John Bytheway: 00:00:02 Welcome to Part II of this week’s podcast.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:00:07 So another great thing about the Ark, in verse 15, we do get some numbers here, about size here and dimensions. So it talks about cubits, which is not really a measurement we use today. A cubit, even though it kind of changed over time, it was typically equal to a forearm. So from like the tip of your finger to your elbow, that was a cubit. And so it’s usually around 18 inches. You can actually kind of figure out how big the Ark was, by kind of just working out how much a cubit is. And so the numbers we get are, it was about 450 feet long, it’s huge, 75 feet wide, 46 feet deep. And we’re looking at… Actually, the entire sort of volume or span is one-and-a-half football fields. So this was enormous.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:00:54 And you think about Noah building this. Like once again, it wasn’t easy. We don’t realize how it would’ve been for Noah and his family, to keep going and to keep trying to do this and to keep building, even with being surrounded by wickedness and how the flood, even for them, would’ve been very scary, but always having that knowledge that the Lord was going to protect them and prepare them and help them.

Hank Smith: 00:01:21 And some days you’d have to wonder, “Is it really going to flood?” I can just see so many parallels to our own life of, “Why am I taking all this time and effort to do this, when the sun is shining?”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:01:33 Exactly. It’s hard. Sometimes we don’t see the end, or we don’t keep the end in sight.

John Bytheway: 00:01:38 Oh, I wonder if that very conversation was going on, when people were watching him build. As we’ve kind of seen depicted in movies and stuff, they’re all thinking he’s foolish building this thing, because it was maybe fair weather.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:01:54 Yeah, and I can’t imagine they were trying to kill him, just trying to do this; just trying to build this thing and things get so awful, so bad, sort of the last chance. Now another really interesting thing, in verse 16, it says that he was told to make a window in the Arc. And the word here used as window is the Hebrew word tzohar. And this word actually means something like light. People sort of translate it as, okay so you put a window in, so they would have light. But there’s actually a really interesting-

John Bytheway: 00:02:28 Oh, this is like my favorite footnote ever.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:02:33 I love this one too. And I had never even realized that they had put this in as a footnote here and connected it, and I always share this with my students. So, there’s this sort of Jewish rabbinical tradition that, when God created Adam, one of the things he did was he put his light; God’s light in a stone, so that Adam would always have the light of God with him. And Adam passed this stone down. He passed it down until it got to Noah. And the tradition goes that Noah used it to light the Ark. And so the tzohar was actually this lighted stone that Noah had. And then the tradition continues. He passed it down. It eventually went to Moses, who used it to light the tabernacle, so that there was always this light of God with the prophets and being passed down.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:03:18 Of course, what’s incredible about this is when we think of lighted stones, what do we think?

John Bytheway: 00:03:23 Ether.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:03:24 Brother of Jared, yeah. And when we read about the story of the brother of Jared, and he goes to the Lord and he says, “Are we supposed to travel in darkness? These boats are airtight like the ark.” And his boats are compared to the Ark . And brother of Jared even mentions… The Flood is mentioned. And so they’re very well aware of what happened before. And it’s possible, we don’t know for sure of course, that this is kind of where he got this idea of this lighted stone, and the light of God.

John Bytheway: 00:03:56 And you said this is a Jewish tradition?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:04:01 Yeah, the Rabbis kind of came up with this idea of, “This is what the tzohar is,” because it doesn’t mean window. There’s another word for window. And a window in the Ark is mentioned later, but it’s a different word. It’s interesting here. It’s almost like, “Take this, put this in the Ark. It’s going to give you light.”

John Bytheway: 00:04:18 But I always love that story. Maybe that’s what he did. He wondered what Noah did, and he did a search for the scriptures, perhaps, to find an answer of how he could have light in the barges. I think it’s such a fun connection there. So I’m glad you brought that footnote up. It’s one of my faves.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:04:35 It’s incredible. And, of course the brother of Jared goes up with these stones for the Lord to touch them. And then he comes back down and he has two extra. He has the Urim and Thummim with him. And so there’s this whole idea of God giving us stones or different objects to help us in whatever way we need help. Especially in the Old Testament, in the book of Mormon, they have all these objects that represent things, like the Liahona and the Urim and Thummim, and even the sword of Laban represents things, and it appears and it comes out. We seem to be less physically tangibly oriented. Although we do have some things, and we’ll talk about the tokens and symbols of the covenant that we have as well. So Noah builds and loads the Ark. And I think the big takeaway with this, and we’ve already kind of talked about this, is that Noah had to put in some work to prepare for the Flood.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:05:22 And the Lord gave him all of the information, everything he needed, to be ready when the Flood came. And I like that it wasn’t just spiritual work; Noah had put in the spiritual work. He was listening to the Lord. He was doing what he was told, but there was also temporal physical work to prepare for the flood that’s coming. You can liken this to our own work, to prepare for floods. In what way has the Lord, or the prophet prepared us for upcoming trials in our own life? How do we prepare, both physically and spiritually, so that when the flood comes, we make it through, and we’re Noah on the other side? Kind of the greatest part about this is Jesus actually comments on Noah preparing for the Flood, and those who didn’t prepare.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:06:13 So if we turn to Luke 17, versus 26 and 27, Jesus actually talks about that, “When the flood came during Noah’s time, the people were not prepared. And they were destroyed because of that.” He compares this with the end of the world situation, the end of mortality; the Judgment, his return, when he’s going to come back. And I love that he compares this to mortality. “Now is the time to prepare for when He’s going to come back. Now is the time to prepare for when your mortality is going to end.” We see this theme all through Noah. We already talked about lifespans and the search for immortality. And even the Savior brings this out that this is a message of the Flood. Be ready, be prepared because the floods are coming. Whether it’s right now or it’s when he comes back again, we need to be prepared.

John Bytheway: 00:07:13 In the very first paragraph of the Come, Follow Me Manual, it says, “Generations of Bible readers have been inspired by this story of Noah and the Flood. But we who live in the latter days, have special reason to pay attention to it. When Jesus Christ taught how we should watch for his Second Coming, he said, ‘As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also, at the coming of the Son of Man.'” That’s Joseph Smith-Matthew. That’s exactly what you’re saying though.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:07:40 Yeah. And it’s not only preparing, but I think it’s also a reference to the widespread wickedness that was in place around Noah. And once again, this idea of like, how do you make it through that when you’re surrounded by this? How do you still prepare? How do you still build an Ark when people are trying to kill you and stop you and hurt you? How do you keep going? How do you survive and prepare?

Hank Smith: 00:08:04 How do you build a home, how do you build a life? Prepared for the Second Coming in a world that’s-

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:08:10 … going the way.

Hank Smith: 00:08:12 … that doesn’t love… Yeah, actions like that?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:08:15 That’s kind of part of what we’re supposed to take from these stories. And even though, maybe we don’t feel like the world is at that point yet, we’re told it will be, and it’s getting there. And I also think sometimes people from the past might look at our world today and think we’re there when they see what’s happening. But because we grew up in this world and we’re used to it, we don’t see it as well as maybe they do, how widespread wickedness is and the problems that we have today. So, it kind of gives some perspective, I think.

Hank Smith: 00:08:43 I wanted to mention, it says that he pitched it within and without. Does that mean he sealed it?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:08:51 Yeah. So this pitch is referring to like bitumen or tar. He made it waterproof, is basically what it’s saying.

John Bytheway: 00:08:58 “Tight like unto a dish.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:09:00 Yeah, exactly. And I love how the Jaredite boats are compared to the Ark.

Hank Smith: 00:09:05 That’s interesting to me, just when I think about my own home. I’m going to give my children the tools they need. I’m going to pitch it within, teaching my kids, and then pitch it without, I’m going to create some distance between my home and this world. I’m going to protect it…

John Bytheway: 00:09:21 Good idea.

Hank Smith: 00:09:22 … from coming in. I’m not just going to protect you from outside influences. I’m going to arm you inside, within and without.

John Bytheway: 00:09:30 We’re going to keep our source of light inside; our tzohar. Gather around the tzohar everybody.

