Episode 108: 2 Kings 17-25

Ben and Shiloh talk about the Word of Wisdom and in how we create our modes of worship. The Word of Wisdom is a fascinating conversation, but it is often criticized because of its seeming inconsistencies. The Word of Wisdom has evolved and has been through various revisions, interpretations, and levels of enforcement, and this has sometimes caused a lack of belief in its importance or its power. However, when we understand the Word of Wisdom by means of creating religious modality, we can also create space for historical changes and nuance while also strengthening our choice to adhere to the Word of Wisdom. Any seeming incongruity or inconsistency in our modes of worship need not necessarily derail or detract us from finding deep meaning and purpose in those modes that we experience God through. ...

Can we properly understand the Old Testament if we skip reading some of its chapters? In this longer-than-usual episode, Ben and Christopher tackle Exodus 35-40 and the entire book of Leviticus. This intimidating section of scripture was difficult to approach, but with some help from the great Rob Bell, much of the seemingly irrelevant and bizarre has taken on relevance and profound meaning. In this Priestly manual, the sons of Aaron are invited to participate in the tending of the sacred space created in the Tabernacle as part of a new creation extending beyond it. Israel is called to be this new creation because the LORD has delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Their new system and society respond to the injustices of their captivity, establishing the weekly, seventh-year, and 50th-year (Jubilee) Sabbaths as signs of Israel’s covenant relationship with the LORD. All of this in about an hour and a half. As a bonus, Ben and Christopher spend about half an hour more responding to the above question, first raised by Christopher’s daughter (though already on Christopher and Ben’s minds) by delving deeper into what scripture is, and what to do with it in our own covenant relationship with the LORD. ...

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? ...