John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 00:07 So, I had taken a few notes this afternoon. There are three psalms I had planned to talk about, but we’ve gotten a little long-winded here. I’m just going to describe them rather than read from them.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 00:14 Psalm 68, I have written, is a praise of a warrior God of Israel. And it really interested me at one point, because this is one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible, some scholars think. But what it is, it’s looking at Yahweh or Jehovah. And you’ve got to imagine the earliest Israelites, they’re escaping from Egypt, and it’s the soldiers of Pharaoh, then it’s the Amalekites, and then it’s the Jebusites, and their God led them to battle.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 00:38 So anyway, it’s kind of a fun one. It’s a Psalm of David, again, written to the Chief Musician. It was incorporated in their liturgy, but describes this mighty God who defeats His enemies, He descended on Sinai, He battled for his people. But if there’s a verse I’m going to read from this, this is Psalm 68 again, this mighty warrior God, there’s some stuff about widows and things in here. He’s a tender, loving God. Verse five, a father to the fatherless, a judge of widows. God is in His holy habitations. God setteth the solitary in families.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 01:09 Wow. So many of our sisters and brothers in the church who aren’t in the kind of families they want or in the relationships they want or are single. Isn’t that interesting? He setteth the solitary in families, the family of God. He bringeth out those which are bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell on the dry land. It’s kind of like my thing about not diluting the doctrine or revising our standards. The rebellious are going to be in that dry land. He’s got the water, He’s got the help, but if we don’t come to Him, it won’t be there.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 01:40 Psalm 72 is another one I had made a note on. This was the only one of the royal or possibly messianic psalms that I found a clear example of in our reading for this week. As I said, there were quite a few that Brother Hopkin was reading. This is called a Psalm for Solomon. And so, it is describing Solomon when he became king. Now Solomon, of course, was the son of David, but Jesus is the ultimate son of David, so we can probably see here allusions to Christ. He’s to be a righteous king. And the King’s son will deliver the poor and the needy. So, just the first couple verses get-

Hank Smith: 02:15 What verse is that?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 02:16 This is Psalm 72. So, just starting in verse one, give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness under the king’s son. Now, so here, it’s God the Father. We’re asking God the Father to give the king, in our view, Christ, righteousness so that He can judge righteously as Solomon did.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 02:32 He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment, verse two. Verse four, He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They that fear thee are they who stand in awe of thee as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 02:51 It’s crafted or it’s put in the setting of Solomon becoming king. And we remember some of those stories about Solomon praying for wisdom and not riches, but he got both. And he did judge wisely, but all of the kings who were supposed to be types, anticipations of Christ fall short, right? So that’s why I think this is one where we can see some messianic anticipation.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 03:12 Psalm 78, I never planned to read with you, because it is so long. It is a historical psalm, just for those of you who want to review your Exodus and Numbers. Psalm 78 goes through the entire history of the children of Israel as they’re wandering the wilderness.

Hank Smith: 03:29 Oh, wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 03:29 And it focuses on their murmuring and their rebelliousness. I mentioned that I sometimes color-code my scriptures, and all the bad things are always in dark gray or black. So it’s kind of an object lesson of the disobedience of Israel at pivotal points in their history. This is not one I turn to when I need an uplift. It’s not one I turn to at night as I’m trying to say my evening prayers. But you have to read the whole corpus; all 150 psalms are in there for a reason.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 03:58 If I were to try to find an application for this, I think of Alma the Younger. Is it in Alma five, where he’s talking to people in Zarahemla? And he keeps saying, “Look at your fathers. Remember the captivity of your fathers, God delivered them.” And there’s something for that. Even within our lives, it doesn’t need to be our own fathers and grandfathers we need to remember. The prototypes, if you will, or object lessons of rebelliousness can be ourselves in our own lives. Look back at periods in our lives when we weren’t as faithful. How will that encourage us to be better now?

Hank Smith: 04:27 There’s a lot of, they were not faithful. They were not there when they were stubborn. They were rebellious. They turned away from God. They believed not. They trusted not. It’s good to remember that it didn’t turn out well for them, for that original generation.

