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KERRY MUHLESTEIN

Kerry is a professor of ancient scripture and ancient near eastern studies. he received his b.s. from byu in psychology with a hebrew minor, an m.a. in ancient near eastern studies from byu and his ph.d. from ucla in egyptology with a secondary emphasis in hebrew language and literature. in his final year he was named the ucla affiliates graduate student of the year. before coming to byu he taught at byu-hawaii. he is the director of the byu egypt excavation project. he was selected by the princeton review in 2012 as one of the best 300 professors in the nation. he was also a visiting fellow at the university of oxford for the 2016-17 academic year. he has published 11 books, and over 60 peer reviewed articles. he and his wife, julianne, are the parents of six children and one grandchild, and together they have lived in jerusalem while kerry has taught there on multiple occasions. he created and hosts the podcast the scriptures are real..

EXPLORE KERRY'S UPCOMING TOURS

BYU-Hawaii Professor Tours Ancient Egyptian Sites

Hawaii Religion and history professor Dr. Kerry Muhlestein recently returned from a three-week tour with the prestigious American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) that enhances his ability to teach Old Testament, the Pearl of Great Price, world civilization and ancient Egyptian history.

Muhlestein, who earned his Ph.D. in Egyptology from UCLA and has been teaching at BYU-Hawaii since Fall 2003, explained he had previously been to Egypt, but had never gone south of Cairo to the historically significant sites of Karnak and Luxor.

"We went to all the major sites. They're doing conservation work on many of them, but since I was with ARCE, we were able to get into these, work with the conservators, and learn about the latest developments, which is great for me because I'm teaching a historiography class on ancient Egypt in the Spring term," Muhlestein said. "We also met twice with the secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, who was a teacher of mine at UCLA."

Muhlestein explained while growing up in Sandy, Utah, he felt "drawn to Egypt. I was drawn to ancient history in general, and that which spoke to me most was ancient Egypt — probably because symbolism speaks to me; and I think if we really want to understand the scriptures, we have to understand ancient symbolism."

"No culture used symbolism as much as Egypt. That world of symbols drew me in, and I knew I wouldn't be happy teaching if I didn't do everything I could to be as good as I could."

"While sometimes we fall into a trap that if we understand the ancient work, we automatically understand the gospel better," he continued. "We need to be discriminating, but it's true that understanding the language of symbolism unlocks the Old Testament. Every other scripture we have relies on Old Testament symbolism, so in a way it unlocks all the scriptures. That doesn't mean everyone in the Church needs to study ancient history all the time; but I do think everyone who can [arrange it] would love a trip to Egypt. It's a safe and wonderful place to go. Given the opportunity and means, I can' t think of anyone who wouldn't be grateful they went."

Muhlestein is actually a philologist — "I work with the text and the icons — which means as part of his formal education he has passed exams in ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, Moabite, German and French, "and I took classes in Akkadian and Ugaritic. These are languages that are more closely related to Egyptian. I also took a class in Coptic. These are things that help you understand the ancient language of Egypt."

He said seeing the ancient symbolism and text in their original contexts was a boon to his understanding. "For example, I was once working on a project built by Seti I for Osiris: There's this very interesting collection of text on the walls. All the publications having to do with it are about 100 years old, and they're not complete. It's crucial to see how the characters interact with each other, and the site has been inundated with waters for years. They've been working on draining it, but it's not safe enough for public tours, and no more recent publications were available.

"I was able to get permission to go in, wade through some muck, and see the passage I wanted to see with a telephoto lens. The way the text and the artwork interact in Egyptian culture is very important," Muhlestein said. "That's a project I had to shelve five years ago now I can work on again, and for an article I've already submitted for publication. Now I've been there, I saw them, I took pictures, and it changed some of my conclusions."

Muhlestein added that the field trip "also really enhances my ability to teach: Some of the really important text for books on the Egyptian afterlife first appeared during the time of Seti I. Some of these were used in his tomb, which has been closed for quite a while. As ARCE, we were able to get access to it. Because I've seen pictures of all these texts, you can only see what fits on a page, so to actually get into the passageway and see the whole thing together was amazing."

"These are texts about going through gates and the afterlife, and I realized physically you're going through passageways and doorways. You go through doorways and down a few steps. This was something I didn't realize, because the publications can't portray it, and I hadn't been there before. Even if I had gone before, I wouldn't have been able to get into the tomb."

He said he developed similar impressions about the scale of the temple at Luxor and the great temple of Karnak. Of the latter, he noted, "I've studied it, read all about it, gone through a publication that has large photos of every part — it's a giant temple that makes Luxor look small — and I still didn't understand really how impressive it was until I got into the Great Hypostyle Hall, which means it's full of columns, and looked at those columns and roofs. No matter how many pictures you've seen, it is jaw dropping. It really takes your breath away, and you stand in awe, which was its intent."

"There's something about being in the place that you're actually studying that's crucial," Muhlestein continued, adding he couldn't be in Cairo — "one of the largest cities in the world, for the most part of a different faith — and see their devotion, and not realize that these are children God loves."

"It really causes you to think about the great work that God has for his children in the globalization of the Church. You meet so many wonderful friends who have such a different life than you do."

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Faithful Study Resources for Come, Follow Me

Egyptology and the Book of Abraham: An Interview with Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein

November 14, 2013 by Stephen Smoot

Mormon fascination with the ancient world stems largely from an exotic corpus of writings found in the canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One book in the Church’s canon, the Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith claimed to be an inspired translation of some ancient Egyptian papyri, has captured Mormon imagination with a vibrant narrative involving the eponymous biblical patriarch, human sacrifice, far-off lands, divine encounters and a grand cosmology.

One BYU professor, Kerry Muhlestein, has devoted a good portion of his academic career (over a decade) investigating the saga of the Book of Abraham. Muhlestein, who holds a PhD in Egyptology from UCLA, is an associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU. According to his faculty bio on the BYU Religious Education website, Muhlestein “is the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project,” which has led successful archaeological digs in Egypt, and has academic expertise in fields including “Ancient Egypt, Hebrew Bible, [and the] Pearl of Great Price.”

Muhlestein explains that his decision to study Egyptology began with an interest in “the world of symbols present in ancient Egypt, and the way the Egyptians could find meaning in everything around them. If there was ever a culture that kept an eye on eternity, and yet enjoyed every-day life, it was the Egyptians.” Surprisingly, despite this passion for ancient Egypt, Muhlestein explains that at first he “did not have an academic interest” in the Book of Abraham. “When I went into Egyptology it was not to do anything with the Book of Abraham. I wanted to avoid it. My interest was in Egypt itself.”

Things would eventually change, however, as Muhlestein explains that “after some time I felt I needed to learn at least a little bit about the Book of Abraham because so many people asked me questions. After having given some wrong answers to some questions, I decided to really get into some of the Egyptological aspects of it so that I could correct my own mistakes.” This area of study has proven fruitful, as Muhlestein has published several articles on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri, including: “ The Book of Breathings in Its Place ,” “ Approaching Understandings in the Book of Abraham ,” “ Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: Some Questions and Answers ,” “ An Egyptian Context for the Sacrifice of Abraham ” and “ The Religious and Cultural Background of Joseph Smith Papyrus I .” A new CD series, “ Understanding the Book of Abraham ,” aimed at a general LDS audience was just released last month by Muhlestein.

In an interview with the  Student Review , Muhlestein shared some of his thoughts on the Book of Abraham and the attending scholarly issues currently being investigated by him and other scholars.

Student Review (SR):  How did Joseph Smith receive the Egyptian papyri he translated?

Kerry Muhlestein:  Joseph Smith purchased the papyri from Michael Chandler, who brought them to Kirtland, Ohio in 1835. Chandler came because he knew of the Prophet’s interest in ancient languages. Chandler was showing the mummies and papyri in a traveling show, but had begun selling the collection a bit at a time.

SR:  How did Joseph Smith translate these papyri?

Muhlestein:  We do not know the exact process by which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham, besides that it was done by the power of God. There is some evidence that suggests he used the Urim and Thummim, or possibly his seer stone. It is not completely clear whether he was actually translating from the papyri, something akin to how he translated the golden plates of the Book of Mormon, or if he was translating by receiving pure revelation, as he did with the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, or if there was a combination of these two methods, or even something else entirely. We just don’t have enough information.

SR:  When was the Book of Abraham published?

Muhlestein:  The Book of Abraham was first published in three installments in March and May 1842 in the Church’s newspaper  Times and Seasons .

SR:  What happened to the papyri after Joseph Smith’s death? How did the Church recover them in the 1960s?

Muhlestein:  Lucy Mack Smith cared for the papyri and mummies after Joseph Smith died. When she passed away, Emma and her new husband quickly sold them to a man named Abel Combs. Combs sold them to a museum, and eventually they ended up in a museum in Chicago. The museum burned in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, and it turns out that mummies and papyri burn exceptionally well! All of Joseph Smith’s former Egyptian collection that was in the museum was lost forever. For a long time we thought that was the whole collection. But it turned out that Combs had given a small portion of the papyri–––the fragments that had been mounted on paper and framed–––to his housekeeper. Her descendants eventually sold them to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The curators recognized the drawing that was the source of Facsimile 1, and knew they were something of interest to the Church. They waited for the right time to make a connection with the Church, which finally came in 1967 when a visiting scholar from the University of Utah did some research at the museum. He arranged for a meeting with Church leaders, at which the museum gave the papyri to the Church, which has maintained possession of these few fragments ever since.

SR:  Where do the Joseph Smith Papyri come from? Who owned them anciently? How were they discovered?

Muhlestein:  While most of the papyri Joseph Smith owned were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, a few fragments survived. These are the only fragments about which we know anything. Some Egyptians who lived in Thebes around 200 BC owned these papyri anciently. One of them was an important priest by the name of Hor. An Italian explorer named Antonio Lebolo excavated the papyri probably in the early 1820s. Upon Lebolo’s death a small collection that included the papyri was sold in New York, and eventually ended up in the care of Michael Chandler, who sold them to Joseph Smith.

SR:  Do the Joseph Smith Papyri date to the time of Abraham?

Muhlestein:  The fragments we have date nearly 2000 years later than Abraham. Thus, if the source of the Book of Abraham is some of the papyri Joseph Smith owned, and if that papyrus dates to the same time period as the fragments we now have, then that papyrus would be a transmitted copy of the original that was written by Abraham. This would make it just like the sources we have for the Old and New Testaments, which are translations of copies of copies of original documents.

SR:  Do any of the surviving Joseph Smith Papyri contain the Book of Abraham?

Muhlestein:  When we translate the papyri fragments we now have they turn out to be Egyptian funerary texts.

SR:  Did the ancient Egyptians ever have any interest in Abraham?

Muhlestein:  Starting at least by 200–150 BC there were many Egyptians who were interested in Abraham. In particular, we know that a group of priests were collecting stories from other religious traditions and using those stories in their own religious spells. We know that some of them had specifically collected stories about Abraham and Moses. At least some of those who were doing this were priests from Thebes. This is most interesting because Joseph Smith Papyrus I, X, and XI were owned by the priest Hor from Thebes from the same time period.

SR:  What can you say about the so-called “Kirtland Egyptian Papers” or the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar documents?

Muhlestein:  I do not think anyone really understands what the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar documents are. W. W. Phelps did almost all of it, though one page is in the handwriting of Joseph Smith. My best guess would be that these documents represent an attempt by Joseph Smith and others interested in ancient languages to try to decipher Egyptian using their own abilities and ideas, perhaps basing this on some of the translation of the Book of Abraham the Prophet had done through inspiration. It is pretty clear, based on the historical evidence, that they soon gave up on this and instead pursued learning Hebrew, eventually hiring a Hebrew teacher. In the end, we really don’t know what they were trying to do when they created the documents called the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar.

SR:  Do Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the facsimiles that accompany the Book of Abraham match the interpretations of Egyptologists?

Muhlestein:  There are aspects of Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the facsimiles that match what Egyptologists say they mean. Some aspects are quite compelling, especially for Facsimile 1. However, as we look at the entirety of any of the facsimiles, an Egyptological interpretation does not match what Joseph Smith said about them. That being said, we do not know to what we really should compare the facsimiles. Was Joseph Smith giving us an interpretation that ancient Egyptians would have held, or one that only a small group of priests interested in Abraham would have held, or one that a group of ancient Jews in Egypt would have held, or something another group altogether would have held, or was he giving us an interpretation we needed to receive for our spiritual benefit regardless of how any ancient groups would have seen these? We do not know. While I can make a pretty good case for the idea that some Egyptians could have viewed Facsimile 1 the way Joseph Smith presents it, I am not sure that is the methodology we should be employing. We just don’t know enough about what Joseph Smith was doing to be sure about any possible comparisons, or lack thereof.

SR:  Does the Book of Abraham have any evidence for ancient origins?

Muhlestein:  There are many interesting little evidences that support the idea that the Book of Abraham is an ancient document. For example, the text speaks of Jershon, and names it as lying along a route where an ancient city now known as Jerash lies. The likelihood that Joseph Smith would make up a name that has such a wonderful linguistic match in exactly the right place is pretty small. Similarly, the Book of Abraham speaks of an Olishem. Ancient texts have since revealed the name of a place called “Ulishem” that existed during Abraham’s day. As time goes on we learn more and more of this Ulishem and its geographic location works very well with the story told in the text of the Book of Abraham. Again, the chances that Joseph Smith could make up the right name in the right place are very small, but doing it twice is even less likely. There are other similar things that suggest an ancient origin for the text.

SR:  What do you think are some legitimate criticisms against the Book of Abraham? How would you respond to them?

Muhlestein:  I would say that, to my knowledge, all the criticisms that seem legitimate are based on assumptions that people usually don’t even know they have, and that these assumptions prove to be problematic when we examine them. We have to be careful about what we assume about Joseph Smith’s translation process, what the source of the Book of Abraham was, etc.

SR:  Some scholars have argued that we’re missing a substantial portion of the Joseph Smith Papyri. Others deny this, and say we’re only missing a few scraps. How much of the Joseph Smith Papyri do you think are we’re missing, and why is that significant?

Muhlestein:  The historical documents make it clear that we have very little of the papyri Joseph Smith had. Even after several fragments were mounted to paper and put under glass (presumably this is what we have now), the eyewitnesses say that there was a large roll and another roll (smaller, but presumably still sizable) of papyri. This means that the largest portion of the papyrus collection is not the fragments that we now have, but rather has been lost.

SR:  What doctrinal benefits or insights do Church members gain from the Book of Abraham?

Muhlestein:  In the Book of Abraham we learn significant things about Abraham, about the Abrahamic Covenant, about the nature of mankind and our pre-mortal existence and about our relationship with God. That is pretty significant information for a few pages of text. In many ways it is a profound and very inspiring book.

SR:  What would you say to those who might be going through a crisis of faith because of arguments they read against the Book of Abraham?

Muhlestein:  I would say that they should be careful about what they believe, they should be careful of the assumptions that they make, but especially they should be careful not to value theories and assumptions of man more than they value information they can learn from revelation. I am fully certain that most of the things people are so concerned about now will one day be shown to be based on mistakes. The academic process is built on trying to correct the faulty ideas we currently have. However, revelation is a different process, one that does not put forward ideas today that will be overturned tomorrow. I urge you to question the bad assumptions found in my ideas and everyone else’s. As you do so, remember that revelation gives you access to a source of knowledge that is neither faulty nor given to bad assumptions. Knowing the flaws of the academic process I choose to value revelation as a source of knowledge we can trust in more.

Ultimately, Muhlestein says, “there are so many people who have honest questions but have a difficult time finding a fair, honest and accurate source for answers. My driving passion, therefore, is to figure out what is going on with the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri, and to just try to expand our horizons of understanding regarding this amazing book of scripture.”

[Note: This interview is a slightly modified version of an article originally published with the Student Review , an independent BYU student newspaper. To see the original article, please click here . Muhlestein has appeared in a documentary on the Book of Abraham produced by FairMormon. For a preview of the documentary, see A Most Remarkable Book: Evidence for the Divine Authenticity of the Book of Abraham .]

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Nile Scribes

Your Portal to Ancient Egypt

Meet the BYU Egypt Excavation Project Director Dr. Kerry Muhlestein

About ‘meet an egyptologist’.

This Nile Scribes series allows our readers to learn more about Egyptologists from around the world. From questions about their life and their career, we also explore their research interests and their impact and perspectives on the field of Egyptology. We want to use this series to help strengthen the public’s awareness of the Egyptological community, and to illustrate the varied careers and on-going research projects within the discipline. In this edition, the Nile Scribes spoke with Dr. Kerry Muhlestein from BYU in Provo about his life and research.

Who is Dr. Kerry Muhlestein?

We had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Kerry Muhlestein at the SSEA’s 42nd Symposium earlier this month (read about the symposium here ) where he presented on his excavations at Fag el-Gamous, and afterward graciously agreed to an interview. He completed his PhD in Egyptology at the University of California in 2003 and is currently Professor of Ancient Scripture affiliated with the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University. He also currently serves as the Vice President of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.