Hank Smith: 00:09:35 Yeah, right.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:09:38 Yeah, I like that. I think it definitely works. The Ark can take on so many different meanings. And also, I think, the Ark in a way, shut out the outside influence. And no matter what people were saying on the outside, Noah was focused on his family and saving his family, and what’s on the inside. And it’s the same with our houses. Whatever’s happening on the outside, if we can keep the inside, like our house, a place of worship, like a temple, the Spirit’s there, then it won’t matter what’s happening on the outside.

Hank Smith: 00:10:07 Krystal, I was also thinking of building a massive structure as kind of like a testimony. It’s a very public thing that you’re doing, and people are, “What are you doing?” Driving on I-15 lately, we’ve watched the Orem Temple kind of grow out of the ground there. And to me, it’s almost like, “Look at that massive structure that is just bearing testimony to a second coming. The king is going to come.” I feel like as I’ve watched that, as I’ve driven by watching the Orem Temple go up that it feels almost like a similar Genesis-type moment where, “Wow, look at that. They’re really serious about this whole life after death thing, aren’t they? And Noah’s really serious about this flood coming. He’s not joking around. He really believes it.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:10:51 I love that you brought that up. We live not too far from that temple. So, I drive by it every day on the way to BYU. Like you, every time I drive by, I almost kind of stop and pull over, just to see what they’ve added or what’s coming. There’s this anticipation of, it’s going to be done, and that’ll be my temple. I don’t know if you guys feel this way, that this sort of my temple-type of thing. And they’re building it, and they’re building it for me, and for other people too. But the arc, I think, it’s a good parallel. It was built to save people. It was built to save righteous people. That’s just the same with temples; righteous people, whether they’re still here or they’ve passed on. So I like those big structures.

Hank Smith: 00:11:34 When it comes to the Second Coming or when it comes to families being together forever, we definitely put our money where our mouth is. We believe. We’re willing to invest heavily into this belief.

John Bytheway: 00:11:47 I think it was one of the things that was a blessing during the pandemic, when people were a little uncertain about what was next to have President Nelson, keep announcing new temples, just like, “Oh, okay. Yeah. We’ll make more.”

Hank Smith: 00:12:02 New arts.

John Bytheway: 00:12:04 “Just a growing concern.” Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:12:05 Yeah. Even when the temples closed, we were still building new temples.

John Bytheway: 00:12:10 Building more.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:12:10 So there was a hope. It’s almost like this tzohar thing. We’re sad that those temples are closed and we can’t go, but we have hope, because we see they’re building more temples. And that must mean we will return to the temple someday; the same thing I think. And we can kind of turn to Chapter 7 now, and talk about the flood. “It rained for forty days and forty nights.” We read, as we go through this chapter, “The water covered the mountains.” In verse 23, “Every living substance was destroyed.” It mentions humans, but we also have animals, creeping things. So this is sometimes a reference to insects, birds, plants, everything. When you think about that, it’s sort of devastating. And like I said, it’s difficult sometimes to see the mercy in the Flood. Maybe it’s easy to see Noah and the mercy given to Noah, which we can talk about here, but we’ll also get to the mercy for all of these other things that were destroyed in the flood.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:13:05 So in verse 24, “The waters have prevailed for one hundred and fifty days.” So it rained for 40 days. They’ve been in the Ark just for 150 days, floating on the waters. So it’s been almost six months now. And you have to think of how difficult it would’ve been for Noah and his family, taking care of these animals and everything that they’re doing. When we turn to Chapter 8, we get the middle of the Flood narrative. So we have Chapter 6, 7, 8, and 9. And the end of 7 to the beginning of 8, is the middle of the Flood narrative. It’s been six months. We know they’re in the Ark for about a year. We’re halfway there. And what’s great is, we’re also in the middle of a chiasmus at this point. And so Chapter 6 through 9, are actually… There’s a literary device here that is called chiasmus. And I’m sure you guys know about this, because it appears in scripture all over the place. But let me talk about it a little bit.

Hank Smith: 00:14:04 For our listeners, let’s figure no one knows.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:14:06 So chiasmus is a literary device, and it’s basically inverted parallelism, which probably doesn’t help describe it very much. But basically, it’s named after the letter chi or chai in the Greek alphabet, which is basically an X. We can talk about it as an X. In the story, it’s at the beginning of the story and the end of the story, match up with each other. They have a similar theme. And if we’re talking about scriptural verse, it means the first verse and the last verse are very similar. And then the second verse, and the penultimate verse, or the second to last verse, is very similar. And you work your way inside to the center of the chiasmus or the center of the chi, the X. And this is a literary device that shows up in Hebrew and Greek and Latin texts all over the place. We even use it today. Martin Luther King, Jr. used it, Abraham Lincoln used it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:15:01 And the whole point of this device, is it’s a mechanism the author uses, to show you the focal central important point of the story. It’s to the point that this is the moral of the story. This is what you’re supposed to take out of the story. And we get this here. We have a chiasmus from 6 to 9 and part of this, and we get to this point. And the first verse in Chapter 8 says, “God remembered Noah.” And this is what we’re supposed to focus on. “God remembered Noah, and not only Noah, but every living thing.” What he ends up doing is sending a wind to pass over the earth so that the waters subside, and the waters start to go away.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:15:45 And this is the culmination. And I love that. This isn’t the end. They still are in there for another six months. And I love that this happens in the middle of the flood, in the middle of the trial, in the middle of this devastating time, it says, “God remembers Noah, and he sends the wind to make the earth start to rise again, out of the waters.”

Hank Smith: 00:16:17 So the author wanted us to focus on this point, God’s mercy.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:16:20 For us too, when we’re in the middle of our floods and trials, God remembers us. He doesn’t just give us a trial and say, “Okay, good luck. We’ll see you on the other side if you make it through.” He’s there the whole time. And he remembers Noah. And one of my favorite parts is, if we do turn back to Moses and look at chapter seven, I love the way Enoch describes this. If we go down to verse 43 in Moses, Chapter 7. Enoch says, “He saw Noah build the arc. And then he says: The Lord smiled upon it, and held it in his own hand.” And I love this idea that this huge structure, several football fields long, is still being held by the Lord. Noah and his family and the animals in the Ark, are still being cared for, watched over, remembered.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:17:10 I think sometimes when we’re in the middle of a flood or a trial, we might not feel this way. We might not see the Lord’s hand or feel the Lord’s hand helping us. And I think this is supposed to be the major point, that he’s still there. He still cares about Noah. He still cares about us, and he’ll never abandon us ever, no matter what’s happening or what’s going on.

Hank Smith: 00:17:34 Oftentimes, when we look at death and destruction, we have a different view of it than God does. When these people, animals and all these things die, they don’t die to him. They’re simply moved to a different location, maybe even a better classroom or a different classroom, where they can learn and be taught. So, the floods came and swallowed up the wicked. That’s Moses 7:43, but it’s not the idea of God’s done with them. In our doctrine, God is just moving them to a different classroom.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:18:05 It’s easy to see the mercy with Noah. Well, he survives the flood and he gets to come out. It’s harder to see the mercy for those who don’t survive the flood. That’s something we have to talk about. Because like I said, the Flood narrative is about mercy. But with Noah sending out the dove, and the dove bringing back this olive leaf. And the symbolism there is huge, what the dove symbolizes. Peace, and it can also symbolize the Holy Ghost; you think of the baptism of Jesus. And then the olive tree, and what that symbolizes. The dove brings back a leaf from the olive tree. And the olive tree is symbolic of new life, renewal, starting over again. And this is because olive trees are, like honestly, really hard to kill and cut down. And even if you cut off all the branches and all the branches are destroyed, the roots always survive, and new shoots can grow out of the roots. And this is seen as a symbol of new life, a restart, a refresh; almost a recreation.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:19:08 And then of course we know that they can be grafted as well. And if a tree is dying, a new branch can be grafted in and save the tree as well. So we get to this point where the flood, instead of representing destruction and death, represents a fresh start; a cleansing, a recreation even. What’s great about this is six through nine, and this talking about the Flood, really parallels Creation in Genesis 1-3. We get this watery chaos at the beginning. And out of the watery chaos, through the winds, sent from God, the dry land appears. The water recedes and then the people and the animals are brought forth, either through creation or they leave the Ark. And then there’s a reference, to a blessing and this sort of commandment, “Go out and multiply and replenish the earth.” The same thing that was said to Adam and Eve, was said to the people on the ark, when they left the ark.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:20:07 So it’s almost like this renewal, this fresh start, a cleansing has happened. And that’s mercy, that even though we sin, we can start over, we can become a new person, every single time we repent. We are given this chance. I love this, because we look at baptism as a cleansing, a new beginning, that we become a new person, a different person. And I love that you brought up 1 Peter, because it’s likened to baptism. And it says, “The people were saved by water.” And I don’t think we would ever consider the Flood, that people were saved by the Flood. But if you look at it as a cleansing and becoming something new and something better, that’s kind of our whole point, is every time we repent, when we go through baptism, it’s so we can change. And so we can become better and get closer to our Heavenly Father and what he wants us to be.

