Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:00:04             My mission president was at this gathering and came back and reported this to us. President Packer was there and there was a question and answer session and he kept saying, Okay, well, on this, you’re gonna have to have the Spirit guide you. And in another one, you’re gonna have to have the Spirit guide you. And then finally someone asked, Okay, so how do we make sure we have the Spirit with us to guide us? And my mission president said his answer was two words.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:28             Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with John Bytheway. John, I read Moses chapter six, verse 38. There is a strange thing in the land, a wild man hath come among us. I remember being 12 years old, listening to John Bytheway speak. You weren’t that old, John. You were probably mid-20s. I remember where I was, John. I was on your left. I was looking way far over there. I was 12 years old. I was at youth conference and I thought, He’s amazing. It was like a stirring within. I’m being serious here. It was like, He is great. It stirred me. There was a strange thing in the land I would have said. A wild man hath come among us. Something amazing is happening.

John Bytheway:               00:01:18             How interesting. Thanks for, wild strange man.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:23             It must have been in the ballroom of the Wilkinson Center maybe. I don’t know how old the old Wilkinson Center is. It might have been the JSB Auditorium. I honestly don’t remember where it was. I remember being on your far left and I was just like, This is awesome. A St. George Youth Conference, St. George Stake. We were up at BYU. John, we are privileged, honored. We love him with all of our heart and soul. He’s part of our followHIM family. Dr. Kerry Muhlestein is back with us. Kerry, welcome back to the show.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:01:52             Ah, thank you. Speaking of strange and wild men, thank you for having me back.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:57             Yeah. This was the perfect chapter, Kerry, as I prepared, I thought. Strange and wild. Well, that’s who I think of. Yeah. Our offices were across the hall from each other. There was strange and wild things happening over there. You walk in his office, John, and there is Egyptian artifacts. You’re going, This is incredible. This guy, he knows everything. Kerry knows everything. It’s a strange and wild thing- … In a good way. In a good way. John, when you think of Enoch and what we get from the prophet Joseph Smith.

John Bytheway:               00:02:32             Oh, thanks for asking that. There is a YouTube video out there called The Old Testament in Eight Minutes. I think it was written by the Fullmer brothers, a couple of seminary teachers out there. The funny thing is, they rushed through the Old Testament really well. They talk about Enoch and how his city was taken, which is not Genesis, which is Moses, because we don’t get in. And the comment sections are like, Wait, what? When, when did that happen? And I’m like, Okay, that’s Pearl of Great Price. So I think about a mention of Enoch in Genesis, but a full story of Enoch in the Pearl of Great Price, that’s what I think of.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:10             Yeah. Kerry, what are you thinking we’re gonna do today? Where do you wanna go?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:03:14             John’s getting us right there. This is an amazing revelation. This is one of those days where we just have to be grateful for the Restoration. To be so blessed to have the flood of light that came through the Prophet Joseph Smith, because not only do we know more about Enoch, but the profound truths that he teaches, some of the most important, profound truths. I think chapter six, one of the most beautiful chapters in all of scripture. I’ve said that about a number of chapters, but it really is an amazing chapter. I am so grateful to be blessed by the truth that was restored to us through Joseph Smith.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:49             Yeah. What does Genesis chapter five give us about Enoch? And Enoch walked with God. Yep. And then you think- Hmm. … that’s interesting. I wonder if Joseph Smith said, Is there more to learn there? And what? Here just comes a flood of light knowledge, which turns into Moses chapter six.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:04:08             About 60 times that much now. Joseph Smith gives us 60 times as much as what is in Genesis.

Hank Smith:                      00:04:13             Yeah. It’s incredible. There’s many times where I’m teaching classes at BYU and I’ll say, How do you know that? How do you know what you know about this certain topic? They’ll say, I don’t know. The scriptures, the Bible, I’ll say, no. It’s in the scriptures, yes. It came from the prophet, Joseph Smith. The benefit we have of this 20-something year old farmer, it’s understated. I don’t think we realize what we know because of him.

John Bytheway:               00:04:40             Well, Hank, that is a great question to ask is just, now wait, where do you get that? ‘Cause a lot of us have a reservoir of gospel knowledge that we draw from, but when you go, Now, wait, what’s your rid- what’s your source for that? You’ll amazingly how much of that is clarifying in restoration scripture, ancient and modern. And it’s a good question to ask.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:02             It’s no wonder if you’re the adversary, you attack the prophet Joseph Smith because if you can get rid of him, you can get rid of how much understanding of the Lord, how much understanding of the plan of salvation. Now, John, someone might be joining us maybe for the first time with Kerry. I forgot to prepare.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:05:19             Okay.

John Bytheway:               00:05:21             Here we go.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:05:22             I thought there was a joke in there somewhere, but that was real.

John Bytheway:               00:05:25             Okay.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:26             John, I know you love his resume.

John Bytheway:               00:05:29             Yeah. It’s too big to read all of it, but I’m gonna hold up Learning to Love Isaiah right here. He can probably read this to us in the original Hebrew, but I’m going to read what’s here in the about the author. Kerry Muhlestein is a professor, former associate chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, where he’s taught Old Testament for nearly three decades. Also a director of research for that department. He received his bachelor’s in psychology, Hebrew minor from BYU, masters in Hebrew and ancient near Eastern studies from BYU and a PhD from UCLA, I love saying this, in Egyptology with a secondary emphasis in Hebrew and literature. He’s the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project. He and his wife, Julianne, are the parents of six children. They have lived in Jerusalem on multiple occasions while Kerry has taught there. Before we started recording, I was just talking to Kerry about how when I was in high school, I kind of had this fascination with King Tut and we talked about King Tut and now that you said what you did about his office, Hank, I need to get down there and see the Egypt and if I can’t make it to Cairo, I need to just go to your office and see the Egyptian stuff there because I think the art beautiful and fascinating and interesting and everything.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:50             I think he’s got the original tablets of Moses in there.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:06:53             Yeah. But I’m not supposed to talk about that.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:55             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:06:56             Under glass.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:06:57             Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:59             Yeah, you’d think so. He just gets them out and holds them. Let’s jump into the Come, Follow Me manual because I wanna hear everything Kerry has to teach us today. The title of our lesson this week is Teach These Things Freely Unto Your Children, Genesis five and Moses six. Before we hit record, Kerry said, Well, all you need to do is read Moses six and you get all of Genesis five, so I’m guessing that’s where we’ll spend most of our time. Here’s the introduction. Most of Genesis five is a list of the generations between Adam and Eve and Noah. We read a lot of names. We don’t learn much about them. Then we read this intriguing, unexplained line. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. Surely there’s a story behind that verse. Without further explanation, the list of generation resumes.

                                           00:07:46             Thankfully, Moses chapter six reveals the details of Enoch’s story and it’s quite a story. We learn of Enoch’s humility, his insecurities, the potential God saw in him, and the great work he performed as God’s prophet. We also get a clearer picture of the family of Adam and Eve as it progressed through the generations. We read of Satan’s great dominion, but also of parents who taught children the ways of God. Especially precious is what we learn about the doctrine that these parents taught. Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. That doctrine, like the priesthood that accompanies it, was in the beginning and shall be in the end of the world also. Beautiful way to start. Kerry, you and I have been talking for a couple of months. Maybe before we jump into these chapters, you could give us some tips on how you approach the Old Testament.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:08:41             I would be so happy to. And that’s something, I mean, really, we could spend hours on. I’ve got lots of things where I do spend hours on that. I’ll just give a couple of little short tips that hopefully people can expand upon or they can go to different resources to find more about it. One of those would be to remember that we’re reading a book, whether it be the book of Moses or as we get into Moses and the Bible, the Old Testament that is focused primarily, the main character is Jehovah. Even though as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know that Jehovah is Jesus Christ. Sometimes we forget that when we read the Bible. I think it is worth recognizing that every week we should learn something about Christ or Jehovah, same being. It is worth thinking through that the Old Testament gives us insights into his nature, his character, how he interacts with us that we won’t find in any other book of scripture, just like any other book of scripture will give us stuff that we don’t find in the Old Testament. But I hope that everyone will approach the Old Testament this year asking themselves, What have I learned about the nature of Jehovah? And by extension, the Father, because Christ reveals to us what the Father is like. What have I learned about Christ and our Father and how he interacts with me and my relationship with him from the readings this week? That’s one of the more powerful tools or lenses that we could apply to reading the Old Testament. I think it’s a really wonderful one.