Nile Scri bes:  Where are you from and where were you educated?

Kerry Muhlestein: I am from Sandy, Utah, about half an hour south of Salt Lake City and half an hour north of Provo. I did my undergrad at BYU in Psychology. Part way through my undergraduate years I realized how much I would like to teach and how much I loved the ancient world. I was originally most fascinated with the world of the Bible, so I started to study Hebrew and courses associated with the history of the Bible. I ended up graduating in Psychology (with an emphasis on social and cultural psychology) and a minor in Hebrew.

NS: How did you get started in Egyptology?

KM: I immediately started a Master’s program at BYU in Ancient Near Eastern Studies . While my emphasis was in Hebrew Bible, I soon realized how much I had fallen in love with the world of Ancient Egypt. In particular, their facility with symbols drew me in. I started taking any kind of course I could find that was connected with Egypt, and in all my courses if there was a project that could be Egyptian in nature, I did that. I applied to Ph.D. programs in Egyptology. I was about to go to the University of Pennsylvania when Antonio Loprieno, of UCLA, came to lecture at BYU. After hearing his lecture, and taking the time to visit with him for a while, I realized that my research interests coincided with his perfectly. So I applied to UCLA and went there.

Having already taken a number of courses in Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Akkadian and Coptic, I was able to pick up Egyptian fairly quickly. Part way through my time at UCLA, Willeke Wendrich came there, and I ended up working very closely with her as well. I have always felt very blessed to have been able to work so closely with both Dr. Loprieno and Dr. Wendrich. A person could not ask for a better one-two philological and archaeological punch. They both very much took me under their wings, and I continue to feel like they are family. At UCLA we were also blessed to have a regular round of visiting professors from whom I could take classes. People like Gilles Roulin, Chris Reintges, Zahi Hawass, Monica Bontty, Katja Goebs, and Anson Rainey were a genuine pleasure to take classes from.

NS: What is your favourite museum with an Egyptian collection?

KM: I think my favorite museum is a tie, between the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Turin Museum in Italy.

NS: Can you tell us about your first trip to Egypt?

KM: I was going to work at Berenike with Dr. Wendrich. I went a week early on my own dime to see Egypt. I had never been before and I was halfway through my Ph.D. program and really wanted to see some of the things I was studying. I ended up in a hotel with a bed that was too short for me (and I am not tall). The mattress went over both the headboard and footboard, so that I slept in a U-shape the whole time. There wasn’t a chair in the entire hotel. I remember after several days I just wanted to sit down in a chair for a minute, so I walked to the Nile Hilton. It took me awhile to get there; I hadn’t yet figured out how to cross a street in Cairo (which is not as easy as it may sound). I finally figured out that if I just found a local and ran when they ran, I would be okay (this was the same method I used for getting on and off busses, which also wasn’t easy). I made my way to the Hilton and sat in their lobby for a while, just enjoying sitting down. That half an hour was a little haven for me from the busy honking of Cairo. I was also fortunate that I was able to find a very small local congregation from my church, and soon they had taken me under their wings, inviting me over for dinner and taking me with them on 4-wheel drive trips to places I still haven’t been able to return to. Still, I will always remember my chair in the Nile Hilton with great fondness. It was on this trip I also learned that I love Cairo and I love the Egyptian people. The people and places of Egypt have become an integral part of my heart.

NS: Where have you worked in Egypt?

KM: I have spent all of my excavation time in Egypt with the BYU Egypt Excavation Project . I was brought on as the assistant director, always with an eye towards the fact that the director was close to retirement and that he wanted me to keep the project going after he retired. He had a little initiation that he put people through when they went to the site for the first time. He would have us take a tuk-tuk for the last half hour on dirt roads, and then have us stop and cross the canal next to the site on a “bridge” he had built for our workers. The bridge was four barrels tied together and then tied to a cable that spanned the canal. If you could keep your balance on the “bridge” and get across the canal, you were part of the excavation. I am glad to say I made it across nice and dry.

NS: What fascinates you most about ancient Egypt?

KM: I am most drawn to the ancient Egyptian facility with symbols. How were actions symbolic? How do text and art interact with each other? How can the same symbol be reinterpreted in different contexts? How did symbols interact with the perception of everyday life? All of these questions continue to fascinate me.

NS: What are your primary research interests?

KM: One of my primary research interests is in sacred violence in Egypt. I got interested in this because I had taught, like so many others, that the Egyptians did not engage in human sacrifice. Then I encountered an example of human sacrifice that Robert Ritner had written about. I was interested in why we had all said this never happened, and yet it clearly had. I was interested in the religious reasoning behind why such a practice would or would not have happened. These questions lead me into some very fruitful fields of research.

I am also very interested in religious change. This works well with my excavation because on one hand we are working on a pyramid built by Snefru. It is part of the puzzle of how true pyramids were built and why. It also is part of the transition from north-south orientation of pyramids to an east-west orientation. This is a real time of religious change. We also have a Greco-Roman cemetery. During the lifetime of this cemetery its inhabitants converted to Christianity, another epoch of religious change. These questions fascinate me.

NS: If you could travel back in time to see one ancient Egyptian city, which would it be?

KM: If I could travel back in time, I would go back and see what Snefru was doing with building his four pyramids in the manner and places he did. This is a question that wakes me up at night, trying to figure out what is going on with the Seila Pyramid and its relationship with the Meidum Pyramid. Just give me a few minutes with Snefru and I will be happy.

NS: What are you currently working on?

KM: I am close to finishing a book about the work of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project. It will have chapters on the ritual program of the Seila Pyramid, about how the poor people of the Roman era in that area buried their dead, about mummy portraits found in that area, the translation of a papyrus fragment we found, and a bunch of other things. I think a lot of great stuff will come from the volume. After that, my next big project will be to publish the excavations of the Seila Pyramid. There is some information we still need to gain, so I plan in upcoming seasons to re-excavate a few parts of the pyramid so that we can better publish it.

NS: What are your biggest hopes for Egyptology?

KM: As I did this research I realized that so often I was dealing with circular arguments. People would encounter evidence for ritual violence, but would dismiss it because of a belief that the Egyptians didn’t engage in such practices. The next person to encounter evidence would dismiss it based on the same reasoning, and would cite the earlier person who had dismissed their evidence. In the end an assumption was used to dismiss all sorts of evidence. It is my hope that we will more and more question our assumptions, and become better and better at letting evidence speak for itself. I think sometimes we fall so in love with the cultures we study that we want them to look the way we think they should look, rather than letting them look how they would have presented themselves. We have to avoid this tendency.

NS: How do you think students can prepare more efficiently for a career in Egyptology?

KM: I still believe that one of the best things Egyptology students can do is to prepare themselves to be better historians. Taking classes in historical method will help them be better Egyptologists and help them be more employable. I still hold to the advice I gave in the first volume of the Journal of Egyptian History (1), about how much easier it is to find a job if one possess historical skills. We need more Egyptology students to find jobs, so I highly recommend doing anything that makes a person more employable. The number of Egyptology posts is low, the number of history posts is high. Just do the math.

NS: If you had to study something else besides ancient Egypt, what would it be?

KM: The wonderful thing about working with ancient Egypt is that it will never cease to surprise us. No matter how much we think we know, she has more secrets to yield to us. I don’t expect to quit being surprised by Egypt in my lifetime.

The Nile Scribes are grateful for Dr. Muhlestein’s participation in this series. If you have any questions for Dr. Muhlestein, you may contact him online through his profile below or leave a comment on the blog. Unless otherwise stated, photos are courtesy of Dr. Muhlestein and the BYU Egypt Excavation Project.

Follow Kerry Muhlestein

• Profile page at Brigham Young University
• BYU Excavations at Fag el-Gamous blog (no longer maintained)
• Muhlestein, Kerry. “Teaching Egyptian History: Some Discipline-Specific Pedagogical Notes,” in Journal of Egyptian History 2(1) (2009), pages 173-228. 

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Leading People into the Abrahamic Covenant | An Interview with Kerry Muhlestein

by Leading Saints | Mar 13, 2021 | Bishops , Podcast Episodes , Teaching | 2 comments

5:20 Found that most of his students didn’t really understand the covenant; even the teachers didn’t understand it as well as they probably should 9:10 Foundation of what the covenant is: the covenant that has existed since the foundation of the world, was established with Adam and Eve, and needs to be re-established periodically

• THE new and everlasting covenant (vs. “a” new and everlasting covenant)
• The Abrahamic covenant
• The baptismal covenant
• The marriage covenant

13:30 Teaching 8-year-olds prior to baptism about the covenant they are making

• 15:00 Its primary purpose is establishing a closer, higher relationship with God; we can have that as we change our nature and become more like him
• 18:20 “Leveling up”
• 20:15 Blessings: you become a holier person and God will give instructions so you know how to act, and the Holy Ghost is key to that

22:45 Making covenants brings us to neutral ground, and keeping or not keeping the commandments leads to consequences in the form of blessings or curses

• Negative consequences are to humble us (covenant corruption cycle)
• Love and mercy are always available to those in the covenant; He will always give us another chance: this is the gathering of Israel
• There is a long history in the scriptures of the Israelites losing their blessings and consistently getting them back

31:50 Sacrament restriction: the sacrament is a covenant renewal ceremony, so the primary reason to restrict it is to keep people from renewing the covenant when they aren’t ready

• 35:00 For everyone who sins, there is a balance in the struggle
• Am I really seeking to do this?
• We are bound together with God
• Follow the Spirit in determining when someone is ready to take the sacrament after a period of restriction
• The goal of leaders should be the same as God: to get people back into the covenant

42:00 Divorce and families in the eternities: We really don’t know how sealings will work after this life, but recognize that if we are exalted we will be happy with the results

• 43:45 There is only one thing we can completely control: our relationship with God; once you are in this covenant, God will not leave you
• 45:35 Children and sealings to parents: we need to look at the larger picture and recognize the sealing is into the house of Israel
• 49:30 The doctrine of geography about families being together forever; the empty chairs spectre: odds are, you don’t have to worry so much; there is always hope

55:00 Grace in covenants: grace is available to everyone, but it only has its full effects on someone who chooses to form a full relationship with God

• Exalting grace is available to those who have fully bound themselves to Christ; if you allow that relationship, eventually it will change you
• The atoning power of Christ’s sacrifice cannot enter in if we are not willing to submit ourselves to it

59:35 A leader is supposed to represent Christ and you do that by binding yourself to Him, then forgetting yourself and serving others

God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel outofthedust.org Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast

Hi. I loved this episode and the specifically the teaching of Joseph smith he shared about the new and everlasting covenant being created at the beginning between the godhead to save mankind. Could you share that original quote by Joseph smith?

“Everlasting covenant was made between three personages before the organizations of the earth, and relates to their dispensation of things to men on the earth, these personages according to Abraham’s record, are called God the first, the Creator, God the second, the Redeemer, and God the third, the witness or Testator.”

“Discourse, circa May 1841, as Reported By Unknown Scribe–A,” p. [1], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed September 25, 2019, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-circa-may-1841-as-reported-by-unknown-scribe-a/1 .

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Out of the Dust

The Scriptures are Real Podcast

The Scriptures Are Real (TSAR) by Kerry Muhlestein is a podcast where we look at elements of the scriptures that have become real to us. We interview both experts (people with language, archaeological, historical backgrounds, etc.), and lay folks, and explore times when the scriptures became real to them. This is done from the viewpoint of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe that there is real power in the scriptures and that as they become more real we can better apply them to our lives and draw more power from them. If you listen to this podcast you will learn all kinds of interesting background information that will help you understand and learn more from the scriptures. We believe it will allow you to add real power to your life. My gratitude to my co-host Lamar Newmeyer. Also to my friend Rich Nicholls, who composed the introductory music.

This podcast can be found on RSS Feed (its homepage) , Apple Podcasts, Spotify , Amazon/Audible and Google Podcasts .

For videos that go into details about Old Testament topics, visit my YouTube Channel .

TSAR Episodes

Correlation with the Come Follow Me Curriculum is in parentheses

Episode 1: Introduction: The Power of the Scriptures

Episode 2: Interview with Andrew Skinner about Moses 1 and Matthew 16 (week of Dec. 27)

Episode 3: Interview with Kerry Muhlestein about the Book of Abraham (week of Dec. 27 or Feb. 7)

Episode 4: Facsimiles Part 1 (week of Dec. 27 or Feb. 7)

Episode 5: Facsimiles Part 2 (week of Dec. 27 or Feb. 7)

Episode 6: Abraham Chapter Three  (week of Dec. 27)

Episode 7: Interview with J. Ward Moody about Matthew 9 and also Creation (week of Jan 3)

Episode 8: God is our (loving) king who shares everything with us (week of Jan 3)

Episode 9: Creation and chaos, a set of symbols (week of Jan 3)

Episode 10: Interview with Rebekah Call about What it means to be a "Helpmeet" (week of Jan 10)

Episode 11: Eve, Adam, and the Fall (week of Jan 10)

Episode 12: Enoch the Seer (week of Jan 17 and 24)

Episode 13: Enoch and Adam teach about death and rebirth (Jan. 17)

Episode 14: Becoming Zion

Episode 15: Keys to understanding the Old Testament (week of Jan 24)

Episode 16: Noah (week of Jan 31)

Episode 17: The Flood and Understanding God's Wrath (week of Jan 31)

Episode 18: the Covenant and Becoming Children of God, a scriptural theme (week of Jan 31)

Episode 19: Temple Imagery in the Flood and Tower of Babel

Episode 20: Interview with Dr. Phil Allred about Abraham becoming a great prophet and how it relates to our life (week of Feb 7)

Episode 21: Interview with Stephen Taeger about Genesis 12 (week of Feb 7)

Episode 22: Interview with Rebekah Call about the meaning of covenantal love, Hebrew Poetry and Biblical Geography (week of Feb 7)

Episode 23: Some of the History and Geography Behind Abraham's Life (week of Feb. 7)

Episode 24 : Abraham, Messengers, and Us (week of Feb 14)

Episode 25: Avram Shannon on the Abrahamic Sacrifice of Isaac (week of Feb. 14)

Episoede 26: Daniel Peterson on Ishmael, Arabs, and Islam Today (week of Feb. 14)

Episode 27: Learning Lessons from Rebekah (week of Feb. 21)

Episode 28: Camille Fronk Olson on the Women of Genesis (week of Feb. 21)

Episode 29: Jacob's Blessing (week of Feb. 21)

Episode 30: Jacob, Bethel, and the Temple (week of Feb. 28)

Episode 31: Creation of the House of Israel (week of Feb. 28)

Episode 32: Kim Matheson on Jacob's Wrestle (week of Feb. 28)

Episode 33: Jacob's Wrestle, the Abrahamic Sacrifice, and You (week of Feb. 28)

Episode 34: Understanding Tamar and Judah (week of March 7)

Episode 35: Cultural Elements of the Joseph Story (week of March 7)

Episode 36: Stephen Smoot on the Joseph Story (week of March 7)

Episode 37: Joseph Spencer on the Joseph Story (week of March 14)

Episode 38: Symbols of Christ in the Joseph Story (week of March 14)

Episode 39: Blessings for Each Tribe (week of March 14)

Kerry Muhlestein

College: Religious Education Department: Ancient Scripture 270L JSB

Research Interests: - Archaeology - The advent of Christianity in Egypt - Texts and iconography of Egyptian religion - Ancient Egyptian religion, history, and culture - Overlap of the Biblical and Egyptian worlds

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Kerry Muhlestein: The Grand Adventures of the Book of Abraham

When Kerry Muhlestein received a PhD in Egyptology from UCLA, he had no plans to research the Book of Abraham. But when people kept asking him about the scripture’s origins, he decided to devote his time to finding the answers. Years later, Dr. Muhlestein is considered an expert on all things Old Testament and the Pearl of Great Price. He joins us on this week’s episode to help us get excited for this year’s Come, Follow Me study.

If you lose faith in the Restoration, you have lost—in some ways—everything. Of course, you can believe in Christ and not believe in the Restoration, but believing in Christ, in the way He is taught to us through the Restoration, gives us a chance for an exaltation and a peace in this life and a joy in this life that really isn't possible any other way.

Episode References: Dr. Muhlestein’s book: Let’s Talk About the Book of Abraham

Other Old Testament/Pearl of Great Price resources by Dr. Muhlestein:

• Podcast: The Scriptures Are Real
• Website: Outofthedust.org
• Learning to Love Isaiah
• God Will Prevail
• Return Unto Me: Old Testament Messages of God’s Love For You
• Prophets & Prophecies of the Old Testament: The 46 th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium

Also recommended by Dr. Muhlestein: Pearl of Great Price Central

Show Notes: 1:36- Egyptology 5:53- Historicity of Scripture 8:55- Symbolism 14:36- Finding God in the Old Testament 18:45- Getting the Most Out 20:43- Being Okay With Ambiguity 25:55- Lost Manuscripts 33:01- Witnesses 34:05- Translation 40:18- Evidence of Truth? 47:39- Book of Moses 48:55- What Do We Have To Gain? 51:37- What Does It Mean To Be All In the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Morgan Jones 0:00

It is a story that feels like it belongs in a film Raiders of the Lost Ark or National Treasure –something like that. It involves an adventure and Egyptian mummies but this story, it actually happened. It is the origin of the Book of Abraham.