John Bytheway: 00:21:04 And then it says, “The like figure.” Like that’s how we’re saved, by water as well. It’s a really cool thing in 1 Peter there, if I’m remembering it right.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:21:14 Yeah. And I love that. I love it compared to that. And that’s mercy, right there, that we get that chance. And repentance is really victory over chaos. It’s victory over sin, victory over corruption. And through repentance, we’re cleansed. And like Jesus said, you are born again. You have to be born again and again and again. Alma says, “Born of God,” or King Benjamin says, “Become new creatures,” however you want to describe it. Every time we repent, we go through a cleansing, and we become someone new. And this is what the flood represents. All of these different ways that we do this.

John Bytheway: 00:21:55 And thank heavens it’s possible. That’s why I love what you brought up about the word repentance as also being hope. I think of Elder Holland saying that repent is perhaps the most hopeful and encouraging word in the entire Christian vocabulary. That it’s not necessarily a scolding word, necessarily. It’s a hope that I can repent. Thank heavens I can repent.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:22:18 It’s incredible. It’s not easy, just like the Flood wasn’t easy. But what comes out on the other side can be even better than it ever was.

John Bytheway: 00:22:26 Building arks the size of one and a half football fields is not easy.

Hank Smith: 00:22:34 This reminds me of Krystal, Richard Crookston in our computer support program at BYU. He would just, if I told him, “The earth has gone bad.” He said, “Well, have you tried turning it off and on again?” That’s kind of what the Lord did here. He’s like, “Well, I’ll just turn it off and on again and see…”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:22:51 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:22:51 Did that with my laptop this morning.

Hank Smith: 00:22:53 Yeah. You flooded it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:22:55 Yeah. And I like how you brought up, that it wasn’t the end for them. They weren’t just destroyed and they’re gone forever. Their time and mortality was over. It was time to move on, and now it’s a fresh start. And I love that when Noah and his family leave the Ark, the Lord once again is, “Go out and multiply and replenish the earth. We’re starting over here again.” There’s a covenant that’s tied to this, that we can talk about too. But I always love to bring up this quote from President John Taylor. He actually describes the Flood. He says, “He destroyed them for their benefit. It was an act of love actually. They got to move on to something else, and now the earth gets to kind of restart again.” Although, I think sometimes when we’re in the middle of the Flood or have a flood, we don’t feel like it’s an act of love or mercy at all. It’s hard to keep that perspective, definitely. But if we can, the outcome can be much better.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:23:49 It’s funny how many times we’re given chances to keep trying. And I always think, because of course with the olive tree; the Allegory of the Olive Tree with Jacob 5 and Zenos, and how many chances are the olive trees given to be grafted in or moved here or done this. And, we need to take those chances. We need to repent when we can.

John Bytheway: 00:24:06 “What more could I have done for my vineyard?”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:24:09 Yeah. And at one point he does say, “Well, we’re just going to have to burn the entire vineyard down.” The helper, kind of represented by the Savior, says, “Well, let’s give them one more chance.” And because of that, that’s the mercy right there, that we are given these chances. What do we do with these chances? Do we work hard and try to overcome these things? When we’ve hit rock bottom, do we turn to the Savior or do we turn away? That can really change the outcome. And I think this is part of what we’re meant to take away from this, if you sinned, you repented, you have a fresh start. Move on, go out and change the world with the new person that you’ve become, which is what happens after the Flood.

Hank Smith: 00:24:52 I don’t want to give any spoilers here, but it sounds like they don’t do incredibly well with their choice; with their start over again.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:24:59 Yeah. Unfortunately, as it goes with these cycles, there are cycles of righteousness and wickedness. And we’ll talk about it with the Tower a bit more too, but one of the first things that Noah does when he gets off the Ark; we look at Chapter 8:20-22, is he goes and he builds an altar, and he sacrifices to the Lord. And we already kind of talked about what these sacrifices represent. It’s interesting, because when you read commentaries on this, it says, “Oh, it doesn’t say what type of sacrifice it was.” And I mentioned it could be for sin or blessings or whatever. But we actually get a JST reference here, Genesis 9:4. He adds onto the end of it, the sacrifice was to give thanks unto the Lord, and he rejoiced in his heart.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:25:47 And so what is the first thing Noah does? He doesn’t get off the arc and say, “Oh, I’m glad I built this Ark. I’m glad I saved myself and my family and all these animals.” He says, “Thank you for saving us.” And he gives thanks. I think this is a lesson too. When we come out on the other side and we survive, we realize, we acknowledge the Lord’s hand in our survival, in our becoming a new person. So let’s turn to Chapter 9 and kind of talk about this covenant, that marks this fresh start that they have for the earth to kind of start over again. There are multiple promises given here. And in Genesis, we only get one, really. So if you look down verse 9, he says, “I’ll establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you.” And then he goes on to say, “I will never flood the earth ever again. I will never cut off everyone by waters of the flood or destroy the earth.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:26:43 And if we just think about Genesis, then that’s it. That’s the covenant. God promises he will never do this again, and that’s it. But what’s great is, we have so much more in the JST here. And we get two more promises that come out of this. And what’s great is these promises and this covenant is extended, not only to Noah, but everybody that is part of the posterity of Noah. So let’s look at this. So if we look at JST 9:15, so we kind of got to look at the footnotes here, he says, “I will establish my covenant with you, which I made unto your father, Enoch, concerning your seed.” And then he goes on in 11:3, to talk about, “The remnants of your posterity.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:27:28 So this is going back to Moses 7. But basically it’s this covenant that was given with Enoch, that out of Enoch’s descendants and out of Noah’s descendants, all nations would come from that, from this blessing of going out and multiplying, replenishing the earth. And that was a promise given to Enoch, and given to Noah. And this was part of the covenant. He was promised this, that all of these nations would come from this.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:27:52 And we get one more promise. One more promise, if we keep going in JST 9:21-23, he says, “When men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth.” And it’s crazy. I don’t think we think of this covenant after the flood, as including these extra things, that Noah’s posterity would include all the nations, but also this idea that we have this promise that all of Noah’s posterity, which, when you think about it is us; we’re included in this, that this covenant included, “If we’re righteous, Zion will return,” and everything that Zion means: peace, and righteousness and a certain lifestyle and a way of living and treating each other, and loving each other. And this is part of this whole covenant. And I love this, that it’s so much more than just, “I won’t ever flood the earth again.” They’re these promises that are given to us as well, that you can work, so that Zion will come back, and Zion will be on the earth again.