John Bytheway: 04:45 What a wonderful idea; to put your journal to music and to take those lessons from history, put them to music where you won’t forget them. Kids, we seem to be forgetting some stuff here. We’re going to sing Psalm 78. And you can remind that kind of, let’s try not to make those same mistakes again, type of thing.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 05:03 Yeah. I often wondered about that line: The Lord, when we repent, He forgives us and He forgets. And we don’t forget. We need to forgive ourselves, but we don’t always forget. That’s because we need to learn from the mistakes we’ve made and have that memory, not always a happy one, serve as an encouragement not to turn back to that kind of behavior.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 05:23 I have a few final psalms I wanted to share with you that are, once again, a temple psalm, a pilgrimage psalm, and then a couple psalms of praise, some of which have been set to music, and they remind me of singing with my 360 closest friends back in Salt Lake.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 05:39 Psalm 84. I was surprised, to be honest, that this wasn’t listed as one of the possibilities in the Come Follow Me manual. They did 77 to 78, and then jumped to 85 and 86. Please, don’t forget Psalm 84, anybody. This is a temple or pilgrimage song where the singer praises the house of the Lord. And I just want to share a few verses from this.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 05:59 The words are going to sound familiar, and some of you will know a slightly different version. That’s because this is in Brahms’s famous German Requiem, where it’s not, How Amiable Are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts? It’s, How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place, O Lord of Hosts? Any singers out there, if you love that movement from Brahms, it’s from this psalm. But we’ll go ahead and read it as it is in our King James Version.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 06:21 How amiable or lovable are thy tabernacles, thy dwelling places, O Lord of Hosts? My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living of God. And then it talks about how a sparrow finds a nest in the altar. Blessed are they, then moving to verse four, are they that dwell in thy house. They will be ever praising thee, is how Brahms does it. They will still be praising thee. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee and whose heart are thy ways.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 06:51 There’s another verse in here. I remember years ago, when I was first getting interested in antiquity, I was not succeeding as a chemistry pre-med major, and so I was thinking about changing to ancient studies. I took a Pearl of Great Price from Hugh Nibley, and someone asked, and they said, “Brother Nibley, why were you never a stake president or a general authority?” And he said, “I’d rather be a doorkeeper of the house of the Lord than foremost of the tents of the wicked.” I thought, what are you saying? All the years later did I realize he was quoting Psalm 84.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 07:19 I’ve mentioned how much I used to love being an ordinance worker in the Provo Temple. And people say, “What’s your favorite thing to do in the temple?” I can’t even tell you which one. I love all of them. But believe it or not, one of my favorite posts was Recommend Desk. And brothers don’t do that much now because sisters get to do that a lot. I loved welcoming people to the temple. I loved smiling. I used to get after the old brethren I’d work with, say, “Stop looking so grumpy. Stop taking that recommend and looking at it like there’s something wrong.” You shouldn’t be daunting figures at the doorway of the house of God. It should be, “Welcome to the temple! We’re glad you’re here!” Right?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 07:53 So anyway, this was my go-to verse. Every time I went up to my shift at the Recommend Desk, verse 10, a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Because doorkeeper sounds like a pretty minor duty. I remember one of my first times working in the temple, they put me up at laundry. I’m like, what? Folding socks? Anything in the house of the Lord can be a joy if you allow yourself to feel the spirit to it.

Hank Smith: 08:21 Eric, as you’ve been talking about missing the temple because you’re there in Jerusalem, and correct me if I’m wrong, where’s the nearest temple to you?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 08:31 Well, it will be Dubai.

Hank Smith: 08:32 It will be Dubai.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 08:32 But right now, it’s Kyiv, and that’s not an option, so it’s Rome.

Hank Smith: 08:38 And so, here in Provo, you know how many temples we have right around us. And I felt that. And I felt the idea of, I want to hear the music of the organ again in the temple. I think COVID maybe took a lot of us out of our routine of going to the temple, because you got to make an appointment, and so often there’s no appointments to pick up.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 08:59 See, and I was so spoiled because I was under 60 and I was vaccinated. I got called back to work in the temple months before most people were.

Hank Smith: 09:06 Oh, wow.

John Bytheway: 09:06 Oh, wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 09:06 So I had a pass every week, yeah.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 09:09 Some of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had is when I officiated an endowment for five people: a missionary, his mom and dad, his sister and her husband. Five people, just them. A COVID blessing.

John Bytheway: 09:25 Yeah. The one by oneness of the gospel. When we took our daughter, Natalie, to get her endowment before she went to her mission in Tucson and Tahiti, I think it was President Burton at the temple, he looked at us and said, “We opened the temple for one person today. The lights, the AC, everything for your daughter today.” That was a beautiful moment for all of us, to get that sense of, the Lord cares for us one at a time.

Hank Smith: 09:57 To those listening who are thinking, you’re kind of like me, like, “Yeah, I have gotten out of the routine of getting into the temple.” This is October 2021, General Conference, President Nelson: “If you don’t yet love to attend the temple”, he says, “go more often, not less. Let the Lord, through his spirit, teach and inspire you there. I promise you,” here we have a prophet of God, “I promise you that over time, the temple will become a place of safety, solace, and revelation.”

Hank Smith: 10:33 He said, “To each of you who has made temple covenants, I plead with you to seek prayerfully and consistently to understand temple covenants and ordinances. Spiritual doors will open. You will learn how to part the veil between heaven and earth, how to ask for God’s angels to attend you, and how to better receive direction from heaven. Your diligent efforts to do so will reinforce and strengthen your spiritual foundation.” Wow. What promises.

Hank Smith: 11:07 And the psalms, Eric, the way you described the psalms happening at the temple, here they are. All of a sudden, it made me thirst for the temple again, like you do there in the Holy Land.

John Bytheway: 11:20 My dad also passed away in 2004, and I’m using his Old Testament today, and it’s so fun to see what he marked. He marked a lot of stuff, but every once in a while, he put a star. He has a star next to: I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tent of wickedness.

