In our conclusion, we’re talking about the Gospel of the Brother of Jared, and why Rosalynde prefers reading to podcasts! Check out our conversation. Sign up for our free newsletter at gospeltangents.com/newsletter to hear the conclusion….
Don’t miss our other conversations with Rosalynde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ih_Fh585xk&list=PLLhI8GMw9sJ7ftt9c-Ndta9jcDH0NOQyr
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Gospel of Brother of Jared
Interview
GT 00:38 Well, cool. Let’s jump into the last gospel, the Brother of Jared. It was funny. I can’t remember if it was you or Adam that talked about the name of the Brother of Jared?
Rosalynde 00:51 That was Adam.
GT 00:54 I liked that part. {both laughing} Actually, I have a friend whose name was Mahonri Moriancumer in New Hampshire. He was named after the Brother of Jared. {Rick laughing}
Rosalynde 01:05 Oh, interesting. Yeah.
GT 01:09 Some people maybe have never heard that name before. Why is that? I know, I should be asking Adam, but he’s not here. Why is that? Why do we think that’s the name of Brother of Jared–and actually he cut it up. That wasn’t the whole name.
Rosalynde 01:24 Yeah, okay. I’m not going to remember all of this. So, in the text of Ether, itself, the main character is this figure named the Brother of Jared. The Book of Ether, of course, is a flashback. It’s sort of the pre-history of the Book of Mormon. It’s the story of these people, the Jaredites, who came to the chosen land before the Nephites and the Mulekites did. This is their record that now Moroni has inserted here at the end of the Nephite history. So, the originating, founding leader of this people was named Jared. He was their prophet and their leader, but he had this brother, the Brother of Jared, who seemed to have a gift for prayer, and a gift for revelation.
GT 02:20 Is this like Moses and Aaron?
Rosalynde 02:23 It is similar to that, where the Brother of Jared seemed to have these special spiritual gifts, where he was uniquely able to communicate with the Lord, and pray to Him. So, it’s often the Brother of Jared, who was sent to communicate with the Lord, get his guidance, and figure out what’s their next step. In the course of this really wonderful story, they’re getting ready to migrate from the Old World to the New World. They’re trying to solve all these problems: How are they going to migrate across the ocean? And so, with divine guidance, they build these barges. But then they have the problem of how are they going to get light in the barges. And so, the Brother of Jared ascends the Mount Shelem. Well, the Lord says, basically, you figure it out. You figure out how to solve this problem. And so he, in some way fashions these, what seem to be luminescent stones. Then he ascends the mount and calls on the Lord to touch them with his finger, and to light them, so that then these lights will become lanterns that will light the barges enroute to the chosen land. So, that is who the character of the Brother of Jared is.
GT 03:40 And this is so they don’t have to sail in the dark, because they’re basically enclosed, like, kind of a submarine, but it floats along the surface it sounds like.
Rosalynde 03:47 That’s what it seems like. It’s totally enclosed barges that will be secure from all the storms and water and raging sea. But then they need light in there. So, that’s the problem that is solved. But in that moment, the Brother of Jared has this remarkable theophany where he not only sees the finger of the Lord, but he sees the entire premortal personage of the Lord. He has a vision of the Lord in His spirit body. But the vision is of the body that he will [have to] minister to the Nephites. Basically, he has a vision of the Lord’s mortal persona.
GT 03:48 Which would be very anti-Trinitarian. Right?
Rosalynde 03:48 Yeah, well, it gets complicated. {both laughing} The Book of Mormon is not Trinitarian, in any way. It definitely…
GT 04:42 Well, it kind of is.
Rosalynde 04:45 Not in any traditional way. Not in any…
GT 04:48 A lot of Protestants would argue it’s very Trinitarian.
Rosalynde 04:52 So it uses Trinitarian-like language from time to time. Abinadi does this, where Christ talks about himself as having aspects of himself that are associated with the Father, aspects that are associated with the Son. But good luck trying to really pin down the Book of Mormon, according to any kind of Trinitarian theology. It just does not care about those debates.