John Bytheway: 00:28:55 Nice to have those JST references noted there. I’m looking at actual pages of scripture, 13, three different JST references in the footnotes.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:29:07 Yeah, it’s a lot. And I love it’s more than this. I think sometimes we struggle finding ourselves in these Old Testament covenants. We say, “Well, what does this have to do with me? This is about Noah and his posterity and the
Flood.” But when you read this, this is for everybody. Everybody on the earth that came from Noah and part of his posterity, are given these promises. I always tell my students, “Find yourself in these covenants. Find yourself in the Enoch covenant. Find yourself in the Noah covenant.” And then, of course, we have a big one coming up as well in the rest of Genesis. I also like that not only this covenant marked the fresh start. And I think this happens a lot with us too. The baptismal covenant is a fresh start. Repentance covenants are a fresh start. Part of this is, he says, “I’m going to actually give you a token or a symbol of this covenant, so you don’t forget it.” Because we know I’m major problem is forgetting the Lord, forgetting the covenants.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:05 All through the book of Mormon, we need to remember. Remember, it’s so important. And he says, “This is the token I’m going to give you.” And he says, “I’m going to set the bow in the cloud.” And I love how he says “my bow.” And the word here for bow, is actually the same word for like the weapon; a bow. And it’s almost like God saying, “I am laying out my weapon. I’m putting my weapon down.” Of course, we liken this to the rainbow, of course, and this is the symbol of that covenant.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:30:33 And so when you see the rainbow, it’s not just, “Okay, so it rained, but to remind us that the flood will never come again, and the rains will always stop.” But it’s also, when you look at that, you should remember, I’m of the posterity of Noah and I can help Zion return. And I love the way it’s said in the JST, “When you look up, and you see that rainbow, it should help you to remember that someday, you’ll look up, and you’ll see Zion returning to earth again.” And this promise of, when the savior comes back and the Millennium and the peace and prosperity and everything that will happen with that, should give us hope.

John Bytheway: 00:31:10 So that word bow, like a bow and arrow, so it’s a bow that’s. That’s cool.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:31:15 Yeah. So it was kind of like this idea of God saying, “I’m putting down my bow, or this destructive rain that came,” was more of a cleansing rain. When you see the rainbow, think about these things. You have Noah’s posterity, and someday Zion will come again as well.

Hank Smith: 00:31:33 Yeah, and part of building Zion is laying down your own weapons.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:31:37 Exactly. Because we know Zion was peace; it was peace, and people treated each other with love and kindness and charity. And that’s how Zion was built and kept. And it’s something to look forward to, getting back to that time, Zion coming back. And I love this token thing. We have so many tokens and symbols too. We kind of talked before about how, in the Old Testament they have so many physical objects. And so for us, of course, baptism is very symbolic of going down in the water and being cleansed, and coming out to the new person. And the token and sort of symbols there, also are tied up in the sacrament. When we take the sacrament, we remember our baptismal covenant. We remember the broken body and the blood. We remember the Atonement in the Crucifixion. It should be the same with our repentance covenants.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:32:29 I think sometimes why we struggle with sinning again, is because sometimes we don’t have these tokens. And so I always tell my students, when you go through repentance and you make a covenant with God, “I’m never going to do this again,” come up with a token or a symbol of that. Something that will remind you. Whether it’s a physical object you put out, so you can see, or it’s a note you leave to yourself so that you remember. And a great example of this are the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon. So, they go through this repentance of being murderers and being bloodthirsty, and fighting and all these things. And they say, as a token, a symbol of this covenant, we’re actually going to take all of our weapons and bury them. And so we can’t even see them, we can’t even reach them. And I think this token, these symbols, whether it’s the rainbow or burying your weapons or whatever you do, can really help us keep these covenants, remember them, and keep going.

Hank Smith: 00:33:31 Have something, a constant reminder.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:33:33 Not a reminder of the sin, but a reminder that you’ve become a new person and you don’t do that anymore.

Hank Smith: 00:33:40 It’s got to be one of the major purposes of garments, right?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:33:44 Yes, absolutely. Garments are a part of this. Yeah. And so there are things we do.

John Bytheway: 00:33:50 I think a King Benjamin’s phrase is, “To have them always before their eyes,” having the commandments always before their eyes. So there’s a physical reminder there, like garments, I guess.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:34:02 When we think of the temple or baptism, we do have tokens and covenants. So it can help us to remember. And so we should be doing this with all the covenants that we do, that we are under, and that can help us to remember. I love that this is kind of how the flood narrative ends. There’s this covenant they enter into, and they have this rainbow. And this idea of even though you may undergo trials and floods, if you can, first of all, be prepared, it will make it easier. But then also, when you come out, thank God for what he did for you and get this fresh start.

Hank Smith: 00:34:40 And also look forward to the day of Zion, of God coming to be with you.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:34:47 I hope that we can see the flood narrative as a lot of mercy. There’s justice there, but there’s a lot of mercy and love, and giving us another chance. And there’s a really good message there that’s not just about corruption and destruction and things like this.

Hank Smith: 00:35:02 So what do they do with this new start over?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:05 They end up developing some problems among their society.

Hank Smith: 00:35:10 Does this sound like human beings? “Oh, it’s so wonderful. It’s so great. Let’s start over.”

John Bytheway: 00:35:15 “Can’t we just roll the credits now and be done?”

Hank Smith: 00:35:18 “You messed it up again.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:20 I know. It would be nice just to kind of say, “Well, it ends with this covenant and this fresh start. And they take the fresh start and they run with it and…

Hank Smith: 00:35:28 And they do well.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:29 … everything’s perfect.

John Bytheway: 00:35:31 And they live righteously ever after.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:34 Yeah, the end. Yeah, they have some problems.

Hank Smith: 00:35:37 I’ve noticed Krystal, the Old Testament is very human.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:41 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:35:43 Where it’s like, “Oh good. God is so good,” and they messed it up again. And that sounds like my life. “Oh, God is so good,” and you messed it up again.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:35:55 Well, and that’s part of why we need these tokens and reminders, is because we forget. We have these miraculous spiritual experiences. And then a year later, we don’t remember anymore. As part of our problem, I think, is remembering. One good thing is, when we do get to Chapter 10, this is what we call the Table of Nations. And it just talks about the posterity of Noah and all of the nations that came from Noah. And we got everybody in here. We have Egypt appearing here. So not only peoples, but groups of peoples and places. And what’s great about Chapter 10 is, this is the partial fulfillment of the covenant. Noah was promised that all nations would come from his posterity, and then boom, Chapter 10, here are all the nations that came from Noah’s posterity; all their known nations in the Ancient Near East.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:36:49 And so, another great thing about Chapter 10:8, it mentions this man named Nimrod. Nimrod actually shows up in the book of Mormon too, among the Jaredites. They go to this valley of Nimrod, and that’s one of the places where God actually speaks to the brother of Jared. So I love that we have these connections as well. But that’s pretty much the most that can really be said about Chapter 10, is its real purpose is to show the fulfillment of this covenant. It’s kind of like a genealogy, but in reality, it’s not just talking about people, sometimes it’s talking about groups of people or places or regions. And it’s really just to show that every known place, and people, that they knew in the Ancient Near East, which of course was limited, came from Noah. All of it came out of this blessing to multiply and replenish the earth. He fulfilled that role. And everybody came from this. Everyone came from this blessing, and although some of these nations, of course, turn a different direction.

Hank Smith: 00:37:50 Yeah, so the author here is sending us a message, “God keeps his promises.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:37:56 Yeah. And it’s supposed to show this continuation of the covenant too. So we have this partial fulfillment, but the covenant continues, and it’ll continue on and on until Zion comes back, and then it will be fulfilled.

John Bytheway: 00:38:10 It almost looks like a chiasmus too, the first verse of 10, “These are the generations of the sons of Noah after the flood.” And the last verse, “These are the families of the sons of Noah, divided in the earth after the floods.” Maybe they’re just-

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:23 I love it.

John Bytheway: 00:38:23 Maybe they’re just bookends saying, “Here’s what I’m going to give you, here it is, now here’s what I just gave you.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:29 Yeah, it’s kind of like, “Here’s the point, they all came from Noah.” And then it ends with, “And that was the point of the flood of Noah”

John Bytheway: 00:38:32 That was the point.

Hank Smith: 00:38:38 And they do that. Interestingly, it happens in the Book of Ether as well, where you get this big list in what, Ether 1 or 2. And then it traces it back out for the rest of the book.

