Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Where dawn and I live, we are surrounded by mountains. In fact, you can look in almost any direction and see an absolute majestic peak. Wouldn't you agree?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Well, we have some good news for those of you who live in some flat land, because regardless of how flat the terrain is where you live, you are actually surrounded by more mountains than you even imagine. Today we're going to talk about those mountains. And here's some also good news. Those mountains have a majesty all to themselves. Welcome to Jesus Christ in Scriptures. Finding Jesus on every page. I'm Tammy Uzalak hall. This is Dr. Donald W. Perry. And today we are going to talk about some really significant mountains. So grab your scriptures and something to mark them with. And first things first, let's turn to Genesis chapter one. So go to Genesis chapter one, and I'm going to start out by giving you a really great cross reference that you want to put in your scriptures. So in Genesis chapter one, verse one, right to the outside, we want you to write Moses and then you're going to put one through six.
The reason why you're going to put Moses one through six is because the Lord has given us a revised or a translated version of the creation story. And that's found in Moses chapters one through six. And one of the things you're going to notice is it doesn't begin with and it came to pass. Don is going to tell us how it starts. And here's something really cool. It is the perfect setup for the creation story. All right, Don, here we go. We're in. Moses chapter one. Even though we went to Genesis one.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Teach us.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yes. Today we'll look closely at one verse, Moses 1:1. Okay. Today we're going to look at Moses 1:1 and demonstrate the prominence of God in that work. So I've looked up the opening sentences of several popular novels, and here are some of them. Let's read every other one. You want to read the first one? Yeah.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Because this is one of my favorite books.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I love Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It starts out with. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Thank you. I love that Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It's a simple first opening sentence. Call me Ishmael.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Tale of the Two Cities is. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and I.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Had to read that book in high school. It was hard reading at the time for me.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that sounds like the opening line of motherhood. Just going to put that up there.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: And then Little Women by Louisa May Alcott starts out like this.
Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, grumbled Joe, lying on the rug.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Now, I came up with many more of these, but for the sake of time, I'm just showing you this. This many. I want to show you the opening sentence of the Book of Moses.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: It is so powerful.
And it goes like this. The words of God. Can you imagine starting a book? The words of God? And I'm going to show you how many words there are in the Book of Moses.
The words of God which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: That's a powerful opening line for any book. It is, but specifically because we're so used to Genesis 1:1 in the beginning. But how awesome to think that this is how the creation story begins today.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Let's look at three phrases in this verse. One phrase is the words of God which he spake unto Moses. And another phrase is, moses was caught up. What does that mean? And the third one is exceedingly high mountain. All right, phrase one, the words of God which he spake unto Moses. Now, when you study a text closely, there's actually there are linguistic markers or certain phrases that mark off a section. So Moses 1:1 through 4:32 constitutes a section, or we call it a literary unit. And this deals with God's words to his prophet Moses. Next time you read the Book of Moses, you'll see that as a section. And within this literary unit, there are nine speech formulas. Now, I'll explain that.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know what is a speech formula.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: That's fancy. It's where the text introduces God's speech to Moses. I'll show you examples. We won't look at them all, but if you can just see, there are speech formulas. They're also called prophetic, revelatory, or revelation formulas. And here they are. And God spake unto Moses, saying, and God said unto me. And I'm going to jump down a little bit saying, and the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying. These are all markers to say, okay, here's going to be some more direct speech.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: I loved learning this, Don, when you taught this, you write this in your book. Don has an awesome book called Preserved in Translation. And I spent a whole summer pouring over your book because it takes you to verses of scripture to mark. I loved marking these introductory word phrases and actually making a little paper in my scriptures so that, as I'm seeing These in scripture, I can highlight them because the prophetic speech form is so important to know when God is speaking to man and his prophets. Like, I love this idea.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: I'm pleased that you're keeping track of these, marking these. Keep it easy. And they're found in Isaiah and they're found throughout the Old Testament. They're found in the Book of Mormon. I want everyone to look at the very last speech formula.
And these are the words which I spake unto my servant Moses, first person God speaking. And notice here his testimony. And they are true even as I will, and I have spoken them unto you.
I love this testimony. So I want everyone to notice speech formulas when they read scriptures from now on.
Now I have a little side note. We call it an excursus.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: It's a detailed side note. And that is the book of Moses has a lot of ands. And you say and who cares about and it's such a little word. These many ends are very Hebraic.
They're found in the Hebrew Bible. There are 50,000 ish, 50,000 ands in the Hebrew Bible.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: That's a lot.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: It's a lot.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Especially when you consider maybe just put a comma or in English. Today, you would never be allowed to put that many ands in this tenets.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: No, no.
A teacher would mark you down and say, you can't use all these ands.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: So why are there so many ands in the Hebrew Bible?