Kerry Muhlestein is a professor and former Associate Chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. He has taught in the history department of three universities and has been part of award winning history publications. He received his bachelor's degree in psychology with a Hebrew minor from BYU, his master's in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU and his PhD from UCLA in Egyptology. He is also the director of the BYU Egypt excavation project. He is the author of multiple books, including his most recent releases, Let's Talk About the Book of Abraham, and Learning to Love Isaiah.

This is All In , an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Jones. And I am so thrilled to have Kerry Muhlestein on the line with me today. Kerry, welcome.

Kerry Muhlestein 1:16

Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you.

Morgan Jones 1:18

Well, I have been looking forward to this interview so much. I have read your book, Let's Talk About the Book of Abraham , which is fantastic. And I recommend to listeners because I think despite the fact that it's a small book, we will probably only scratch the surface of everything that you cover in there today. But I wanted to start today's conversation by talking a little bit more about you and your background, if that's okay.

You have a PhD in Egyptology from UCLA. How did you initially become interested in that? And what role did your faith play in that choice to study that?

Kerry Muhlestein 2:00

Great question. Thanks for asking that Morgan. So, we don't want to go too far back in my history, but at some point, I decided that I'd like to teach seminary and Institute and then I decided actually, I love researching as much as teaching, so I'd like to teach at the collegiate level.

And, and initially, I was going into Biblical Studies, especially Hebrew Bible, and so my master's is in ancient near Eastern studies but specifically Biblical Hebrew. And I was really pushing forward in that, and I loved it, I still absolutely love that world. At UCLA, my secondary emphasis was Hebrew language and literature. I just, I still research and write a ton on that and teach that–I love it.

But, I also got kind of tired of some of the, I guess, the rancor that happens in Biblical studies between people who believe that nothing is true in the Bible, and people think every single comma is true, and so on, right?

And these arguments, and I–it's ironic that instead of the Book of Abraham study has just as much rancor, but I didn't realize I was going to do Book of Abraham stuff at the time.

At the same time, as I was coming to understand this, I thought–and studying the Hebrew Bible–I thought, you know, symbolism, and we'll probably talk about this more later, but symbolism is, in many ways, their primary language, even more so than Hebrew. They really speak in the world of symbolism.

So I just kind of dedicated myself to trying to understand symbols. And it turns out, no one uses symbols as much or as masterfully as the Egyptians. So as I started to study, Egyptian symbolism, I just fell in love with it.

I was taken hook, line, and sinker with studying ancient Egypt. And so even while I was doing a master's in Biblical Hebrew, I started studying as much as I could about ancient Egypt, and was just so drawn into that. And that just took me into applying to programs that–there aren't very many programs where you can get a PhD in Egyptology, but I applied to those programs got accepted to several but found the person that I really, really wanted to study with at UCLA, and had a fantastic, absolutely fantastic experience there.

And so my faith played a role in that it was because I wanted to understand my faith better that I was studying the Bible, and wanted to understand my faith better that I want to understand symbolism. I initially did not want to study Book of Abraham stuff, I wanted to stay away from that, if at all possible, because I knew it was kind of cantankerous.

But after a while, people asked me so many questions, I thought, well, I need to be able to answer these questions and not look stupid. So I started to study that and found that there were a lot of people with genuine questions that really wanted to know, and I wanted to help them and I found it pretty fascinating as well.

So while I had been studying that period that would tie in with the Exodus period, and the Bible, it kind of shifted as well to studying the period of Abraham's middle kingdom, which is in Egypt, which is a period I loved anyway.

And so it just kind of–I didn't really get into Book of Abraham stuff until I was done with my PhD to be honest. I was familiar with a couple of the issues, turns out my dissertation does tie into it. And I was kind of aware of that it wasn't aware very much of how much because I really wasn't in the Book of Abraham studies at the time. And it was only after that–probably about five years after I got done with my PhD that I did my first real research and publishing on the Book of Abraham. So that came a little bit later.

Morgan Jones 5:21

Okay, so I have a couple–

Kerry Muhlestein 5:22

I guess I should also mention, if it's all right, that I was blessed–really blessed–to be able to study very intensely, both with a philologist, so that's someone who studies language and texts, and an archaeologist. And so that's allowed me to do studies on languages and texts, but I also direct an excavation in Egypt. So I'm able to–and not that many people do–but I'm able to have a foot fairly firmly planted in both the archaeological and the textual world.

Morgan Jones 5:48

So neat. That's awesome. I have a couple of follow up questions based on what you just said. First question is, you mentioned, you know, frustrations regarding people's take on the historicity of the Bible. What is your take on the historicity of our scripture?

Kerry Muhlestein 6:11

Great question. And I'll say, it's not so much with their having different takes, I don't care if people have different viewpoints. It's when they get so cantankerous and full of rancor. I'm just . . . I'm not a, I stand up for what I think should be stood up for, but I am not really into contention and arguing. I just don't enjoy that, I think it gets silly.

So that's the part that I didn't like. And unfortunately, there are people that in almost any discipline that really get into that I thought I could get away from it. It turns out, you can't, there are always people like that.

But the disagreements and hashing things out, that I love, right. I love debate. I love all this stuff. But getting nasty, I don't love.

We're going to talk about historicity, so I think there's no doubt–and I can say this, both from what I've learned from revelation, and what I've learned academically using my intellectual ability and my academic training–no doubt that the scriptures as we have them are–the historicity is real. That they are historical, they are authentic, and so on.

Now, does that mean every single thing in them? Probably not, right. If you were going to ask me, I suspect that there's a lot more time between Noah and Abraham than what is portrayed in the Bible. And I don't think that's because the Bible is trying to be disingenuous, I think it's because they're actually not trying to convey history. They're trying to convey theology. And they do that primarily via symbolism, as I talked about earlier.

And so if symbolism, a 7000 year period does carry a set of symbols, and that's their primary goal is to teach what that set of symbols gives us, not to give us an accurate count of years, which they probably weren't capable of doing anyway. And they didn't have the mindset to do. We have a very different mindset now than they did.

So they didn't have the mindset that, "Well, we have to account for every year, and give accurate, you know, year spans and so on." I think their mindset was, "What are we trying to teach?" "Oh this? Well, these symbols teach that. Wonderful. Let's use that." So that doesn't mean that it's not historical, but it means we just need to be better at looking at things from their viewpoint rather than our viewpoint.

But I think absolute historicity, Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon, Old Testament, New Testament, these are real stories from real people in real places. And I can tell it from ancient texts, I can tell it from archaeology, from all sorts of things. It's–the evidence is overwhelming, in my opinion. We can quibble a little bit about dates and that kind of thing, but the evidence is overwhelming.

Morgan Jones 8:47

Right. Fascinating. Okay. My other question and follow up is related to this use of symbols. So this year in "Come, Follow Me," we're studying the Old Testament. It is a unique book, in that I think of all scripture, it seems to have the most symbolism. Why would you say that it's so important for us to understand that up front, and how can actually seeking to understand symbolism help us today? And also, if you have any thoughts on resources that would be helpful as people are trying to understand that that that'd be wonderful.

Kerry Muhlestein 9:23

Yeah, I'm happy to share all that. I really have this passion this year to try and help people understand the Old Testament. We've had such a great experience with "Come, Follow Me" so far. My sense is that members of the Church are just really into the scriptures more than we ever have been before.

And I don't want the Old Testament here to be the year we hit the brakes of like, "Oh, I'm scared of that, don't get that," and run away. So I'm trying to help people understand this and I'm grateful for this opportunity.

And when I talk about this–and I've done firesides and so on and I can tell you some of those resources and have been working for years on a book called Keys to Understanding the Old Testament and I haven't started writing it yet, but what I mean by working for years is for . . . probably 20 years, I've been asking my students and others, what are the things that have helped you most understand the Old Testament? And what are the things that are most difficult?

And I just keep compiling this list that will be a many year list that I'm slowly shaping into something that will help people. But as I do that, at the top of that list is really always the question you asked–understanding symbols. We need to understand when the scriptures say that God speaks to people in their own language, and according to their own understanding, that doesn't just mean that He's speaking in Portuguese or French or English. He's saying according to their own understanding, so we expect to be spoken to in kind of a post scientific revolution, right enlightenment way. They spoke in terms of symbols. And that's how they expected to be spoken to. And that's how God spoke to them.

Orson F. Whitney once said, "God speaks or teaches through symbols. That's His favorite method of teaching." I think that's absolutely true. For a whole bunch of reasons, we don't have time to go into all the why now, but He teaches through symbols, and for them, most especially symbolic action.

So when we think of symbols, we think of oh, you know, there's on the dollar bill, there's a pyramid with an eye or there's a symbol, right, and that's true. But symbolic action was the most important thing to them–how you did something.

So a number of the prophecies the Old Testament prophets made were acted out. They were actions that they went through. Symbolic action is everywhere in the Old Testament. And they expect, it's not enough to hear something from God, just in form of precept, there has to be a symbolic action attached to that. Whether that's a certain kind of sacrifice, whether that's what you do as you move through the temple, whether that's ritual washings, and anointings, whether that is someone being stricken with leprosy, whatever it is, there will always be a symbolic action component of this. That's what spoke to them.

And if we will attune ourselves to that, it will speak to us as well. And so I think that's really, really huge. So, looking for both symbols and symbolic action, and a lot of things that happen again, back to your historicity question, they really happened. Like I believe the Exodus really happened. Are the numbers correct in there? They're probably larger numbers than are accurate.

Is it a more complicated story with a lot more nuances and a lot more things going on than what we got? Absolutely. That's true of any story that we tell, right? We don't give every nuance and so on. But I think it really happened.

But I think it happened in a way that there are a tremendous amount of symbols behind it that that story actually teaches us through the actions of what happened. And it would have spoken even more to them because they were attuned to those symbols a little bit more than we are.

So if we're going to think of resources–actually, interesting you'd asked me today, just this morning, I thought, you know, for the next Old Testament year, I'm going spend the next three years writing a book on symbols of the Old Testament, and the keys to the Old Testament–those are two books I'm working on. We will see if they get done in four years. But–because I have 17 other things I'm working on–books I'm working on as well–but one thing that I'm trying to do, I just did a fireside actually, for my own ward on keys to understanding the Old Testament where I talked about symbols and symbolic action more in depth.

I posted that on my own podcast and YouTube channel. So it's called "The Scriptures are Real," you can find it on, you know, Spotify, and Apple and whatever else and YouTube. "The Scriptures are Real." There's a fireside that I did on understanding the Old Testament, talk about symbols more in depth there.

I've got a website that I've created. It's a hokey website, because I'm not a web designer, I'm a researcher, and not a web designer but I just made this thing and so it looks bad, but it's got tons and tons of resources on there. It's called outofthedust.org. And you can find on there a page for understanding the Abrahamic covenant, a page for understanding Isaiah, a page for just resources and aids for understanding the Old Testament.

On there, I put up the, "Oh, here's an article that has something about symbols," or I've got videos that I've made to help you understand different symbols. When we get to Isaiah, I'll have tons of little videos about this symbol, that symbol, this symbol, that symbol, and so on. It also has a page for the podcast, so I'm trying to make those kinds of things available to people.

Morgan Jones 14:22

Well, I think that's wonderful. So it's " outofthedust.org ."

Kerry Muhlestein 14:25

Morgan Jones 14:26

Okay, perfect.

Kerry Muhlestein 14:27

Don't judge my web building abilities. Just be charitable in that way.

Morgan Jones 14:32

I will not.

Kerry Muhlestein 14:33

Morgan Jones 14:33

I'll just come for the information.

Kerry Muhlestein 14:34

Sounds good.

Morgan Jones 14:35

Okay. So based on that answer, I have a couple of other follow up questions. One, you mentioned Isaiah, and I think it's important to mention that you also have a commentary coming out about Isaiah, looking ahead–

Kerry Muhlestein 14:51

It's actually out now.

Morgan Jones 14:52

Oh, it is! Okay, what is the name of that?

Kerry Muhlestein 14:55

It's called Learning To Love Isaiah: A Guide and Commentary and it's got the King James Version texts in one column and then my commentary in another column. So you can just read it as you go along . . . like, "Here's historical things," "Here's how these things fit together with other chapters." "Here's how it ties in with Book of Mormon," and that kind of thing. I think it's the largest and most comprehensive LDS commentary that we have so far, where I've honestly tried to make sure that every verse in Isaiah is explained in some way, not every explanation that could be possible, but in some way.

Morgan Jones 15:29

That's amazing. So looking ahead to studying Isaiah, because I think Isaiah is daunting, at least for me. So as we look ahead for somebody that has studied it as much as you have, what would you say are the biggest things we are meant to take away from Isaiah, or that the Lord would hope we would take away from Isaiah?

Kerry Muhlestein 15:51

I'm happy to answer that question. I'll say what's true of Isaiah is true of the Old Testament as a whole, in a couple of ways. One, and that's why I've got this commentary coming out. Now, again, I feel like the Old Testament is what people are most afraid of in our books of Scripture. And Isaiah is what they're most afraid of overall. And that's frustrating to people, because they know the Old Testament was important and Christ told us to study Isaiah, you get to the Book of Mormon, and you're cruising along, and then you hit Isaiah, and then people just feel guilty and frustrated.

And that's what we're trying to end, right? We just want to get rid of that. So have a great experience with all of these things. And so hopefully, between all the stuff I've been doing in this book, we can help people have their best Isaiah experience and their best Old Testament experience ever.

So in–and they mirror each other. Isaiah is really a microcosm of the whole Old Testament. So greatest messages are this, that God will never stop working and helping His people. And that if they are willing to make and do their best to keep a covenant, and keep trying again, after they've messed up, that they will–that God will save them. He'll keep working with them, keep giving them another chance and He will save them.

So ironically, and I know that people are going to say, "Well, that's weird," but I believe it's absolutely true. I think it's accurate, you just have to learn how to understand this. I think you see God's mercy and love and hope in the Old Testament more than any other book of scripture. It's really strong in there.

Most people think, "Oh, wrath-y Old Testament." That's because they didn't keep reading the next part of the story, right. God humbled them and then he gave them another chance. And I think that's true of Isaiah as well. He has all sorts of warnings, but then he always holds out this little bit of hope at the end.

So I guess if we're talking verses–this has turned into me doing shameless plugs kind-of-session, but I actually wrote a book, the first book I ever wrote, which is still one of my favorite books, I think it's probably my favorite thing I ever wrote, was about seeing God's mercy and love in the Old Testament.

It's out of print now, except for as an electronic version, but it's called Return Unto Me . And it's just a short, little readable book that I hope helps people see the message of mercy and hope in the Old Testament that is the message of Isaiah as well. And again, covenant and symbolism are what will help you get the Old Testament in general. So I've also written a book on the covenant. But anyway, symbolism, that's what will help you get out of the Old Testament and Isaiah. Those are the some of the main keys.

Morgan Jones 18:16

Okay, so I think this is so interesting, because I think a lot of people think of the God of the Old Testament as maybe being different than the God that we read about in the New Testament, or in the Book of Mormon.

And, and so I think that it's good to focus on the fact that it is the same God and He has the same characteristics.

Kerry, I wanted to ask you, as we begin a study of the Old Testament, and of portions of the Pearl of Great Price, specifically Moses and Abraham, what other advice do you have for us in understanding, and what do you think could fundamentally change our study this year, and make all the difference in what we take away?

Kerry Muhlestein 19:06

So of those, the things that I think make the biggest difference, we've already mentioned several–symbolism. Looking for the whole story, see God's mercy and love. And probably the last one is to really understand the Abrahamic covenant.

The Abrahamic covenant is the primary theme of the Old Testament. And let's put it this way, the Abrahamic covenant and how God–well, really how Christ saves us if we are part of that covenant, right? So Christ and the Abrahamic Covenant are the primary theme of all books of scripture it turns out, but especially the Old Testament.

And when you come to understand what that covenant is and how to recognize it, then you'll be able to start to see it all over in the Old Testament better. You'll start to identify with it as covenant holders. We are part of the Abrahamic covenant, we enter into it at baptism. Another name for it is the new and everlasting covenant. It's the covenant we're all part of.

And so if you just come to be familiar enough with it, that you start to recognize that prophets are talking about it all the time. And, and you self identify, because "Oh, you're part of this covenant," then not only do you understand the scriptures more, but they come to life for you more, they seem more applicable to you. So I'd say those are some of the greatest keys to understanding the Old Testament.

Morgan Jones 20:29

Perfect. Okay, I want to shift a little bit to the Book of Abraham, specifically. I think my biggest takeaway from your book, aside from that it's a fascinating story, and learning about all the different theories was so interesting. One of the biggest things was to be okay with ambiguity, because there's a lot that we don't know. Why would you say that the Book of Abraham teaches us that we need to be okay with that?