John Bytheway: 11:38 And then that next verse, he colored all in: The Lord God is a son and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing, this is all colored in, will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. It’s fun to benefit, kind of get an insight into my dad when I see what he marked.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 11:53 If we can do a little digression here for a moment. I told a story one year, it was right after my mom died. My mom and I were really close, and I suffered, oh, I suffered. Six months later, my wife finally said, “Go see someone. You’re not handling this very well.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 12:09 I remember one morning, I was just so sad. I got up and I pulled out my Book of Mormon, I pulled out commentary and pulled out my colored pencils, and I just didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. And I looked in my study, and in my study, I had this, it was kind of gaudy, this bright yellow chair, overstuffed chair of my grandmother’s, that used to be in her study. So I went and I sat in Nana’s chair. And then I looked, and they were in my mother’s scriptures.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 12:35 When she was so sick at the end, she went down to 98 pounds. I used to carry mom in my arms into dialysis three mornings a week, and I’d carry her in and they’d set her up on dialysis. And she had these green, oversized scriptures. They were actually Nana’s, they were my grandmother’s first. Mom would read what she could, so sick.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 12:55 So I was sitting in Nana’s chair, and I look over and see mom’s scriptures, and I take them out, 

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 13:03 and I opened them. It was just like what you were saying, John. I saw some passages that she had marked, and suddenly I felt like Nana was hugging me and Mama was reaching out to me. I kid you not, I heard Mama’s voice. She said, “Son, I love you too. You’re going to be all right.” That was the turning point after six months of-

Hank Smith: 13:24 Wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 13:24 … really serious depression. It was because of that visual cue and the feeling of my grandmother’s chair, and the view of my mother’s Scriptures, because I could imagine what she was thinking when she was reading them and the few things she was strong enough to mark.

Hank Smith: 13:39 Eric, that’s absolutely beautiful, really.

John Bytheway: 13:41 That is. Amen to that. I’ve had so much fun looking at my dad’s Scriptures and seeing his notes in the margins. When I was first called to be a bishop, I went to the cemetery just to sit by my dad. I’m finding so much in here that he seems to be saying to me by what he marked and Post-Its in the front covers with lists of different verses. My dad was a convert and just devoured the Scriptures and loved them.

John Bytheway: 14:26 Your story means a lot to me because I will take pictures of verses now and text them to my siblings to say, “Look what Dad marked, and look what he said about this.” That has been a totally unexpected dimension to Scriptures, to take my dad’s Scriptures and look at them. I’m glad you said that, Eric.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 14:45 I’m grateful to you. You’ve just helped me understand a line of my patriarchal blessing. I have a line in my patriarchal blessing which said I should be grateful for the inheritance which is mine in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve always interpreted that, the blessings I get if I keep my covenants, and you’ve just given me a key that lets me see another interpretation.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 15:05 My inheritance in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the faithfulness of my mother and my dad’s faithfulness and my grandmother’s love. It’s generations. For our listeners who don’t have family in the church or ancestors in the church, guess what? Abraham and Sarah are your grandparents, and the prophets and the figures in the Scriptures can be your sisters and your brothers and your parents.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 15:31 You’ve helped me, John, understand a line that’s meant something to me, but I’ve never seen it this way before. We can literally inherit the faith and the excitement and the love of those who’ve gone before, whether they’re our literal ancestors or they’re our scriptural ancestors. Thank you.

John Bytheway: 15:48 Your hearing your mother’s voice there reminds me, because I sent a text to my siblings about, “Look at what Dad said right here,” because when I read it, I hear him talking. That’s a lot of fun to think, “Hey, he’s still involved. I’m still his son. He’s still my dad and going to help me get through this life this time.” Thank you for that.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 16:13 The fun tag-teaming, because you just said hear him, your dad, but what has President Nelson said? Hear Him, the Lord.

John Bytheway: 16:19 Yeah. I’m hearing my other father.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 16:22 Right. Some people say, “Are you a theologian?” I say, “No, I’m an exegete. I study text.” I’m a practitioner. I’m not the one who sits around and theologizes, if that’s a verb. I practice the Gospel.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 16:37 I try to worship, and these are some lines I like to incorporate in my morning worship. This is from Psalms 95 and 96. I’m going to read several verses, but there are three verses that I actually use every morning before my morning prayers. Let me set it up.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 16:54 O come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. For the Lord…” Of course, the Lord in small caps is Yahweh, Jehovah. “For Jehovah is a great god, and a great king of all gods. In His hands are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 17:21 These two verses are the ones that I frequently use in the morning.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 17:25 “O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before Jehovah, our maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of his Hand.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 17:38 Then flipping over to Psalm 96, verse 9. “O worship the Lord, O worship Jehovah, in the beauty of holiness. Fear before Him…” Perhaps better rendered, “Stand in awe of Him, all the earth.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 17:52 I love that line. It appears a few other times earlier in the collection of the Psalms. “Worship in the beauty of holiness.” I’m still learning what that means. Whether it be singing with other people who share my faith, or praying alone or in a group, or standing in holy places, or celebrating sacred time like Holy Week or Easter, all of these things are beautiful, these times that we feel the Spirit and, as I said back to my work in definition of worship, where we’re being transformed. That’s what the beauty of holiness is. He calls us to be holy. It’s His holiness He imputes to us, but as it transforms us, that’s beautiful. The final one, and this went slightly beyond what the assignment was for this week, but it wasn’t in next week’s assignment and I just felt like it’d be a shame not to do this. My wife says, “This Church of Huntsman is so complicated, because before we have Thanksgiving dinner, we’ve got to read some Scriptures. We’ve got to sing a song. Then, of course, there’s Dad’s prayer that never ends.” My family hears this one a lot because this is a true thanksgiving psalm, 100. A lot of my choir friends will remember this text because we sing it in various musical settings.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 19:01 “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, unto Jehovah, all ye lands. Serve the Lord, serve Jehovah, with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord He is God.” Once again, wow, Jehovah is God. The Word made flesh is God.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 19:17 “It is He that has made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. For the Lord, for Jehovah, is good. His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 19:40 If I had my students here, I’d say, “Give me an Amen,” and I’d hope I’d get an Amen-

John Bytheway: 19:45 Amen. Hank, I know you love the Book of Jacob, right?