GT 05:18 Because once again, Jesus shows his body and we have the vision of the Brother of Jared, which would seem to show a body and so…
Rosalynde 05:25 Yeah.
GT 05:26 Not Trinitarian.
Rosalynde 05:27 Exactly, not trinitarian in a traditional way at all, no. So now I forget where I was going with this. But that’s the introduction to who the Brother of Jared was. His theophanic experience on the a top Mount Shelem, which is why we’ve included him in this book as one of the seven gospels. Oh, then we were talking about, so what was his name? Why do we not ever know his name? This is where I’m going to embarrassingly forget. But we know his name is Mahonri Moriancumer and this is, if I’m not mistaken, maybe you know better than I, Rick.
GT 06:11 I just read it this week, so I can fill in.
Rosalynde 06:13 You fill in, I think it was revealed by Joseph. Joseph filled that in
GT 06:16 Yeah, Joseph wrote a letter or something and said that was the name of the Brother of Jared.
Rosalynde 06:20 Yeah.
GT 06:21 But Adam makes an interesting thing, because I’ve always heard it was Mahonri Moriancumer. And then Adam said it was just Moriancumer. Because Moriancumer was a place name.
Rosalynde 06:33 So I think what Adam says, and Adam got this from his religion teacher here at BYU many, many years ago. Joseph Fielding McConkie had this idea that the name was Mahonri. Moriancumer is a place name. Moriancumer is a place name that we see elsewhere in the Book of Mormon. So, Adam, then, uses this as a way to think about what it means to be a person. He talks about being a person, in some ways, is actually more like being a place. To be a self is to be a place for the crossing and the intersection of many different minds, many different lives, many different interests, in the way that I am made up of my mother, and of my father, and of their mother and their father. Now that I am married, my husband; Right? I’ve been formed and shaped by him, indelibly. And my actions are often on his behalf, rather than my own. My children, now I have four children. One day, I hope I’ll have grandchildren. So, really, to be a self, is really to be more a place than an identity, a place for crossing, for coming together, and for sharing. So, I think that’s a really beautiful reading of the Brother of Jared’s named Mahonri Moriancumer.
GT 07:58 Very good. You also said that this gospel is different than the other six. Talk about why.
Rosalynde 08:07 Okay. So, we need to get a little bit into narratology here. I won’t go very far into narratology. But the other six gospels, within the frame of the Book of Mormon, are presented as prophecies. So, the prophet or the speake is telling his audience—now Nephi is a little bit different. But Nephi is writing it. He’s not speaking it, presumably. But he’s writing it down for his future readers. The other prophets are speaking this prophecy of the life of Jesus Christ as a gospel. The Brother of Jared, of course, is experiencing it. He is experiencing and having an open theophany, an open vision of Christ that seems to fall in a slightly different category from the others. But it does share a lot in common. It’s prophetic, of course. It’s ahead of the fact. It focuses on the future mortal flesh of Jesus Christ. He’s seeing the pre-mortal Christ in His spirit body.But what Christ wants him to know is that he will be coming to earth in a mortal body, just like the Brother of Jared ‘s own body.
GT 09:31 Well, very good. Anything else on there that we want to add in?
