Line Upon Line - JS-H 1:45-46, 49, 54

 

From the last post describing Moroni's visit to a repentant, 17 year-old Joseph Smith, we concentrated on how Smith's familiarity with scripture prepared him to received paradigm-shifting earthquakes as new contexts for prophecies became the content of an angelic message. We also noted how little of this content was relayed beyond Smith himself--as third party readers, we are told that the bulk of the message is not recorded here, just important summary details.

As a pedagogue who strives for excellence in teaching, what stuck out to me in the next verses was the mercy and didactic skill evident in Moroni's subsequent visits. With Joseph's mind still reeling from familiar passages given new light, the angel again penetrates the room and speaks: 

"He commenced, and again related the very same things which he had done at his first visit, without the least variation" (1:45)

There is a brief addition to the message this time, but then, after leaving Smith alone to ponder, yet again the messenger emerges from his luminous conduit, and, as Smith relates: 

"what was my surprise when again I beheld the same messenger at my bedside, and heard him rehearse or repeat over again to me the same things as before" (1:46)

After the repetition, without the least variation once more, we must assume, there was again an addition to the communication which built upon what was now already firmly anchored in the memory before the being of light once again departed.

Finally, as the night dissipated and the work day on the farm began without Joseph's ability to contribute much, the angel made one last appearance on that property, which is recorded for us with with the inclusion of: 

"He then again related unto me all that he had related to me the previous night" (1:49)

There's a double effect that this pedagogical method produces. First, repetition is the soul of teaching, and reinforces the message and details at each retelling. But it also structurally sets apart the non-repeated elements as even more memorable. In this case, the core was an exposition of scripture--of prior prophecy and pending fulfillment, all packaged in a new paradigm's arc, and the non-repeated additions align as follows: 1. a new prophecy of impending judgments (implying that Joseph's role would help mitigate them); 2. a warning to hold the plates sacred and avoid material temptation to profit therefrom; 3. a commandment to bring his father into the circle of trust about these visits.

I find these additions significant. They ground Smith in a few important ideas: 1. that God provides mantic manifestations and will continue to do so--He's not limited to speaking only through past prophets; 2. that God wants to prepare his servants against particular temptations and forces seeking to stymy the work; 3. that support in his functions and service as prophet will include not only heavenly sources, but earthly ones that know him best and care for him best--that family hearts were being prepared to accept the paradigm shifts that will come through him.

As we each receive callings to serve in the Church, this seems to me applicable as a pattern: 1. we need to seek His specific word on behalf of those within our influence, and expect that He will guide us; 2. He is interested in our success, which includes arming us with foreknowledge of our adversaries; 3. We have a circle of support He is concurrently priming to bear us up as we commit to serve.

On the fifth visit--the one at the hill Cumorah--we have the only one in this passage for which there is no mention of the actual arrival. We don't know at what point the angel appeared--whether it was before the unearthing of the box, during the course of removing earth, obtaining a lever, and peering under the stone, or at the moment of his first attempt to handle and remove the box's contents, as if in sudden warning. However we imagine the scene, what's clear is that the pedagogy was not complete--that the repetitions would continue, at regular intervals, for years. This would both allow Joseph to mature intellectually, spiritually, physically and socially, and would allow the message itself to have space for growth. 

Finally, a quick note on the reception of revelation. As Smith closes this part of his record, he deploys, for the first time, a suggestive term that hints toward a more mutual interaction than the previous verses. As he describes a prayer for forgiveness becoming an angelic visit, his narrative focus is appropriately on the messenger, the message and its reception. But the Cumorah visit and its subsequent annual visits--his fifth through ninth interactions with Moroni--seem described in a way that might have also applied to the previous 4: as "interviews". Joseph is allowed to question, to ask for clarification, to converse. His learning is active, not passive, and this also forms part of the model we should strive for as students of the Divine nature. Let us bring our curiosity, and allow our humility to show through active engagement with the voice of the Lord, whether it be through text (reading AND writing), through intermediaries, or through more direct representatives like the Holy Ghost. As He teaches us line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, let us be agents, moving with our minds and our feet ever closer to the higher truths He wants to reveal to us.