Kerry Muhlestein 20:59

So it's a good question. And it does in a couple of ways, both through the text, and through the story around the Book of Abraham. So maybe let me put it this way, I think one of the greatest keys to being a good scholar, and I'll also say one of the greatest keys to being a good disciple, is a good dose of humility. To just recognize what we're capable of, what we're not capable of, and be okay with that.

Some people when they realize what we're not capable of start to feel anxious, or hopeless, and so on. We don't need to be capable of all that either as a disciple or as a scholar, just have patience. It's all going to work out, God's going to make it all work out. But we need to be aware of what we can and can't do with our own abilities, and the information that we have as a scholar or a disciple.

So the text of the Book of Abraham, I think, teaches us that in terms of being a disciple. So Abraham, is not going to survive without God's help in chapter one. He's not going to have peace or a place to live or anything else in chapter one, and two, without God's help but God brings him where he needs to be, he's not going to survive in Egypt without God's help but God helps him there. He's not going to be able to approach God or receive exaltation without God's help and so God gives him the covenant, which is chapter two.

Chapter three is all about how God is so much more glorious than we are, well, that's the first half of chapter three. But then we get to the second half, which is, Well, God is giving us an opportunity to join Him there, right. So it's always about humility, and then about how God will take care of it, He'll make it work for us.

So that's the kind of the disciple theme that's in the text of the Book of Abraham. And so hopefully, we learn to be okay with ambiguity and with understanding that there are some things we're capable of doing and capable of knowing. And there's some things that we're not, but we will be eventually. That's kind of that discipleship textual teaching from the Book of Abraham.

And it applies every bit as much to scholarship about the Book of Abraham, and especially about scholarship in terms of, what is the Book of Abraham? How did we get it? What is Joseph Smith's role? Is he an inspired prophet or not? Because it turns out for really every question that I would like to really answer, we don't have enough data to fully answer it using our intellectual and academic abilities.

There's just not enough information for almost–I'm sure it's an exaggeration to say every question, but really, right now I'm having a hard time thinking of one where I feel like, "Oh, yeah, we can answer that. Done deal." We just don't have enough data. And that's part of why–and in the book, I go into this more in depth–but this idea that, you know, we should pursue learning through all avenues available, including our mind and revelation.

But it turns out with limited ability to reason and limited data or information, we can't make a lot of conclusions using that method that we can use in the revelatory method, because God does know, and He does have that ability, and He can reveal it to us, He can tell us and then we know. Even though we may not understand all the details of how we get there, right.

But that's–most people who have had struggles with the Book of Abraham, have had those struggles because someone is telling them that this or this is true, which means that this and this can't be true. And when they're saying that they are being misleading, they don't have enough information to make the conclusions. If they were being honest and clear and fully understood the issues, they would have to say, "We don't have enough information to really make a conclusion on that."

But that's not what they say, they say the opposite. And it's misleading and disingenuous. I think most of them do it unknowingly. They've been told by someone else and they just believe what they've been told and so on. But to be honest, we just need to have a little bit more humility as scholars. And the best scholars are humble and will say, "Okay, we don't know that." "Oh, what I thought before is wrong." And the worst scholars are sure all the time.

But that dose of humility and being–as you said–being okay with ambiguity, being okay with not knowing is part of this life. And it's part of what drives us to trusting God, which is what we need. Because there's no way to be exalted with our own abilities, we have to learn to trust in God. And that He has the capacity to make up our differences. And so ambiguity is an essential part of the gospel, we're going to find it in every element. Because God is trying to help us come to just rely on Him.

Morgan Jones 25:30

Perfect. I think that this is also so fascinating, because–like you said–you have to be okay with not knowing and I really love in the book the way that you present it with, there are a couple of places where you say, "Because we don't know, we have to make a hypothesis."

And then you present like, "Okay, let's say this were the hypothesis that we were exploring, then we build out from there." One of the things that's interesting, is that the reason–so I think one reason people get kind of caught up in this is because we don't know what Joseph Smith meant, or what firsthand witnesses meant when saying that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham.

And the thing that's interesting to me about this is that the reason that people get caught up in it is, you know, the Book of Mormon, we don't have the record of the Book of Mormon. Whereas with the Book of Abraham, we have these remnants of papyrus that were part of the story, but also recognizing that the long scroll got burned in the Chicago Fire, which is, what are the odds of that? But because of that, we get fixated on this, and it can be a stumbling block for people, I think.

So I wondered if you could–if we could start by having you just quickly give listeners a little recap of the events that we know, leading up to Joseph Smith having this papyrus and these mummies?

Kerry Muhlestein 27:12

I'd be happy to. And I think this is one of the most interesting and fascinating stories out there, one of the whole bunch of books that I told you I'm working on is–and I am actively working on this one, but it's just going to be a long process–is to write a really detailed story from Abraham's day to the day of the owner of the ancient owner of the Papyrus in like 200 BC, through Napoleon, and the adventures in Egypt, all the way up to our day, you know, with the Nibley, and everyone else in there. I mean, they're just fascinating, just fascinating stories.

Morgan Jones 27:42

It's like Indiana Jones type stuff.

Kerry Muhlestein 27:43

There is some–I mean, some of the characters involved with this. So let's do that part. So there was an ancient owner that owned these papyri, and they're buried with him, and that's about 200 BC. And then we don't get back to the story until about 1800 BC.

In the meantime, you've had Islam come through, and then you've got the Ottoman Empire controlling Egypt, and then Napoleon invades, and then the British ally with the Ottomans to kick the French out, because the British and the French are always trying to have this kind of contest. But that opens Egypt up to Western explorers.

And so you get a couple of Italians that end up working for the French government, they can't go back to Italy because they supported Napoleon and that's not very popular at the time, and so on. So they're staying in Egypt working, and then they have a while where they're not employed by the French government, and then they are again and so on.

During that time, they're not employed, they're sending stuff out, just selling it on their own. And one of these is a fella named Antonio Lebolo who, yeah, if you're, I mean, Indiana Jones in some of the less good ways. I mean, he's an adventurer, they're stories of him that he and other people that are pulling guns on each other, trying to establish who gets to have this antiquity to sell or not, and stories of him using poison and all sorts of stuff. He may not be the most savory character ever, but he's getting his stuff done.

And so there's some pretty adventurous stories. And he ends up with a collection of mummies and papyri, and it's not clear whether he found them himself. I think it's probably even more likely that the locals–we know that lots of locals were out digging and bringing stuff to him to sell to him. They knew he'd pay them. And so this is a source of income for them.

So anyway, however, he comes up with this he has a collection of mummies and papyri that he is selling. He dies before they're sold, this widow arranges for a shipping company to ship them to the US to sell them there. They're the first collection of Egyptian antiquities of that size to go to the US, there being 11 mummies and several couple rolls and several fragments of papyri, and they just are traveling around the country being shown in hotel lobbies and charging people 25 cents to see them.

Eventually they start to sell off the mummies. They get down to four mummies and two rolls and some fragments, and they come to Kirtland, Ohio and Joseph Smith wants to buy the papyri rolls. He feels impressed that he should buy them. He's been shown them, he's looked at them, he immediately starts translating them, by one account as soon as he sees them and by another account he does more the first night, then he wants to buy them.

So the owners or at least the representative won't sell the mummies, or the papyri separate from the mummies so Joseph Smith buys four mummies, two rolls and a bunch of fragments of papyrus. And that's when he starts really translating and translates the Book of Abraham.

So that's the short version of that story, but it's a fun one. And the story goes on from there, all sorts of fun stuff, people trying to steal the mummies and subterfuge and hiding them under girls beds and all sorts of stuff. It's, it's an interesting thing, so.

Morgan Jones 30:43

So remind me again, where was the–how did the long roll end up getting burned in the Chicago Fire?

Kerry Muhlestein 30:50

Okay, so let's take that second part of the story.

Morgan Jones 30:52

Kerry Muhlestein 30:52

So Joseph, acquires them and starts translating in July of 1835, in Kirtland, Ohio. There are some adventurous elements to the papyri and mummies getting to Missouri and then to Illinois, but they end up in Nauvoo. So when they're in Nauvoo he publishes them in the Church's newspaper, and he does at least some form of translation on them. It's not clear whether he actually translates more of the Book of Abraham there or if he's revising what he's already translated in an inspired way and also doing Hebrew translation that he inserts into the Book of Abraham, he certainly does that.

So it's not clear exactly what's going on in terms of translation there, but he publishes it, always wants to publish more, promises he'll publish more but never does get around to it. Stuff happens in Joseph Smith's life, he has all sorts of things going on for him. And then when he dies, his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, who had, since they came to Illinois been supporting herself by charging people to see the antiquities, she keeps doing that.

When she dies, Emma Smith sells them to a person named Abel Combs. And Abel Combs sells the mummies, or at lease two mummies, we don't know what happened to the other two mummies. We have two mummies we don't know where they went. So, like to find that out. But anyway–I told you, there's so many things we'd like to learn more about.

But he sells the two rolls and two mummies to the St. Louis museum. And the St. Louis museum shows them for quite a while. And then when it seems like everyone who they're going–the mummies are going to serve as an attraction to get them to come to the museum, once they've all seen them they're not making them any more money, they sell to a museum in Chicago, which bought by a fella named Wood, and it's called The Wood museum.

And then, during the Great Chicago Fire, that museum burns, and papyri are really, really flammable. That's kind of like, you know, having a collection of newspapers in a fire, they don't survive. So, and we can demonstrate that they didn't survive that fire. So the large roll that all of the witnesses agree was what Joseph Smith was translating from, burned in the Great Chicago Fire.

Morgan Jones 33:02

And who were some of those, when you say, "Witnesses," do we know who it was that, you know, talked about Joseph having translated them?

Kerry Muhlestein 33:13

Yeah, and I have an article on this in the Journal of Mormon History . But you've got, for example, one of them is Joseph Smith, the third, he talks about–Joseph's son–he talks about the things that his father had translated from being in that museum and burning. Most of them are guests that come to visit. And so the majority of them are actually not members of the Church. There are a couple that are members of the Church that hear from Joseph Smith, but most of them have heard from either Joseph Smith or his mother, what he's translating from. And so you've got like Josiah Quincy and a girl who just comes and visits and writes letters, and then those are published in a newspaper and, and so on. So just a variety of people, a couple of them members of the Church, but mostly not. And over a, kind of a bit of a timespan.

Morgan Jones 34:07

Okay, so I wondered if you would be willing, one of the things that was most interesting to me was seeking to understand what may be meant by "Translation," that there are different ways in which we can, you know, explore, that possibly Joseph Smith was translating these things? Would you mind sharing, like a couple of those theories?

Kerry Muhlestein 34:36

Yeah, I'm happy to do that. It's just good, fun stuff. So this is kind of the thing I get into. So one of the theories is that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from the papyri in a manner very similar to what he translated the Book of Mormon from the gold plates, right. So we've got the gold plates, and that's the language–written in a language Joseph Smith doesn't know, but it's a text that's actually written on those plates. And Joseph Smith translates from that text into English using the Urim and Thummim and a different seer stone, right?

So, and quite often not looking at the plates, but sometimes looking at the plates it would seem. We don't have a lot of details on that, again, we like data on all sorts of stuff. So if he did the same thing with the papyri, then what that means is that somewhere written on that papyri, and as I said, the witnesses so we end up with some fragments by the way, there are 11 fragments that the Church now has that Abel Combs, that man who bought them from Emma Smith, he'd given to his housekeeper whose daughter and her son sold them to the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and eventually they made their way to the Church.

And we do have the original of facsimile one on there, the drawing that facsimile one is a facsimile of is on there. And there's text around that. So a number of people had kind of assumed that that's what Joseph Smith translated from, but there are several ways of testing that including looking at these eyewitness accounts and it becomes clear, that's not what he was translating from.

So if he's translating from the papyrus, it's from this large roll. That's what all of them talk about is the large roll that ends up being in the museum that ends up burning. So under this theory, that text actually exists somewhere on that large roll. And Joseph Smith is translating it via inspiration and, you know, direct revelation from God.

He may or may not be using the Urim and Thummim, the eyewitness accounts aren't completely clear on that. But he's translating them everyone who knows Joseph Smith and is familiar with the process uses revelatory language, you know, "By direct inspiration from heaven," "By the power of God," this kind of thing. They don't talk about him translating in any other way, not using alphabets or grammars or anything else, they all talk about this being inspiration.

The alphabet and grammars are another really complicated story I get into just a little bit in the book, we won't want to–it's a lot of time so we probably don't have time to get into it here. But I can just say it's clear both from internal documents, those documents themselves and the eyewitness accounts, that's not what he's using to translate. It's coming from God and maybe he's using a seer stone, in any case.

So we call that "The Missing Papyrus theory" that Joseph Smith was translating from a text that was on the papyrus that is now missing, that's now been destroyed. And so that's–and Joseph Smith certainly talks about translating from the papyrus. So that's, in some ways, that almost has to be a leading theory, just because of the historical evidence where Joseph Smith is saying that's what he's translating from, and other people are saying that's what he's translating from.

But there are some other theories that are very possible. And I'll tell you kind of depends on which day and what I've been researching lately, what I'd lean towards, but one of the other most common theories is called, "The Catalyst Theory."

And that's based on the idea that this process may have looked more like the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. So think of the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, he has a King James Version of the Bible, that's in English, and he's giving us an English text, but the second English text has a whole bunch of stuff in it that was never on the first English text.

Because what happened is that the Bible ended up being a catalyst for Joseph Smith. He opened the Bible, and as he read it, it was a catalyst to open him up to inspiration, and then revelation came to him about text that wasn't in the original text, but that God wanted us to have.

And is it possible that that's what happened for Joseph Smith as he looked at the papyri? That as he looked at them, it served as a catalyst and opened them up to inspiration, and he gave us the text that God revealed to him, and he assumed it was on the papyrus. That's absolutely possible, I think that's very, very possible. Is it possible that it's a combination of both?

And by the way, we have just a teeny bit of evidence for that and that he once speaks of working on the alphabet and grammar and having the principles of astronomy as understood by the ancients unfolded to him. That's very revelatory language, isn't it?

That may be the explanation of facsimile two, it might be the translation of Abraham chapter three, it might be something else. But this idea of working on stuff that's not even fully that the papyri but loosely connected with it and having it unfold to him. That's pretty interesting, revelatory language, and it may be a combination of them.

So maybe they served–maybe it really was on the missing, the now missing Papyrus, but maybe they served as a catalyst to him understanding and receiving some things maybe that's Abraham chapter three is–and I'm just totally making this up, right. But maybe Abraham chapter three comes from pure revelation, but one and two was on the papyrus, or maybe all one through five was on the papyrus but the explanations for facsimile two, and one and three came as pure revelation, right? I think they had to have, actually.

So I don't know, but those are the two main theories. There are all sorts of little subsets of each of those theories. But the two main theories are that the source was on the papyrus is now missing, or that the papyrus served as a catalyst to him receiving revelation for a text it wasn't on the papyrus at all. I think we can kind of discard theories like, "Well, it's the text around facsimile one," and so on. We have enough evidence so that–we do have enough evidence to discard certain things. We don't have enough evidence to make firm conclusions what it was, but we can–we have evidence to say that it was not this.

Morgan Jones 40:14

Okay, so, so–I think, I don't know, I could listen to you talk about that all day. In your book I really liked–you mentioned this earlier–how you not only like lay out, you know, the story, the theories, then you also talk about, you know, what we learn from the Book of Abraham.

And you outline from your expertise in having studied Egyptology, you outline some consistencies in the Book of Abraham, historically and culturally. But I loved this one sentence that you said, "I want to emphasize that these elements do not prove the truth of the Book of Abraham. Only revelation provides surety, instead, they demonstrate that the book certainly could be authentic."

Can you talk about a few of those things and why as someone who studied this history at length, these things could be helpful, although recognizing that revelation is the way we will gain a testimony of the Book of Abraham.

Kerry Muhlestein 41:18

Yeah, I'm happy to do that. And so it's a part of what we want to, I guess, understand, is, is this plausible? Is it plausible? Is it possible that what Joseph Smith told us is true? Because if it is, well, even if it's not revelation, it should trump everything, because there are things that we at one point thought were completely implausible, even in terms of science that now or every day, right.

In fact–so this will date me a little bit, but I can remember when I was young, and watching the original Star Trek series on TV, right, although I think it was already reruns by the time I was watching it, but and some of the things in there, that seemed so fantastic, we can do way more than that already now, right? Like it just seemed like that's so unrealistic that he would have this little teeny thing that could have books on it. I remember that episode, Captain Kirk held a little thing in his hand. And he said it had like a whole book on this little teeny electronic device. We're like, "Well, that's ridiculous."

Now my iPhone has like tons of books on it, right? I mean, so things that once seemed implausible, now are true. So we shouldn't let implausibility ruin everything because revelation can trump, but still, as an academic and a historian, I want to understand the plausibility of these things.