John Bytheway:               00:10:15             Josh Sears a few weeks ago, Hank, that was so helpful for me. I thought, Oh, that’s so true. I think of Jesus saying, Learn of me, listen to my words, and I’m thinking, Jesus, I forget and I’m also Jehovah of the Old Testament. I’m Jehovah of those millennia. I’m Jesus of one century in the New Testament. And I’m Jehovah of several millennia. Yeah, expand that you’re gonna see his character in all of those places too. And Hank, while I’m talking, Kerry has a podcast of his own called The Scriptures Are Real that we ought to reference, which is excellent. People should wanna go to that after they’ll … If they haven’t already, after they hear Kerry today, they’ll wanna check that out. The scriptures are real.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:03             It’s interesting, John, occasionally people will say, Oh, I like your podcast more than the other. I’ll say, Listen, we are all on the same team.

John Bytheway:               00:11:12             Find a flavor you like.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:14             Yeah. We have one goal. We wanna build the kingdom.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:11:17             Yeah. Yeah. And there’s, there’s plenty of time if we’re listening while we drive and whatever else to listen to a bunch of podcasts. And we each have different niches. Like I’m really geared up this year. We’re showing drone footage. I just got back from a trip where I was recording, driving, walking around. We’re gonna have different levels of people who want just to go through the text, there’ll be like an episode with that, but then we’ll have somewhere we’re going through geography, archeology, history, language, things. We all have our own things that we contribute and there’s not going to be too much of studying the gospel and studying the scriptures together like, how can we have too many resources? There’s no such thing.

Hank Smith:                      00:11:55             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:11:56             Five years ago, Hank, when I was first invited to be part of followHIM podcast, I thought audio because podcast is a play on the word broadcast, except it’s with an iPod, so we’ll call it a podcast, but, it’s all video now. What Kerry just described, you’ve got drone footage in Egypt and stuff like that. Is that what you’re talking about?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:12:18             Yeah, in Israel. So I had to, I purchased, they don’t let you just bring your drone into Israel. Right. You have to use licensed people. So I purchased some, footage of key sites. And then I had one where we’d put it on the dash of the car so you can see us approaching and then one where as we walk into places you can focus in on places and all sorts of things, plus photos that I’ve been taking for like 20 years. Well, it’s more than 20 years. 30. Actually over 30 years I’ve been taking pictures of things in Israel. So, and maps that I’ve been making and all those things. I put a lot of that in this book that’s no longer in print. It’s, I can’t get it to focus, but it’s the essential-

Hank Smith:                      00:12:57             Put it back by your face, Kerry. There you go.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:12:59             There we go. There it is. Okay. The Essential Old Testament Companion. It’s not in print anymore, but this is one where I did make maps. It’s got charts and it does have something in there like something you should learn about Jehovah for each week. It’s from the old gospel doctrine lesson. So it’s only about an 85 to 89% match. There are a couple different things. It’s not available, but Covenant agreed to let me have the rights to that because it has so many pictures it’s too expensive to print. People can get that for free. I’m willing to send out the PDF of it to anyone who wants it for free. They can just email me at thescripturesarereal@gmail.com. I’ll give them a free copy of that, but that has lots of photos and maps and charts and things like that in it as well.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:41             Yeah. That gives me a chance to talk about one other one that’s available and Kerry’s in this one as well. It’s called Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It’s bits from our lessons four years ago. We also have a free PDF. You go to followhim.co. Kerry, you were right. There is no dearth of resources for anyone who wants to understand the scriptures and wants to take the time for them. This is what we do for fun. We really like this stuff.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:14:09             Now let me give you a couple more points or lenses, however you want to call it, tools that will help people as they’re studying the Old Testament this year. One of those is to look for symbolism. Sometimes we’re in such a hurry to read, and I get it with, especially with the Old Testament, like we have big reading assignments. Sometimes we had Section 93 in the Doctrine of Covenants. Read that one section. There are no weeks this year where we’re reading one chapter. I get that sometimes we have to read quickly, but I hope people will slow down to look for symbols and especially symbolic action. The Lord had his prophets do things or he interacted with people in a way where it was real, but it was done in a way that would teach symbolically. And that’s what the people in the Old Testament were attuned to.

                                           00:14:52             That’s what they’re looking for. We’re gonna miss a lot of what he’s teaching us if we don’t start to look for that. So for example, with the Exodus, I mean, it really happened, but it happens in a way where the symbols are abundant. And if we’ll slow down and take some time to learn from those, from almost any story or teaching in the Old Testament, I don’t think you’ll have a week where there aren’t lots of symbols we can learn from. I would also suggest using a covenant lens, looking for what it teaches us about the covenant. You’ll find every week there are things that the New and Everlasting or Abrahamic Covenant, how if we look at it through that lens, we’ll see things and learn and understand things differently. Maybe I can touch on just one more that will launch us into where we’re stopping, or starting and what we’re talking about today.

                                           00:15:41             If you were to go to Genesis five, you’ll see pretty much the whole chapter is a genealogy list, and a lot of people skip over it. Or you get the first chronicles, and the first thing, the first chronicles, all these genealogy lists and so on. In fact, one of my advisors at UCLA did his dissertation back in the day on chronicles, and he said his dad tried to read, and he’s like, What? You’re talking about genealogy. What do I care about there? But there is actually a powerful lesson behind this. The Old Testament is the story of families. That’s why these things are recorded in there. It is a story of a family. It’s a story of God and his family, and we get to Abraham and his family or Israel and so on. It’s the story of family and bringing everyone in God’s family into the covenant family so that we can all return to be with God again. But it’s about family from beginning to end. And the beauty of the Old Testament is we don’t get a sanitized version of the family. All of the families we encounter are messy.

John Bytheway:               00:16:40             Yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:16:40             Just like every family on earth. There are some powerful things we can learn from that. It’s a wonderful thing. So if we will look for how the Old Testament teaches us about families, I think that will be a great tool in studying this year.

Hank Smith:                      00:16:56             Excellent. Well, with that, we can jump in, right?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:17:00             Yeah, because that’s where it starts. Maybe I can do one other thing. Let’s do a little bit of background on what we’re looking at as we look at the Book of Moses. And you’ve probably talked about this a little bit before.

Hank Smith:                      00:17:11             No, let’s not fear repetition here, Kerry. I think it’s really wise that someone might say, wait, Genesis five and Moses six are the same? How come we have two?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:17:21             There’s some particular elements of it that we need to understand to get what we’re reading today. The Book of Moses is the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis. That’s what it is. It was so much new material that we can’t do it in footnotes. It’s printed in its own book because it’s so much material. It was printed before we were doing footnotes. Anyway, that’s what it is, and we just have to remember that. This is the Joseph Smith translation of the first part of Genesis. Joseph received it in chunks. For example, Moses chapter one is something he receives in June of 1830. The part we’re reading now actually comes in some pretty quick chunks. This is probably the fastest densest period of time in receiving Joseph Smith translation of any periods of time or era, I would guess. Let’s make sure we understand this, that on November 30th at 1830, the church has been organized for just over six months, barely over six months.