Hank Smith: 19:49 Yes.

John Bytheway: 19:50 In Psalm 95, I was like, “Man, I have heard that phrase before.” Look at the end of verse 7. “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” That is Jacob 6:6.

Hank Smith: 20:02 Oh, wow.

John Bytheway: 20:03 The footnote folks didn’t put it in there, but Jacob must have known the Psalms.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 20:10 Or Jacob and this psalmist knew the same source. We don’t know.

John Bytheway: 20:13 Yeah, exactly. Right. Then Jacob says, “For why will ye die? But here, harden not your heart as in the day of provocation,” going back to an event in the Exodus. Anyway, I just thought, “Whoa, I’ve heard that phrase before.”

Hank Smith: 20:26 That our Book of Mormon authors were familiar with these words.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 20:30 Well, Jacob is the most poetic of the Book of Mormon authors. It talks about how Nephi says, “I haven’t taught my children the ways of the Jews,” but Nephi and Jacob were taught by Lehi. Jacob is as poetic as they come.

Hank Smith: 20:44 Eric, as you were reading some of these Psalms, it helped me better understand Nephi’s world and why he would even break into a psalm like he does, because this is part of his world.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 20:53 It also helps understand the Isaiah passages better. When you get a big stretch like 12-24 in 2 Nephi, we always have a hard time dragging Sam through those. When you remember that they are also poetic… Sometimes we’re striving so hard to understand what’s that representing and what’s that prophesying about, and we don’t just take it for the beauty it is, and that maybe, for Nephi, part of it was just the beauty of Isaiah.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 21:18 See, we’re not used to that. Sometimes I think we overdo “we’re here to learn and grow, and we’re going to learn something from this.” I often will tell students, “Inspiration is not just what the Scriptures say; it’s how they say it.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 21:31 Hugh Nibley used to always say, “I learn something new at the temple every time I go.” I thought, “My gosh, I go all the time, and I’m not learning something every time I go.” Then I started to be generous with myself, and I said, “But I feel something every time.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 21:41 I got out of this mode that I always need to be learning something or getting something out of something in some kind of tangible or quantifiable way. It’s okay to just read the Scriptures and feel the Spirit, even if you don’t have a particular message from them. I think sometimes we almost set ourselves up for frustration. We become almost too utilitarian.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 22:01 This is what I’m talking about, being a practitioner of the Gospel. I think sometimes we almost become too utilitarian. “What is it going to do for me? How is this going to better me?” Well, maybe it’s just going to transform you because you’re going to help you feel God.

John Bytheway: 22:14 Yeah. Those people were uprooted from the land of their inheritance, and maybe for Nephi, it was, “This reminds me of home. This reminds me of familiar places in my youth and when we grew up and when we heard these words,” and it was something to hang onto home with when he repeated Isaiah. I don’t know.

Hank Smith: 22:33 This is awesome. Eric, I want to ask you two questions, because I think our listeners would be interested. This first question, I think people are like, “He’s in the choir. What’s that like?” Just tell them what it’s like a little bit practically, going to practice and getting there for conference.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 22:47 There are the very practical parts. My brother-in-law, once when I was telling him how often I practice, he goes, “You meet that often?” We always have the choir general conference. He thought we got together a few weeks before general conference and we sang conference. Didn’t realize it was every Thursday, 7:00 to 9:30, and it was every Sunday morning starting at 7:30, earlier by the time we change, sometimes after broadcast until 12:00, Tuesday nights before conference and concerts and tapings. There’s a lot of practice.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 23:14 Dr. Wilberg always says, “It’s just like anything else in the Gospel,” Mack will say. He says, “We have to do our part. If we prepare ourselves as well as we can, musically and spiritually, then God will make up the difference.” That’s why the choir sometimes can perform beyond expectation.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 23:33 To have a group that large is not a choral director’s dream. Mack will often say, “The collective IQ of a group goes down the bigger it gets,” because it’s just hard to work with that many people. What you really want is a nice chamber choir, 30 excellent singers, that you can stand next together and feel each other. We perform beyond expectation of what we should, and the orchestra the same thing.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 23:56 Let me just shout out to my friends in the orchestra. The orchestra joined full-time the choir in ’99, about the same time as Brother Wilberg came. Brother Barlow was there, as well, at that time. It changed things. It really did. We will do these things periodically with the Utah Symphony. I love performing with them. We always have to stretch a little farther.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 24:16 We had a situation, though, where we did one number Saturday night with the Utah Symphony, and then we did it for the broadcast Sunday morning with our orchestra at Temple Square. Maybe our orchestra wasn’t as good technically, but later I watched that broadcast and I watched some of my friends, Meredith Campbell, the first violinist. I said to my wife, “They play with the Spirit. We’re urged to sing with the Spirit, and I see my friends in the orchestra playing on the strings or with the trumpets or the flutes, or whatever instruments, and they’re doing it with the same joy and spirit and conviction we are.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 24:52 The technical part is lots of rehearsing, sometimes getting, not yelled at, but rebuked by our conductor. People who come and watch those rehearsals on Thursday night, they’re always shocked because Brother Wilberg and Brother Murphy have to work us. As a choral singer, you don’t take it personally. You’re just trying to get a better product.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 25:10 There is such a joy in singing. When I sing in church, I’m way too loud. I admit it. You’ve heard me sing in department meetings. I’m way too loud. I don’t do that in the choir because you have to blend. There’s something about sacrificing your ego and your individuality and being a small cog in a really big machine.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 25:33 My favorite times in the choir is when I don’t hear myself, but I hear not just my fellow baritones, but I hear the second tenors and the sopranos over there, and the harmonies. It all comes together.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 25:43 That’s why those passages I mentioned, like at the end of 1 Nephi when Lehi sees the numerous concourses of angels, a little bit of what heaven is like. You’re not all the same. I think Elder Holland used the image of the choir once and talked about the different voice parts. We’re not all the same, we’re not singing the same part, but we’re still one. 

