transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Speaker 2:
[00:03] The word atone and atonement appears more times in Leviticus than the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine Covenant, and the Pearl of Great Price combined. Atone and atonement, it's a priestly concept. It's what God is doing through sacrifice. When the Book of Mormon offers you atone, it's basically always in temple contexts.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my co-host, John Bytheway, who does not bear any grudge and loves his neighbor as himself. John, I was reading in Leviticus, as one does. I ran across this verse, and John, that describes you. You're not a grudge holder. You love your neighbor.

Speaker 3:
[00:58] I'm doing a really quick mental inventory right now, Hank. I'll try to live up to that with all of the other adjectives you give me. You're killing me.

Speaker 1:
[01:07] I'm going to come over and go door to door around your house and see if you actually do love your neighbor.

Speaker 3:
[01:12] Good idea. Just last night, my neighbor called, what is going on in your backyard? My brother-in-law came over and bought four dogs with him, and they were going crazy in my backyard.

Speaker 1:
[01:26] John, we are privileged and excited to have back with us Dr. Avram Shannon. Dr. Shannon, we're happy you're here.

Speaker 2:
[01:36] Thank you. I'm very glad to be here.

Speaker 1:
[01:38] I forget sometimes that the listeners haven't seen you because I see you quite often. John, Dr. Shannon's office is in. We are fairly close together. If I'm lucky enough, I will run into him in the hallway. Now, John, I have to tell you, when I was talking to Avram about this lesson, I asked him about Leviticus and he said, Hank, I love Leviticus. I said, I've never heard that sentence before.

Speaker 3:
[02:02] From anybody.

Speaker 1:
[02:03] From anybody. I'm going to make a t-shirt actually. I love Leviticus. Dr. Shannon.

Speaker 3:
[02:10] I heard a story, I don't know if this is true, from J. Golden Kimball, said, I got to Genesis and I read it. I got to Exodus and I read it. I got to leave it to Cus and I did. Leave it to J.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] Golden Kimball. John, what do you think of when you think of the Book of Leviticus? What comes to mind for me is the Tabernacle out in the wilderness.

Speaker 3:
[02:34] I guess I'm remembering from four years ago, how specific the Lord was in the way he wanted things to be. I thought it was interesting that he wasn't like, oh, whatever is good. But he was very specific about how he wanted things. I thought, I got to think about what that means for us.

Speaker 1:
[02:51] Yeah, exactly this color, exactly this many loops. I'm excited to be converted to Leviticus. Avram, what are you hoping for today?

Speaker 2:
[03:01] There's actually so much. Sometimes I'll tell my students when I teach the Old Testament class, they're reading the best book here in the Bible. If I keep saying enough people believe it. To that point, within Judaism, it's the first book you really study. Midrash is these ancient Jewish biblical commentaries, and the name of the ancient Midrash on Leviticus is Sifra, meaning literally the book. There are a couple of things in there for this. One, the constant refrain, especially in the latter part, we'll see this when we talk about Leviticus 19. This notion, he says, be ye therefore holy. God says this because I, Jehovah, am holy. The whole process of what Leviticus is trying to do is trying to make Israel into a holy people that is like God. We talk in the church all the time about our goal is to be like God. Leviticus says, well, here's how you do it. This is what it looks like to be like God. It's to care about order. We try to, especially in society today, you're trying to divide your various opinions and thoughts out. You have your political opinions and positions, religious ones, amazing economic ones. We silo things. And Leviticus says there are no silos. Everything you do, everything you have is of interest to God. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we talk a lot about feeling and what we feel. Nothing to say here is to denigrate that position. I have friends, I have family members. I go to the temple. Their primary reason to go to the temple is because they feel peace there. The feeling and the serenity that they get there. That's not primarily why I go to the temple. I go to the temple because there's addiction, the fact that everything is the same, and the fact that everything is done, and there's a way it's done, and there's a way it comes out. And for an hour and a half, the universe is ordered. And everything is okay. There is beauty in feeling. There's also beauty in a well-run meeting. There's also beauty in an order and in hierarchy. And Leviticus is a book for people who find God in that. Whenever it's time for the sacrament prayers, I always mouth them along myself. And my kids are always like, dad, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm centering myself in the universe, guys. And Leviticus presents, in some ways, the Segal Genesis 1, where we have this ordered universe. And Leviticus says, and here's how you put yourself into that.

Speaker 1:
[05:57] John, it's already happening.

Speaker 3:
[05:58] I'm already glad I came.

Speaker 1:
[06:00] I'm already going. I'm getting converted to this book. Now, John, this is in Dr. Shannon's blood. When you talk to him, it's not just in his head, it's in his heart. What do we know about him? He's been on the show a couple of times, long-time listeners will say, Oh, I know this voice. Do we have any information on him? What did you find out?

