7 thoughts on “In Our Ward: Lesson 39: “How Beautiful upon the Mountains””

1. Remarkable that the Book of Mormon quotes scripture you describe as having been spoken at the end of the Babylonian captivity. Am I missing something?

2. Haven’t you been reading comments in previous weeks, Vader? I’m a faithless viper who doesn’t believe in prophecy, and am lying in wait to lead my class members astray. That should just about cover everything you have in mind.

3. Less snarkily, I am one of those who recognizes an “Isaiah problem” with the Book of Mormon. I acknowledge that others do not — but neither am I alone in recognizing that there is a problem (you don’t think I’m smart enough to have come up with it on my own, do you? Oh, drat, there’s that snark again.)

   A week or two ago I tried to alert my class, which includes some young people, to the existence of an “Isaiah problem,” not with the intent to persuade them one way or another, but merely to alert them to its existence and to the fact that people with both faith and scholarship are addressing it. This is one of those things that non-believers throw at us from time to time; I didn’t want its existence to take anyone by surprise, and I wanted to point them to a few resources that addressed the problem, simply so they would know that it has been addressed.

   I don’t know what the solution to that “Isaiah problem” is, and I don’t care one way or another how it is resolved or which side you or anyone else comes down on. I am persuaded, though, that it’s a good idea to acknowledge its existence, if for no other reason than to take some of the sting out of the way it is thrown at us by those whose sole purpose is not to arrive at truth but only to destroy faith.

4. “I’m a faithless viper who doesn’t believe in prophecy, and am lying in wait to lead my class members astray.”

   And I’m obviously an agent of the Strengthening the Membership Committee who is preparing a dossier on you, because we find your lack of faith disturbing.

   But let’s pretend for a minute that I’m a Gospel Doctrine teacher who holds a temple recommend but whose intellectual credentials are vouched by a Ph.D. in the physical sciences from a Top Ten research university.

   I don’t know what your class membership is like. I have seen enough wonderfully faithful stuff here at Keepapitchinin that I don’t doubt you carefully and prayerfully prepare your lessons with their particular needs, strengths, and hangups in mind.

   My own class is in a unit far, far away from Utah (though not as far away as Utah might wish), but our unit is large and our activity rate is high. I think last Sunday was the first time in weeks we had more than two adults attending who had not completed a bachelor’s degree. On a typical Sunday, I’d guess two-thirds of the brothers and a good share of the sisters attending have advanced degrees. My co-instructor and several class members have Ph.D.s.

   I mention this both to give some idea what my class is like, and to dispel any assumptions on the part of any of your readers that I am a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal who reads Cleon Skousen reverently and is terribly proud to have recently completed my G.E.D. I am, in fact, a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal (which is awkward when teaching the lessons on Genesis) but I’m a thoroughly house-trained KDN who would be completely at home in a Geico commercial.

   When we got to the lesson on the Flood, I asked who believed the flood was global. Some hands went up. I asked who believed the Flood was regional. Some other hands went up, including the Ph.D. research chemist who had just been released as our stake president. I commented that it was wonderful to belong to a church where members believing either could sit besides each other in Church and in the temple and worship and work together in the same Spirit. And then I directed the discussion away from geophysics and towards the parallels between the pre-Flood society of Noah and our day.

   My comments on the Documentary Hypothesis and Isaiah were limited to noting that it exists and that the omission of a number of chapters of Isaiah from the Book of Mormon redaction is consistent with some aspects of the Documentary Hypothesis. I added that, in my opinion, the Documentary Hypothesis as applied to Isaiah leans too heavily on anachronisms — a position that seems unsound and circular to me, if you believe that prophecy is actually possible.

   I did not specifically address the issue of Abinadi quoting parts of Isaiah that all the cool scholars assign to the post-Exilic Deutero-Isaiah. But, had I done so, I might have suggested that whereas the world sees this as a problem for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, perhaps we should see it as a problem for the Documentary Hypothesis. As a suggestion; I don’t know all the answers, either, but I am convinced the Book of Mormon is an inspired translation of an authentic ancient document.