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 26:03 See, that’s the amazing thing and that’s one of the joys I get. Another shout out, Craig Jessup, a former music director of the Tabernacle Choir is a dear friend. Craig would often say the week before conference … We do Tuesday rehearsal, Thursday rehearsal and conferences that weekend. He’d say, “Here’s your assignment. This is what you need to get ready for conference.” He said, “You need to fast one day this week, you need to go to the temple one day. You need to perform an anonymous act of service this week, and you need to right a wrong or heal a relationship.” And he would say, “Actually, our greatest preparation’s not musical, it’s spiritual.”

Hank Smith: 26:36 Wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 26:37 I don’t want to just trumpet this. We don’t want to have an elite group. Soon after I joined the choir, to be honest, I went down to Cedar City where my family’s from. We went to Nana’s in the Cedar 2nd ward she always wanted me to sing with her choir and we sang Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was July 4th weekend. And I told my wife afterwards, I said, “We didn’t sing it anything like Tabernacle Choir sings it.” But I felt as much spirit and love with those people who are my parents, friends and neighbors and cousins.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 27:06 So this happens with choirs and orchestras of any size, anywhere, and it doesn’t have to be musical either. Think of your best missionary companion, when you work together as a team and you sacrifice your ego and you felt unified. Think of when your marriage is the way it should be, when your family’s the way it should be, when a war’s the way it should be, when a department should be … I mean, we’re not any better any worse than other departments on campus. We all have different points of views and attitudes. And sometimes it feels like we’re going like this … And I just want to be a choir. That’s why sometimes I don’t do very well department saying because I want to be in a choir, not in department. I want to be somewhere where we just harmonize and are unified automatically. But, academia is not that for a reason. We are trying to explore different points of views and way different ideas and do critical judgment. I think choir is my life preserver in an academic life. Let’s put it that way.

Hank Smith: 28:01 That’s beautiful.

John Bytheway: 28:02 One of my favorite quotations for marriages, but it just applies, is harmony is being different together.

Hank Smith: 28:11 That’s the ideas that all of us can unite.

John Bytheway: 28:14 Dissonance is something else, but harmony is being different together.

Hank Smith: 28:19 And man, when you’re sitting there listening to that choir, even just at home during general conference, it moves you.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 28:26 I have several Tabernacle Choir playlists. I always have music and not just choir music, I have all kinds of music playing here in my office. I’ve not been very successful at watching the broadcast on YouTube. I’ve watched a few and it just … separation anxiety. There’s something about seeing that performance and seeing my friends in that loft …

John Bytheway: 28:48 Oh, man.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 28:49 But you know, there’s a lot to that. We feel that way when we’re homesick and that’s the way we feel about our heavenly home. We just don’t know it because of the veil of forgetfulness. I read those Psalms, 42 and 63 about yearning for God. We’re yearning for our heavenly home as much as I’m yearning to be singing with my 360 best friends. To have that unity, that joy, to be with people you love. Missing our family at home, our daughter and son-in-law. We are just counting the days till they get here for Christmas, they’re going to come over for Christmas.

John Bytheway: 29:17 Oh, wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 29:18 But that’s life. And I think we have these little experiences in life which teach us about our souls. And what we don’t know in a conscious level our spirits are feeling, missing our heavenly parents, missing those who’ve gone before, those who haven’t come yet.

Hank Smith: 29:33 There is something inside each of us.

John Bytheway: 29:35 Yeah. A longing for home. I grew up because my mom was in the choir, listening to LPs, or records. Somebody might know what that means.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 29:45 Long play as opposed to-

John Bytheway: 29:47 Yeah, right. All my life every Sunday morning was the choir and more. And so on my mission, some missionaries were just discovering the choir. For me, it just made me homesick.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 29:59 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 30:00 You can hear your mom almost, isn’t it?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 30:03 Yeah. Well, I’ve been on every CD since Consider the Lillies. So I’ve been singing since 2003. I hardly listen to any of them, but I am not on there somewhere. But anyway …

John Bytheway: 30:16 I’ll relabel mine Eric Huntsman and the choir. I’ll label those.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 30:20 That’s exactly what Brother Wilberg doesn’t want it to be like. No voice sticks out. I’ve had once or twice where I was called out by Mac or Ryan. So I try to harmonize and and be in it, but sometimes I get excited. Shortly after I was called as Bishop, and this was years before I was in the choir, this sweet lady came up to me afterwards. She said, “Bishop, you sing too loud.” And I was just broken. So the next two or three weeks I hardly sang, I just mumbled. And Elaine came up to me and she said, “Eric, you look so miserable. That’s how you worship, just sing.” So when I’m in a choir I blend as best I can. But when I sing in church preparation meeting, department meetings, I’m just going to let it rip. It’s how it excites me, you heard me with the songs, it’s worship. It’s my way of being close to God.