                                           00:18:21             And on November 30th, Joseph receives a revelation that they didn’t have verses then, but now when we put it into verses, it’s known as Moses 5:52 through 6:18. We’re gonna start with chapter six, verse one, but we’re gonna start by reading a couple of verses before that because it’s pertinent to understanding the story. We put in that chapter break later. As Joseph received it, there was no break there. The verses are meant to go together. The very next day, he gets 6:19 through 52. That’s a really big chunk that he gets there. All one day, boom. Chapter six, verse 19 through 52. Then sometime in the next several days, we don’t know exactly when, but maybe the next day or maybe it’s two days or three days later, he gets chapter six, verse 52 through chapter seven, verse one. Basically, we get within a three-day period, Joseph receives in these chunks of revelation, all of chapter six with the verses just before and after it that really kind of belong with it.

                                           00:19:22             Hopefully that helps us understand the context of what we’re getting here, but I especially wanna look at it because it’s easy for us to forget that the verses that are coming right before this are part of the story. And that’s gonna be important as we get to the end of chapter six to try and make sense of some things. If it’s all right, I’d like to look just at an overview of chapter five because it sets up six. And I know you covered this in an earlier episode, but you get at the beginning of chapter five, Adam and Eve learn about sacrifice and they’re doing sacrifices. Then you get this interpolation. So they’re learning about sacrifices. Then Eve and Adam start to praise the Lord and they prophesy things and they’re grateful for the fall. And then it starts to talk about how they taught their children these things.

                                           00:20:07             And we get this whole long story about them teaching their children and their children are following Satan and they’re killing each other and all sorts of things that we would rather hadn’t happened. Then at the end of chapter five, it kind of comes back to where it was at the beginning when, at least the way I read it, it’s not 100% clear, but the way I read it, we’re back to when they learned about sacrifice. In verse 58, and thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning. So where we start this interpolation where it adds all this other stuff, it says, Adam and Eve start to teach their children. Now we go back. Thus, the gospel began to be preached from the beginning being declared by holy angels. This is the angel teaching Adam and Eve about sacrifice and how it’s similitude of the Only Begotten Son.

                                           00:20:53             By holy angels sent forth from the presence of God and by his own voice and by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Thus, all things were confirmed unto Adam by an holy ordinance and the gospel preached and a decree sent forth that it should be in the world until the end thereof, and thus it was amen. We have to ask ourselves, what holy ordinance is that talking about? I think we have two candidates and it may refer to both. One, it could be talking about that sacrifice that they’ve just been offering, but he’s been offering that for a while. That’s maybe confirmed, but only kind of confirmed. We’re going to see at the end of chapter six, when Enoch is telling Adam’s story, the baptism of Adam, and I assume Eve is baptized as well, that seems to me to perhaps be also what it’s talking about or maybe only that, but that it’s confirmed upon Adam as he enters into a covenant with God through baptism.

                                           00:21:47             That’s important to recognize as we move into chapter six that this has really kind of begun. Whether that’s what it’s talking about or not, we do know that Adam is baptized. This begins with Adam entering into a covenant with God. When we read Gospel with a capital G, we think gospel of Jesus Christ, or in other words, the good news of Jesus Christ. This teaches more clearly about Jesus Christ than what we have in Genesis. The book of Moses does. What a blessing to know that Christ was known about and taught about from the beginning. That’s exactly what Adam is teaching his children, and we’re going to see that in the course of this chapter, but that’s exactly what he’s teaching his children is about Christ. I once had a discussion with a rather popular minister here in Utah who said, this seems anachronistic if this is supposed to be Old Testament stuff that they know so much about Christ. My response to him was basically, well, if you don’t believe Joseph Smith was inspired, then it is anachronistic. But if you do, then to me, this is a duh.

                                           00:22:51             Of course, God wants his children to know about Christ from the very beginning. I feel better about thinking of a God who taught his children from the very beginning about Christ instead of saying, Well, I’m gonna keep Christ hidden for the first three quarters of history and then maybe we’ll start to teach people about Christ. That makes no sense to me. Of course he wants to from the very beginning teach about Christ.

John Bytheway:               00:23:12             Kerry, I love what you said that families are messy. These situations we’re reading about up to this point are messy and the gospel was preached, which is, you know, synnonym for the good news. But I see the messes. There is good news though. There’s hope, there’s healing. All of that is ahead because of Christ. So the gospel is preached that it should be there until the end of the world. I mean, that is good news.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:23:37             I agree. And as we start going, I mean, I would love to read every single verse in this chapter, but it’s such a long and beautiful chapter we won’t be able to. So if we’re skipping something you guys wanna talk about, please jump in. But I think you’re right. The good news is about Christ, but there’s another kind of form of good news coming for Adam and Eve here because if we’ll remember chapter five, they started to teach their children about Christ, and then Satan came and said, don’t believe it, and their children decided to follow Satan. They were devastated. Then they had Cain. We only know from this restoration version that Cain’s not the first child. And they had Cain and they were like, okay, good. We have a child who will follow God. Cain makes a covenant with Satan and becomes kind of his chief apostle almost as it were.

                                           00:24:25             He kills his brother. That’s a heartbreak for them. We are now finally going to get a child who is going to follow God. All of Adam and Eve’s children have decided not to follow God, and it’s here at the beginning of chapter six that we get a child who will follow God. Let’s not forget verse one. Adam hearkened unto the voice of God and called upon his people to repent. He’d been told that he should, and he does call on them to repent. That, we shouldn’t pass that by lightly, but we’re gonna come back to what that means to repent later in the chapter, if that’s okay. Let’s note it here, but he’s gonna talk about repentance a few times, unsurprisingly. Then we get Adam knowing his wife. She has a son and calls his name Seth. Adam glorified the name of God for he said, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew.

                                           00:25:12             Because after Cain, they got Abel and they thought, well, he was following God, but he was killed. God revealed himself unto Seth and he rebelled not, but offered an acceptable sacrifice like unto his brother Abel and to him also was born a son and he called his name Enos. So now we’re going to get this line of people who follow God. It’s really only one family and their descendants that are following God while all the rest of the world is following Satan. And that’s the story of the gospel and the world is that God works through families. That’s the primary vehicle of our transportation through the plan of salvation is the family. God works with the family as that vehicle. Some families choose not to follow God, and we typically are getting one family that will, and we try to get everyone to be part of that family then.

                                           00:26:02             As we do that, let’s look verse four and then began these men. So this is, we’ve got Adam, Abel and Enos so far. I’m sure they have other children, but these are the ones that we’ve been told about. These men call upon the name of the Lord and the Lord blesses them. And a book of remembrance was kept in the which was recorded in the language of Adam for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration. Well, let’s read one more verse. And by them, their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled. There’s so many fantastic things to unpack in there. They’re calling on God and this somehow is part of a book of remembrance. I was just reading today, I wanted to get a quote that we’ll read in just a second from Joseph Smith, and it was in a letter to W.W. Phelps in 1832. And in this letter, Joseph is talking about, well, we need to write down the names of people who are doing these things because that’s how their name is remembered in the Lamb’s book of life, right?

                                           00:27:03             This idea of remembering and writing down the good things, our official relationship with God, our good relationship with God, what’s happening, that this becomes really important. And somehow this language that is undefiled inspires Joseph. He will want to get back to the pure Adamic language again and again in his life. He and W.W. Phelps are playing around with it from time to time. And this is the quote that I was looking up because this is Joseph. In that letter, he says, Oh Lord God, deliver us in thy due time from the little narrow prison almost as it were of total darkness of paper and pen and ink and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language. They can’t convey the purity and truth of the gospel, the way they feel it and understand it, but somehow there is a language that can, and one day, I guess if we all talk telepathically or what, how this exactly works, but in some, at some point, we are able to communicate the truths of the gospel the way they deserve to be communicated rather than in our crooked, broken, scattered language that is a prison.