   I guess I was surprised, to the point of unwarranted snark, that you seemed to accept the Documentary Hypothesis as a given, even when it seems to contradict the Book of Mormon. I may have misunderstood the content or intent of your lesson outline, and apologize if it is so.

   My class is already all too familiar with scholarly attacks on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. I don’t need to familiarize them any further. What they need the witness of the Spirit that the Book of Mormon is nonetheless true, and it helps if they get some reassurance that all the cool scholars might be mistaken and that there is a faithful explanation for the Isaiah problem — even if I can’t tell them for sure what the explanation is.

   And it can be frustrating when I go to the Lord and tell him what cool thing I want to teach about the Old Testament in class this week, and his answer is No.

5. My huge adult-only ward has three concurrent Gospel Doctrine classes, as well as the full range of Family Relations, Family History, Gospel Principles, and whatever else there is. Nobody is assigned to a particular class, and people float around as they choose. Those who regularly choose to attend my class fall into two lopsided parts: The larger part is older (65+) and includes general authorities (current and emeritus), returned temple and mission presidents and their wives, and others of that experience. In this group I’d also put a number of old-time Church members whose ideas of doctrine and social issues were formed in the ’50s and ’60s — good, knowledgeable, salt of the earth people, but who struggle to participate in a lesson that is not exactly as it has always been given. I don’t mean a lesson that skirts the documentary hypothesis; I mean any very routine that doesn’t include questions that let them give their standard answers in standard phrasing. They’ll raise their hands and tell me that I forgot to say such-and-such and proceed to give one of their standard speeches.

   The smaller but still numerically significant part of my class is young marrieds whom I have a hard time drawing out — I try — but they’re getting something they need or want, because they keep coming rather than going into one of the other classes that skews younger. I don’t get the sense that many of them (with at least one notable exception) are especially conversant with anything fringey or controversial or scholarly, although they are well versed in scripture in a missionary way.

   Despite what you see in this lesson, I think I am a very conservative teacher. That is, I feel obligated to teach to the stated purpose of the lesson, not merely use the assigned text block as an excuse to wander off into any field that can be loosely tied to that text block. I think class discussion — especially providing the opportunity to testify to class members’ experiences with whatever principle is being taught — is the absolute most important responsibility of my calling.

   BUT — I do believe I am called as a teacher and not just a discussion facilitator. That means I feel a responsibility to present something — something relevant — above and beyond the standard script that we all know. That takes several forms, depending on what I can come up with for the lesson:

   1. Context (time and place). Once we get past Solomon, our lesson manuals provide few cues to help people know where we are in the history of the Israelites. I don’t know about you, but I grew up without any sense at all of any story line after Solomon. So every week I put a bare-bones timeline on the board that looks something like a simplified genealogy chart, with United Israel forking into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. I indicate which Kingdom was the home of whichever prophet we’re talking about. And even though our manual gives no hint whatsoever of the storyline of the captivity/destruction of the kingdoms, or how long after David or before Christ the relevant prophet was teaching, I have given the storyline, and each week recapitulate in three or four sentences where we are in that history.

   2. Actually reading the scriptures. Even the experienced side of my class struggles to read and understand the part of the Old Testament we’re in now. We’ve grown up hearing King James, but we’re out of practice because for so many years we haven’t really read it except in its diluted Book of Mormon form. We’ve only read key verses, not struggled to understand whole chapters or sermons or oracles. So we usually read through a longer passage (part of our assigned text block). During the week, I have struggled to understand that passage, looked up the difficult words and grammatical structures, consulted commentaries — usually non-LDS, because I’ve given up on LDS commentaries that discuss doctrine but don’t discuss the text. I sometimes will paraphrase upcoming verses (“Now we’ll read how Isaiah warned them of such-and-such”) so that when we read and then talk about those verses, class members can sometimes have that Eureka! moment of actually understanding something that was absolutely opaque before.