And so I don't actually ever set out to prove this or that because it's plausible, my goal is to understand the Book of Abraham. But as I research to try and understand what's going on with it, then I keep finding all sorts of stuff that make it more and more plausible. So just as an example, my dissertation topic, which turned into a book and all sorts of other articles and all sorts of stuff, it helped me understand and I didn't set out about it because of this, the Book of Abraham was tied in an interesting way because people asked me a question that was cited in the Book of Abraham and I said Egyptologically, "No, that's just didn't happen."

And then another Egyptologist showed me that that happened. I thought, Oh, dang, I was wrong. I got to look more into this. And looking more into it, I found a fascinating topic and just pursued it. So it turns out that the picture of the sacrifice of Abraham works really well from an Egyptological perspective. It just, it just fits the circumstances, the situation and all that kind of thing. So I find that interesting.

I can explore a couple of others. Here's one, this isn't one I found, I would have, but someone else found it first. So a colleague of mine named John Gee, did research on what we call the four sons of Horus. And in facsimile two, I think that's figure six, if I remember right, anyways, these four tall guys standing off to the side. And Joseph Smith says that it represents the earth and it's four portions, or it's four quarters or something along those lines.

And Egyptologically, we've come to understand that the four sons of Horus represent all sorts of things symbolically, but one of the things that they definitely represent is the four cardinal directions. Right? So, wow, that's pretty lucky of Joseph Smith to have guessed that right? If he's guessing. I find that really interesting.

I find things like a place names, Olishem, Joseph Smith gives us. Well we find a place, the cognate equivalent of that really Ulisum which is really easily Olishem. We find that in ancient texts that exists in the time and the place where I would have guessed–using the Book of Abraham–that it existed.

One of the things that I've been researching really heavily recently, and this is in the book a little bit, but I've learned a lot more since I wrote the book is about the ancient owner of the papyrus that facsimile one was on. And it turns out this is the kind of guy who would have been very, very interested in a text that had both elements of someone being nearly destroyed but saved from destruction and elements of creation. Well, the Book of Abraham has exactly those things in it, right.

So that makes me think, oh, this is exactly the kind of guy that would be interested, and oh, also, he's the kind of guy that would have been collecting stories about Jews, or ancient Jewish stories. So, oh, this is exactly the kind of guy that would have the Book of Abraham. And I find that really interesting.

There are a whole bunch more things like that, in fact, a great resource for this is a website called PearlofGreatPricecentral.org . Pearl of Great Price Central.org. Another resource is BookofAbraham.org . It focuses on kind of all sorts of stuff, but PearlofGreatPriceCentral.org really looks into all these ancient parallels, and you'll find on there, I think it's like 30 essays that point out some of these parallels that are very authentic where you see–here's just another quick example.

When we look at stories that someone writes about their life from Abraham's time period, they take the same kind of form that Abraham's does, right? His writing looks like the kind of ancient writing where someone would do what he's doing. It's very authentic in that way. And so there are tons of examples of this, that, as I said, they can just be a confirming nudge to a faith that we've already developed.

I don't want my–I don't think it's possible to have deep and lasting faith that makes a change in our life, based solely on our intellectual abilities. But I do think intellectual abilities should be part of our worship. Revelation is what will ultimately confirm it, but intellectual–we worship God with our heart, mind and mind, according to the Savior in the New Testament, right. And so I think it should be part of it, but revelation will be the thing that makes the biggest differences. Nephi and Laman and Lemuel found out, right.

That they, they knew they saw an angel, but that spirit didn't touch their hearts to make that difference that needs to happen. And so I would always urge everyone, besides pursuing this intellectually, you need to pursue it spiritually. Keep reading the text of the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon or whatever else, keep praying. And that will invite the spirit to make the difference that needs to be made, as important as our mind is–and it is–it's not enough on its own. And it would be foolish of us, that's, you know, it's like trying to do something with one arm tied behind your back, if you're trying to learn and not involve the Spirit in your life. That's just silly.

Morgan Jones 47:33

Makes complete sense. Before we get to a couple of last questions that I have, I wondered if we could divert for a second, just because a big question that I had, as I was reading your book about the Book of Abraham is where did the book of Moses come from?

Kerry Muhlestein 47:52

The book of Moses is the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis. That's actually a fairly quick and easy answer, as he's, when he starts translating he gets a lot of revelation for a lot of material that's not in our current version of Genesis, and maybe it was never in the way Moses presented it to people, I don't know. But, and it was so big, he just published it separately. And so we put that in what we call the Book of Moses, but that's–just think of it as the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis.

Morgan Jones 48:20

Okay, that makes complete sense. Okay. I wanted to ask you, before we get to our last question, I watched an interview where Terryl Givens asks you, what do we have to lose as it relates to the Book of Abraham? Because I think it feels overwhelming to some people. And so they're like, "Oh, I don't even want to mess with it. Because what if I decide that I don't believe it," then like, what do they have to lose? And that was really interesting, because you said, in some ways, not a lot. But in other ways, you do have a lot to lose.

I wanted to ask you, and you're welcome to elaborate on that answer, but I also wanted to ask you, what do we have to gain by seeking to gain a testimony of the Book of Abraham?

Kerry Muhlestein 49:06

Great question and in some ways that's the same question. And so I'll say, in some ways, not a lot, and in some ways, everything. So, and the reason I said not a lot is because it's a really short book, like a really, really short book. And yet even so it has so much in it. So what we have to gain and . . . well I was about to say in small term or small picture, but it's not, it's a big picture. What we have to gain is some of our most profound teachings on our relationship with God. In terms of–like I said–God's and we talked about this a little bit already, but God's majesty and might but His willingness to bring him to where He is, His willingness to covenant with us in the Abrahamic Covenant.

The relationship that we had with him in pre-mortality. We get probably our clearest teachings about that in the Book of Abraham, and God's willingness to be a part of our lives to save us from things that are happening in this world and to exalt us. All of that are beautiful, powerful teachings in the Book of Abraham.

But more than that, there's also this issue–especially if we're going to talk in terms of what we have to lose as people–if people start to think, okay, well, the Book of Abraham is not really scripture. Now you're talking about, well, what is Joseph Smith's prophetic status? And if you lose Joseph Smith's prophetic status, you lose the Restoration. And if you lose the Restoration–and I'm not saying you can't think differently about the Book of Abraham and not be a member of the Church, of course, you can. We can accommodate all sorts of different beliefs. But the danger is what often happens and what I've seen again and again, is that when you kind of open up this little, it's like putting a little teeny pinprick in the, in the tire tube, right?

Eventually, the air gets out. Eventually, people when they lose faith in this, then they start to lose faith in this and then they start to lose faith in this. And if you lose faith in the Restoration, you have lost–in some ways–everything. Of course, you can believe in Christ and not believe in the Restoration. But believing in Christ in the way He is taught to us through the Restoration, gives us a chance for an exaltation and a peace in this life and a joy in this life that really isn't possible any other way.

And I'm not saying that to demean anyone else have any other faith or belief. I'm so grateful for all the have, and like President Hinckley, I'd say, "Bring what you have. And I think you can find that we can add to it." And you can have greater peace and greater promises for the next life.

Morgan Jones 51:37

Perfect. Kerry, thank you so much for sharing these things. My last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Kerry Muhlestein 51:50

I'm so glad you ask that question because it's actually a question of my own personal discipleship and worship I've been asking myself a lot lately. And I usually use the phrases like "Consecrated," but I think it's the same thing.

And so for me, it means–I want what God wants. And I'm trying to become the kind of person who wants what God wants more than anything. And I want to listen to God more than anything. I want to, instead of being so heavily influenced by the world, and we all are, but I'm trying to lessen the world's influence and increase God's influence. So that whatever it is He wants me to do, whatever He wants me to think and how He wants me to think that that's what I will do, right.

Even little things like I'm trying to make sure that the first thing I do in the morning instead of as it used to be, which is check email and read the news is to read at least a few verses of scripture, and take some time to just listen to God. Being all in means giving–well, it's letting God prevail in the way President Nelson talked about.

Letting God prevail in my life more than anything else, and letting Him tell me how to think about issues like social issues and every other kind of issue rather than letting the world tell me how to think. And when I'm at that point, where God is not only what I love and focus on the most, but He informs me or He–that love changes how I think about things and feel about things, then I'm all in.

Now, I mean, hopefully–I feel like I'm all in even though I'm not to that point yet, right? We have stages of this. That's the all and I'm aspiring to, for now aspiring to it is all in.

Morgan Jones 53:32

I love that. That's one thing that with this podcast, I have wanted people to know that there are varying phases, you know, and that just because you may not be at the level of being all in that you'd like to be, you can still be all in. And so I appreciate your answer so much. And thank you so much for sharing your scholarship with all of us because we probably aren't going to get a PhD in Egyptology. But by your sharing with us–

Kerry Muhlestein 54:04

If you did you probably wouldn't get a job, there aren't many jobs. But I interrupted you for a bad joke, sorry.

Morgan Jones 54:09

No, no, you're great. But by your sharing what you've learned with us, it makes us better people. So thank you very, very much.

Kerry Muhlestein 54:18

Thank you. It's my pleasure. And honestly you've helped me think more about my own consecration and my own being happy with where I'm at and aspiring to be more. I appreciate your helping me with my discipleship. Thank you.

Morgan Jones 54:35

We are so grateful to Kerry Muhlestein for joining us on today's episode. You can find both Let's Talk About the Book of Abraham and Learning to Love Isaiah on DeseretBook.com . Thanks to Derek Campbell of Mix at Six studios for his help with this and every episode of this podcast. More than anything, thank you for listening

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Religious Educator Vol. 20 No. 3 · 2019

A savior with a sword, the power of a fuller scriptural picture of christ, kerry muhlestein.

Kerry Muhlestein, "A Savior with a Sword: The Power of a Fuller Scriptural Picture of Christ," Religious Educator 20, no. 3 (2019): 115-131.

Kerry Muhlestein ( [email protected] ) was a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University when this was written.

We have been counseled to draw the power of Christ into our lives and to “begin by learning about him.” [1] The Savior himself commands us, “Learn of me” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:23; Matthew 11:29). In fact, coming to know both God and Christ is a necessary part of receiving eternal life (John 17:3). Many of our students will naturally conclude that to learn about Jesus Christ they should study the Gospels. While this is necessary, it is not sufficient if we are to come to know who our Savior and Redeemer truly is and thus draw on his power. Because only some of his roles were fulfilled during his mortal ministry, our ability to come to know him will be limited if we study only that facet of his existence. Thus, if we focus exclusively—or even largely—on the Gospels, we cannot develop a well-rounded picture of the Son of God. Just as we would be foolish to try to understand his mortal ministry by limiting ourselves to reading only Mark, we are equally foolish if we do not turn to the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants as we seek a more complete understanding of the Savior. By failing to develop a fuller picture of who Christ really is, we rob ourselves of the power that comes with understanding certain aspects of his nature. If we are going to help our students take seriously the command to “learn of me”and to experience the powerful rewards that come from doing so, then we are obligated to help them learn to use all the standard works in their efforts to come to know their Savior and Redeemer.

This point demands further elaboration. If we focus too exclusively on the accounts of his mortal ministry, we do not allow Christ to present himself to us in the way he intended, and thus we limit the extent of his power that can come into our lives. This danger is exacerbated by a tendency I have noticed among students, both in and out of university settings. While we tend to focus on the Gospels to learn about Christ, I have observed that even within the Gospels, we are often selective in what we notice about Jesus: we tend to focus on a Jesus who forgives, who gently corrects, and who commands us to love, yet we simultaneously gloss over the episodes of the Savior condemning, warning, cursing, and prophesying of destruction. “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11), spoken to an accused woman resonates with us more strongly than telling Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). We often struggle with his decree to potential disciples that if they come unto him and “hate not [their] father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and [their] own life also, [they] cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26) and that he was sent to bring a sword (Matthew 10:34). [2] In other words, my observation is that students tend to come to us having filtered out everything but a warm and merciful Savior. Yet a being that is only warm and merciful doesn’t actually have the power to save. By being selective in what we read and then by further selecting what we self-emphasize while reading that limited excerpt, we create our own vision of him instead of letting Christ himself tell us who he is. Doing so seems to border on creating a false god. At the very least it tends to give us a one-dimensional or watered-down view of our Savior, one that lacks the power we so desperately need. How tragic this is. To avoid such a sad outcome, we must further address how self-selected views of Christ can come about.

At least some of the reason for self-selecting only some aspects of the Savior’s roles must come from the emphasis to follow his example. We are told that we must follow the Savior (2 Nephi 31:10) and that “unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved” (2 Nephi 31:16). As a result we tend to focus on his characteristics that we are taught we should emulate. This is important, but if we are not careful this focus can cause us to skip over those aspects of his nature that are reserved for the divine. In other words, because some roles and characteristics are reserved for Deity, they are not traits that Christ showed us how to emulate during his mortal ministry. Thus if we focus only on those aspects of Christ that we can and should emulate, we will ignore much of his divine nature. We cannot strip away Christ’s divinity in our mental image of him without also losing the ability to both understand him and partake of his divine power.

How much better to let the Messiah present himself to us throughout scripture in the way he has chosen. I have found that whether teaching the cornerstone course “Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel” or courses on the Old or New Testament, if I take the time to help the students read, ponder, and interact with texts that present many facets of the Son of God, they often experience an initial sense of discomfort followed by one of relief and excitement. In fact, learning more of who Christ is as presented in other scriptural texts can help them trust him more and simultaneously helps them better appreciate and understand his mortal ministry. Greater familiarity with how the Redeemer is presented in other biblical texts and modern revelation will help our students increase their faith and confidence in him and can aid many as they fight their own personal plagues from which they can see no deliverance. It can also allow for a better understanding of the New Testament texts they are already familiar with. While this larger view of the Savior can develop naturally in a well-planned course of “Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel,” it requires some conscious planning in Old Testament or New Testament courses if we want to help our students realize that there is more to learn about Christ than what they will come to know in the current course they are taking.

Jehovah of the Old Testament and Restoration Scripture

It is well beyond the scope of this essay to discuss all the roles the Son of God fills as the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Instead I will focus on one that, while teaching the Old Testament for a quarter of a century, I have witnessed students struggle with frequently. I have had students discuss being “bothered” or “disturbed” by language that describes Jehovah acting violently or that speaks of his wrath, anger, or fury. I have had others tell me that as they started reading the Old Testament, they soon closed the book, saying to themselves, “This is not the Jesus I know.” Why do our students struggle so much with the phrases and images that the Great Jehovah chose to have his prophets use to describe him? [3] At least part of the answer must be that they have not been guided through these descriptions (see Acts 8:31). Additionally, they seem to have mistakenly assumed that if they are not supposed to seek vengeance or feel wrath, neither should their God. They apparently believe that the example he set for them in mortality represents the entirety of his divine character. Thus they may be creating God in their own image. [4] By focusing almost exclusively on a Savior who forgives as opposed to one who can also mete out forceful justice or blazing deliverance, we may ask ourselves if our students are creating an image of the divine that has “a form of godliness, but denies the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5; Joseph Smith—History 1:19). How can they draw the power of Christ into their lives if they deny, or dismiss, his power?

Another problem stems from selectively looking at scriptural texts rather than studying their entirety. While I have written extensively elsewhere about the mercy and love of God as shown in the Old Testament, [5] here only a few examples must suffice. Some people are shocked by the story of Miriam being struck with leprosy. Numbers 12 describes that as Israel struggled to understand the balance between personal revelation and having an inspired leader for all of Israel, Aaron and Miriam accused Moses of taking too much power upon himself and not sharing enough with them. [6] They knew firsthand that God would indeed speak to all of them, but they didn’t yet understand that God would speak only to Moses when he wanted to reveal something to his people as a whole. Because they did not yet know this, Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses.

The Lord answered their challenge with a symbolic action—the most powerful teaching tool with which Israel was familiar. [7] God showed all of Israel that Miriam and Aaron were wrong to make such a challenge by striking Miriam with leprosy; [8] this made her ritually unclean and forced her to withdraw from the camp of Israel. For many readers this is disquieting. This kind of answer from God seems so dramatic, so overblown, so severe. Students seem to get mired in this first part of the story and often come away feeling that it is a depiction of a harsh, easily angered, unforgiving God. It hurts to think of God in this way. Doing so seems contradictory to how we usually picture him. It can even cause fear as we wonder how he may react to things we do.

This response stems from not looking at the whole story. What we forget is that Miriam was quickly healed; her suffering lasted for only a brief time and had no lasting consequences. Under the law of Moses, after being healed she still had to wait outside the camp of Israel during a period of purification (Leviticus 13:4–6). During this waiting period, Israel did not move on without Miriam. They stopped. They waited for her. The mercy of God is abundantly apparent when we realize that Miriam was immediately healed and that after a week she had been fully reintegrated into the house of Israel (Numbers 12:14), taking up her former position as if she had done nothing wrong. It was only then that the Israelites were prepared to continue their journey.