Hank Smith:                      00:28:16             That’s great, Kerry. I’m no Joseph Smith, but I find that same thing in my life when I want to express my feelings, it’s just, it’s difficult. I almost find myself wanting to use more symbols, like the ancient Jewish writers to express feelings rather than descriptor words. It just doesn’t seem to fit. You know, when you say the gospel’s awesome, well, that movie was awesome, and those aren’t the same thing.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:28:39             That’s right. I’m with you. It is one of the reasons for symbols and how powerful and beautiful they are, but I’ll tell you, so I try to be a really good journaler, sometimes I’m better than others, but I try to be a really good journaler, but I often find it to be a frustrating exercise because as I write about the experiences or the feelings I have that are of a spiritual nature, I just keep using the same word. It was great. It was wonderful. Like, nothing captures what I feel when I had it, the experience or when I’m trying to write it, I’m feeling at least a portion of that again, and I just can’t capture it. So I feel like this is kind of a stupid thing, that’s a dumb journal. What am I gonna do with it? ‘Cause I can’t capture it.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:18             Yeah. John, do you have anything there?

John Bytheway:               00:29:21             I had just underlined it when you started talking about it. The children were taught to read and write. The idea of reading and writing, I remember in English class, my English teachers just going crazy about the whole idea of language and that it could be recorded and stuff, and that little symbols could talk to us and communicate to us, and it went in this ear, and it went out that ear, and it gained speed on the trip. It took me years to really go, yeah, this is pretty incredible that you can record things that so early they taught them to read and write. That’s huge. We take literacy for granted sometimes, but it is this early that it mentions it, that’s pretty impressive.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:30:04             There’s a power in studying the scriptures and the things of the gospel that creates literacy, and then the literacy enables us to get more out of our study of the scriptures and the gospel. And there’s a wonderful spiral upwards there that I think sometimes we underestimate the power of our gathering our families together to study the word together. It is a bigger thing than I think we recognize. Yeah. I assume that we all got an email yesterday that actually encouraged us in podcasts and things like this to point out that there are other translations. There aren’t other translations of the Book of Moses. In English, there are other translations that sometimes … I love the King James version. I think there’s a power in teaching my children to read the King James version, that it allows them to be more masterful with language and so on, but that there are other versions of the Bible that help convey different things.

                                           00:31:00             And that’s all wrapped up in this idea of the power of language, but also being trapped in a broken, crooked, scattered, imperfect language. Sometimes we look at those other translations and it can kind of help us. And you can look at tools like netbible.org or bluebible. There are all sorts of online things that can help you with different translations of the Bible and look up what the Hebrew was or when we get to New Testament, the Greek and so on. We live in a day where resources abound and that’s fantastic. Hopefully it can help us overcome that broken prison of a language. But the real key to overcoming the prison of English, Spanish, Portuguese, whatever it is you’re speaking, is the Spirit. That’s what overcomes the broken, crooked language. And I think we learned that in Section 50, especially, but this idea, it doesn’t matter how well said it is, it’s not well said enough to convey a truth of the gospel. The person who’s speaking it needs to have the Spirit with them, and then when you hear it or read it or whatever, you need to have this. And that’s how you overcome and understand it in truth despite the flawed nature of our communication process.

John Bytheway:               00:32:07             I sometimes wonder if when prophets have had visions that cannot be written, it’s not because, no, this is a secret, don’t tell anybody. It’s because there’s no language to describe what I just saw. Maybe that’s part of it too.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:32:19             I think so. Like when you think of 3 Nephi 17 in the blessing of the children, and it says that they can’t write some of the things. My guess is a lot of it is like, we just felt things that there’s no way to describe. And Christ taught us things that we just can’t … I mean, what we felt and understood as he taught us, we can’t figure out how to write down. And notice the symbolism that he used when he said that. Again, we’re doing our best to try and convey that truth that he was trying to convey there. Symbolism helps, but you still need the Spirit to really get it. Well, let’s look at the next verse. I find this really intriguing. There’s a missing antecedent here somewhere. Verse seven. Remember the last thing is that they’re teaching them to write in this pure language.

                                           00:33:02             And then it says, Now, this same priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall be at the end of the world also. Okay, I get that it’s saying that what was in the beginning will be at the end, but where was it talking about priesthood? It has to come back to this idea we were talking about earlier when it’s talking about an ordinance that’s confirmed to Adam. I mean, implied in there that this is done by the priesthood. So whatever priesthood is present as they are experiencing this ordinance, he wants us to know that that was there at the very beginning and it’s gonna last throughout the entire history of the earth, just like some of the other things he’s talking about. These are eternal things. They’re going to be around. It’s, as we said, not God was hiding them for the first three quarters of history. God has made these things available to his children from the beginning and they will be there till the end.

John Bytheway:               00:33:52             Everybody knows this, but Melchizedek priesthood, well, Melchizedek hadn’t been born yet. So –

Hank Smith:                      00:33:58             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:33:58             And we learned, you know, from the Doctrine and Covenants and things that the long name for the priest is the Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God. So it goes way back and later on we’ll have some other ways of describing it, but …

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:34:12             And it goes back from even before the world’s created.

John Bytheway:               00:34:14             Yeah, it has to.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:34:16             It’s the power by which the world is created. It has to. What a grand thing to be part of. And that power delegated to man. That’s gonna be what God governs His kingdom by from the beginning to the end.

John Bytheway:               00:34:32             I’ve probably mentioned this before, Hank, but I bought a Readers Digest Who’s Who in the Bible. I was intrigued to see what they would say about Melchizedek because without the JST, he’s kind of a strange… wait, he’s without mother or father, without beginning of days or end of years. And the JST says his priesthood was without mother or father, without beginning of days. That makes sense there. Priesthood has always been around, always existed. It had to to create the world in the first place.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:35:05             Yeah. Well, and that’s where verse eight, we won’t read the whole thing, but it’s a prophecy. It doesn’t tell us exactly what the prophecy is, but it must have to do with Christ and the priesthood. Maybe it’s referring all the way back to that prophecy at the beginning of chapter five, where he was filled and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth and so on. Maybe that’s what it’s referring to, but in any case, he prophesies as he’s moved upon by the Holy Ghost. And a genealogy is kept of the children of God. This is gonna be a different definition of children of God than the one we usually use. It’s one that we’ll get at the very end of this chapter. We’re all children of God, but you become children of God in a different way and we’ll get more into this as you’re begotten of him as you make covenants with him. That’s what it has to mean here.

                                           00:35:51             At least that’s how I read it when it talks about the children of God, and it’s the book of the generations of Adam and so on. All of this priesthood, covenant, Christ, and keeping track or record of things are somehow all tied together and language. It’s all wrapped together. And we saw that same thing at this point, it’s only a few months ago that we were reading in the Doctrine and Covenants about baptisms for the dead and the need to have a recorder and make sure you keep track of these things so that when they’re recorded here, they’re recorded in heaven and so on. Every time we get priesthood power, ordinances, sealings, and eternity, somehow language and recording and writing gets involved with it. I am convinced I’m just seeing a little tip of some important iceberg there that I’m not getting everything that’s important there. I suspect that you guys know though, so I’d love to hear.

Hank Smith:                      00:36:46             What the answer is in the back.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:36:48             That’s right. That would be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a set of scriptures the answers are in the back?

Hank Smith:                      00:36:55             Yeah, just go to the back. I frequently tell my students, I have the same one, I have the same scriptures you do, except for mine have the date of the Second Coming. Other than that, they’re the exact same ones.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:37:07             Okay. I know where your office is. I’m gonna sneak in there and read those. Yeah. Anyway, now we get back into these created male and female and bless them and called their name Adam. So Adam is both a name, but it’s also a word that means like humankind. I think that’s probably what’s being referred to here, the humankind, their name Adam. We keep going on. The next thing that we get is starting in verse 10 is a list that’s very similar to chapter five of Genesis of these great preachers of righteousness, and we’ll even get that phrase in here in just a second. And it’s recording who is the child of whom they’re not giving us all of their children, just the ones who seem to end up being in some kind of presiding function or preaching function or something along those lines. And it’s giving us how long they live and it’s these great big, long age spans.