[00:06:04] Speaker B: It's the Hebrew way of writing this happened and this and this and this. But the book of Moses, which came out of the ancient world, also has ands. I counted approximately 1,114 ands. That's astounding.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: And also I want to point out that and is very prominent in the Book of Mormon.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Okay, I just have to tell you one of my favorite verses with the ands in your scriptures. Turn to the book of Helaman, go to chapter three, go to verse 14, and circle every time you see the and. And you're gonna find it 18 times.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Just one verse. And so I like that you said the reason there's so many ands is cause it's a Hebrew literary style. And then we know the Book of Mormon. If it could have been written in Hebrew, it would have been according to Mormon. And so how awesome that you have this verse with so many ands. I just kind of think, I wonder if Oliver Cowdery was like, Joseph, come on, we need just commas here. It would be so much easier. And Joseph like, sorry, it Says, and.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: It'S the way it's coming through.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah, you just gotta put it in. And so 18 ands in one verse. So I love this.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: So one of my sons returned from his mission.
He gave me a Book of Mormon to put in my hand. He said, dad, flip through here and look at the beginning of every verse. And I went like this, just random. And, and, and sometimes. And it came to pass. And. And he said, dad, that's ancient Hebrew in the Book of Mormon.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: It really is.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: And I think he forgot that I've been teaching biblical Hebrew for 33 years.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Did you act surprised?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, look at this.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Wow, that's great.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: No, so I just want to emphasize the ends in the Book of Moses and in the Book of Mormon, they constitute Hebraisms or Hebrew, like. And I'm just going to give you a glimpse. We're not going to read this. But I put in red so the viewers can see it. This is Moses 1:27,33. And notice how many ends and it came to pass. And, and, and, and Very Hebrew.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah, very.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: We did a word count of the words of God. That's how the book starts, the words of God. So we did a.
Of how many words are actually God's.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Chapter one has 727 words of God. Chapter two, 1006 and so on. Now, this is preliminary and it's approximate and I hope it's somewhat close, but this is astounding. How many words of God actually. And God said. And then you have the words of.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: God that he is speaking to Moses.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: And then essentially to us. That's great. This is cool.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: All right, phrase two.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: All right.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Talk about mountains. Moses was caught up. And so I found several passages where other prophets were caught up. What does that mean, caught up? So I looked at Ezekiel. Ezekiel, Ezekiel. And I have another slide. The first one here. Right here.
It's the Spirit lifted me up. And notice it's not just for fun. It's something that's going to happen often. A vision. So the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the visions. So often they have a vision.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Well, I like this last one because it seems so personal, the hand of the Lord.
Like, it just gets so personal, the idea of his hand upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was full of bones. Just that personal imagery. And it makes me just think of, you know, picking up a little child. There's some childlike quality in there. And that you're protected by this big, ominous hand of the Lord in all caps. That we now know what that means and that it was upon him. I think that is a beautiful verse. You would feel safe in that moment of being caught up. Because I think caught up can seem a little scary, especially when you read this. You're like, am I floating? What's going on? And so this is safe to me. I like that.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: I'm going to turn this and show you.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: There's a group called the Sons of the Prophets. And they say to Elisha, so Elijah's gone. And the Sons of the Prophets said, let's go find him. We'll look over here and over here and over here. And they said to Elisha, who succeeded Elijah, they said, peradventure, the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him, Elijah upon and cast him on a mountain or some valley. They're so used to this sort of thing. And let us go look for him. And Elisha says, don't bother. Or don't. I don't remember that quote. And they did it anyway. And they came back, said we couldn't find him. That would have been a great time for Elisha to say, told you so. You still listen to me. He didn't do that.
That's one of my favorites. Notice there's a Nephi, caught away the spirit. And there's John and Philip.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: So what does it mean to be caught away?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: The spirit carries you away and transports you for utility value.
So I think Philip had to go somewhere else in the land quickly. I'm not sure. But other times the spirit lifts you up and you have a vision. Okay, so physically or scientifically, I don't know how it works.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I don't know either. But if we go back to verse one, why is Moses being caught up? Because he's not dying or dead.
I don't know if he's going to another place. So what does it mean?
[00:10:53] Speaker B: He's going to have a vision. A huge vision.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: It's a precursor to yes.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Now we're at phrase three, exceedingly high mountains. And symbolically, all temples are like mountains. You read Ezekiel and you read Isaiah and so on. Symbolically, they're made of mountain materials, granite and marble. They reach to the sky. And I think that's one purpose for a spire. When we worship in temples, like Salt Lake Temple, there's an ascension. Sometimes it's literal.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Yes, I've noticed that. Like, he'll move.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Might be two steps, but it's still an ascension. Now Correspondingly, some actual mountains have served as temples. And I'm including some of these here. And I'll give you evidence.