The Manner of our Understanding - D&C 1:24

 "Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding"

 With the section opening so strongly on the concept of the voice of the Lord, this connected point about the language of the Lord gains more meaning and deserves more reflection.

First, as a reminder, "hearkening" as we are told to do, not just listen or hear, means that there's an active opening of heart, mind, and will to the message. The implication is that while messages must come from authorized sources, our task as receivers is to convert the symbols into an actionable contribution to our understanding, feeling, and motivation.

As Saussure's lectures on general linguistics establishes, communication presupposes at least two interlocutors (a sender and a receiver), a message, and a shared code, and as Grice adds, there must be a cooperative principle orienting interpretation or else the message received will not be the one intended. This verse insists on all of the above. The message sender is God, who can use proxies and various forms as vehicles for His Word. The receiver is us, and whether through human intermediaries or mediated by the various forms verbal communication can take (audible, textual), we must incline our faculties of interpretation with humble attitudes in order to accept the divine messages. The code we share is the language used.

I find it heartening to know that God adapts his message through codes as part of His design to increase understanding and obtain the goal of everyone "speaking" for the Lord. He spoke to Adam in Adamic, Moses in Egyptian, Isaiah in Hebrew, and to Peter in Aramaic. And while I don't think this principle means He is equally pleased with both King James early modern English and the latest Gen Z slang "translation," it does mean that His messages are not arcane, not meant to be inaccessible, not so far beyond the common tongue that there are educational barriers to understanding.

But that also does not mean that the messages are shallow or lack complexity.

Notice the structure of this section, punctuated and broken down into verse for us after the fact, contains very few independent propositions, but rather includes multiple embedded clauses and other kinds of complex sentence structure. It takes effort to unpack. And I think that's the model for all scripture--it's given to us in understandable form, but the meaning we wring from it is a function of both our effort and our initiation. In fact, it's also a function of our faith: our lived experience heeding and hearkening to what light we have received.

The above image is a common depiction of the Annunciation. Many medieval and renaissance era artists depicted the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove aiming at the ear, not the womb of Mary as the angel Gabriel revealed to her that she would bear the Son of God. The unbelieving poke fun at the idea of a virgin birth, and literalists poke fun at the concept of conception through the tympanic membrane rather than in the usual manner. But these depictions, like all words, are symbolic--sometimes symbolic on multiple levels at once. Just as the Holy Ghost enters only metaphorically through the ear, so the language of the Lord is aimed at our emotion, our reason, and our will, and enters only through our embodied faculties of reception.

Yes, the Being of perfection, or omniscience and omnipotence doesn't compel understanding, even though He could, and even though the behaviors thus motivated would accord with His will more certainly and universally. Instead, this Father adapts to maximize our growth toward Him, which is less about crossing an information gap between us and Him as it is about choosing to take growth steps and beginning what part of the crossing we can begin.

Hearkening has to include effort, but He also makes efforts to be understandable. And since all symbolic communication improves with initiation, the invitation is to learn more about the symbols. Don't just assume that since you are a reader of English your study of the Doctrine and Covenants will transparently grant you the fathoming of all of the Lord's depths.

The dove aimed at Mary's ear to "conceive" of the Savior has another layer--a contrast--that enhances understanding. Eve listened to the serpent and sin was brought into the world. Contrasting Eve and Mary, the serpent and Christ, holiness and sin, the choice to accept temptation versus the choice to accept blessing, all in a single image element draws out multiple facets of the Savior's character and roles. It allows us to identify with new aspects of the avatars for all of us. It allows us new gratitude for the magnitude of Christ's atoning sacrifice.

I hope, in the same way, that as we open our minds and hearts to learning new symbolic entry-points into scripture, our hearkening and gratitude will be continuously drawn toward improvement, toward matching, as best our imperfect selves are able, His model.