   Most of that does not come across in my lesson outlines posted here, because I don’t write down everything I’ve learned about that passage during the week. But whenever you see a passage in my outline that runs for more than 6 or 8 verses, and I only indicate “discuss this,” you can be sure that it’s a reading and discussion to help the class understand as well as I can (which may not be very well, but I try. I really try, and with little encouragement or assistance from Church-produced materials). This is what many class members tell me they like best about my class: They’re worried that they cannot understand the scriptures, and they appreciate both understanding some small part and the feeling of success they have when they CAN understand.

   3. Some added bit, whatever it is, that I think is important. This is probably where I get into trouble with you. In this particular case, as I think I’ve said before, I was concerned about the younger members of the class — the ones most likely to be using the Internet — who have challenges to Church doctrine thrown at them, and who have few personal resources to turn to for support and explanation. The question of Isaiah’s authorship, and its implications on the Book of Mormon, is one of those challenges.

   My purpose in outlining it as I did was not to play “cool scholar” as you seem to assume it was; and it was not to resolve the problem by giving an answer one way or the other. It was simply to demonstrate the problem, and then point class members to places where they could find help in resolving such problems. They need to know about FAIRMormon and the Maxwell Institute and the Interpreter and other reliable, faithful sources to research questions like this, and so very many more. My purpose was not to familiarize my class “with scholarly attacks on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon” — it was to acknowledge that such attacks exist, and and point them to sources of defense.

   You’ll be pleased to know that there was pushback from three older members of the class who thought I was doing what YOU think I was doing — so obviously I wasn’t doing it very skillfully. The pushback, I’m sure, gave everybody in the room both sides of the issue, and reinforced my primary purpose in making sure class members were aware of places to turn for assistance with those challenges, and any others that come up.

   I’m glad you recognize from nearly 5,000 posts that I have at least a passing loyalty to the Church and at least a weak grasp of the gospel. I don’t appreciate implications otherwise, and I react with contempt when those implications are made. They feel like personal attacks from the very people I look to for support when I’m being constantly attacked from the other side for my gullibility and naivete and ignorance in being a steady member of the Church despite what I obviously should know is a fraud. Sometimes I joke that I must be doing things right when both sides complain about me. But that’s whistling past the graveyard, because I don’t think it is a joke at all.

   I have been called and set apart as the teacher of this class. I take that seriously. I don’t teach in order to show what a cool scholar I am. I wouldn’t teach that way even if it were true. If I make mistakes, it’s because I have an inadequate background, not an inadequate faith and not an inadequate concern for what my class members need, which sometimes goes beyond the one-size-fits-all manual.

   And in final defense, although I dislike playing this card, I will say that I have *never* been corrected, or cautioned, or called to answer for false teaching by my bishopric or by the general authorities who attend my class. Very much to the contrary.

6. “2. Actually reading the scriptures. ”

   Yeah. This is particularly hard with the Old Testament. I can pretty much count on almost none of my class members having read the relevant scriptures when they come to class.

   Part of it is that our local leadership give us a scripture reading challenge every year at Stake Conference — and it’s always the book of scripture the Seminary kids are studying that year, which is never the book of scripture the Sunday School is studying that year. (Do you sense a bit of a pet peeve here?)

   “And in final defense, although I dislike playing this card, I will say that I have *never* been corrected, or cautioned, or called to answer for false teaching by my bishopric or by the general authorities who attend my class. Very much to the contrary.”

   I don’t recall ever being corrected for false teaching. I have, however, been corrected for teaching badly. By both those having a stewardship over me, and some who do not. And then there are those who have simply switched to one of the other adult classes. *sigh*

7. I do believe I am called as a teacher and not just a discussion facilitator. That means I feel a responsibility to present something — something relevant — above and beyond the standard script that we all know.

   I haven’t been a GD teacher for several years, but it is my favorite job in the church. Like Ardis, I felt my calling to be that of teacher, not just a discussion facilitator. I always tried to use means such as maps, picture, and other information to set the historical stage of the scriptures I was teaching about.

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