                                           00:37:56             And I don’t know if that’s literal or if that’s a way of saying we’re in a different era or something, right? And that’s another thing that’s worth thinking about as we talk about keys to understanding the Bible. We talked about how it’s often very symbolic and I don’t think we should use that as a way to say, okay, well, this didn’t happen and dismiss the historicity of the Bible. I think that’s a problem. But we should recognize that sometimes we hold them to a standard of literality that we don’t hold ourselves to. In fact, I’m gonna say it this way. I have said a thousand times that we shouldn’t take their numbers too literally. And you see what I did there. I probably have said it more than a thousand times, but that’s our way of saying a bunch, right? Or even sillier than that is if we say, I’ve said it a ton of times. Well, a ton is a weight measurement.

                                           00:38:45             If someone 100 years from now is reading what I said, like, What does he mean? A ton, how does he say that? Thanks a ton, right? It makes no sense. I think we sometimes miss because we just have different idiomatic expressions. We sometimes miss what they’re saying. So maybe these are literally the years in one of his versions of this Joseph Smith translation, Joseph actually changed Adam’s age to 1,000. Does that mean it was really a thousand or is this just Joseph saying, yeah, these are …

Hank Smith:                      00:39:14             Big chunk of time.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:39:15             And it may be that by the time whoever’s writing this writes this that they don’t know exactly how long, so they’re just saying numbers that mean that was a ton of time, right?

John Bytheway:               00:39:26             A ton of time.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:27             Yeah. Kerry, one time President Oaks was asked, do Latter-day Saints take the Bible figuratively or literally? And he said, somewhere in between. Yeah. I really love that. Somewhere in between.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:39:41             Somewhere. I’d say both. Yeah. I mean- Both. Right. Some things are both literal and figurative, often, and some things are one and some are the other, and you’re right, somewhere in between. Yeah. I like that. That’s, I’m gonna use that. That’s good.

John Bytheway:               00:39:57             I’m gonna use that a ton.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:59             Yeah, that’s right.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:40:00             If we, we would use that a ton.

John Bytheway:               00:40:01             I would use that a ton.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:40:03             As we go through, we get these lists of great preachers, most of them we know very, very little about. In some ways, this is emphasizing the importance of keeping record and a family, but we have this period that we call the patriarchal order. And if it’s all right, I’d like to talk about that a little bit because I think that title and that phrase is a little problematic. It’s used because it was a phrase that was used a long time ago when that was less problematic, but it’s really coming from kind of a Roman society and Western society drawing on Roman society kind of a thing where the Father, that’s what patri means. It comes from patr. The Father, it is about fathers and sons, but I’ll tell you this, this is an exercise I do in my classes, and it’s interesting to me to see it shift a bit over the last few years in what I think is a positive way, because I started, it was actually 1995, the first time I taught at BYU a Pearl of Great Price class, and I started doing this then.

                                           00:41:07             I would say, What is the patriarchal order? The most common answer I would get is, Well, this is governance from father to son. You know, I try and gently correct things and I’d say, Okay, I like that, but maybe can we expand it a little bit? This is at least my take. This is my definition. It’s the governance of the kingdom of God through the family. So it’s not just father and son. And after I’d been teaching for about 10 years, we got this marvelous talk by President Oaks about the difference between the patriarchal and the hierarchical orders, where he is clear that patriarchal order is a full and equal partnership. This really is about families. It’s not just fathers and sons, but because we use the word patriarchal, it’s got, it’s Latin root carries this notion of only men and that’s not accurate. We have a broken, crooked and scattered language that’s imprisoning us here.

                                           00:42:02             We have a term that doesn’t do justice to what was really happening. And it may have happened for them culturally somewhat different than what happens here, but we know the principle is that this should be full and equal partnership, even if it’s different responsibilities and they probably had different ways of dividing it than they did in Joseph Smith’s day and they had different ways of dividing it than we do. It may have looked different, but it’s a partnership in one way or another. And I have found in the last several years that as I asked that question, I get, instead of always having to guide students towards the whole family thing, I’m actually getting students that come up with that on their own. I think that the teachings of President Oaks and President Nelson and others who have taught us this so well that we’re moving a little bit in our understanding of what it means to be patriarchal or family oriented. And it’s landmark. President Oaks has done more to teach us about aspects of the priesthood. It’s like every couple years he gives a talk that is, if we assembled them all together, it’d be this fantastic handbook on the priesthood, but he has done more to help us understand how the priesthood works in our lives and as families than anyone I can think of. That particular one, like since he gave that talk, I can’t teach Genesis or the Book of Moses without using that talk. He explained so well what this order and this era that we call a patriarchal era and it’s wonderful.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:24             At times, I would like to see more of the husband/wife partnership laid out in scripture. Maybe it’s not listed there. Here’s what I know. I know that when I’m filled with the Holy Ghost, I love my wife more purely and when we both have the Holy Ghost, we are equal partners. I think it’s safe to assume that these people that we’re talking about had the fullness of the Holy Ghost and that they also acted, the Holy Ghost brought that same love and equality. Would that be fair to say?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:43:59             Absolutely. I can’t give you exact quotes, but I remember President Hinckley talking about that a little bit in his interview in 60 Minutes when he was pressed a little bit on this and he just said, so does that mean that the husband is the boss? And he said something like, you know that’s not how it works. Anyone who’s been in a good marriage knows that’s not how it works. I would agree with you so much. The more I feel the Spirit, the more I am in a teamwork mentality and relationship with my wife, and the more I’m in a teamwork mentality and relationship, the more I feel the Spirit and the more we love each other. That’s how it works. And culturally, it was a little different in different eras and so on, but that truth has to always have been part of life. You can’t have the Spirit with you if you are not treating your spouse the right way, that’s for men or women.

John Bytheway:               00:44:50             Yeah. The story we often tell in the translation of the Book of Mormon, where Joseph couldn’t translate, couldn’t get the revelation, and he realized he had a argument with Emma or a disagreement of some kind and had to go reconcile that before he could move on. Think of all the ways we can apply that to our day, and it actually kind of helps make our marriage a priority. If I wanna do anything, I can’t perform my calling, whatever it is, and maybe she can’t perform hers very well either unless we’re working on us.

Hank Smith:                      00:45:25             I think there’s some safe assumptions we can make about the Holy Ghost, that if these people have the Holy Ghost, they are going to have the equality that we’re all hoping that they have, and that we hope we have.

John Bytheway:               00:45:40             Yeah. They’re gonna have love and repentance in their marriages. When they make mistakes in their marriages, there won’t be perfect spouses, but they’re going to be repenting to each other and helping each other.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:45:53             And it’s not just marriages. One of the things we’re coming to realize as a people and as, well, probably church leaders have realized this for a long time, but as the people we’re trying to get it, better, is that it’s about relationship in general, relationship with God, relationship with each other. I would say if you have problems in important relationships, it’s gonna be hard to have the Spirit with you, whether that’s with a spouse, whether that’s with other family members, whether that’s with someone in the ward, with your next door neighbor, peacemakers are wanted is what I would say in all relationships.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:25             And the Holy Ghost can help you with that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:46:28             Yes, absolutely.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:29             Quite a bit.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:46:31             And you’re probably listening to this and thinking you need to get someone else to read this. That’s the thing. We hear, oh, relationship. Yeah, this, these other people are hard to get along with. What’s wrong with them? President Nelson did such a great job of calling us on that. I’ll tell you the phrase that I prefer, well, patriarchal order is great in some ways. This chapter actually gives us a phrase that we can use that I think is a little less tricky.

John Bytheway:               00:47:00             Problematic. Yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:47:00             And it’s in verse 23. We’ve got some stuff to cover before that, but in verse 23, it calls them the preachers of righteousness. That’s a great phrase. This is the era of the preachers of righteousness. We could say it’s the heir of the patriarchal order and preachers of righteousness doesn’t automatically carry family language with it. And so it’s not quite perfect, but if we can say it’s preachers of righteousness within a family order, and the kingdom of God is being governed in a family order, which by the way, is our future as well. At some point, the kingdom of God is governed only through the family as it was during this time period. We’re in a weird hiatus where we’ve got this split that President Oaks talked about in that talk where we’ve got both a hierarchical and a patriarchal order, but the future of the kingdom of God is family.