John Bytheway: 00:38:51 Yeah, and it kind of fast forwards through some generations and slows down for the first one and the last one.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:38:59 In fact, most of Chapter 11 is more about how we get from the tower of Babel and in Noah to Abraham, this incredible covenant that comes with Abraham. And this is all setting us up, that, “Hey, people need covenants. People need to remember their covenants. We have the Flood, we have the Tower, we have covenants.” And then we get the huge one, the big one, the Abrahamic Covenant. And it’s all setting us up for that. The Tower, especially.

Hank Smith: 00:39:29 Yeah. So if I’m an ancient Israelite and I’m reading this, Krystal, aren’t I, this is why our family exists; this is why we have the covenants we do? This whole story is leading up to the family of Israel.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:39:43 Yeah, exactly. Like I said, this covenant with Enoch and Noah were still under. Of course the Abrahamic Covenant was renewed with Joseph Smith, and this integral is essential to the Restoration and the gathering of Israel. And this is the lead up.

Hank Smith: 00:39:57 Chapter 11, I laughed when I heard it described, “And humans had new technology, the brick. And with their new technology, they were going to become like God.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:40:14 “Conquer the world.”

Hank Smith: 00:40:14 “They were going to conquer the world.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:40:16 But the tower of the Babel, we only have nine verses in the book of Genesis. And because we only have these nine verses, we kind of have to take a deep dive into the text, and look at what it’s saying. What is this meant to teach us? What does the Tower symbolize? How do people, like the Jaredites, who we know were present at the Tower, are able to escape the Tower and keep their faith and move on? And so, we’re going to use some other records to help us out here. First of all, of course, in the footnotes, we have some references to the JST, that are going to give us some extra information, as well as the book of Mormon. So the Tower is actually mentioned in several places in the book of Mormon, the book of Omni, Mosiah, Helaman, Ether, many times. And so we can use those interpretations as well, to help us out and really look at why the Jaredites survived this, in the same way that Noah and his family survived, and what it meant for them.

Hank Smith: 00:41:11 So without Joseph Smith, we don’t know much about the tower. But with Joseph Smith…

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:41:16 Yeah, exactly.

Hank Smith: 00:41:17 … Book of Mormon and his JST, we know a lot more.

John Bytheway: 00:41:21 Can you give us the meaning of the word?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:41:23 There are a lot of clever play on words in the scriptures. And the word babel is meant to mean more than one thing. So I love that you guys are pulling out multiple interpretations here. In Hebrew, babel is just the word for Babylon. So it’s a reference here, and that’s another great thing about the Tower, is we get to tie it to a place, a time, people, archeology. We really get to tie this down. And that’s amazing. That enhances, I think, our understanding quite a bit. So it comes from the Akkadian word babilu, which means, “Gate of the gods, Gate of the gods or gate to the gods.” I want us to keep that in mind as we talk about what the Tower represents, and what the Tower was used for, because it is related to that.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:42:10 And of course the word babel in English, means to kind of speak gibberish baby language. And it works perfectly with the confounding of languages. They weren’t able to communicate and understand each other. And it probably sounded like babbling in gibberish, once the languages were confounded. So there’s so many; just in this one word babel, we get so much information. We do find out in verse one, it says, “The whole earth was of one language and one speech.” And of course the word used here for earth, in Hebrew is ‘erets. And this can refer to global earth. It can also refer to a region, a land, or a country. You look this up in the KJV, it is used to cover everything. Even soil; even a soil floor in a house is the earth. We use it in a similar way. But we do know there’s a group of people, and they all speak the same language, and they’re all traveling together.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:43:07 And when we get to verse two, they end up in a place. And it says, very specifically, “They dwell in the land of Shinar.” And, what’s great about Shinar is, we’re fairly confident that this is equated with a place we call Sumer. And Sumer is located in Southern Mesopotamia. And so Mesopotamia is about equal to modern-day Iraq. So the Tigris in the Euphrates, and we have the south and we have the north. And so, this is great because we can put them in a place that we know of today, that we have remains in archeology and texts about. And so we can tie this all together. And these outside texts really give us a lot of information that matches and enhances the biblical text. And so we can tie them with this. Also Babylon, this is the same place Babylon is located.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:43:56 And we kind of talked about the bricks here. This seems a strange thing to include when you only have nine verses. What are we going to build the Tower out of? Let’s give an entire verse dedicated to bricks and slime. Because the author chose to leave the sin and at this, it must serve a point. The way they talk about making bricks is that they burn them. And this is a really important characteristic, because in Egypt and Israel, they didn’t burn their bricks. They had access to stone. And so for really important buildings, like a tower or a temple or a tomb or a pyramid, they’re going to use stone. And for everything else, more domestic things or residential, they use something they call mud bricks. And it’s basically mixing mud and clay and straw. You put it in a mold and you leave it out in the sun and it bakes by the sun, and you can build out of that. It’s not going to be waterproof. It’s not going to be strong, but it gets the job done. And then if it breaks down, you rebuild it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:44:59 But in Mesopotamia, especially in the southern part, they didn’t have a lot of access to stone. So when you needed to build an important building, like a tower or a temple or something like that, you had to do something else, and you couldn’t just use mud brick. So they developed this technology in the third and fourth millennium. So we’re talking about, like 3,500 BC here, to take the bricks and actually bake them in an oven, put them in a kiln, like we would do with pottery, and harden them, so that they almost become like stone; as close to stone as they could use.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:45:34 And then they mentioned using the slime for mortar. And this is another reference to this pitch or bitumen, this tar. And this was their way of making it waterproof, just like the Ark was made waterproof. Because stone, if you build an important structure, you’re going to want it to be waterproof, and not be able to be destroyed by this, because they’re still clay bricks. And so this is important, because it’s telling us they’re not in Egypt, they’re not in Israel, and that whatever they’re building, it’s a labor intensive process to put this together, to make these bricks and these stones. And so it kind of shows how important this tower was for them. And it gives us more information about the location and the time period. These verses, even though they seem like not important, they’re meant to kind of teach us something and connect us. Verse 4 is one of the most important ones here, because it tells us why they built the tower.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:46:27 They said, “Okay, we’re going to build this city and this tower, and these are the reasons.” They kind of give three reasons: so that the top can reach into heaven. So it may reach unto heaven. And then second reason, so we can make a name for ourselves. We build this massive structure, people are going to know us. They’re going to remember us. And then the third one is, so that we’re not scattered, so we can stay together. So there’s already this idea that they were afraid of being scattered, of being separated.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:46:56 Let’s talk about the Tower for a minute here. We know we’re in Mesopotamia, we know the construction materials, we kind of know the time period. Do we know of towers that reach into heaven in Mesopotamia at this time? And we do. We actually have about 25 examples of enormous towers in Mesopotamia, and these are called ziggurats. And so, we do believe… Most biblical scholars believe that the tower of Babel was a ziggurat. And so let me talk a little bit about what these are. They were made out of these burnt bricks. And so of course that’s a good connection. They’re basically these towers of narrowing platforms. And so, as an Egyptologist, I think of if you’ve seen a step pyramid, it’s kind of that idea. So a big platform on the bottom and it gets narrower to another platform, and another one and another one, all the way up to the top. And these things could be huge, as big as 300 feet on one side, and as tall as 200 feet up in the air.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:48:03 And what’s great is, like I said, we have about 25 examples of these on the ground, that we can look at in Mesopotamia. And we have texts that tell us what they were used for, what they were called. It’s great to be able to look at that, and say, “Does this inform or enhance our understanding of the tower in Genesis?” And that’s one of the things that archeology and ancient texts can do. They really can give us more information, because we want to know why the tower was a problem? What was the problem with the Tower, so that their languages had to be confounded and they had to be scattered? Because you think of building a tower for God, hey, that’s a good thing. But these texts enhance our understanding. And the ziggurats match up just perfectly with some of these things that they say. So, the names of these ziggurats are described as, “Having their head in the heavens high as a mountain, they’re head touching heaven.” And so there’s definitely this idea of this connection between heaven and earth. That was the ziggurat, and that’s one of the main purposes.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:49:09 So, let’s talk a little bit about what we know about the purpose of ziggurats, and then maybe we can try and match it up or see how it connects with their purpose for building the Tower of Babel. So ziggurats, we know, were dedicated to a deity, usually the patron deity of a city. And the purpose of the ziggurat though, was not a temple. It wasn’t a temple where some people went to worship this deity. And we know this because first of all, there was a temple always next to the ziggurat, where people would go and worship. And that was the temple. And ziggurats are never associated with rituals or worship or anything like that.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:49:51 So then it’s like, why are they building this? And the craziest thing about these ziggurats is they were solid inside, except for the very top platform. They were completely filled with rubble, and dirt and sand and things like that. And they had this ramp or stairs going up to the top. So we find out in the text, that the reason why they’re building these, is first of all, to make it so that God could come down to earth. So if they build it up into heaven and they reach heaven, it makes it possible for God to be able to use the ramp and the staircase, and come down and visit earth, and go to the temple and be worshiped; which already, it’s kind of like a misunderstanding of kind of how God works and what he is. We can already see this.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:50:42 The other purpose was to make it so that God would stay on earth, that he wouldn’t go back to heaven. And so on the very top of these ziggurats, there was a bedroom, an empty room, that they built for God. And inside the room was a bed and a table, and the priest would go up and they’d make the bed all nice, and they’d set the table with food and drink. And there was a chair. So their hope was that God would come down. He would live in this tower, so they would reach into heaven, be able to access God, bring him down. They would make a name for themselves, because if God’s living in your city, on your ziggurat, then you’re going to be famous. This kind of idea, if we can get God to live in our tower, in the ziggurat, then we won’t be scattered. We can convince him this is where we need to stay.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:51:32 It’s almost like a way of thinking of manipulating God. If we give him this, he owes us not to scatter us. He owes us to favor us and bless us. And so we can see there are a lot of issues with misunderstanding the nature of God. And when we hear things like this, controlling God, manipulating God, forcing him to live in a bedroom on a tower, that sounds insane to us. And so we think, what are we supposed to get from this, almost like this more pagan view of this sort of anthropomorphic humanized view of God? The truth is that when you actually start to look at it and think about it, we do these things just in different ways. We do these things sometimes. We misunderstand, I think, sometimes how God works. We’re really getting into theology here. It’s difficult.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:52:25 I think sometimes we take for granted our view or our understanding of God, and we just kind of push it aside. And I think this part of the story of the Tower of Babel is that we’re meant to go back and think about who he is, what he is, and our relationship with him, and how he treats us, and in a way, how we treat him as well. And how does the Lord respond? So like I said, they build the temple, and he does end up coming down, in verse 5, to see the city and the Tower. And his response is not good. He is not happy with the Tower. And he says, “The people are one, they have one language. And they’re beginning to do this. What else can they do?” It’s interesting because he says, “They’re all together. They’re all doing this. What will they do next?” If they think they can control God and manipulate him or force him or do these things, what are they going to do next?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:53:25 We’re getting beyond… With the Flood, it was about how people treated each other, and the violence and corruption and sin and wickedness. Now we’re getting to completely a corruption of the idea of God and his role, and our role and all of these things. And the solution was to split the people up. Just how, like we had kind of talked about with the Flood narrative, “Be careful, because wickedness spreads.” And I always think of this as it’s like we’re going to change their language, so they can’t really communicate with each other, and then we’re going to scatter them. And it’s this idea, I always think of like a mob mentality. When you’re in this group and it’s a mob, sometimes people behave differently than if they were on their own, as an individual. And so it’s this idea that, “We will scatter the people, and try and stop this corrupt view.”

