Episode 108: 2 Kings 17-25

Shiloh and Ben discuss the journeys of the sons of Mosiah as they take the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Lamanites. They discuss the myth of cosmology in how it relates to establishing authority, and how this may have been a familiar tool and understanding to convince King Lamoni of the incorrect traditions of his fathers. Both Ben and Shiloh want to know more about Abish, and Shiloh resolves to ask Mormon (at some point in eternity) why we have so much about geography and Nephite coinage in the Book of Mormon but we're left wanting to know more about Abish and the Zion-type people in 4th Nephi. King Lamoni and his household, as well as Lamoni's father and his household, tastes of the love of God, as it is the love of God that leads to conversion. ...

Shiloh and Ben open up a discussion about the scriptural-based idea of “shame” and what it means to “speak our trauma.” The Lord commands the early Saints to “confound your enemies” privately and publicly, and through our faithfulness our enemies’ shame will be demonstrated and “made manifest” (D&C 71:7). There are many things to unpack from this verse alone in how the Lord posits “enemies” and “shame,” but is this verse as simple as it sounds? There are many assumptions that we make in our interpretations that are unwittingly culturally informed. Through modern scholarship, we can see another way that we do this in how we approach the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Was Joseph’s “translation” an actual translation? Did Joseph borrow from modern sources? Was it a combination of both? ...

Ben and Shiloh talk about the letters from Joseph Smith to the Church while he was in hiding concerning the new and unique doctrine of baptism for the dead. These letters show an increasing complexity in Joseph’s understanding of the “Mormon Cosmology” and in how the Plan of Salvation operates. By the time these letters were written in 1842, Joseph had already started secretly engaging in the practice of plural marriage (showing that he had been thinking of the eternal nature of men and women and of humanity’s eternal relationships) and had participated in the rites of the newly established Freemasonry lodge in Nauvoo (which added a new layer of symbolism, rite, and ritual than was ever presented to him before). Additionally, the pain and trauma of losing his brother Alvin had strongly impacted Joseph throughout his entire life. Before Joseph was able to obtain the gold plates, Alvin died rather suddenly prior to choosing to be baptized into any local church. At his funeral, William Smith (Alvin’s and Joseph’s brother) wrote that the Presbyterian minister who presided over the funeral had “intimated very strongly that he [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member”. Years later, after the Kirtland Temple dedication, Joseph received a vision wherein he saw Alvin in the Celestial kingdom, and Joseph wondered how Alvin could be in heaven given that he had never been baptized. Joseph was instructed in the vision that those who had died without hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ would have the opportunity of hearing it in the next life. As Joseph would later contemplate over certain passages in the Bible (as shown in Section ...