Now, think of that! When we look at the complete story, we don’t see a tale of an unpredictably angry God. Instead, we see a God of power coupled with a God of patience and mercy. We can remember that God’s first priority was the spiritual salvation of his children. Thus lessons that would affect Miriam, Aaron, and all of Israel spiritually were far more important than whether someone experienced physical or social discomfort for a time. Still, God quickly allayed the physical discomfort as well. Looking at the big picture of this story we see that when Miriam acted inappropriately, God punished her in a way that would teach her and all Israel, leading them to a better understanding. He then immediately accepted her repentance, healed her, and soon fully restored her as if she had never done anything wrong. He and his people did not move on without Miriam. They did not hold it against her. They waited for her and restored her.

This is the kind of God who can inspire hope in students as they make their own mistakes. The Old Testament is replete with stories like this, but we often fail to follow the full story. Such examples take place on the scale of personal stories and on the scale of the stories of tribes and nations. Perhaps the largest-scale example is in the scattering of Israel. The destruction of the Northern Kingdom and their subsequent scattering is a somber tale. When we include the gathering of Israel with it, the story encompasses patience, hope, and eventual triumph. The triumph is possible because of the earlier punishment combined with God’s patience. It is important to see both the small- and big-picture stories of the scriptures that teach us these lessons about Jehovah’s attributes. Students often need help to take a step back and see the whole big-picture story. They will grasp the seriousness of the scattering of Israel but do not always automatically put it together with the mercy of God in patiently gathering them thousands of years later.

We are fortunate that we have Restoration scripture to help us further understand Jehovah’s nature. Speaking of humankind in the days of Noah, Jehovah tells Enoch in vision that “the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them” (Moses 7:34). That language is about as wrathful as you can get! Yet Enoch has already seen that Jehovah weeps over this, and just a few verses later the Lord himself says, “Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” (Moses 7:37). Here we see a God who, for the good of his people, must come out in judgment against them; yet, at the same time, he weeps over it all.

This same image is painted of the great God whom Isaiah writes about. In chapter 25, Isaiah speaks of Jehovah destroying cities, of nations fearing him, of bringing down strangers and terrible ones, of his treading down Moab, and laying fortresses to the dust. Yet all these images are interspersed with contrasting pictures: he is a strength to the poor and needy who are in distress, he is a refuge from the storm, and he brings a feast for his people. Perhaps the interrelation between Jehovah’s warrior traits and merciful nature is summed up best in verse 8: “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” As a result those who have waited for Jehovah “will be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9). While Jehovah will fight many battles for us, his battle with death is the greatest, and that victory is the most meaningful for us.

A few chapters later, this same interrelationship is highlighted again when Jehovah is described as the Divine Warrior, [9] one who is mighty in war for his people in a battle with Leviathan, who serves as a symbol for Satan and hell. “In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1). Then the Lord himself speaks of these attributes: “Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me. He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud” (Isaiah 27:4–6). It is because he can conquer in any and every kind of battle that Jehovah has the ability to redeem us. [10] It is the sword he holds in one hand that allows him to wipe away our tears with the other.

Having learned of God’s simultaneous wrath and weeping from these stories, we can assume that same character prevails in the being who in the latter days has said things like “mine anger is kindled against them” (Doctrine and Covenants 5:8) and that he would cause that “a desolating scourge shall go forth among the inhabitants of the earth, and shall continue to be poured out from time to time, if they repent not, until the earth is empty, and the inhabitants thereof are consumed away and utterly destroyed by the brightness of my coming” (Doctrine and Covenants 5:19).

The imagery of Jehovah as a divine warrior is prevalent in the Old Testament. [11] In our current culture, the depiction of a warrior God can be jarring and disconcerting. It is incumbent upon us as teachers to help our students see past their initial reactions and recognize the comfort that can flow from these images. When the Israelites were faced with an army too great for them, they were told, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14:13). They were also assured that “the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:14). After their deliverance from the Egyptians, the Israelites described the Great Jehovah by saying, “The Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3)—they praised him for having “triumphed gloriously” (Exodus 15:21) and extolled his ability to erase the great Egyptian army with “a blast of [his] nostrils” (Exodus 15:8). Having seen the power of their divine warrior, Israel could more easily trust in him in the future. Thus it was this knowledge of a mighty God who could triumph in battle that added power to his later command to “fear not, neither be discouraged” (Deuteronomy 1:21), or to “be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Significantly, Jehovah’s warrior-like acts usually either teach his people or protect them from injustice and suffering at the hands of others. Thus his ability to extend mercy is created by his ability to conquer, ranging from deliverance from mortal armies to his triumph over the grave and hell. He can even conquer our fallen natures, a battle he will fight simultaneously for and with us that allows him to shower us with great mercy. The better our students recognize Christ’s past victories, the more fully they can trust that he can mercifully deliver them from every form of enemy that besets them, including themselves. Now, that is power to be drawn into our lives!

Our understanding of this point expands as the Old Testament teaches about the future Messiah. Students can be taken aback when they learn how to interpret Isaiah well enough to understand what Isaiah 63 discusses. While the treading of the winepress spoken of in that chapter surely refers in large degree to his atoning sufferings in the meridian of time, it is also clear imagery about the wrathful judgment of the Second Coming, when he will “trample them [the wicked] in [his] fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon [his] garments” (Isaiah 63:3). In this case, the red on his garments is the blood of the wicked. He says he will “tread down the people in [his] anger, and make them drunk in [his] fury” (Isaiah 63:6). This is clearly a passage about the Savior destroying and killing the wicked when he comes again. [12] Yet this language is juxtaposed with phrases such as those found in the verse immediately following: “I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses” (Isaiah 63:7).

A very consistent theme in Isaiah, especially in the latter chapters of the book, [13] is the idea that God will save the righteous by punishing those who oppress them. [14] This is part of what is conveyed in chapter 63—that the mercy shown to those who follow God will at least partially take the form of destruction for those who oppress them. This same language that elicits images of a divine warrior who saves by trampling the winepress in fierce wrath is conveyed by the latter-day Jehovah as well (see Doctrine and Covenants 76:107; 88:106).

While there is likely some degree of literalness in this description—meaning that flesh-and-blood enemies will be conquered by the Lord—there is surely also a high degree of symbolic application to be drawn. In some ways, we are being assured that the Lord will conquer our great oppressors of death and hell (see 2 Nephi 9). [15] Yet, in other ways, these passages can illustrate that no matter what is oppressing us in life—whether that be temptation, mental health issues, or spiritual plagues—we can find reassurance in knowing that at some point the Divine Warrior will conquer these oppressors for us, thus providing liberty to us even while in our captive states. The mercy we rightly love to see in our Savior is possible only because he has fought battles for us in Gethsemane and on the cross and thus has set us free. There could be no power or efficacy behind his mercy if there were not also power behind his ability to wage war for us.

The Savior is insistent that he is a divine warrior, even in the era of the Restoration. For example, in section 87 of the Doctrine and Covenants the Savior says that he wants the cries and blood of the Saints to “cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies” (Doctrine and Covenants 87:7). Because the Hebrew word Sabaoth comes from the word for “fighting” or “war” and literally means men “of war,” it is usually translated as “hosts,” or “armies.” [16] The phrase has a very clear connection to warfare that is designed to elicit images of an army captain leading his troops into victorious battle. Because the use of the term in the Doctrine and Covenants is tied to imagery of avenging the wrongdoings of the Saints’ enemies, this seems a clear allusion to the Savior coming with a heavenly host, or army, to wage war on the wicked in order to avenge the Saints of their wrongs, similar to the imagery in Isaiah 63. This idea is also conveyed earlier in Restoration revelations, when the Savior refers to himself as the “Lord of Hosts” as he speaks of burning up the proud and wicked (Doctrine and Covenants 29:9). Two verses later, we read of the wicked not being able to stand when he reveals himself in power and great glory along with all the hosts (or armies) of heaven (Doctrine and Covenants 29:11). In fact, it seems that the Lord really wants us to perceive him in this light since seven other times in the Doctrine and Covenants he describes himself as the Lord of Hosts while detailing his intent to destroy the wicked (Doctrine and Covenants 64:24; 121:23; 127:3-4; 133:64; 135:7) and when speaking of the need to purge his church (Doctrine and Covenants 56:10; 85:5). Because this phrase is used in the Old Testament in connection with Jehovah being a man of war who fights for his people (e.g., Genesis 32:2; Joshua 5:14; 1 Samuel 4:4; 1 Samuel 15:2; 1 Samuel 17:45; 2 Kings 19:31; Psalm 59:5; Isaiah 8:13; Jeremiah 8:3), it seems clear that in these Restoration revelations, that same being intends for himself to be seen in the same way that he was in Old Testament times. We cannot help but conclude that the Jehovah of the Old Testament continues to want people in our day to see him, at least in some instances, as a man of war.

I have found that when I teach students that Jehovah is indeed the Divine Warrior, they come to find great comfort in the concept, despite some initial shock and a few growing pains as they gain greater understanding. In each class we teach, we almost certainly have someone who is struggling with pornography, other addictions, anxiety, depression, or some other overwhelming burden. These students can experience a great sense of relief—even an increase of faith—when they are taught that the Lord they worship is one who has conquered greater foes than those, and that he will do so again on their behalf. I have witnessed some who are brought to tears as they picture a Savior who has conquered their own individual and personal leviathans and who then, with that defending and conquering sword still in one hand, reaches out with the other to gently wipe away their tears.

The Messiah of the New Testament

Understanding better who Jehovah is will help our students better appreciate his mortal ministry. This is true both in terms of recognizing the contrast between his majesty and his humble mortal beginnings and in regard to how he continues to function as the Divine Warrior even in mortality. In some ways the culmination of his role as warrior takes place in the New Testament, but that is not usually recognized without prior preparation to see it.

Still, in contrast to stories and descriptions that create images of a divine warrior, the Gospels (particularly Luke) present us with a story that creates an image of the humble beginnings of the Savior. In Nephi’s vision the angel speaks of the “condescension” of God (1 Nephi 11:16). While this phrase entails much more, one of the things it does is encapsulate so well the act of the mighty Jehovah coming to earth in such humble circumstances. Historical and archaeological evidence can round out our understanding even more because it paints a picture that we do not often examine but that can also help us understand our Savior more completely.

Christ grew up in Nazareth, a town of only a few hundred people. [17] This was one of the smallest villages of the Galilee area (probably no larger than ten acres), [18] which was the most rural and humble area of Jewry at the time. [19] The vast majority of those who lived in the Galilee made their subsistence in some kind of agricultural endeavor, and their major economic goal was day-to-day survival. [20] While there certainly was a group who were truly destitute, most were gliding just above the subsistence level: hard pressed but able—through substantial and unrelenting work—to feed themselves, barring unforeseen but not uncommon disasters. [21] Builders such as Joseph of Nazareth would likely have fit into this category. [22]

In Galilee, the towns along the lakeshores were probably the most prosperous. [23] But even in these better-off towns like Capernaum, it is clear that the people possessed mostly modest housing. [24] While it was in those lakeside towns that the Savior spent much of his ministry, he did not grow up there. As meager as Capernaum would have been, less prosperous towns, such as Nazareth, were even more simple. In the smaller villages, the streets were typically narrow and small and made of hard-packed dirt, as were the floors of houses in such circumstances (Capernaum would have been similar). There was no running water and no sewer system in these small communities as there could be in the prosperous Roman cities of the time. Bathing in the way we think of it was a luxury seldom seen in a tiny town like Nazareth, although it did have several springs that served as freshwater sources. [25] The Herodian-period winepress and terraced vineyard area found in Nazareth (along with several small granaries, oil presses, and places for storing oil and wine jars) [26] make it clear that at least part—and probably most—of Nazareth’s economy was agrarian, [27] with a much lower rate of agricultural production than we experience today. [28] Homes were apparently mostly mud-mortared fieldstones with reed and palm-thatched roofs, [29] but to create some of the structures in Nazareth, the builders carved into the limestone hills to form some of the walls. [30] Joseph, and seemingly Jesus (Mark 6:3), were construction workers, probably working more with stone than wood since that was the primary building material of the area. Though Nazareth itself had limestone as the primary available material, most of the building done in the wider Galilee area was of basalt—a sharp and hard stone. Working the stone would have required difficult labor.

The Savior’s parables provide hints about the kinds of places he lived and the people he interacted with in the Galilee area. They are full of agricultural metaphors (Matthew 13:1–32), stories of people not able to pay their debts (Matthew 18:21–35), of being cast into prison for not meeting their obligations (Luke 12:58–59), of the need to divide land inheritances (Luke 12:13), of people who are hungry or naked or without a place to stay (Matthew 25:35–36). In other settings he counsels people to invite the poor to their feasts (Luke 14:12–14), and some express dismay when costly things are used rather than putting those resources toward feeding the poor (Mark 14:3–9). To be sure, the Savior’s teachings also include examples of the rich. Yet because his teachings and parables typically drew upon experiences he and his listeners were familiar with, it appears that the Savior was well acquainted with the poor and struggling. [31]

Furthermore, nutrition was not typically of the highest level, and overall health suffered. Diseases, often including dental diseases, were a contributing factor to a generally low life expectancy in that time period. [32] The Savior clearly survived well into adulthood, and some of his apostles survived much beyond that. This means they were among the more healthy and robust of their population. Still, it is likely that they all suffered from some of the privations that naturally accompanied life in the Galilee at the time. Furthermore, Isaiah tells us that there was nothing about Christ’s physical appearance that would set him apart (Isaiah 53:2). This does not necessarily mean he was unattractive, but it probably indicates he was intentionally nondescript. This lack of being physically distinctive from others suggests that he was not spared from the deprivations of his fellow villagers, such as periods of hunger, disease, fatigue, and so on.

At least for much of his ministry, he was homeless (Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58). He and his disciples sometimes had to glean food from the fields of others in order to eat (Matthew 12:1; Mark 2:23). The scriptures make it clear that during at least the years of his teaching ministry, he was often—if not always—dependent upon others for places to stay and food to eat (Luke 8:2–3; 10:38; John 12:1–2). He traveled hundreds and hundreds of miles in a region full of steep hills that were often blisteringly hot and, in the Galilee area, oppressively humid. From all scriptural indications, he traveled on foot, with the exception of one journey down the Mount of Olives to the Temple Mount on a donkey (Matthew 21:1–11). He came not just to take care of the commoners, the poor, and the struggling; he came to be one of them. [33] In so many ways, he came to this earth to descend below all things in the flesh (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6; 122:8) so that he could succor us in our need, which is possible only through his intimate understanding of our mortal situation (Alma 7:12).

Studying the birth and life of the Savior along with all this context helps us better appreciate his condescension. Further, our understanding of his humility is heightened all the more when we remember the majesty and might of the Great Jehovah—the Divine Warrior—as depicted in the Old Testament and Doctrine and Covenants. When we willingly study the images of kingship, power, and might that those scriptural books paint of the Holy One of Israel, then his condescension becomes all the more poignant. He who conquered leviathan with his great sword was born in a stable and laid in a manger. The being who caused his enemies to tremble with fear grew up in a tiny village, sleeping in a home with dirt floors. The God who had destroyed the greatest army on earth with “a blast of his nostrils,” that great “man of war” probably had to deal with disease, infection, and somewhat poor nutrition throughout his mortal life in a place and time that had little in the way of medical resources. The great Creator of heaven and earth spent much of his life hewing rugged, brittle basalt into shapes that could be used for building homes. He who laid wicked cities to waste groaned beneath the load of our sins. The same being who had judged the earth and administered necessary justice would be falsely accused and condemned by sham trials before tribunals of mere mortals, some of whom knew him to be innocent. The same God whose thoughts and ways are higher than ours was ridiculed for not identifying those who smote him. The master of heaven and earth, who had opened up the earth in order to swallow rebels, was mocked for not coming down off the cross. He who destroyed the Assyrian army in order to relieve his people later pleaded for deliverance from his own suffering, and then willingly endured that suffering instead (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:19–20). He who could assure his people to “be still” and “fear not” because he would fight their battles for them voluntarily died for us, choosing to fight a battle with death on our behalf rather than fight against his own persecutors. The dirt of the Mount of Olives soaked up the blood of the being who had created that mountain. It is only after we understand this contrast that we can really understand the words we often sing: “The Lord of glory died for men.” [34]

Thus, recognizing that Jesus of Nazareth is also the Great Jehovah, who both “keep[s] anger” and is “merciful” (Jeremiah 3:12), allows us to better appreciate his mortal life and ministry. Further, understanding the varying facets of his many roles enables us to draw greater meaning from the New Testament. When we understand the aforementioned interrelationship between his sword-filled and his tear-wiping roles, we come to see Christ as a divine warrior in the New Testament. Thus we can gain a greater sense of his power and majesty and derive more meaning from the stories of healing the blind and lame, of casting out devils, and of raising the dead. We see it most poignantly in his meekest moments—at Gethsemane and Calvary. We can come to understand that his unfathomable suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross were in fact his greatest battles. Because he conquered there, he can be victorious in every other aspect of both mortal and immortal life. Understanding this allows our students to rejoice in Christ’s unique ability to conquer—an attribute he does not intend for us to emulate precisely because he has done the conquering for us.