Hank Smith: 00:54:21 For their own good.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:54:22 Yeah, for their own good. Exactly, this corrupt view. Because this path, misunderstanding God, that path leads to theological destruction. It’s such a thing we take for granted that I don’t even think we think about very much. It can lead to some major problems.

Hank Smith: 00:54:44 Yeah, and he had promised Noah, “I’m not going to flood the earth again.” So he is got to stop…

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:54:48 Exactly.

Hank Smith: 00:54:48 This has got to stop before they end up in that exact same position they were in before. So, “We’re going to scatter them. We won’t flood them. We’ll scatter them this time.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:54:58 And we’ll talk about some of these views they had, that were incorrect. And when we get to Jared and the brother of Jared, we realize that they do escape the tower. Their language doesn’t get confounded, but they are scattered. They definitely are part of the scattering, but their scattering, of course, leads to a promised land. And their view of God, and the things they say, are incredibly different from what the Tower represents. Some of the things, the way they interact… Because they have these problems: there’s no air in their boats, there’s no light, even having the language confounded being scattering, and how they respond to those problems is so different from the people here. So what I want to kind of try and do is go through this verse 4 and really talk about what were the problems with the Tower. Why did it lead to such a huge event, to scatter everyone and change their language, and how did the brother of Jared and his family get through this?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:55:56 So, one of the first things they try to do, they say, “We want to reach heaven.” And a lot of times, I know we interpret this as us trying to get into heaven, through the improper means. And that’s a perfect interpretation. I think the idea of the ziggurat and what the ziggurat was for, adds to it as well, this idea that we can control God or manipulate him into doing what we want. And like I said, this sounds crazy. You would never say, “Oh yeah, I’m attempting to control God or force him to do what I want.” But, I think there are many times in our life, where we think we know what’s best for ourselves. We think we know, in a way, more than God. We know that this job is the perfect job for me. And because it’s the perfect job for me, God will make sure I get this job. He will make sure it happens. And in reality, that’s not quite how it works.

Hank Smith: 00:56:54 That’s not trust. That’s not faith.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:56:57 Exactly. When things don’t match up, we think, “Well, what happened? I knew this was the thing.” And so, I kind of have a story about this, sort of a personal story. When I was applying to school for college, I knew exactly where… And it wasn’t even I wanted to go, I needed to go. I was meant to go. And I knew I wanted to do Egyptology. I wanted to stay not too far from home. I wanted to be in a place I was comfortable. And for me, that was UCLA. And that’s where I knew I was meant to go. It was my path, and God was on the same page, and he would make sure I got into that school.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:57:33 And we made this decision together, and we planned out my path together. And it’s funny because I actually ended up not getting into UCLA. And it was devastating. At times I was angry and frustrated with God. This was our plan. This is what’s best for me. This is what I’m meant to do, as opposed to listening to him, and having trust and faith in him, that he sees the big picture. He’s got the perspective. It’s not about, “I’m going to build the tower so I don’t get scattered.” It’s, “What’s best for me? You tell me what’s best for me, because you know.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:58:10 In hindsight now, I did end up going to UCLA for grad school. And while I was there, I met my husband, and started a family. I met the people that would eventually sort of lead me to BYU, and my position there. If I had gone there as an undergrad, those people wouldn’t have been there at that time. And I think God was saying, “Yeah, you’re meant to go there. Just not right now.” So sometimes, I think we get frustrated when we think we know exactly what we need, and we think we know more than he does.

John Bytheway: 00:58:42 Or when we need it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:58:44 Yeah, exactly, the time.

John Bytheway: 00:58:45 The sequences, yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:58:47 I feel like sometimes this happens too, especially when we feel like we’ve been really righteous. Like, “I’ve been really righteous, so I deserve this.” And it’s hard because they said, “We will build this tower for you. We’re doing this great and wonderful thing, so that you won’t scatter us. You owe us not to scatter us.” And I think we do things like this too. “Well, I’ve been going to church every Sunday. I’ve been reading my scriptures. I’ve been praying. Where are my blessings? Where is my prosperity? Where is this thing that I want?”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 00:59:24 And, sometimes it can hurt our faith, when we don’t get those things. I think this is one of the things the tower is meant to teach us, that blessings and prosperity aren’t necessarily always tied to righteousness, and the things that we actually do. And that sometimes, these are merciful things that are given to us. And so I think the question is, what are our Towers of Babel? Everybody’s got different towers they build themselves, that sometimes are based on a misunderstanding of just kind of how life works. And maybe a tower, I know for me, one of my towers is control, wanting to control my life and what happens. And when it doesn’t turn out the way I want it, it’s a struggle. And like you said, it’s more about faith and trust; putting myself in his hands and not thinking I know everything or can control everything. That’s a much better outcome, I think, than what the Tower stands for.