Speaker 3:
[06:24] According to my sources, Avram was born in Quantico, Virginia, spent most of his young life there, served a mission in the Oregon-Portland mission. He earned a bachelor's in Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University, a master's in Jewish Studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, with a graduate interdisciplinary specialization in religions of the ancient Mediterranean from the Ohio State University.

Speaker 1:
[06:57] He has not corrected me once or twice.

Speaker 2:
[06:59] It's really funny. All of my stuff says the Ohio State University. I'm like, it's the name on my degree. I'm sorry. Did your university try and copyright the word the? Mine has.

Speaker 3:
[07:10] On his bio, the is capitalized and that's how you know how to say it. The Ohio State University.

Speaker 1:
[07:15] The Ohio State University. That is its name, right, Avram? That's its name.

Speaker 2:
[07:18] That is its name, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[07:20] Avram, you have nine children?

Speaker 2:
[07:23] I do have nine children.

Speaker 3:
[07:25] Yes. Can you run down their names?

Speaker 2:
[07:27] The eldest is Lydia. She turns 20 on Monday. And then Ellie Shaiva, she just got into BYU. We're super excited for that. Then Guinevere, Enoch, Athena, Eve, Gareth and then the twins are Artemis and Rowena.

Speaker 1:
[07:50] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[07:50] Those are great names.

Speaker 1:
[07:52] That's a beautiful family. Avram, give us a quick background on why you would know so much about Judaism outside of your degrees.

Speaker 2:
[08:01] My mother was Jewish before she joined the church. She named me Avram. At a certain point, I had no choice but to go into Jewish studies. I'm at that point. I grew up with a taste for matzah, even silly things like that. It led me in those paths even as I started my specialization.

Speaker 1:
[08:21] Good. Folks who are listening, he is as good as he sounds. Just so you know. You think, is this guy really that good? He is, through and through. I'm going to read from the Come, Follow Me manual, and then Avram, John and I, we just want to learn. The title of the lesson is called Holiness to the Lord. We're in the last few chapters of Exodus and then some chapters in Leviticus. Leaving Egypt, as important as that was, didn't fully accomplish God's purposes for the children of Israel. Even a comfortable life in the promised land wasn't God's ultimate goal for them. These were only steps toward what God really wanted for His people. Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord God am holy. How did God plan to make His people holy after they had lived in captivity for generations? He commanded them to create a place of holiness in the wilderness, a tabernacle. And He commanded them to make animal sacrifices to teach them about atonement for their sins. All of this was meant to point their minds, hearts and lives toward the Savior. He is the true path of holiness for the Israelites and for us. We have all spent some time in the captivity of sin, and we are all invited to leave sin behind and follow Jesus Christ, who has promised, I am able to make you holy. Exactly what Avram was talking about. With that, where should we go first? Dr. Shannon.

Speaker 2:
[09:45] What these last chapters are is they are the final building of this tent shrine, this tabernacle. Back in Exodus 25, God had said, we're gonna do this. These chapters, argument 35, are the sequel to that, because one of the things that's important to remember is, for the Israelites, the whole thing, their life, their religion, their whatever, is gonna be built around their experiences in temple religion, right? The Israelites don't go to church the way that we do. That's not really an ancient is the right notion. They had Sinai even allowing for the pro-Great Price. This is the first time in history that God has a house that we see in scripture. We could postulate maybe other times, maybe in the city of Enoch, maybe, but scripture doesn't tell us anything about that. For the first time, God says, I'm gonna take a place and I'm going to be there. If we look here in 35, 11, they talk to what we're making this and goes commanded, the tabernacle, it says his tent, but it should be its tent, its covering, its tashes. We'll go through these KJV words, they're weird. And boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets. This word tabernacle is kind of a funny word. We use it to refer to this in Latter-day Saint discourse, it comes to mean these kind of like pre-stake center super churches that we used to have. There are a couple words that translate as temple. They kind of give us a sense of what's going on. Sometimes it's just called the tent. Honestly, sometimes when KJV turns to tabernacle, it literally just says in Hebrew and they came to the tent. But the word used here in 3511 is a word, mishkan. Mishkan comes from a Hebrew word, shahan, that means to be near, to dwell next to, to be with. The mishkan is the dwelling place. What we're seeing here is that when they're building this structure, what we call the tabernacle, they're building a place where God can be with them. We'll get to the end when we get to 40. That's what happens. This is being built to invite God into the midst of their community. And even some of the other names for it, like in Leviticus 1, which we'll look at a little bit later on, HGV has the tent of the congregation. In Hebrew, there's Ohel Mo'ed. Most modern translations do tent of meeting. But in most places where it talks of the Mo'edim or Mo'ed in the Bible, it means like sacred time. It's like festivals. And the temple of the Mo'ed, it's either this place where God and I meet together, but where they do that is in sabbaths, in holidays, days of the day of atonement, days like Sukkot, days like Passover. It's a place where the whole idea behind the Tabernacle, and then it will be transferred to the temple, but here is that we're building this place so that we can meet together with God. That's why it's so important to start there, because that's how everything that God is trying to do through covenant is going to be framed through that. That's part of why he cares so much what it's made out of, what it looks like, what it is. There's some really interesting stuff in terms of how that's playing out. There's actually some symbolism and how it's going to play out. We're going to talk through that too.

