cthe tree of life\u201d and \u201cthe fountain of living waters\u201d (1\u00a0Nephi\u00a011:25) vis-\u00e0-vis \u201cthe fountain of filthy water\u201d (1\u00a0Nephi\u00a012:16). Mormon was named after \u201cthe land of Mormon\u201d (3\u00a0Nephi\u00a05:12). He associates his given name with \u201cwaters,\u201d which he describes as a\u00a0\u201cfountain of pure water\u201d (Mosiah\u00a018:5), and with the good \u201cdesires\u201d and \u201clove\u201d that Alma the Elder\u2019s converts manifest at the time of their baptism (Mosiah\u00a018:8, 10\u201211, 21, 28). Mormon\u2019s accounts of the baptisms of Alma the Elder\u2019s people, Limhi\u2019s people, the people at Sidom (Alma\u00a015:13), and a\u00a0few repentant Nephites at Zarahemla who responded to Samuel the Lamanite\u2019s preaching (Helaman\u00a016:1), anticipate Jesus\u2019s eventual reestablishment of the church originally founded by Alma, the baptism of his disciples, and their reception of the Holy Ghost \u2014 \u201cthat which they most desired\u201d (see 3\u00a0Nephi\u00a019:9\u201214, 24).\u00a0<\/em>Desire\u00a0serves as a\u00a0key term that links all of these baptismal scenes. Mormon\u2019s analogy of \u201cthe bitter fountain\u201d and its \u201cbitter water\u201d vis-\u00e0-vis the \u201cthe good fount\u201d and its \u201cgood water\u201d \u2014 which helps set up his discussion of \u201cthe pure love of Christ,\u201d which \u201cendureth forever\u201d (Moroni\u00a07:47\u201248) \u2014 should be understood against the backdrop of Lehi\u2019s dream as Nephite \u201ccultural narrative\u201d and the history of Alma the Elder\u2019s people at the waters of Mormon. As Mormon\u2019s people lose the \u201clove [which] endureth by faith unto prayer\u201d (Moroni\u00a08:26; see also Moroni\u00a08:14\u201217; 9:5) they become like the \u201cbitter fountain\u201d (Moroni\u00a07:11) and do not endure to the end in faith, hope, and charity on the covenant path (cf. 2\u00a0Nephi\u00a031:20; Moroni\u00a07:40\u201288; 8:24\u201226). The name Mormon\u00a0(\u201cdesire is enduring\u201d or \u201clove is enduring\u201d), as borne by the prophet-editor of the Book of Mormon, embraces the whole cloud of these associations.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also new on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, from Jeffrey M. Bradshaw<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBook of Moses Textual Criticism 3: Was the Book of Moses Simply an Unplanned Afterthought to Moses 1?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

A response to Thomas A. Wayment, \u201cIntertextuality and the purpose of Joseph Smith\u2019s new translation of the Bible,\u201d in\u00a0Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources,\u00a0<\/em>edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen and Sharalyn Howcroft, 74-100 (New York City, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0 \u00a0 I was really busy yesterday, so I didn\u2019t have time to post a link to the latest iteration of my bi-weekly column for the Deseret News.\u00a0 But here it is.\u00a0 This particular installment is unusually autobiographical: \u00a0 \u201cWhen the Pope left the Vatican for a meeting of healing: When Pope John Paul II […]<\/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":[16214,56,2025,11518,1809,5787,2905,1815,788,55,7206,2028,3742,3988,16211,16208],"class_list":["post-88011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bishops","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-book-of-moses","tag-canon","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-john-paul-ii","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-lds","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-moses","tag-pearl-of-great-price","tag-pope","tag-rome","tag-st-paul-outside-the-walls","tag-waters-of-mormon"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Waters of Mormon, Baptism, the Love of God, and the Bitter Fountain"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I was really busy yesterday, so I didn't have time to post a link to the latest iteration of my bi-weekly column for the Deseret 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