Hank Smith: 01:00:25 I see Genesis 11:4, “Let us make a name,” almost this idea of, whose kingdom are you trying to build? Are you trying to build-

John Bytheway: 01:00:33 It sounds like a selfish motive.

Hank Smith: 01:00:35 Yeah. Are you trying to build Zion or are you trying to build yourself?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:00:38 Exactly, or who’s light are you holding up? Like Jesus says, “I’m the light that you’re supposed to hold up.” Not necessarily your own. Sometimes, we feel like we might be able to control God or we’re afraid to just say, “I’m in your hands. You take over, and I trust you that you know what’s best for me. Things will work out.” Having that hope, definitely.

Hank Smith: 01:01:00 I’ve also seen this as like, “I can be above the Flood. I won’t have consequences. The problem was last time, it wasn’t our wickedness. It’s that we had consequences. So let’s avoid these consequences by building a tower. God can’t flood this tower.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:01:16 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 01:01:17 “Repentance is a last resort. Let’s not do that. Let’s figure out another way.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:01:22 I think it’s a great point, because it’s kind of like, “If we build this tower, then God owes us not to punish us, because we’ve done this great thing.” And I think we do this too like, “I’ve been being so righteous. Where’s all my wealth? I built this amazing tower for you, God. Like what am I getting out of this?” And we know that’s not how it works. And I think when we realize that, then we won’t be as disappointed when these things don’t happen or don’t come along.

Hank Smith: 01:01:50 It just seems like there’s a lot of pride and a lot of, “I’m going to control the situation,” versus trust, faith, faith in the covenant.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:02:00 I love that we see with the brother of Jared, that he’s all about faith. That’s his thing. And we see his response. So they find out that they’re going to be scattered and their language is going to be confounded. And so it’s kind of like, how do they respond to this situation that they have? In Ether, they turn to the Lord and they say, “Please don’t confound our language.” And that’s it. Straightforward request. There’s no manipulation. “We’re going to build the Tower. We’re going to add to it, or we’re going to do this or that,” there’s no like, “We’ve been righteous, so you owe us not to confound our language.” It’s just, “Please don’t do it. Please let us stay together, so we can communicate with each other.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:02:38 And the Lord says, “Okay.” It says, “He had mercy on them and he did this.” Then they find out they’re going to be scattered. And the response to the scattering is incredible, because they don’t go to the Lord and say, “Please, don’t scatter us.” They say, “Are we going to be scattered? And if so, will you lead us somewhere better?”

John Bytheway: 01:02:56 Yeah, I love that. “Can we go? Maybe it’ll be a land of promise. Maybe it’ll be awesome.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:03:03 Yeah. And so it shows they have this understanding of God, he’s in control. He decides if their language should be confounded, and if it’s good for them or not. He decides if they should be scattered, and if it’s going to be good for them or not. And the scattering, that’s seen as typically a very negative, bad thing. In Ether 1:38, they say, “Maybe the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth.” So they also trust him. They say, “Even though this might be a bad thing, we are headed, possibly to a better place.” And of course, they do end up in promised land, eventually.

Hank Smith: 01:03:37 Well, that’s so applicable to our lives, isn’t it Krystal? Even though this major difficulty hits, I trust that maybe this will work out better than what I had planned.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:03:47 Yeah. And so that’s one of the ways of surviving; surviving the flood. Noah trusted God that he would help him and his family survive. He listened to him and he prepared. And it’s the same with the Jaredites. They trusted that even though they would be scattered, they would have to leave the Tower, that there was something better coming; something even better than before. Faith, I think we say, “Oh, it’s just such a basic thing.” And we think of it as passive. “I have faith,” and that’s it. Joseph Smith says, “Faith is action. It’s the principle of action. Faith should cause you to do things, to show your faith.” And I think we see that with Noah, and we see that with the brother of Jared as well.

Hank Smith: 01:04:29 Krystal, doesn’t Babylon take this symbolic meaning as like the antithesis to Zion, the enemy of God? Is that kind of where this begins?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:04:39 Yeah, I think so. I think it’s all based on starting right now, this misunderstanding of how God works, how he views us, and treats us. It was said here, “The problem was, this will make them theologically destitute.” If you can’t even have like a correct understanding of God, where do you go from there? That changes everything; everything you believe and do. And so they tried to correct this, but you’re right. Eventually, Babylon becomes like this symbol, whether we’re actually talking about Babylon, the place, or Babylon as a symbol of something, the idea of something. And the Tower, what does the tower represent? It represents people trying to control things, not trusting in God, not having faith. And Hank, like you brought up, it’s pride too. And it’s always interesting to me in scripture, the time when people start to fall, is when they’re prosperous and blessed. That’s the time they start to forget God. That’s the time that the pride starts creeping in and causes so many problems prior to sort of the root of all sin; every sin, I think.

Hank Smith: 01:05:45 If you’re an ancient Israelite, and you read this, don’t you hear now, the world was going bad again? And so, the answer was this family, Abraham and Sarah. That was God’s answer for the Tower.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:05:59 Exactly. This new covenant and the story of the ancestors, the patriarchs and the matriarchs are the answer to all of these problems that came beforehand. And I love that this is kind of the buildup. I love President Benson’s famous talk on pride, where he says, “Pride is basically competition with God. You are trying to compete with God. ‘I know more, I’m better. I’m stronger. I’m more powerful,’ which we would never think we could compete with God. We would never say that.” But that’s what they’re kind of saying with building the Tower, or when we say, “I bought this house all by myself, with my hard work,” or, “I gained this education or raised this family,” and we don’t acknowledge that his hand is in everything, everywhere.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:06:44 That’s a tower. That’s a tower right there. It’s kind of this idea of, “We’ll build the Tower, so God will love us, so God will favor us, so God will bless us, because we’re not good enough. Because there are so many people out there in the world, that he’s not paying attention to us, unless we make this massive display.” And I think we’ve all felt this way, sometimes. “Does God care about me individually? Billions of people, billions of prayers. Does he hear my prayer?” And I think this is another tower. Maybe your tower is pride, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe it’s self-doubt and feeling alone and lost.

Hank Smith: 01:07:26 The Adversary would say that. “You’ve got to do something bigger than everybody else in order for God to care about you.”

John Bytheway: 01:07:31 Yeah. And it’s kind of a misunderstanding of God’s nature too, to think, “I’ve got to win his favor somehow or he won’t love me otherwise.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:07:40 This is a huge struggle. This idea that, “Well, I can’t build a tower. I’m not going to become the prophet someday. So, why would God care about me or love me?” And like I said, that can be just as destructive as pride, even more so I think. And the Adversary is constantly trying to make us feel like we’re nothing, we’re worthless. So what’s the solution then? Of course the solution to this Tower of Babel that’s pride, is acknowledging God, thanking God. Noah gets off the boat and he sacrifices. But what about the self-doubt side? What’s the solution to this, to realizing that God loves us?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:08:19 He loves everyone. It’s being okay that he loves everyone, but he also loves you individually for who you are, and who you are now. Even if you feel like you’re a sinner and you’re wicked, he loves you. You don’t have to earn his love through building a tower or any of these other things. He loves you as you are. He knows you individually, and he cares about you. I love this thing that Elder Uchtdorf said, “This is the paradox. Compared to God, we’re nothing, yet we are everything to God; everything to him.” And if we can realize this, we can knock down some of these towers that we’ve built for ourselves.

Hank Smith: 01:08:58 Yeah, it does feel like Ether, Chapter 1, becomes the answer to Genesis 11, where the brother of Jared cries unto the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. That happens in Chapter 1, four or five times. He cries to the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. He cries to the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. That seems to be the answer. Don’t build a tower, cry to the Lord, go to the Lord.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:09:23 I love it because the tower really represents people trying to pull God down to them, to their level. But in reality, God is always trying to pull us up. He’s always trying to pull us up; up to his level. And sometimes, we fight against it. And if we could just let him pull us up to his level, to understand him and who he is and how much he loves us and why he sent his son and all of these things, then we can be like Noah or the brother of Jared, and make it through and have our faith intact, after all of these things that happen in our lives: floods and scatterings and things like that.

