First ever guest post on Sacred Symbolic:
Travis Washburn is my brother and a great friend. He has a bachelor’s degree in English, and studied Spanish extensively both in school and on his own. He served an English-speaking mission in the Arizona, Phoenix Mission, then later spent six months in Chile as an exchange student, where he honed his Spanish skills, among other adventures. He is currently working as a graphic designer and technical writer for Xennsoft. He’s also in the process of applying for grad school.
He recently shared with me something he was doing to enhance his scripture study. Just reading the result changed the way I see Alma 2. I’m going to incorporate the method that follows in my own study, and hope you will too. He’s shared with me some other great study material, so you may see more from him in the future.
Alma Chapter Two: in Modern Language
By Travis Washburn
This is an experimental scripture study. I don’t mean this to be a replacement of the original; I just want to understand the language better. Translating something makes you weigh each word and really think about what is meant. This is especially interesting when you remember that The Book of Mormon wasn’t written in English—the copy we read is a translation.
You might consider reading the actual verses alongside as you go (click here to open Alma Chapter 2 in a new window). I noticed a lot of things about the specific language. For example, although the enemies have “armies”, Alma doesn’t lead “armies”; he leads “his people”. And the Amlicites are fighting “their brethren”, a more serious offense than just fighting an enemy. Tev brought up the point that Joseph Smith must have had an extremely keen understanding of the text because of his translation efforts.
I also noticed Mormon’s role as historian—he copies details that don’t particularly drive the plot, and he repeats details one might initially think to be uninteresting or irrelevant. A careful look shows that the Nephites should have easily been defeated. Yet they miraculously conquer.
Many of you may have heard about Elder Oak’s recent BYU-Idaho devotional address. I just wanted to collect some of the information here for you to read/listen to/watch. Its an important message at an important time.
First, read the full text of the talk at LDS.org, or download the MP3 at BYU-I’s devotionals archive.
Second, here’s an article the Church posted about it, along with the following Q&A video with Elder Oaks, about the talk:
Some of you probably know because you know me, or have noticed by my video and other media posts: I am kinda an amateur dabbler in video production and film making.
So I was excited when I noticed that the church announced a new DVD set as a resource for teaching Old Testament in the upcoming year. There are 56 videos in the set, many of which are new, or have never been available for purchase previously. There are also many, many other visual resources. From the preview video, they look like great quality reenactments of Old Testament stories. The reenactments either include, or other resources have, life-like renderings of the Tabernacle, Temple at Jerusalem and other stuff that can seem very distant until you see video that looks very real, as if peaking into the past. I’m excited to see all this new stuff, and see if it aides teachers in real Sunday School teaching situations.
You can watch the preview video they made here:
If you’re interested in how technology like this can help advance the purposes of the church, Bryce Haymond at TempleStudy.com posted, and started a Google Wave, about about using Google Wave to advance the purposes of the church.
Like many authors ranging from Victor Hugo and Shakespeare to James Redfield and James Ferrell, Dan Brown understands the power of a good fictional story. In reading his books, you realize that like the mentioned authors, he teaches ideas and concepts through a made up story instead of a true one. The advantages to this are twofold: 1. You don’t have to write a bibliography (or otherwise back up or defend what you say), and 2. More people will read it if the story’s engaging, regardless of the ideas being taught.
I remember laying in bed reading the DaVinci Code several years ago excited by the story, intrigued by the symbols and codes, and impressed by what seemed to be some restored-gospel truths about Christ and his possible marriage to Mary Magdalene. Originally I rejected the idea of the marriage, but after talking to some of my mentors of the time, decided that “we don’t know” is probably the only for-sure answer we are going to get for the time being.
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