Hank Smith: 31:12 I love that, Eric. And we should do that more in this church. Sing. Sing the way you want to sing. Don’t worry about what people are thinking today. Go ahead. I love that. I think that’s a great takeaway from the book of Psalms. Sing, worship the Lord. I love walking into a chapel that’s … The Song of the Saints, let’s hear it. Eric, this has been just a fantastic day going through the book of Psalms with you. I’ve really just enjoyed feeling these scriptures more than anything else. I think our listeners would be interested in your journey, both as a Bible scholar, a father, and a Latter-day Saint. That’s a lot of intertwining pieces and parts. What’s that journey been like for you?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 31:57 Started out, I was raised to be a doctor, a lawyer. Those were pretty much … My dad grew up on a ranch, first person in his family ever in all generations to go to college. He just had these dreams for me. And calculus and I just did not agree. So I did two semesters chemistry, 111, 112 and it was just all I could do to pull out Bs. But that’s like, “Oh, B’s not bad.” I was studying 12 hours per class to get a B. And it was just clear it wasn’t going to get better. So I came back my sophomore year for a semester and I knew I wasn’t majoring in chemistry. I was trying to make the mission decision. And so I just signed up for American heritage, biology and physical science. I thought, “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to study. I’m just going to do all my GEs.” The most boring semester imaginable.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 32:42 So I looked in the honors catalog and I mentioned I took Pearl of Great Price from Hugh Nibley who was emeritus faculty, because it was a big name that sounded interesting. Wilford Griggs, I don’t know if you knew Wilfred. He was in ancient scripture for a long time. He had been my honors history of civ teacher my freshman year, and the honors catalog had a seven credit class. It was five credits of honors accelerated Greek, two credits of New Testament. Now here’s the dirty secret. I did not like BYU religion classes, I thought they were kind of cheesy. And I thought, “Well, this will get rid of a religion class.” I liked Dr. Griggs and wow, who knows Greek. And so I went ahead and did that-

Hank Smith: 33:17 Seven credit class on Greek-

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 33:19 Five credits of honors Greek, two credit New Testament.

Hank Smith: 33:23 Oh, my word.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 33:25 We learned enough Greek to work through the gospel of John. In retrospect, not well, John’s what I specialize in now, but we could kind of translate it. And we had an oral final at the end. So he had us translate chapters 19 through 21 of John on our own, come to the final. And he would just ask, “Sarah, translate chapter 19, verses 20 through 28.” And you’d read aloud in Greek and translate it. He could tell by your translation whether you knew the forms and functions of the verbs and were parsing correctly. He might ask some grammatical questions. And I had done well with class, I’ll admit it. But he never called on me, didn’t call me, didn’t call me. Everyone had gone and we had like an hour left in the three hour session. So he says, “Well, Eric,” he said, “Why don’t you translate John 21?” I said, “What verses?” He said, “John 21.” So I translated that entire chapter and when we were done and I thought, “Wow, okay.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 34:16 And he said, “Why don’t you come with me to my office?” And we walked to the old JSB and he said, “I don’t usually try to convince people to go into academia because becoming an academic’s like taking a vow of poverty, and I know you want to be professional.” He said, “I remember you from the history of civ class, you’re a good writer. You’re a good researcher. You did well at Greek. I think you have what it takes.” By this time I had decided to go on a mission. From the time I talked to my Bishop til the time I had my call was two weeks. That’s how fast.