                                           00:47:42             It’s going to happen through families as we all get sealed together, and that’s part of the point of sealing us all together. Joseph Smith gave us the most beautiful, complete gospel, didn’t he? If we jump back in, we have Seth living and having children. One of the key things we have to look at is in verse 15. And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land, and in those days, Satan had great dominion among men and raged in their hearts, and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed, and a man’s hand was against his own brother in administering death because of secret works seeking for power. That is unfortunately the story of the history of the world. We get here what we’ll use a word to make ourselves sound smart, because that’s really what this whole show is. We’re trying to sound smart. We’re gonna use the word bifurcation, which means to divide into two parts.

                                           00:48:36             The human race is continually being bifurcated. You get those who choose to follow Satan and those who choose to follow God. For a while, there are times where you can kind of try and exist in the middle, but you can never stay there very long. We’ve had different brethren teach us about that in different ways. President Ballard talked about staying on the good ship Zion, and if you get off, it’s moving faster and you may not be able to get back on. Neal A. Maxwell used the analogy of a train that this train is picking up speed and if you get off, it’s gonna be harder to get back on. We’re in one of these periods where we’re becoming more and more bifurcated. You are either going to be part of following Satan with Satan raging in our hearts and wars and bloodshed, or you’re going to be part of the kingdom of God.

                                           00:49:23             And that’s exactly what we’re gonna see here in Moses chapter six, is this split between Zion and all those who follow Satan, but I think we’re seeing it in our own day. That’s not just my idea. I’m getting that from reading leaders of our church, that we need to be very aware that it’s time to get solidly in with Zion because if you’re trying to live, well, the way Elder Maxwell put it sometimes is to live in Zion, but have a, maintain a summer cottage in Babylon. At some point, you’re not gonna be able to keep going. The border’s gonna get closed and you’re gonna get caught in the wrong place. We can’t spend time on all the verses. So let’s jump into talking about Enoch, and we’ll have to just skip some of these verses about Mahalaleel and Cainan.

                                           00:50:05             There is one thing that’s worth noting because sometimes people get confused. If we get in verse 17, Enos lived 90 years and begat Cainan. Now, this is Cainan spelled C-A-I-N-A-N. Sometimes people confuse that with Cain, that’s not Cain. And with the land of Canaan that we get in Genesis and Exodus, which is spelled with two A’s, it’s not spelled A-I. This is a different place and we don’t want to get confused with it, but there it does end up, this Cainan who we hear very little about, but we end up with the land being called after him. Enoch will refer to his people as the people that are centered from Cainan. So he’s a more significant figure than we hear about. He is one of these preachers of righteousness that seems to have a real effect on the family. But we’re gonna jump forward to Enoch just because Enoch is really what most of this chapter is about.

                                           00:50:57             Such a powerful story. As you said at the beginning, we get this little line and we’re gonna get the rest of chapter six and chapter seven about Enoch, and it’s just incredible stuff. In verse 25, Enoch lived 65 years and he begat Methuselah, and it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land among the people. As he journeyed, the Spirit of God descended out of heaven and abode upon him, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, Enoch, my son, prophesy unto this people. Now, that’s interesting. He’s not just telling what to prophesy, but it’s nice that he’s telling him to prophesy. We think prophesy means tell people what’s going to happen in the future. Often it’s not that. And here, that’s not what he’s told. This is what he’s told. Prophesy unto this people and say unto them, repent, for thus saith the Lord, I am angry with this people and my fierce anger is kindled against them.

                                           00:51:50             So this is something that’s happening for them right then. And that, this idea of repenting, this is what Adam was told to tell people, and then he’s told again to tell people this, and this is what Enoch is being told to tell people. We’ve been told, preach nothing but repentance, so we need to make sure we understand that. But right now, I’d like to focus on this idea that God is angry with this people and he tells us why. This is another tool for studying the scriptures to look for causal words. Any of those words that tells you this is related to that. So it’s because, thus, therefore, for, those kinds of words. And we get one here. God is angry with this people and my fierce anger is kindled against them for their hearts have waxed hard and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes cannot see afar off.

                                           00:52:37             Now I have to tell you that the last line of that is a little confusing to me. I get why God would be mad that our hearts have waxed hard. That implies we just don’t want to let the word of God come into our hearts. And our ears are dull of hearing. That means that we could hear, but we’re choosing not to hear. I’m sitting here as a guy who is wearing thick glasses. My eyesight is not that great, and he’s upset that people can’t see afar off. My inclination is to say, Well, that’s not in the human ability to see far, afar off. That’s just not what we’re capable of. If it’s all right, let’s turn to another verse that I found is strikingly similar to this. So let’s go to the book of Jarom. We’ll go to the first chapter, if that’s okay, of the book of Jarom, since it’s the only chapter.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:24             Since it’s the only one yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:53:26             Let’s look at the book of Jarom. We’re gonna start in verse three. So you remember that triplet, that their hearts were hard, their ears were dull, and they couldn’t see afar off. Verse three, Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people because of the hardness of their hearts and the deafness of their ears. Now, he’s gonna add another one in here, but the next thing is the blindness of their minds. That seems a lot like the not seeing afar off. And then he says, And the stiffness of their necks. So he has another one in there. And he says, God is exceedingly merciful unto them and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land. So we get this anger again. Let’s read verse four. I think it’s so interesting. There are many among us who have many revelations for they are not all stiffnecked, as many as are not stiffnecked and have communion with the Holy Spirit which maketh manifest unto the children of men according to their faith. Jarom has just told us the key to not being blind of mind or in other words, to seeing afar off, and that’s revelation.

                                           00:54:34             I was right, I’m not capable of seeing afar off, not physically and not spiritually, but God is. So if I’m not hardhearted, if I’m not stiffnecked, if I’m not dull of hearing, then I will have the Spirit which makes it so I can see afar off. Kind of reminds me of President Nelson telling us that we better have the Holy Ghost with us. If we’re not having revelation, we’re not gonna survive spiritually in the last days. I think we need to be able to see afar off. I don’t know if you have any thoughts along those lines, and we’re gonna get into this whole seer business. This is the preparation for Enoch being a seer, right? But I don’t know if you have any thoughts to God being upset with people who are … If we were to keep going in Jarom, you read in verse five that these were people who kept the law of Moses really well. So they keep the law of Moses. They’re very obedient, but he’s still really upset with them and thinking of sweeping them off the land because despite their obedience, they’re hard of heart, dull of hearing, blind-minded, or they can’t see afar off. It seems to me God is pretty serious about us having inspiration or revelation regularly.

John Bytheway:               00:55:39             Kerry, I’m sitting right in front of an Isaiah scholar and I’m going, this hearts, ears, and eyes remind me of the calling of Isaiah. Make the heart of this people fat. Their ears are dull of hearing, their eyes have they closed. It struck me that that call of Isaiah was repeated in all of the gospels and the book of Acts. Here it is again, hearts, ears, and eyes, and it’s such a nice description of taking the gospel. A heart has to be open to it, gotta be able to hear, see far off, or listen to the seers who can see far off. I don’t know. Have you ever connected that with Isaiah’s call, that verse?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:56:24             Yeah, and I think you’re dead on. In Jarom it was kind of a foursome, but there’s a triplet that goes all over the place with your eyes, your hearts, and your necks do get added in lots of places, but the heart, the ears, and the eyes. That interestingly for Isaiah, God is basically saying, you’re gonna have to talk to these people in a way that only those. And Christ is the one who explains this well to us. Only those who are willing to put in the effort are going to not have hard heart, blind eyes, and dull ears, that there’s something about having to work to have the Spirit with you. Maybe I’ll put it this way. I know there was one time, this was in a gathering of stake presidents and mission presidents, so I can’t verify this, there’s no footnote, but my mission president was at this gathering and came back and reported this to us.