Hank Smith: 01:10:03 I really like this, because when it comes down to it, Noah, the brother of Jared, this is about trusting God’s way instead of trying to force God to do it your way.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:10:15 Absolutely. Listening to him and his prophets too, his speakers on earth. What are they trying to warn us about, prepare us for, and what can we learn from that?

Hank Smith: 01:10:25 Well, my brother and my father passed away within 90 days of each other. And I remember kind of looking up at heaven, going, “I don’t like your way.” And for a split second, I thought, “I know better. I know better than this. I could have done this better.” But then I thought, “Wait. Trust, faith, trust. Try to believe. Your way is better than my way. I’ll do it your way.” And that tension between, “Your way sounds hard. Your way is difficult. My way is easy. Let’s do it my way.” And you’re right. There’s this, he’s pulling me towards him, I’m trying to pull him down to me. Why don’t I just let him, “I’ll just trust you,” I’ll just trust him.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:11:11 It’s not easy.

John Bytheway: 01:11:13 The heart of that is understanding God’s nature, that he’s a loving personal God. And then that works. If he were an impersonal, indifferent God, boy we’d be in trouble. We’d be trying to build towers all over. But if we really think, “Oh, he actually does love us and care for us.” Wow, that sure changes everything, doesn’t it?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:11:36 I tell my students, faith is a skill. Something you have to work on. You have to actually work on it to become good at it. It’s not just something that you’re born with and you have it or you don’t. You do have to work on it. And if you don’t continue to grow it and develop it, it can start to recede and go away. And so it’s like Noah preparing for the Flood. It takes a lot of work to build up that faith. We’re trying to get to the point where our faith grows, and it’s so perfect that we get to return home or we get to see the Savior face-to-face. That’s what it’s all about. We talk about scatterings and gatherings. Our whole life is a scattering, I feel; scattered from heaven, from the Garden of Eden, and we’re all trying to get home to the Promised Land. And how do we do that? How do we get to that point?

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:12:22 The reason why we have these narratives here at this point, in Genesis, is to prepare us for what’s coming next, to show us that we need covenants, that we need to formalize these agreements with God, and have these tokens. Because, we had the flood narrative and this renewal, and this new covenant with Noah, and now we get this. And of course the Jaredites, once they reach their promised land, they enter into a promised land covenant about serving God and keeping their freedom and keeping the land. But then, of course, after Chapter 11 comes the covenant, this great overarching covenant. And the Flood and the Tower and all these things are meant to prepare us for Abraham and his family and the patriarchs and the matriarchs and this covenant. And to show us that this covenant is integral to everything. Like I said, the Abrahamic Covenant renewed with Joseph Smith, and it is key to the Restoration and to the gathering of Israel. And hopefully, at this point, going through all of this, we’re prepared and we’re ready to read about that and understand why we need it and how it works.

Hank Smith: 01:13:35 So an ancient reader is getting this from a different perspective. Well, we’ve already said it, it’s, “Why am I here? Why do I exist? Why am I in the family I’m in? “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re part of a chosen family to bless the earth.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:13:52 I love it. I heard somebody describe a covenant as ways that God reveals himself to us, reveals who he is. And so I love sort of the answer to what happens at the tower, and this misunderstanding of the nature of God is covenants. This is the way he reveals himself to us in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and in the Book of Mormon. And so, that can help us understand him a lot more.

Hank Smith: 01:14:20 Krystal, this has been fantastic. I feel like I see the Flood and the Tower, just in a new light. Thank you so much for this. I think our listeners would be interested in your journey. Here’s a Bible scholar and a faithful believing Latter-day Saint.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:14:39 When I first started studying Egyptology, I knew I wanted to do Egyptology since Fifth Grade. I took a class, this summer school class, and I fell in love with it, this idea of this culture. And they were so unique. And I wanted to know why, and what was so special about these people that they created this civilization. And so, I knew I wanted to study Egyptology. And when I went to Berkeley and I started going into classes, and also at UCLA for grad school, I was given some advice that, knowing that I’m a person of faith and beliefs, to separate out my academic studies from my faith and my beliefs. This was the advice I was given. Keep them separate. And so I thought, “Okay I’m going to try this.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:15:25 Some people liken it to wearing different hats. So when you step into a classroom, and you’re going to learn about the ancient Near East, you take off your beliefs, your faith hat, and you put on your Egyptologist hat. And I tried to do this. I tried, and I could not do it. I could not separate these parts of my identity. One of the things I study is people’s identity, who they are, or who they think they are. It’s the idea of trying to separate parts of myself that I couldn’t. I can’t take off my beliefs hat. My beliefs are my life. They inform everything I do. Whether I’m studying or at church or whatever I’m doing, my beliefs are my life. And so once I started realizing that… It’s pretty much impossible. Now, for other people, this works, and it works for them. And I never would want to say, “Everyone should do this.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:16:17 So let me just say that, but once I realized that I can be a believer and study Egyptology, and that’s just fine, and I can be an Egyptologist and be a believer, I felt a freedom I had never felt before. I felt fine reading about Egyptian temples and finding similarities with the temple I had gone to last week. I felt fine with reading about Egyptian thoughts of the afterlife, and connecting them with my own ideas or ideas from the restoration about the afterlife. And I started to realize that everything that comes from God is typifying Christ, of God, of good things. And I started to realize that that’s fine, that I see God everywhere. I let my beliefs inform my studies. I let my studies, on the other hand, inform my beliefs too.

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:17:09 And my study of the Ancient Near East and in Egyptology, and I think we’ve just kind of seen this with talking about these narratives, they have given me an enhanced understanding. Part of this too, I think, is you have to be okay with not knowing things. The more I study, whether it’s Theology or Religion or Egyptology, the more I realize I don’t know very much. And you kind of have to be okay with it. And you kind of have to be okay with it, sometimes things don’t match up perfectly. Sometimes, things don’t make sense. And you have to say, “That’s all right, because my faith is intact. My faith is sound. And no matter what’s thrown at me, that’s what matters.” Sometimes when I might be struggling with something I heard, or something I read, I always remind myself to not get lost in, what Joseph Smith calls the “appendages of our religion” or other things; or Jacob would say, “looking beyond the mark.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce: 01:18:08 I go back to my relationship, what I know for sure about my Savior and Heavenly Father, and how much he loves me and he sent his Son, and that Jesus is the Christ that he went through the Atonement and the Crucifixion, and that’s what matters. That’s what matters. If I can go back to that, and I can build on that, then I’ll never get lost. I never get lost in that way. And I think that’s kind of how I do things. I love that I use my studies in the classroom to talk about God, to talk about Egypt. I love that I can talk about archeology, and faith in the exact same sentence. These are things that I love. And I know these things come from God, and that kind of keeps me grounded, I think; and being okay with who I am, that I have all these different parts of my identity, including being a professor, being a mom, being a spouse, trying to balance these things and make sense out of them.

Hank Smith: 01:19:08 Perfect. Krystal, thank you. John, by the way, what a great day. She has flooded us with good information.

John Bytheway: 01:19:20 I’m still, right back to the beginning, I’m going to be chiasmus. There was the fall of Adam and Eve, and then a comeback. I love that. There was the fall of the family Cane and Abel, and then a comeback. There was the fall of a society and then a Flood. This is great stuff. Thank you for showing us that pattern, Krystal. And there’s always hope at the end of the pattern, thankfully.

Hank Smith: 01:19:41 We want to thank Dr. Krystal Pierce for being here today. We want to thank all of you for listening. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and our amazing production crew: Scott Houston, Will Stoughton, Jamie Neilson, Lisa Spice, David Perry, and Kyle Nelson. Thank you all for the hard work that you do. And we hope every one of you listening today will join us next week for our next episode of followHIM.

Hank Smith: 01:20:11

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Hank Smith: 01:20:45