John Bytheway: 34:46 Wow.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 34:47 I was walking home one day. My Bishop had an office on campus. I stopped in, all my friends were gone. I’d heard about people putting their papers, I had no idea what that meant. I sat down with him and said, “What’s up with these papers?” He pulled out a set and I didn’t even know what he was doing. We filled them out together. He just asked me, “Where were you born? What’s your birthday?” We filled out the papers. He said, “I have a friend who’s a doctor and I have another friend who’s a dentist.” This was Monday. He said, “I can get you in on Thursday and Friday.” He said, “Member of the stake presidency works at the church office building, so go see your stake president on Sunday. His council will carry them up on Monday.” I had my call the next Thursday. My parents didn’t even know I was thinking about a mission. So I called my folks. My dad gets on the line and I said, “Get mom on the line.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 35:30 I said, “You’re hereby called to serve a mission” My mother begins to bawll, because of course, that was her dream for me to go on a mission and I’d been rebellious. So all I was thinking about was going to Thailand at that point. And so Dr. Griggs said … Wilford said, “Just see me when you come home.” So I came home and double majored in Greek and Latin. Loved it. Loved the ancient world. Loved mythology, loved Roman history, loved everything. Forgot about John, believe it or not. And so I went to the University of Pennsylvania, got my PhD. Master’s in classics, PhD in ancient history. And I came back and taught classics initially. So from 1994 or 2003, I was in the college of humanities. I wasn’t in religion. And I loved it, but there was something still calling me. Tom Wayman and Richard Holtz asked me to write a chapter in a book they were doing on the Savior’s final 24 hours.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 36:18 And I wrote this chapter on the Roman trial of Jesus. I read all 1,608 pages of Raymond Brown’s Death of Messiah, and I read all this stuff. The night before it was due, I had a writer’s block. I thought, “What am I going to do?” I just started flipping through the Book of Mormon to give myself a break. And I kept finding all these passages of Nephi and Jacob. They curse him and they spit upon him and they scourge him. I realize I could combine the gospel with Roman history and Greek language and scholarship. So I went and talked to Andy Skinner and applied for job in ancient scriptures, so in 2003 I changed. Never taught seminary, never taught institute, had no idea how to be a religion professor. I was ready for New Testament. But Dan Judd was the department chair at the time, he gave me two sections of 211 and three of 121.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 37:06 He said, “Everyone cuts their teeth on Book of Mormon in this department.” I had no idea how to teach the Book of Mormon. I mean, I had studied all this stuff on biblical exegesis, then I did this ho-hum Book of Mormon class. I was putting my syllabus together and I could not sleep. And the spirit said, “Why is the Book of Mormon not as important to you as the Bible?” And I thought, “I should be treating the Book of Mormon as seriously as I am the New Testament.” And so that’s when I started to craft my particular approach to exegesis and exposition. Studying it as a text, but applying it. Bringing the spirit, trying to balance. Sometimes there are these arguments about devotional writing, or academic writing? I’m not an either or kind of guy, I’m a both man. I don’t know why you can’t do both.

John Bytheway: 37:47 Yeah. Dr. Huntsman, you used a term exegesis. I remember hearing that for the very first time and hearing the name Jesus in it. But it’s not, it’s with a G. Can you explain what exegesis and eisegesis are?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 38:01 That’s one of those million dollar words we Bible studies geeks use. So that’s great, let’s explain it. Exegesis comes from a Greek word meaning to lead out the meaning of the text. And so it’s the kind of systematic analysis of a text. We ask historical, literary and theological questions to try to recreate as best we can what the original meaning of the text would be to its original audience.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 38:24 So it’s letting the text speak for itself. Now the opposite of it sometimes is described as eisegesis. In Greek, we would say eisegesis. Exegesis is leading the meaning out, eisegsis is putting the meaning in. Department meanings … You know me as one on slightly the academic side, it’s probably how you know me. But you got to see my heart today, right? I really feel both. And so for me, it’s great to be able to bring my love of history and language, not just Greek, Latin and Hebrew … But English King James, New Revised Standard, I don’t care what the language is, because the word of God is in any of those languages. 

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 39:03 But I mentioned this before, the inspiration is not just in what is said, but how it’s said. So all those years being a classicist and teaching literature, that’s why I’m drawn to the Psalms. I can appreciate scripture’s literature as well as scripture, if that makes any sense. So in my teaching, I just try to do both. And I drag the students to the more academic part, I think, by sheer force of personality. Because I’m excited about it and this is neat and, “Look at it.” But I’ve also found if the students have confidence that they know I’m a believer and they know I have faith and that they feel the Spirit, even when I’m talking about exegesis, they’ll give that part of it a chance. My feeling is why not do everything with the scriptures you can, everything you can. I know you need to make choices in a given class and the time you have.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 39:48 But let me move from that question to the other question you want me to address. So here I am a quote-unquote, “scholar” of the scriptures, professor, teaching. I have this daughter who’s just brilliant. My daughter, Rachel, was an ancient near eastern studies major. She focused on New Testament Greek minored in Hebrew. She was just a little me. From the earliest age.