                                           00:57:14             President Packer was there and there was a question and answer session and he kept saying, Okay, well, on this, you’re gonna have to have the Spirit guide you. And in another one, you’re gonna have to have the Spirit guide you. And then finally, someone asked, Okay, so how do we make sure we have the Spirit with us to guide us? And his, my mission president said, his answer was two words, earn it. We all know what we need to do. It’s the Primary answers. We all know all we need to do to have the Spirit with us. We just have to actually do it.

Hank Smith:                      00:57:41             That verse about God being angry, John, you’ll know where this is. Alma quotes, I think it’s Zenock.

John Bytheway:               00:57:51             Thou art angry with this people, oh Lord, because thou hast not understood … It’s Alma 33:16, I think-

Hank Smith:                      00:57:59             Nice job, John.

John Bytheway:               00:58:00             Because they will not understand thy mercies, which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son.

Hank Smith:                      00:58:07             Yeah, what do you see there, John? ‘Cause I know you love that verse.

John Bytheway:               00:58:10             I love that verse. When you read Alma 33, you go, oh, I see what Alma’s doing. He’s showing them that God will have a Son by quoting some brass plates prophets, but don’t miss what else is in the verse. They will not understand thy mercies. It’s not that they cannot. They just refuse. They refuse to understand how merciful God is, which is, whoa, a really cool thing to ponder. That’s Stephen Robinson Believe Christ. Don’t just believe in him. Believe Him when he said he forgives. You’re angry because you refuse to understand how merciful He is. That’s the other reason I like that verse, not just because it makes Alma’s point that God will have a Son.

Hank Smith:                      00:58:55             Yeah. And that word angry is interesting. It’s almost frustrated, disappointed.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:59:00             Being moved to do something to correct the situation.

Hank Smith:                      00:59:04             Right. Sad at where this is leading. Sometimes when we meet people who are going off the path, you’re not angry, you’re just, you’re thinking, I know how this movie ends. I’ve seen this one. It’s frustrating. You think, oh, don’t do this.

John Bytheway:               00:59:22             I the Lord forgive sins. What’s that Section 63? He says it over and over again. So understand his mercies. He’s a forgiver.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     00:59:32             But one of the things I think we’ll see, this is another tool for understanding the Old Testament. We will see that God’s anger is usually … Well, we even get this phrase in Jeremiah where he has mercy and he does anger. It’s something he has to do to correct a situation that is a problem. And so the anger becomes a humbling. He humbles, scatters, sweeps, whatever, sweeps off the face or whatever. He has to do something to get this to change because they are at the point where they aren’t changing by pleading.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:00             I think in our day and age, we think of angry as he loses his temper.

John Bytheway:               01:00:04             Losing control. Yeah, God doesn’t lose control.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:07             He doesn’t grab the earth and kick it across the universe. He’s frustrated, angry, saddened. Those are all very valid emotions to have.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:00:17             For my podcast, we’ve been doing a couple little round table discussions, and there’s one we did on the anger of God, and it was interesting that all three of us that were in that had come to the same conclusion independently, which is I read about God’s anger in the scripture. As a fallen being, I’m not capable of the kind of anger we’re reading about in the scripture. My anger always goes wrong. God, as an exalted being, has a different ability than I do. I think there were times in my life where I … Well, I know there were times in my life where I would read about the anger of God and think, okay, so though I’m justified in this, and I’ve come to realize, no, because I don’t, I don’t do it the way God does it. I’m just not, I’ve tried and I’m not capable.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:57             That’s interesting where I’d say, well, I can be angry. I can be angry. God’s angry. And you’re saying it’s not the same thing. Not the same thing.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:01:06             I gave it a whirl and it didn’t work.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:08             Yeah. You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

John Bytheway:               01:01:11             Idon’t think it means what you think it means.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:01:13             Oh, that’s good. That’s good.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:16             Kerry, this has been fantastic so far. Got my scriptures covered in notes. Let’s keep going.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:01:22             Sounds good. Let’s jump down to when Enoch has a chance to respond to God. So God tells him he needs to call people to repent and so on. Verse 31, When Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord and spake before the Lord saying, why is it that I have found favor in thy sight and am but a lad and all the people hate me? I think he should add for, I’m gonna go eat worms in there somewhere. For I am slow of speech, wherefore am I thy servant. This is Enoch feeling so unworthy. I have no idea if slow of speech, some people have said that means he stutters. It may just mean he feels like, I just can’t think well on my feet or whatever else. But what I really think this is, is what all of us would feel if God called us to go and tell the world to repent.

                                           01:02:11             He really feels inadequate, completely inadequate as I think have most of us at one point or another. The fascinating thing is God’s answer to him. And the Lord said unto Enoch, Go forth and do as I have commanded thee. And no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth and it shall be filled. So this is the answer to his problem, right? I’m slow of speech. Just start talking. I’ll take care of it, is what God says. I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands and I will do as seemeth me good. This is God reminding Enoch and by extension us. Every time you get a calling that you don’t feel up to, the least of which will be like the calling as a parent. No one’s up for that. But whatever your calling is, we won’t feel up for it and God says that is not the point. The point is, will you go and do? You get moving, you open your mouth, you just start moving your feet and I’ll take care of it. I think I heard it on your show the first time, this phrase like God can’t steer a parked car, right? You have to just get going and I’ll do the rest. And that’s so scary, but it’s exactly what God asks of us.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:28             Yeah, get moving. I love it when Nephi gets commanded to build the boat. He’s like, well, I don’t know how to do that, but I do know how to make tools. I’ll start with what I know how to do.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:03:38             Yeah, exactly. This idea of open your mouth and it’ll be filled. Sometimes, you’ve probably all had this experience where someone asks you a question and you know this is an important question and you know you need the answer and you don’t know what the answer is, but as you’re praying in your heart help me with this one, that’s about all you have time for, I need some help here. But as you start, something comes that is beyond what you thought or understood. It just comes. God works with us that way. This is what Elder Maxwell said once that in the way only he can, he said, God doesn’t ask about your ability, but about your availability. Then as you prove your dependability, he increases your capability. That’s exactly right. He’s asking. Are you available? Yeah. Yeah. If you start moving your feet, I’ll get you where you can’t go on your own.

John Bytheway:               01:04:35             I’ll give you in the very moment what you shall say. Isn’t that a Doctrine and Covenants verse? I’ll give you in the very moment what you shall say. Not two hours beforehand, but in the moment.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:04:45             Yeah. And that’s the exercising faith part. In the end, this is the story of salvation. I can’t get saved on my own, even with my wonderful wife’s help and even with Hank and John helping me. I can’t get saved. If I’ll just keep coming to Christ, Christ can take me where I can’t go. He’s got it covered. We just need to partner with him. That’s what Enoch does, and of course, this becomes an incredible, incredible partnership. One of the most incredible partnerships in the history of the world. We have to read verse 34. Behold, my Spirit is upon you wherefore all thy words will I justify. Man, now that’s a promise. And the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course, and thou shalt abide in me and I in you; therefore walk with me. Isn’t that the theme for the youth this next year?

John Bytheway:               01:05:42             Yeah, that’s it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:05:43             Look at what he’s saying. If we’re gonna talk about relationships and partnerships, this is God, Jehovah, Christ, saying to Enoch, let’s have this partnership. If you’ll just walk with me, then I’ll be with you and you’ll be with me and the places we’ll go to throw Dr. Seuss in, I guess. I mean, really think of what he’s just telling Enoch he can do. And then he immediately goes to teaching Enoch and by extension us through a symbolic action, the kind of things we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, where he says unto Enoch, Anoint thine eyes with clay and wash them and thou shalt see and he did so. There’s fantastic symbolism in there. If you put a bunch of mud on your eyes, you can’t see. That seems to be symbolizing what Enoch was like before this and what we are all like, this is the, we can’t see afar off thing, but if we wash them and towards the end of this chapter, we’re gonna get more about washing.

