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Two new articles appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLehi\u2019s Dream, Nephi\u2019s Blueprint: How Nephi Uses the Vision of the Tree of Life as an Outline for 1 and 2 Nephi,\u201d<\/a> written by Noel B. Reynolds<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0This essay harnesses the late twentieth-century discovery of Hebrew rhetoric by Bible scholars to identify Lehi\u2019s dream as the foundation of the carefully constructed unity in Nephi\u2019s writings and to identify previously unrecognized elements of that dream which are distributed throughout his final work. The teachings and prophecies in 1 and 2 Nephi are shown to derive from their shared dream\/vision. Further, the entirety of Nephi\u2019s writings in the Small Plates is shown to be a\u00a0tightly designed rhetorical production that establishes the centrality of Christ\u2019s identity, mission, and teachings for current and future generations of Lehi\u2019s descendants and ultimately for the entire world. For decades, interpreters of the Book of Mormon and its teachings have singled out the vision of the tree of life given first to Lehi and subsequently to his son Nephi as one of the book\u2019s most prominent elements that require careful study. While literary and visual artists continue to find inspiration in the human dramas retold throughout the book, the text itself features visualizations1<\/sup><\/a> of its basic doctrinal messages: (1) God on his throne in heavenly council, (2) the tree of life with the straight and narrow path, the iron rod, and the great and spacious building, and (3) the allegory of the olive tree. As I\u00a0will explain below, those three visual images are part of Lehi\u2019s and Nephi\u2019s great vision and provide the blueprint for the complex of covenant history and\u00a0doctrinal teaching recorded by multiple authors throughout the entire book. This article will trace that blueprint in the structure and content of Nephi\u2019s Small Plates with limited side glances at the rest of the text.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInterpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>: Visions as Scriptural Blueprint,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n This post is a summary of the article \u201cLehi\u2019s Dream, Nephi\u2019s Blueprint: How Nephi Uses the Vision of the Tree of Life as an Outline for 1 and 2 Nephi<\/a>\u201d by Noel Reynolds in Volume 52 of\u00a0Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n An introduction to the Interpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>\u00a0series is available at\u00a0https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The Takeaway:<\/strong>\u00a0 Reynolds argues that Nephi\u2019s vision of the Tree of Life and Lehi\u2019s initial theophanies in 1 Nephi 1 may be one and the same, and that this vision serves as a carefully structured outline for the spiritual content of the Small Plates, which is itself organized chiastically, highlighting the importance of the plan of salvation, God\u2019s covenantal promises to his people, and individual adherence to the gospel of Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n An Associated Press story has gained considerable traction over the past couple of days, suggesting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> covered up seven years of sexual abuse.\u00a0 Inspired to new enthusiasm by the story, many critics are really beating the Church up.\u00a0 They see the case as proof of fundamental corruption.\u00a0 Several people have asked me<\/em> about the story; some critics have challenged me, in particular, to respond to it.\u00a0 But I have no special insight into the case and no specific knowledge of it beyond what little I\u2019ve read.\u00a0 (Even my own experience as a bishop gives me no particularly helpful background for commenting on the Arizona case; I was the bishop of a young single adult ward that had no children in it.)\u00a0 But here are two helpful links from committed and believing Latter-day Saints, one official and one non-official, that concern the Associated Press story:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cChurch Offers Statement on Help Line and Abuse: Church responds to recent Associated Press article about the Church\u2019s abuse help line\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAre Publicized Abuse Cases Exceptional or Representative of Our Faith?\u00a0 Responses to key questions regarding the Associated Press report alleging attempts to cover up sexual abuse cases in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Steve Smoot alerted me a couple of days ago to the fact that John Dehlin is still claiming, on the basis of alleged inside information, that Elders Marlin Jensen and Jeffrey R. Holland were \u201cinvolved\u201d in my 2012 removal from BYU\u2019s Maxwell Institute.\u00a0 Supposedly, too, this was a \u201cdirect\u201d result of my \u201cunwillingness to back down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m not exactly sure just what it is<\/em> from which I\u2019m supposed to have refused to back down.\u00a0 Mr. Dehlin likes to imagine that the Maxwell Institute drop-kicked me out the door because we were moving toward the publication of Greg Smith\u2019s manuscript about, well, the views of John Dehlin.\u00a0 (By the way, I\u2019m happy for this opportunity to call attention yet again to that meticulously researched and eye-opening paper.\u00a0 See \u201cGregory L. Smith\u2019s Review of \u201cMormon Stories.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe it to be true that Greg\u2019s paper was the principal cause of my dismissal as editor of the FARMS Review<\/em>, though it almost certainly played a role.\u00a0 \u00a0(There were at least one or two people in the Maxwell Institute at the time, it turns out, who were friendly to and sympathetic with Mr. Dehlin.\u00a0 Presumably, they were his contacts and inside sources.\u00a0 But the Greg Smith paper was never, ever, mentioned to me by anybody in any authority anywhere as a reason or justification for my dismissal.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If, however, Mr. Dehlin is alleging that I refused to back down from publishing that article, he\u2019s flatly wrong.\u00a0 When, in a face-to-face meeting between the two of us, the late M. Gerald Bradford, who was the still relatively recently-appointed director of the Maxwell Institute, requested that we not run Greg\u2019s article, I immediately agreed to his request, noting that we had another article in hand that we could easily substitute in its place.\u00a0 My only question was whether we were being asked to withhold the article permanently or whether this was just a temporary request, pending Dr. Bradford\u2019s having an opportunity to read it.\u00a0 (He had not yet read it \u2014 virtually nobody had, outside of our editorial team \u2014 and, so far as I\u2019m aware, he never did.)\u00a0 My question was never answered.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Maxwell Institute never did publish that substitute article, of course, because, shortly after our meeting, Dr. Bradford altogether terminated publication of the journal.\u00a0 Coincidentally, though, the proposed replacement-article was also<\/em> by Greg Smith, and it eventually appeared in Interpreter<\/em> as \u201c\u201cEndless Forms Most Beautiful\u201d: The uses and abuses of evolutionary biology in six works.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n