I want evidence, Brother Perry. I'll give you evidence.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: I do.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: I think this is great.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: So here are some right here.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: I like the concept or this idea of the temple being compared to a mountain. It's also a little bit daunting because for people who don't like to hike or people who don't like to create a great deal of exertion, it could seem like maybe getting to the temple is like climbing up a high mountain. But for it to be used so often in scripture makes it doable. Like many people have done it. It can be done. And so climbing up to this mountain is. I like how you said it's an ascension where we're meeting God and he's coming down to us where we can meet with Him. And so I think this is great. When we have the first one caught away in the spirit of the Lord to an exceedingly high mountain, that could seem a little scary, but also really awesome if you're caught up.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: I really like the Enoch one. He's journeying. He's just on his way somewhere. He stands in this place, he cries to the Lord. So he's praying, and he hears a voice saying, turn, go this way. Get on this mountain.
And he did it. And I stood on the mountain, and I don't know if it took a day or a week or an hour. And when he's there, he has this vision. I beheld the heavens opened and eyes clothed upon. I love that. That image. Clothed upon with glory.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Especially when you think about how we're clothed in the temple. Yes, with glory. It's beautiful.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Now, I've got two statements here. I'm just going to read one. Jesus took Peter, James, and John into a high mountain. I think I know where it is. And there gave them their endowment. Is that interesting?
[00:13:02] Speaker A: I loved learning this. I went to Matthew, I marked it in my scriptures. To think that when they went to the Mount of Transfiguration, it was a temple for them. They received their endowment. That's huge. That is huge. I love that. In preparation for what was coming. Yes, that's a big deal.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: I love it.
All right, so Mount Sinai. When we say a mountain is a temple, we don't mean it has walls and a doorway and so on. It's a natural outdoor temple. So this is what Elder Marion G. Romney said. Sinai became a temporary sanctuary from which he taught Moses.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: President Joseph Fielding Smith said The Lord made of Sinai a temple, and there gave to Moses the gospel and the law.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Well, that makes perfect sense that you would get the endowment in the place of the endowment. That is great.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: As the concluding slide, President Joseph Smith said, I preached in the grove on the keys of the kingdom, and he preached on charity, etc. And then he said this. The keys are certain signs and words by which false spirits and personages may be detected from true which cannot be revealed to the elders until the temple is completed. The rich can only get them these keys in the temple. The poor may get them on the mountaintop, as did Moses.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: I like this idea, and I'm so glad that you taught us these three phrases and how significant they are to us, especially the idea of mountains. Because like we said earlier, you and I live by so many mountains, but every member of the church lives by mountains or a mountain that they can get to at some point. And I love that our prophet and our church right now, I love that we are just flooding the earth with temples.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Me, too.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: So that they can be everywhere. So I just have a question for you.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Is there a temple that is significant to you or one that holds a special place in your heart?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yes. Can I name two?
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Salt Lake Temple.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yes. Why?
[00:14:45] Speaker B: I've worshiped there many times. It's just a powerful temple. And then, of course, the Manti Temple. That's where my sweetheart and I were married when I traveled to the Manti Temple. We do often to worship. Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Oh, thank you, Dawn.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: How about you? Mine is the share with us.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: I love the Saint. Well, the St. George Temple in Utah. That is where I received my endowment.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: And that was neat. And my whole family was there, and my extended family and my very best friend in the whole wide world at the time. She had received her endowment before me. She wasn't even going on a mission. And that was unprecedented at the time. She just was like, I'm ready to go. And I'm so glad that now we are encouraging young women. It's okay.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Me too.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: My daughter wanted to receive her endowment at 18, and she did.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: They let her.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: They let her. I love her. Yeah. And she won't be going. I mean, if she. She decides to serve a mission, it won't be till next year. But she just said, I'm ready, Mom. And I kind of tried to talk her out of it. Dawn, I remember thinking, you're kind of young. I don't know. And she was so certain. She's like, mom, I prayed about this. I've been going to the temple on my own to do baptisms like I'm ready. And that was humbling for me. Why would I deny her that? And it was a beautiful experience. And so my second temple is where she received her endowment, which is at the Jordan River Temple.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Okay. Yes, yes.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: What a cool experience. And so we would love to hear from you. What is a temple or mountain that holds dear to your heart? So comment down below and share with us. We'd love to see what your answers are. Thanks for joining us today. As we've talked about just one verse in the book of Moses, the precursor to the story of the creation. And I think what a great way to start what Moses is now about to see. And we're going to talk about what he saw in our next segment. So thanks for joining us. Shalom and goodbye.