                                           01:06:37             If we wash them with God, in the end, it’s really if we let God wash them. And this reminds me of the story of the man who was born blind where Christ, and President Holland just spoke about this, where Christ puts the clay on his eyes and then tells him to go wash. But in the washing, Enoch will see. Look at what he sees when we get to verse 36, the next verse. And he beheld the spirits that God had created, and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye, and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land, a seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people. Right? And we’ll see this expanded in the next chapter, and you’ll cover this more next week, but when he sees this vision where he has Satan standing and veiling the earth with chain and laughing with his devils, I haven’t ever seen that. Have you guys ever seen that? It’s apparently a reality that Enoch can see, but I don’t have the ability to see it. Enoch is a seer. I can’t read this without thinking about how I think sometimes we undervalue the fact that we have 15 people whom we sustain as prophet, seers and revelators. They see things we don’t, and then sometimes we ignore them. That’s just ridiculous.

John Bytheway:               01:07:56             In the Book of Mormon war chapters, when they describe the fortifications, we’re gonna make a ditch, we’re gonna put something on the inner side of the ditch, then we’re gonna put a work of timbers, and then we’re gonna put a frame of pickets, and then we’re gonna put towers, and then we’re gonna put someone in the tower. It’s fun to demonstrate the absurdity of what if you’re on frame of picket maintenance and somebody in the tower goes, behold, danger approaches 2:00. And we look up and say, I don’t see any danger. That’s right, because you’re on frame of picket maintenance. I’m the seer. I’m up here. I can see afar off. I have broader views than you do, and it’s a, I love that seer came from see-er and that idea that can we trust that people can see farther than we can, and we can, and we can trust them that they can see afar off.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:08:47             There’s so many fantastic symbols that could be used for that. We’ve got, as you say, men in the watchtower, prophets are often compared to that. I’ve done a lot of boating in my life, and there are times where you can tell you’re in an area with rocks. You get someone who can get a little higher up looking down. You may be piloting, but you trust that person’s vision to see that you’re safe or you’re not safe and so on. Yet, sometimes we ignore seers. We can trust them on a boat, but not in life. Well, I mean, what’s up with that?

                                           01:09:17             Enoch becomes one of the great seers of all time. We get some funny descriptions, some of them you made reference to at the beginning, Hank, when you were talking about John and I, that Enoch does what God asked him to do. He starts going up into hills and high places and he cries with a loud voice. So there’s some symbolism there as well. He’s in the high places, he’s in the places that are closer to God and where you can see from. Think of this. Well, let’s read verse 37. It came to pass that Enoch went forth in the land among the people standing upon the hills and the high places and cried with a loud voice testifying against their works and all men were offended because of him. All men were offended because of him. That’s gonna happen to all of us. If we stand up for what’s true, if we talk about repentance and we talk about what’s right, people will be offended.

                                           01:10:07             That’s a hard place to live. I once had someone talk to me about how he took a job in the computer industry where he could work from home most of the time and he grew to fear any of the times he had to go into the office because he was always afraid someone would have found out he was a member of the church and would be upset about our position on marriage or different things like that. He just lived his life in fear about the people who would be offended about what he believed. And I can understand that. Like, I’ve had plenty of people who’ve been offended by what I believe, even though they shouldn’t be offended, that they’re just offended by the truth. That’s a tough place where a lot of our youth and our young adults find themselves right now. They live in fear of the anger and vitriol that is aimed at anyone who stands for the truth. And I hope they can identify with Enoch a little.

John Bytheway:               01:11:02             Yeah. This is a hard thing. This is a hard saying, and it’s fun to explore that question. So, today- Yeah. … what are some of the hard sayings? Yeah. The list seems to be growing.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:11:16             Yeah. Yes, it does. But of course, the follow-up question to what you’re referring to, like, so are you also going to go away? And where else are you gonna go? It’s tough. It’s worth recognizing that God is asking something hard of us because Satan is a raid against the truth. And if you are going to believe in and stand up for the truth, Satan and the world will come after you. The lesson is God backs Enoch up. The world does come after Enoch. They wanna take him down, but God backs him up and he can move rivers and what mountains and whatever else he needs to. God’s got his back. That’s a good place to be. It is scary to have the world against you, but I would rather have the world against me and God have my back than have God against me and have the world have my back. One’s a lot more reliable than the other.

John Bytheway:               01:12:08             That’s a good point.

Hank Smith:                      01:12:11             I think it was Brigham Young who said, If Joseph Smith were a criminal and a liar, then the criminals and liars would’ve accepted him. You know who he’s from because the world rejects him.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:12:25             This creates an interesting situation for Enoch. Verse 38, They came forth to hear him. So even though people are offended, they’re coming to hear him. The idea doesn’t tell you, but it becomes clear. Enoch takes seriously his charge and he is out there preaching and people can’t ignore him. He’s creating a stir in the land. Everybody knows that there’s something going on. You get people that are going up to him in the high places and they’re getting people to watch their tents. They say, we will go yonder to behold the seer for he prophesieth and there is a strange thing in the land; a wild man has come among us. People have taken that a couple of different ways, but I think at least one of the ways that should be taken. We’ve got this tradition, and maybe it starts with Enoch, I don’t know.

                                           01:13:09             But there’s this tradition of the world is in one place, and the God sends prophets in from outside of the world to call the world to repentance. They’re coming from the wilderness, they’re coming from outside establishment, they’re coming from outside cities or whatever, you know, John the Baptist, Elijah, they fit these, and in some ways, Joseph Smith, they fit this wild man. They’re coming from outside of the institution that the world has set up and it seems wild and it seems crazy, but these are the people that have to crash down the walls of the world to get the world to listen and come out of the world to God.

John Bytheway:               01:13:47             I like that. Like coming out of the wilderness, the wilder-ness. That’s the same word.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:13:53             That’s exactly right.

Hank Smith:                      01:13:55             Yeah. John the Baptist-esque.

John Bytheway:               01:13:57             Right. And I think that’s footnoted there. It says Matthew three,

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:14:01             And he was really following in the tradition of Elijah with a leather girdle and a hairy man in the wilderness and so on. Frankly, Elijah was probably following in the tradition of Enoch. We don’t know how long we’ve had wild men if they were before any. But this has been going on for a while. Well, you’re in good company when Hank calls you a wild man and a strange thing in the land. Verse 39 is where we get some of this idea that God backs him up. And it came to pass when they heard him, no man laid hands on him for fear came on all them that heard him for he walked with God. Notice how we just had God’s invitation to say, walk with me. He is walking with him and because he’s walking with him, despite the fact that everyone would like to stop Enoch, they can’t. God’s got his back.

                                           01:14:48             Verse 40 isn’t that important except for there’s a funny little thing in here, and there came a man unto him whose name was Mahijah. Now, everyone else in this chapter is named somewhere in the Bible, but Mahijah’s not named in the Bible, but he is in the Dead Sea Scrolls book about Enoch.

John Bytheway:               01:15:06             What?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:15:07             Either Mahijah or Mahuja. Joseph Smith is either the luckiest guesser in the world. Or he’s inspired, but it’s actually a lot harder to defend the lucky guesser position on that than it is that he’s inspired. That just makes more sense. You get people asking him questions, that’s gonna lead us to one of the greatest sermons in scriptures.

Hank Smith:                      01:15:32             Coming up in part two.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein:     01:15:34             People will hate me and say bad things about me and our family for the rest of our lives. They’ll attack my ability as a professor, they’ll attack my ability as an Egyptologist, they’ll say things about our family. People get so contentious about the Book of Abraham. As soon as we push send, I’ll be attacked on every element of our life that we can imagine. Do we still wanna do this?