My experience in the classroom has shown me that we need to help our students look more carefully at Christ’s majestic roles as portrayed predominantly in scripture outside of the Gospels. We need to help them view him as Jehovah, a divine being who displayed immense power and mercy. They need to avoid thinking solely of a Savior whose primary role was to walk around forgiving and healing, though that was certainly a crucial aspect of his ministry. Instead, our students need to study all of our Savior’s experiences in his mortal life—from those difficult challenges of mortality to the instances where he acted as both an exacting yet benevolent judge—not only the many beautiful examples of his crucial acts of healing, forgiving, and extending mercy. It is only when we put all of this together that we can come closer to understanding the true nature of the being whom we worship. This can unlock a great deal more power to draw into our lives.

There are many more of Christ’s roles that can and should be explored. The purpose of this essay is to take only a few representative examples that have helped my students. Whether we are teaching a course that is designed to cover more than one book of scripture, such as “Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel,” or one that focuses on just a small portion of scripture, such as Old or New Testament courses, our students will be better served if we help them explore relevant portions of other books of scripture that can help them develop a more well-rounded view of their Savior and Redeemer. Their proclivities may be to focus on one aspect of Christ, and moving beyond that limited view can sometimes be initially uncomfortable for them. Despite this disquiet, they can and should find greater peace, faith, and power if they are guided through a quest to come to know Jesus Christ in a more complete way.

[1] Russell M. Nelson, “Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives,” Ensign , May 2017.

[2] We see jarring language used in the Doctrine and Covenants as well, such as “the anger of the Lord is kindled, and his sword is bathed in heaven, and it shall fall on the inhabitants of the earth” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:13).

[3] There is, of course, a complicated transmission and translation history behind the texts as we now have them. While the exact nuance of the words used may be slightly different than the original authors intended, it is also clear that the general tenor of what they were trying to convey is still preserved when we have so many authors saying the same kind of thing over such a long period of time.

[4] See Jeffery R. Holland, “The Cost—and Blessings—of Discipleship,” Ensign , May 2014.

[5] Kerry Muhlestein, Return unto Me: Messages of Love, Hope and Inspiration from the Old Testament and Other Scriptures (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2013).

[6] Adapted from something I wrote about this episode and similar ones in Kerry Muhlestein, “Keys to Making the Old Testament a Powerful Force in Your Life,” Meridian Magazine , 2014, https:// latterdaysaintmag.com/ article-1-14107/.

[7] Donald W. Parry, “Symbolic Action as Prophecy in the Old Testament” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament , ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 337–35; and Kerry Muhlestein, “Symbolic Action: A Key to Understanding the Old Testament,” in Meridian Magazine, 2014, https:// latterdaysaintmag.com/ article-1-14330/.

[8] It should be noted that students will typically wonder why Miriam was stricken and not Aaron, especially because in our era this tends to carry with it a gendered message. We do not know why only Miriam was chosen for this punishment. Perhaps it had to do with the ritual purity requirements for priests. Perhaps Miriam played a greater part in the complaint, or Aaron would learn best as he saw that others would suffer if the priest went astray. We just don’t have enough information about the story to fully understand why Miriam was stricken and Aaron was not.

[9] On the Divine Warrior, see Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973).

[10] On this same idea in the Book of Mormon, see Daniel Belnap, “‘I Will Contend with Them That Contendeth with Thee’: The Divine Warrior in Jacob’s Speech of 2 Nephi 6–10,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture 17, nos. 1–2 (2008): 20–39.

[11] See Patrick D. Miller Jr., The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); or Tremper Longman III, “Psalm 90: A Divine Warrior Victory Song,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27, no. 3 (1984), 26–74; or Tremper Longman III and Daniel G. Reid, God is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995).

[12] See Kerry Muhlestein, Scripture Study Made Simple: The Old Testament Text and Commentary in a Single Volume (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2017), 410–11.

[13] Many scholars argue that the section of Isaiah I speak of here was written by a different person than the Isaiah passages quoted above. This is a complicated issue, though in my opinion the Book of Mormon casts serious doubt on this idea. Either way, the authorship of this second half is irrelevant to the point I am making here.

[14] Muhlestein, “Scripture Study Made Simple,” 410-11.

[15] See Belnap, “‘I Will Contend with Them That Contendeth with Thee,’” 20–39.

[16] See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 838–39. Also G. Johannes Botterwick, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament , trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 12:211–32.

[17] On the archaeology of Nazareth, see Bellarmino Bagatti, Excavations in Nazareth, Volume I: From the Beginning until the XII Century (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing, 1969). Estimates place the population at a maximum of four hundred people. See Johnathan L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-examination of the Evidence (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000); 83, also Mark T. Schuler, “Recent Archaeology of the Interpretation of Texts from the Galilean Ministry of Jesus,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 71, no. 2 (2007): 105.

[18] Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus , 82.

[19] During the Savior’s lifetime the Galilee area was mostly rural and agricultural in nature, though the growth of the cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias induced some growth in the area and an increase in the economic possibilities of agriculture. See Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus , 81–89.

[20] Jodi Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 13–14.

[21] Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit , 13–14. See also John Gee, “The Cares of This World: Roman Economics and the New Testament,” in New Testament: History, Culture, and Society , ed. Lincoln H. Blumell (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 219–21.

[22] Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit, 13–14.

[23] Sean Freyne, “Galilee, Jesus, and the Contribution of Archaeology,” Expository Times 119:12 (2008), 581.

[24] Peter Richardson, “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 135.

[25] Ken Dark, “Early Roman-Period Nazareth and the Sisters of Nazareth Convent,” Antiquaries Journal 92 (2012), 43.

[26] Vassilios Izaffers, “Nazareth,” in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, vol. 3, ed. Ephraim Stern, assistant ed. Ayelet Lewinson-Gilboa (Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society and Carta, 1993), 1104.

[27] James H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology, a New Perspective,” in Jesus and Archaeology , ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 38. See Josephus, Jewish War 3.4, who describes the Galilee as producing crops from one end of it to the other.

[28] K. C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 98, who estimate that in the Savior’s day one could expect a yield of ten to fifteen times that which was sown, in contrast with today’s fourty times yield. Gee, “Cares of This World,” 219, claims a sixfold harvest.

[29] Schuler, “Recent Archaeology,” 105.

[30] Dark, “Early Roman-Period Nazareth,” 45–48, 61–62.

[31] See Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, 97.

[32] Much of this is apparent from my own excavations of contemporary burials in Egypt, but see also Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 75–90.

[33] While this is a subject I have thought about and taught for a long time, my ideas have recently been aided by personal communications with Matthew and Mary Grey, whom I thank for these conversations. See, for example, Mary Grey, “The Divine Christ and the Human Jesus,” on the Times and Seasons blog at https:// www.timesandseasons.org/ index.php/ 2018/ 06/ the-divine-christ-and-the-human-jesus/.

[34] Isaac Watts, “He Died! The Great Redeemer Died,” in Hymns (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981), no. 192.

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Speeches > Kerry M. Muhlestein > Why We Must Be Wholeheartedly Holy

Why We Must Be Wholeheartedly Holy

Kerry m. muhlestein.

May 12, 2015

It is good to be with you this morning. While in a moment I will draw on the academic disciplines of Egyptology and biblical studies, in which I have been so steeped over the last few decades, I want to start out by trying to draw an analogy from one of my favorite things to do: waterskiing. The way I read the accounts of the Savior and Peter on the Sea of Galilee, it seems to me that waterskiing is the closest thing we have to a celestial sport. I can’t get enough of it. In fact, one year my brothers, a cousin, and I made the goal of skiing on Utah Lake every month of the year. During January and February we questioned the wisdom of this goal, but we did it. I skied every time I got the chance.

During all these years of waterskiing I have had the chance to teach a lot of people how to ski. I believe I taught around 100 people. As I did so, I realized that there are really only three things people have to do to learn how to ski. The first is to keep their skis together. Often the pressure of the water will cause a person to do the splits, and it is very hard to ski that way. But there are ways to tie skis together, so this isn’t the biggest problem.

The most difficult problem comes because you have an instinctive tendency to try to stand on top of the water as the boat pulls you. As a result, just as the boat pulls people up, most of them pull on the rope and push with their legs. Instead of being helpful, both of these actions tend to pull people’s legs out from under them, and they immediately fall. Most of the time the action of pulling on the rope was so instinctive that people didn’t even realize they had done it. I can’t tell you how many times I repeated the mantra “arms straight, knees bent, skis together.” I would explain again and again that the boat was strong enough to pull a person up—they just had to be patient enough to let it.

Here is the lesson: When those I taught learned to forget about using their own strength to get up and relied on the power of the boat, they would ski. When you master your impulse to pull yourself up, you get on top of the water; then the ability to accelerate, cut through the water, float on a sea of glass, and sail with an amazing feeling of freedom and exhilaration is waiting for you.

While this analogy can be applied in a number of ways, today I want to compare it to something I have seen that ancient Israel struggled with. During the two decades I have been teaching the Old Testament, I have found that for most of us it just seems weird when we read about ancient Israel’s struggles with idolatry. We cannot imagine why they would stop worshipping Jehovah and instead worship things carved from wood or stone or molded from metal. We ask ourselves, “What were they thinking? What is wrong with them?” Yet I have found that we should never ask ourselves, “What is wrong with them?” Instead we should ask, “What is wrong with them and me?” If ancient Israel struggled with something, surely we struggle with it as well. We should not ask ourselves if we struggle with the things that tempted them; rather, we should ask how we do the same thing.

I have also found that we can more easily answer this question when we come to a more accurate view of exactly what ancient Israel was struggling with. I believe we are wrong when we think they stopped worshipping Jehovah and started worshipping other gods. While some did stop worshipping God, most kept worshipping Him—they just added the worship of other gods. They worshipped Jehovah and Asherah or Jehovah and Anat, Ba’al, Chemosh, Molech, and so on.

The problem is that everyone around them was doing this. Their neighbors had gods that they focused on, but they were also willing to adopt new gods as they encountered them. As Israel drank in the culture around them, it seemed only natural to keep worshipping Jehovah but also to worship the things their neighbors worshipped. Most likely many of them felt just fine about doing this because they continued to feel quite devout toward Jehovah. It is this attempt to worship more than one god at the same time that Elijah addressed on Mount Carmel when he challenged the priests of Ba’al. During that contest he thundered out to Israel: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” ( 1 Kings 18:21 ).

The word halt here does not mean “stop,” as we usually think it does. It is used in this scripture in the same way that it is used in the New Testament: to mean that someone is lame or unable to walk. Perhaps a better translation would be “How long limp ye between two opinions?” Elijah was not asking them why they couldn’t choose which god to worship but rather was pointing out that they could not really go anywhere as long as they were trying to worship both gods. In effect, by relying on something in addition to Jehovah, they were pulling their legs out from under themselves just as are those who are trying to learn to waterski but who rely on their own strength as well as the boat’s.

Now that we know ancient Israel was worshipping both the true God and false gods at the same time, our task is, as I said earlier, not to ask ourselves if but instead how we do the same thing. I believe there is no doubt that we all worship more than one god. For some of us, instead of worshipping both Jehovah and Ba’al, we worship Jehovah and footba’al. For others it is video games, material possessions, or a whole host of other things. Yet over the last twenty years, as I have tried to observe the ways in which we struggle with idolatry, I have become convinced that on the whole we struggle with one kind of false god more than any other. We tend to worship the ideas of the world, and, like those who pull on the waterski rope, we don’t even realize we are doing it.

The problem is that the world has been shouting its ideas at us loudly and incessantly from the time we were very small. We encounter these ideas in our schools, from kindergarten through college. We are inundated with them as we read newspapers, watch TV and movies, or listen to the radio—and in a hundred other ways. Many of the concepts we encounter are harmless enough, but most of the time we are not very careful in sifting through the ideas we hear, and I am certain we have all swallowed a lot of fallacious and dangerous ideas without even realizing it. As President Thomas S. Monson said at the rededication of the Boise Idaho Temple, you “walk in a world saturated with the sophistries of Satan” (“Boise Idaho Temple: ‘Again Hallowed,’” Church News, 24 November 2012, ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/62997/Boise-Idaho-Temple-Again-hallowed.html#).

Sadly, Satan’s ideas are so prevalent and often so subtly, consistently, and insidiously conveyed that we usually are not aware we have adopted them. We drink so heavily from the well of the world’s influence that such influence can become part of the fabric of who we are without our even realizing it. And so we keep pulling on that waterski rope and wondering why our spiritual legs keep going out from under us.

Of late, several of our leaders have spoken of the danger of trying to simultaneously worship the worldly god of tolerance and follow the true God’s teachings of right and wrong (see Dallin H. Oaks, “ No Other Gods ,” Ensign, November 2013). Perhaps I can add an illustration from my own classes. Back when I regularly taught world civilization courses, we would discuss the cultures found in ancient Mesoamerica. A small part of our time was spent discussing the violent rituals of human sacrifice that the Spanish conquistadors encountered there. As I tried to frame a discussion about these violent acts and their effect on cultural interaction, I often asked my students what they thought about the horrific rituals we were discussing. I found that if I asked about the ritual practice, it was quickly condemned. But if I phrased the question in terms of what my students thought about this element of ancient culture, I was lucky if even one student would speak negatively of it. My students had been taught so regularly and thoroughly that we must be tolerant of other people’s cultures that they could not bring themselves to say that human or child sacrifice was a bad element of culture.

Now, I believe the Bible is fairly clear on this point. A number of passages make it very plain that God finds this practice completely unacceptable. Yet too often my students could not quite commit to this gospel truth because it conflicted with the ideas of the world that they have been immersed in since their youth. Without realizing it, they had begun to struggle with trying to worship God and the ideas of the world at the same time. If they had a hard time condemning human sacrifice, I can only imagine what else the world had convinced them that they should not call wrong. The ways of the world were surely affecting their ability to fully see things the way God wanted them to. Insightfully, President Boyd K. Packer warned that the virtue of tolerance could become a vice in just this way (see “ Covenants ,” Ensign, November 1990).

I wish to make sure I am not misunderstood. In its place, tolerance is a wonderful virtue. I am not preaching intolerance. But for it to be a virtue, tolerance must be felt and practiced in God’s way, not the world’s way. When we try to practice godly virtues in the way the world wants us to, then we are halting between two opinions—we are doing our own version of worshipping Jehovah and Ba’al at the same time. Of course, adopting the worldly version of tolerance isn’t the only way we do this. In many ways each of us falls for even more subtle idols of worldly influenced thinking.

Often the most subtle false-idea gods start out as something good. Ancient Israel struggled with this too. For instance, in biblical times it became a practice in many places to set up a stone that would remind people of God. This practice probably started out with harmless intents. God even commanded Israel to set up stones taken from the Jordan River to remind them of how He had parted the river for them as they entered the promised land. The stones were not carved, so they were not “graven images,” and it is actually a good thing to have something that helps you think of God more often. Stones that were designed to remind the Israelites of God were called matsebot in Hebrew. The problem with matsebot is that they didn’t just remain stones that reminded a person of God. Over time they became objects of adoration. They slowly shifted into a kind of idol. My guess is that our Israelite ancestors didn’t recognize that they had made the change; the idolatrous shift in their hearts went unnoticed.

And so we again have to ask ourselves not if but how we do this same thing. How do we start out with good intents and yet let ourselves be influenced by the ideas of the world in such a way that soon good things become idols? I am sure that we do this in too many ways to count, but let me talk about a few of the more common ways.

In our church we value hard work. We value doing well. We value taking care of our families and contributing to the community. The characteristics we try to develop often help us to be very good at these things. Typically we start out wanting to do well at our jobs, to do well at school, to do good things in the community, to learn to play the piano or sing, and so on—all because we see these accomplishments as things that will help us build the kingdom of God. But the world sees these accomplishments as markers of success in and of themselves, not as ends to the means of furthering the cause of Zion. Sadly we fall into that trap so easily. As the world lauds these accomplishments, it usually does not take long until we start to use worldly standards and measure success by how well we do at work or by what kinds of degrees we have or by how much recognition we get from others for the things we do or the talents we have developed.

The problem is not in doing well at any of these things; the problem is when we believe the world that this is how we measure success. While all of these things are worthwhile in some ways, I doubt very much that this is how God measures success. In fact, the Savior said, “That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” ( Luke 16:15 ). Yet it is so easy for God’s voice to be overpowered by or, at the very least, strongly mingled with and diluted by the voice of the world. And when we start to let the world define prestige or success for us, then we have erected matsebot in our lives and we have pulled our legs out from under ourselves.

