Episode 100: Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy, Devarim, Words. Moses’ words recall his uneasy relationship with speech all the way back to his conversation with God at the burning bush. Moses recounts Israelite history from the Exodus on, continually reiterating that he will not cross into the promised land with his people. This melancholy reminiscing of Moses is likely a product of later editors who crafted this text to fit their contemporary religious reforms around the 7th Century BC. God is more narrowly defined and religious practice is centralized under the authority of the temple priests. This context provides interesting possibilities for the narrative of Lehi and his family in the Book of Mormon. To what degree might Lehi’s persecution be for what are deemed by the Deuteronomistic reformers to be unorthodox beliefs and religious practices? How might Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life relate to the Divine Feminine that is so systematically subverted in Deuteronomy? This final book of the Torah calls for interpretation as much as it is itself a complex work of reinterpretation and reform of the Israelite tradition.