Hank Smith: 40:10 Just like her dad.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 40:11 And then six years later, we have a son cute, smiled, wonderful, didn’t talk a lot. But then when he was three and a half, he stopped talking, stopped smiling, wouldn’t let us hold him, and he was diagnosed with autism. And it completely changed our world. Because guess what? I’m not going to do exegesis with Sam. We couldn’t even do our Christmas traditions the way we love to do them because the sounds. Just our whole world changed. There’s so many blessings I’ve had because of Sam. One is it’s brought me back to the basics because I teach Sam the basics.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 40:48 But we kept up with seminary. He couldn’t do released-time seminary. So I did home study with him and we did The Book of Mormon pretty much on schedule. And we got through the Doctrine & Covenants pretty much on schedule. It took us three years to do the Old Testament. And by this point, I didn’t care. Wasn’t worried about seminary graduation. And we finished the Old Testament during COVID. And now we’re doing the New Testament three or four days a week, half a chapter of The Gospels a week, a day, lesson, whenever we meet.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 41:20 But guess what? I’m doing it with him in the Holy Land and where I’m taking him to the places where those things happened. But Sam gave me A, the gift of teaching the gospel and the scriptures simply. Simply. And boy, that little guy, he’s a big guy now, he’s 6′ 3″, my gentle giant, he is a sweet spirit. I ordained him an Elder the week before we came here. And his first blessing is, well he gave me a blessing two days before we came here. Blesses the sacrament every week here at the Jerusalem Center. He’s a service volunteer. He does the linen exchanges and he helps the humanitarian service projects. Having him here is a blessing because it’s keeping me rooted in the simple. So Sam has autism because of a genetic throw of the dice. We didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything. It just happened. But he’s probably not going to marry and have children. I remember shortly after his diagnosis, I was working my Thursday temple shift. I was endowment corner at the time so would… We called it loading rooms. We’d get a session started in that room, then we’d have a few minutes we’d go get another company to go into another room. And in between I just was crying and I said, “Heavenly Father…” I said, “All these righteous desires I had for my son to serve a mission, full-time proselytizing mission and marry in the temple, be a father. They’re not going to happen. Why is this happening to my son?” And kicker, I said, “He’s my only son.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 42:48 Now this was the Thursday before Easter. The next day was Good Friday. And an audible voice came to me, John and Hank, said, “What about my only son?” I learned something as I reflected on that. I later wrote about this in one of my books. I said we spend so much time saying we want to be more like Jesus. But then when the Lord allows us to have the hardships and the challenges… Notice I didn’t say he gave them to us. Some he may give, but sometimes he just allows them. There is this woman I used to love on the Evangelize the World Network. It’s the Catholic network. Her name was Mother Angelica. And she would describe God’s determining will in God’s permissive will. Sometimes he just permits things to happen. He permitted Sam to have autism. We pray that we will be more like Jesus, but then when the hardships and the sorrows come, we’re like, “No, not me, Lord, take it back.”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 43:36 So Sam taught me a lot about accepting the will of the Lord. And it also broke my heart open for people whose lives would not be typical. He wasn’t going to have a typical life. He might not have typical relationships. But I knew how much God loved him. And I knew how much I loved him. I had an experience in the choir. We were singing a tour in California. I talk about this in my devotional. And the day of a concert, in the afternoon rehearsal we’ll have what’s called a soundcheck at the venue. And we’ll often bring local groups in to sing with us for the soundcheck. It’s their chance to sing with members of the Tabernacle Choir.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 44:15 We were in San Francisco and we had the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus come for our soundcheck. And to their credit, my friends in the choir were warm and loving, “Sit by us. We’re so glad to have you.” No judgment. Treating them well. And I have a very good friend, and I’ve told his story, he’s given me permission to tell his story. I saw him when we were eating dinner in between the soundcheck and the performance and he just looked so sad and I went and put my arm around him, I said, “Alex…”, I said, “What do you think about today?” He said, “I think it was great that you all were so nice to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. But here I am a covenant keeping, homosexual man in the church and I’m still under a rock. How are people treating me?”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 45:02 What started with my son’s autism and then having some different insights, having conversations with people from different racial communities and then seeing the heartache of some of our LGBTQ+ friends, it just made me look at it differently. And I’ll actually come back to my precocious daughter. I tell the story in the devotional about reading 1 Corinthians with my daughter. I used to take her to the bus stop in my Jeep and we’d read our scripture in the morning while we waited for the bus to come. And we were reading one of those hard passages in Paul. And my little girl, my princess, my precocious wonderful little me looked at me, 14 years old, she goes, “Daddy, why doesn’t Heavenly Father like girls as much as boys?”

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 45:42 Any way I can, without compromising our standards or diluting our doctrine, if I have a chance to speak up for those who are marginalized in any way, it’s because of what Sammy taught me. Because his life isn’t what I thought it could or should have been. But we’re actually coming to realize that’s exactly what Heavenly Father wanted it to be. You should see how he’s blessing the lives of the students here right now. We have 84 new brothers and sisters for Sam. He’s had better social experiences and interactions in the last two months than he’s had his entire life. But how much are they learning from him?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 46:23 We had a minor COVID outbreak in the center and Sam and Lynn got it. The first day he came up to the oasis cafeteria after he got out of isolation, he was still wearing his mask, the students gave him an ovation, “Sam you’re back.” It’s teaching them how to love and care for someone. I don’t even know how we got here, Hank, except you led me down the trail, the path of tears here. But I guess I’m a tenderhearted guy. I can be pretty hardcore academic, but I really do love the Lord. I do love people. Sure love my Sam. It’s given me a feeling for how much God loves the world. How much he loved his son, Jesus Christ, but how much he loved you and how much he loved me. That’s not academics talking. That’s what I talk about being a practitioner for the gospel. That’s what life and experience and the Spirit teaches us. And that’s why I’m still in. I’m in because of what I know, but also because of what I felt and what I’ve experienced.

Hank Smith: 47:28 So good. So good, Eric.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 47:30 All right. Well, thanks for having me.

Hank Smith: 47:33 Wow, Eric, thank you for being here today. Dr. Eric Huntsman. What a great day. We’ve talked about things that we haven’t been able to talk about on the podcast before. And I think that is crucial to a lot of our listeners. John, what a good day.

John Bytheway: 47:50 Yeah, I love this idea of these are a response. It’s such a nice way to look at, what you called it, the writings. We’ve got the law, the prophets, the writings, and us responding to the Lord and to worship. And the list that you gave us was really valuable. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 48:07 Yeah. Psalm 62:8, “Trust in him at all times.” Beautiful. We want to thank Dr. Eric Huntsman for being with us today. What a blessing and I’m sure we’ll be seeing him again, especially when we study the New Testament next year. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And we hope all of you will join us next week. We’re coming back with another lesson on Psalms from FollowHIM.

Hank Smith: 48:37 We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.