Let me provide an even more concrete or detailed example of how this might happen. Clearly the most important endeavor you will undertake in this life will be within the walls of your own home. Much of what you will spend the rest of your life doing will center around your family. You will try to earn money to support a family. You will be involved in schools and community groups, perhaps even in politics and social movements, all in an effort to take care of your family and create an ideal environment for them. At the same time, many of these things will bring the praise of the world. But the world does not value these efforts for the same reasons God does. Without great care, eventually the praise of the world will cause us to adopt the world’s values. We begin to do these things both to help our family and to garner the acceptance of the world. We try to serve two masters, or limp between two opinions.

As we pursue this course, and to some degree we all do, times will arise that will force us to make choices. Do we spend a little more time away from family to find success at work, in the PTA, on mommy blogs, in a reading club, on the golf course, and so on (fill in the blank here for what you spend time doing)? All of these things can be very good, and, in fact, the outward actions of someone who is single-mindedly serving God may look exactly the same as the actions of someone who is believing both God’s and the world’s ideas. What we must ask ourselves is if we are doing what we do because of the world’s values as much as because of God’s.

Sadly, when we have begun to savor the values of the world, we are in a no-win situation. If we choose time away from family in order to pursue the praise of the world, we will have lost. Yet if we make the right decision while still holding to at least some of the values of the world, we will deprive ourselves of some of the joy and progress that would normally follow making the right choice. We will find ourselves feeling conflicted, slightly hollow, and not as satisfied as we could and should be. Our idolatry will have robbed us, and our spiritual progress will be stunted in comparison to what it could be—all because we are limping along following both God’s and the world’s ideas. We will question our abilities and worth because the world will be telling us we are worth less, and we partially believe them. While they are not alone in this, often stay-at-home moms in particular struggle with this because the world is very, very anxious to tell them that they are not spending as much time as they should on the things the world values. To the degree that we accept the world’s way of setting values and priorities, we will lose out on the ability to find contentment and satisfaction in doing the things of God for godly reasons. In some way this will be true of all of us, regardless of vocation or how we spend our time. Even our understanding of gospel principles can be affected when we are heavily influenced by the world’s values and priorities.

The Savior warned us about this repeatedly. For example, he berated Peter for savoring “not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” ( Matthew 16:23 ). He also warned that even those who had received and nourished the word could have the gospel choked out by the “cares and riches and pleasures of this life” ( Luke 8:14 ).

Even with these warnings it seems we continue to allow ourselves to be influenced by the world. I have not done a scientific study of this, but my impression is that Latter-day Saints tend to follow the trends of the world around them, lagging just a little behind. The rates of successful marriages, family sizes, the immodesty of our clothing, and the crudeness of our entertainment usually follow the trends of the world—we just stay slightly better. We kid ourselves that we are being holy because our shorts or skirts are not as short as everyone else’s and our topics of conversation are not as crude as those of the world around us. But the reality is that if our standards are so constantly affected by the world’s, it does not matter if we are doing better than everyone else; the world is still setting our standards instead of God.

I have noticed that in areas of the country or the world where issues such as same-sex marriage, gender leadership equality, family size, and other social matters are all the rage, our members tend to struggle more with these issues. While awareness of such issues is important and helpful and while listening to others’ ideas can help us to seek further direction from God, we must also be careful that we are neither blinded by the mists of Satan’s sophistries nor so afraid of those mocking from the great and spacious building that we let our opinions be set by others rather than by the true doctrines of God, as Elder Dallin H. Oaks warned us two years ago in general conference (see “No Other Gods”). So much of how we think about these issues is set by those in Hollywood, those who write songs, those who sit behind news desks, those who stand in front of the chalkboard, those who speak in the halls of Congress, or those who write columns and blogs. We often do not realize how much these things have affected our thinking and the way we view the world. We should be extremely wary of these worldly sources, for God’s ways are higher than their ways and His thoughts are higher than their thoughts (see Isaiah 55:9 ). Too many of those of the world are those that Nephi warned would “revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worth!” ( 2 Nephi 28:16 ). When we allow such people to influence our thinking even a little, we will find ourselves feeling an internal conflict as we try to reconcile the part of us that believes what God has told us with the part of us that has started to savor the ideas of the world without our notice.

As we hobble along by following both the ideas of God and the world, the conflict between these competing ideas will sooner or later create some kind of crisis, for listening to the world is akin to pulling on the waterski rope of life, and the only possible result is that we will fall flat on our backs. Sometimes these crises come in the shape of not feeling sure what we should do with our lives. Sometimes they come at the cost of our self-esteem, and other times they create a cost that our families, ward members, and others must pay. Most often all of these things happen. Sometimes the conflict causes a crisis of faith. This is unsurprising. The ways of the world are in direct conflict with faith, so the messages of the world are sometimes subtly, and sometimes overtly, antireligious. When we harbor the cancerous ideas of the world, they will eventually attack and kill the pure cells of faith that make up our spiritual body. When this happens, we may be able to live with the cancer for a while, but sooner or later there will be only two options: either the tumors of worldly thinking will kill our spiritual lives or we will have to cut the cancer out.

Sometimes these crises arise over social issues. We should expect this. Even if those who live in the great and spacious building have good intents and are acting the best they can according to the knowledge they have, we must be aware that they have made a full-time vocation out of mocking those who hold to the rod and partake of the fruit of the tree of life. Thus we can expect that when we cling to God’s way of thinking, there will be many who try to make us feel stupid for doing so. When we stand up for truths such as morality, marriage, revelation, prophets, priesthood, and the inspiration of scripture, there will be those who do their very best to make us feel parochial, backward, uncultured, unthinking, unsophisticated, and foolish. These scoffers are very good at what they do and, ironically, somehow find a way to sound as if they are on the moral high ground. The inhabitants of the great and spacious building greatly outnumber us and can make it seem like we are so silly and alone in our way of thinking. As a result, we often adjust our thinking in order to align ourselves with these seeming sophisticates. At other times we just remain quiet, hoping no one will notice our faithful viewpoint. Either way, we get lost in the mists of darkness as we loosen our grip on the iron rod.

At other times these crises arise over historical or doctrinal issues. This also should not surprise us. As we have said before, God’s ways of thinking are higher than ours, and thus we should not be surprised when we don’t understand everything He has said or done. I have spent my adult lifetime studying the translation of the book of Abraham. Some have experienced a kind of crisis over what the world has to say about Joseph Smith’s abilities to translate and how that relates to the book of Abraham. While we will not go into detail here today, I can tell you that careful study and research have provided very strong and well-supported answers for all of the major questions those in the great and spacious building have thrown at us. Note that I said all of the major questions, but I did not say every question. There are still questions about the translation of the book of Abraham for which we have no answers. In fact, I have sat down numerous times and tried to come up with theories or hypotheses that could account for all the facts we have at our disposal. I have tried to propose theories from a nonbelieving perspective and from a believing perspective. I believe that the nonbelieving theories have far more holes in them, but in truth, nothing I have thought of can account for all the data we have, and in some ways this is very comforting to me.

If we think about it, wouldn’t we be surprised if we could understand exactly how God works when He helps a prophet with an inspired translation? Frankly, given my current limited and finite mind, I would be a bit disappointed if I was capable of understanding just how God works. That would imply that God’s state isn’t really that far advanced from mine. In fact, it would be a fair bit of pride for any of us to think that we can understand all the whats and whys of God’s historical dealings with His people, prophets, and scriptures. Let me say again, His thoughts are higher than ours. Trusting in His ideas is like allowing the boat to pull you out of the water, and amazing things are in store for those who do.

But to the world, trusting in something we cannot fully understand is laughable, so they point their fingers and mock while standing in a great and spacious building that has no foundation and is destined to fall, which will put all of its inhabitants flat on their backs like so many of those I was teaching to ski. Still, as they mock, many others who are holding to the rod will loosen their grip, get lost in the mists of darkness, and limp along between two opinions. Yet those who have tasted the goodness of the fruit can remain strong, even when they don’t fully understand everything. Even when they aren’t eating the fruit at the moment, their memory of how delicious the fruit tasted or of how they felt when they had the Spirit with them can be enough to help them withstand the ideas and the mocking of the world.

None of this is to imply that we cannot learn things of value from the world around us. In fact, we are commanded to learn wisdom from the best ideas and books available (see D&C 88:118 ). But we must learn to sift these ideas through the gospel rather than sift the gospel through these ideas. Our values and priorities must be derived from God or we will eventually abandon them and journey toward the great and spacious building.

You see, we must be what God calls a “peculiar” or a “holy” people. At its most basic root, the word holy means to be set aside or to be different than everything else. To use President Kevin J Worthen’s phrase, we must “be etherealized” (“ Enlightened, Uplifted, and Changed ,” BYU inauguration devotional address, 9 September 2014). If we are truly going to be holy, we will have to overcome our desire to fit in and think like everyone else and instead relish the idea of thinking more like God and less like this world. That is why God commands His Latter-day Saints to “go ye out from Babylon” ( D&C 133:5 ). Leaving intellectual Babylon and becoming holy, etherealized, or peculiar will cause us to be like Enoch’s people, who “confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” ( D&C 45:13 ). In other words, many of the ways you think and feel now will eventually come to feel foreign to your higher, holier way of thinking.

Knowing all of this, we must ask ourselves what we should do about it. While all of us must do these things, I will phrase them in terms of what you must do, for I want each of you individually to think of how these things apply specifically to you. Let me suggest five things you must do if you are to avoid limping between two opinions and pulling your legs out from under yourself.

First, you must conclude, as Elder Oaks once said, “that followers of Christ [must] think differently than others” (“ As He Thinketh in His Heart ,” Church Educational System Evening with a General Authority devotional, 8 February 2013). You must determine that you want to follow God’s way of thinking more than the world’s way.

Second, you must honestly ask yourself what worldly influenced ideas you are clinging to and then do everything you can to eradicate those ideas from your system. You will periodically have to engage in regular good and hard self-examination throughout your life, especially in times of crisis.

Third, you will not be able to successfully identify the ways in which your thoughts are inspired by worldly gods rather than by the one true God without God’s help. Thus you must do all you can to have the Spirit with you as you engage in introspection and whenever you encounter new ideas. After all, it is only the Spirit that can make you holy or that can cause you to think and see as God does rather than as the world does. In other words, you must be etherealized. Left to your own fallen devices, you can only think and see from the world’s fallen perspective. You will need the help of God to see things as He would have you see them.

Fourth, after having done this, you will have to do all you can to have the Spirit with you regularly so that you can maintain a holy perspective rather than give in to the ever-encroaching ideas of the world. We all know those things that we must do to have the Spirit with us. Despite your busy schedules, you must never take a break from engaging in activities that invite the Spirit into your lives. Because it is so important to engender a regular relationship with the Holy Ghost while you are here at BYU, let me echo Elder M. Russell Ballard’s counsel from general conference just last month: “If you are attending a Church school, consistently include a class each semester in religious education” (“ The Greatest Generation of Young Adults ,” Ensign, May 2015). Another reason you must have the Spirit with you is that your decision to serve God will not be enough. Only the Holy Ghost carrying the power of the Atonement into your soul will truly root out worldly ideas from you.

Fifth, when you are struggling because the way you are thinking or feeling at the moment seems to conflict with how God would have you think or feel, remember the times you have felt the Spirit in the past. We will not feel the Spirit at all times, and sometimes just when we are not, the mocking fingers of the world will hurt—and hurt deeply. But at those moments we must remember that we have felt God teach and testify to us of the eternal truth and import of His ideas, and then we must hold fast to those ideas just as we did when we felt His testifying Spirit. If we do, He will continue to sanctify us, or make us more holy. With His help, eventually we will become the kinds of beings who are capable of thinking and feeling just as He does. We will be holy beings, and the doctrines of the priesthood will distill upon our souls as the dews of heaven, and our everlasting dominion will flow unto us without compulsory means forever and ever (see D&C 121:45–46 ).

It is my prayer that this will happen for all of us, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Kerry M. Muhlestein was a BYU professor and associate chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture when this devotional was delivered on 12 May 2015.

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309 episodes

The Scriptures Are Real (TSAR) with Kerry Muhlestein is a podcast where we look at elements of the scriptures that have become real to us. We interview both experts (people with language, archaeological, historical backgrounds, etc.), and lay folks, and explore times when the scriptures became real to them. This is done from the viewpoint of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe that there is real power in the scriptures and that as they become more real we can better apply them to our lives and draw more power from them. If you listen to this podcast you will learn all kinds of interesting background information that will help you understand and learn more from the scriptures. We believe it will allow you to add real power to your life. My gratitude to my co-host Lamar Newmeyer. Also to my friend Rich Nicholls, who composed the introductory music.

The Scriptures Are Real Kerry Muhlestein

• 4.9 • 369 Ratings

Listen on Apple Podcasts Requires macOS 11.4 or higher

• APR 7, 2024

S3 E37 Brad Wilcox on Christ, Gathering, and the Hope of Israel in the Allegory (week of April 8)

To learn about the Church History Tour, email [email protected] . To get more lectures and other fantastic material, join us at TSAR.website In this episode Brad Wilcox and Kerry discuss the allegory of the Olive tree and all the amazing lessons to learn therefrom. They especially emphasize the gathering of Israel, and the amazing things happening in the Church and among youth today. They explore the role of Christ in the allegory and gathering and the way He nourishes us. We are grateful for our anonymous donors and our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for the podcast.

• MAR 31, 2024

S3 E 36 Jan Martin on Jacob's teachings about our Relationship with God (week of April 1, only episode)

Consider going to TSAR.website to get more from Jacob's sermons. There, I give daily thoughts, and this week they come from exploring Jacob's sermon more in depth. You can also access masterclasses, workshop, lectures, and all sorts of other material. Go to TSAR.website to access all this material. In this episode Jan Martin and Kerry set the background for understanding Jacob's sermon. They also discuss the temple setting and how it impacts our understanding. They also explore how the crux of the teachings are about our relationship with God and our relationships in general. How do you relate to possessions? How to you relate to others, especially family members and members of the opposite sex? How do these things affect your relationship with God? Are you letting possessions or other things prevail more in your life than God? They also explore different ways we can share of our "substance" with others and how we can bless others in many ways. They talk about how stratification of society and not seeing people equally is part of the concubine issue Jacob speaks of. They also delve into how Jacob's teachings can help us understand how to deal with trials and have them bring us closer to God rather than push us away from Him. They also speak of the need to be reconciled to God and receive of His counsel and submit to His will. We are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for the podcast.

• MAR 30, 2024

S3 E35 Easter Sunday with Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein

Consider accessing extra content by joining our group at TSAR.website My book, the Easter Connection, would be a great enrichment for your Easter and a gift for others. https://www.seagullbook.com/easter-connection.html In this episode Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein discuss the events of Easter Sunday. They revel in the reality of the resurrection, and explore the profound witnesses we have of that blessed event. We are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for this podcast.

• MAR 29, 2024

S3 E 34 Holy Saturday with Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein

Consider accessing extra content by joining our group at TSAR.website My book, the Easter Connection, would be a great enrichment for your Easter and a gift for others. https://www.seagullbook.com/easter-connection.html In this episode Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein discuss the events of Holy Saturday. They cover the burial of the Savior, and also the things we know He did while His body was in the tomb but His spirit was in the Spirit World. We are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for this podcast.

• MAR 28, 2024

S3 E 33 Good Friday with Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein

Consider accessing extra content by joining our group at TSAR.website My book, the Easter Connection, would be a great enrichment for your Easter and a gift for others. https://www.seagullbook.com/easter-connection.html In this episode Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein discuss the events of Good Friday. They talk about the Savior’s trials, and about His suffering on the cross, and His death. We are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for this podcast.

• MAR 27, 2024

S3 E32 Holy (or Maundy) Thursday with Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein

Consider accessing extra content by joining our group at TSAR.website My book, the Easter Connection, would be a great enrichment for your Easter and a gift for others. https://www.seagullbook.com/easter-connection.html In this episode Andrew Skinner and Kerry Muhlestein discuss the events of Holy (or Maundy) Thursday. The discuss the powerful events and teachings at the Last Supper, and then explore the profound suffering of Gethsemane. We are grateful for our sponsor, Lisa Spice, and for our producer, BJ Muhlestein, and for Rich Nicholls, who composed and plays the music for this podcast.

• © Kerry Muhlestein 2021

Customer Reviews

369 Ratings

One of the best

I’m so thankful for Kerry’s work, here and elsewhere. I listen regularly to several scripture podcasts and this is consistently one of my favorites. Thank you for making it. I hope you have some sense of the butterfly effect of your efforts.

Wonderful insights into the scriptures!

Love this podcast! It has helped me to see the scriptures in different ways and help relate them to my own life. Grateful that Kerry and his guests often remind me to use this podcast as a supplement and not the only source of my scripture study.

You do make the Scriptures come alive

Thank you for this podcast. It starts my week of study off. Monday morning walk preps me for what I’m going to read and study for the rest of the week. Love the historical background each week. As a genealogical researcher I know how important the history, culture and geography or setting is to the events that are taking place. Thanks for educating us on those things. Please 🙏 keep up this amazing podcast. Kathleen Rose

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