Rosalynde 09:35 Well, I use it as a moment, as I said, the Book of Mormon has a really unusual emphasis on Christ’s embodiment, on his bodily experience and his full participation in the gamut of human experience. It sees that not just as incidental, but as central and essential to His saving mission. I use Ether 3 as an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a body, to have a body and live as a body, even the spirit body, like Christ has. A body is a really mysterious thing. We take it for granted as the ground of all of our perception and experience most of the time, and it’s quite transparent to us. But really, a body is a mysterious thing. It’s not just one thing. It’s many things that come together, working for a common end, but also working in their own individual way. A body has a boundary, but that boundary is porous. Every time we eat, we drink, constantly as we breathe, we’re exchanging matter, exchanging materials with the world. So where really does my body end? Where does your body start? It’s actually a lot more mysterious than we think. So, I see that as having profoundly theological implications for what it means to have a life in Christ, where the difference between human beings is always real. I think as Latter-day Saints, we don’t envision a heaven where we’re all melded together into one single god-like consciousness. In our ontology, and our theological anthropology, difference is real. There are going to be differences between people that are real and persistent, and we can’t just wish those away. And yet, difference is not absolute. As a person, this goes to what Adam was saying. As a person, I’m not a sealed off, absolutely identifiable and discreet being. I’m always open to other people. We can see that, especially, materially as I’ve just expressed, in the ways that our bodies are in constant exchange with the world around us. And also, spiritually and psychologically in the way that we form one another and share ideas. Right now, we’re sharing ideas, you and me, Rick, and I’m having an effect on you. You’re having an effect on me. We’re forming each other. So, we’re really open to one another, at the same time. So, I use Ether 3 as a chance to reflect on the ways that in our saved condition in Christ we are open to living in and for and on behalf of one another.
Reading Over Podcasts
Interview
GT 12:48 Very good. Well, I’m trying to remember. Is there anything else that we need to share about the Seven Gospels?
Rosalynde 12:56 I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it in such depth. It was really fun to write. I hope, we hope that it’s readable. Maybe I’ll just say this to end. In the theology seminar, we produce, basically, academic treatments of scripture there, where I am working in academic mode. For me, that means bringing a whole lot of really specialized interpretive skills to bear on the text. Now, it’s a text that I regard as scripture. So, my faith always inflects what I’m doing there. But it’s basically a scholarly work. I would hope that anybody who isn’t a believer in the Book of Mormon would pick one of those up and would be persuaded or not by what I say there, but, basically, would recognize the mode that I’m working in there.
Rosalynde 13:51 This book is different. Here, we wanted to very explicitly and overtly approach the text first as disciples, first as believers, first as pilgrims coming to the living water to be changed and transformed. Then we wanted to bring our scholarly tools to bear on that and see whether they could help us dig a little deeper in that quest. But this is explicitly a devotional work. It expresses my own faith, and I hope narrates in real time the ways that I’m being changed and the ways that I’m growing from my deep immersion in these texts. We hope that it will model and also invite that same kind of response from other readers. Of course, a work of devotional theology like this can never replace scripture. Nothing should ever replace scripture, including a podcast. I love the proliferation of podcasts around Latter-day Saints scripture reading that we’ve seen since Come Follow Me happened, and I think…
GT 14:58 But that means, don’t stop listening!
Rosalynde 15:00 Yeah. But I do sometimes wonder whether, for some people, listening to a podcast about the Scripture assignment has taken the place of actually reading the Scriptures, themselves. I suspect it might have for some people, and I think that’s a real loss.
GT 15:18 Some people are into audio books. Some are into reading the actual book. Some people just hate to read.
Rosalynde 15:24 I know, it’s hard. But you know, I hate to do my visiting teaching, but I still have to do it. Right? Sometimes we have to do things that are hard for us. And I will say..
GT 15:33 Ministering.
Rosalynde 15:33 Ministering. Yes. And actually, I love to do my ministering, if my ministering sisters are out there. {Rick laughing} But sometimes the gospel does, discipleship calls us into activities that are hard, and that don’t come naturally. Reading might be one of them. But I’ll make my case that if you’re able to read, I’m so happy for audio technologies that make the text available to people who cannot read, because they’re visually impaired or because they don’t have literacy skills. But if you are able to read, nothing can take the place of that for engaging with scripture. So, that’s my plug. Now, I can’t remember why I got… Oh, so here’s how I got off on this tangent. Whether it be a podcast or a book, nothing can take the place of getting into the scriptures yourself, reading them deeply, prayerfully, reading them with a friend, using the Scripture as a way to share ourselves with each other. Our book is only meant, I think, to model how that can work, and to hopefully intrigue and invite people to come back to the Book of Mormon, itself.
Writing Back & Forth
Interview
GT 16:38 Well, like I said, I love how it’s written like letters back and forth, and you’re just letting all of us read, like, we’re eavesdropping. Was it easier to write it that way, since he’s in Texas, and you’re in Utah?
Rosalynde 16:51 Yeah, it was much easier. Well, it was easier in a lot of ways.
GT 16:55 How did you decide who was going to go first? Because I noticed you’re the first in every part of the chapter.
Rosalynde 16:59 Yeah. I don’t remember exactly how we decided that. It was very fun and easy, the quickest. We wrote this in a matter of months. It’s not a super long book, so that might not be all that surprising. But even a short book typically takes a year, at least, to write. So, we wrote it in just a couple of months. Part of that was determined by the timeframe because we didn’t have much time. We wanted to get this out in time for Book of Mormon year, 2024. So, we were racing the clock in that regard. That’s part of why Adam invited me to write it with him is because if you only have to write half the number of words, you can do it twice as fast. {both laughing} It was a way to get this book written in the time that we had available.
GT 17:44 But it does seem like he’s responding to what you’re writing. So, it seemed like you had to write your part first, and then he did and then you went next.
Rosalynde 17:51 Yes, exactly. We did for the most part. Every once in a while, we’d get a little off sync, and then maybe we’d go back and add in a connection. But for the most part, we genuinely traded letters. And I will say..
GT 18:02 Or probably emails?
Rosalynde 18:04 Emails, Yeah, emails or a Google Doc.
GT 18:08 Nobody writes letters anymore.
Rosalynde 18:09 It was on a Google doc. I hope it feels natural, because it was natural. Because Adam and I, genuinely, this is how nerdy we are. We genuinely do write each other emails, all the time, about whatever we’re reading, and often times, it’s scripture. [We] say, like,” Well, what do you think about this? I saw this.” And so, it really is a natural way that we communicate with each other. So, I hope that comes out and that it doesn’t feel artificial, because it’s not. But it was very, very fun. It went quickly. I think I wrote first. I don’t remember. But I will say, we just finished the follow up.
GT 18:45 Oh, you’ve got a sequel?
Rosalynde 18:47 A sequel.
GT 18:47 Oh, wow!
Rosalynde 18:48 Seven Visions: the Lives of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants.
GT 18:53 Oh, wow.
Rosalynde 18:53 And in that one, he writes first.
GT 18:55 That’s for next year?
Rosalynde 18:55 That’s for next year. So, he writes first. We’re equal partners, equal partners in all things, but we really did. We divvied it up. He wrote the introduction. I wrote the conclusion. It might have been because he wrote the introduction. So, then I wrote the first letter of the chapter. And then we alternated, and then I wrote the conclusion. So, we just divvied it up. It was really, really fun and enjoyable to share the experience together.
GT 19:20 Well, very good. Dr. Rosalynde Welch, I really appreciate you for being here on Gospel Tangents, and I would encourage you all, why don’t you show everybody the book again. Show them how short it is. It’s a quick read.
Rosalynde 19:32 Yep. Let’s see how many pages just 100 and some, 167 pages it looks like.
GT 19:38 That includes the footnotes.
Rosalynde 19:40 That’s right. Yeah, it’s even less than that. No, yeah. Oh, actually, no, like about 140 pages.
GT 19:45 Usually I’m looking through the footnotes, but I was like, I’m just going to jam through this.
Rosalynde 19:51 Yeah, again, it’s not a dense scholarly work. We hope that it’s very readable. And yet at the same time, I also believe that it is offers some new, I think, really compelling readings of these Book of Mormon passages.
GT 20:05 Yeah. So read that. Read the scriptures, listen to the podcast. Is it on audiobook? I was going to ask you.
Rosalynde 20:12 It is.
GT 20:12 Okay, so you can listen to it, you don’t have to read it, you can listen to it.
Rosalynde 20:15 It’s not on Audible, but Deseret Book’s audio book platform. Actually, Adam and I read it ourselves.
GT 20:23 Oh, wow. Very good. All right. Well, Dr. Rosalynde Welch, thank you so much for being here on Gospel Tangents. I really appreciate it.
Rosalynde 20:30 Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thanks, Rick.
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