Speaker 1:
[13:11] Avram, John and I have been talking this year about becoming holy. It's a fun little phrase that it was easy for the Lord to take Israel out of Egypt, difficult to take Egypt out of Israel. Perhaps this is part of that. Avram, the promised land is ready for you. Now you are going to get ready for it and I'm going to give you this tabernacle and these laws to create holiness.

Speaker 2:
[13:36] Yeah, the whole idea, all the way back to Exodus 19, just before Mount Sinai, God says, if you do what I say, I will make you a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. That's God's covenant purpose in every dispensation. And that's 100% the purpose of this structure.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] I know we're jumping to a little application here, but I hope everyone can see it. It's easy for the Lord to give me places to get out of the world. I can go to church, I can go to Institute, I can go to the temple, I can even come home. Easy to get me physically out of the world. How do I get the world out of me?

Speaker 2:
[14:18] Yeah, I think one of the reasons why sometimes we struggle with these parts of even Exodus, especially Leviticus, how is this relevant? Well, again, it's God working in His people, it's God working with His people. The first thing He's going to do in 4-9, it's a sequel, Texas 25. He has them gather stuff. One of the things about the Tabernacle is, it's made out of precious stuff. There's linen, there's gold, there's silver, there's bronze, KJV says brass, but KJV means bronze there. Maybe some copper, too, depending on how you want to mash that word. There's all kinds of textiles, olive oil, perfumes, precious stones. In some ways, this begs the question. They're out in the middle of the desert. Where's this stuff coming from?

Speaker 1:
[15:07] Where did they get all the, did they bring it from Egypt?

Speaker 2:
[15:11] The primary wood is Acacia wood. So shitim in the KJV is Acacia wood. And Acacia does grow in the Sinai. There's a source of timber there. If you go back to Exodus 12, God says, you need to ask the Egyptians as you're leaving, and they will give you stuff, just to get you out of their land. So immediately after the whole thing with the 10 plagues, the step of the firstborn, ask your neighbors in Egypt, and they will give you stuff to leave them.

Speaker 1:
[15:40] It says, we'll pay you to leave. Reminds me of high school, John. People are like, I will pay you.

Speaker 3:
[15:47] We just go.

Speaker 2:
[15:51] That's one possible vector for this.

Speaker 1:
[15:54] Okay, keep going.

Speaker 2:
[15:55] One other possibility that's important is remembering that all of our biblical texts circulated orally before they're written down. Hebrew is not a language in its final form, until about 1000 BC. Until we get to about David and Solomon, nobody in Genesis spoke Hebrew. Nobody in the Exodus spoke Hebrew. They're going to speak other languages, some Egyptians, some protocol might become Hebrew eventually. But since our Bible is written in Hebrew, that means everything we're reading in this is either transmitted later or translated later across the board. There's some evidence that the Tabernacle was actually improved on as the Israelites became more settled. God gives this pattern and they build it, then we're seeing that right now with Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Temple when it's finally finished will be different than the Salt Lake Temple than it was built in the 1890s. Even though we can still say the temple was built in the 1890s, even the temple we're going to is not going to be that same temple in a lot of ways. There may be something happening there with that as well in our text.

Speaker 1:
[17:10] Oh, that makes perfect sense. We may not have the original version. We have a version of the original that came later.

Speaker 2:
[17:18] That's a great way of thinking about it.

Speaker 3:
[17:20] Not the original version, a version of the original. That was good. Yeah. 2.0.

Speaker 2:
[17:28] As a fun thing on that, by the way, thinking through that actually, in 35.7, it's talking about the various textiles, ramskins dyed red and badgerskins. Now badgerskin, it's a little weird there. In fact, it's so weird that nobody actually knows what it means.

Speaker 3:
[17:46] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[17:47] There's a pervasive suggestion that we're looking at here is actually this leather made from some kind of sea mammal. Dolphin skins, seal skids and arguments for sea manatee, like for sea cows. This is the outer was covered in the tabernacle, and it seems to be designed for waterproofing, which again, it suggests we're looking forward a little bit because there's no rain in the Sinai Peninsula hardly at all, it's basically Mars out there. Even translations, they'll like leather or another kind of leather, they're just kind of trying to find a way to frame this. Actually, my favorite, just for how like cagey it is, is the new international version says for ram skins and another type of durable leather. We don't know what to say. So yeah, it's clear there's no kind of leather, it probably wasn't badgers, but it could have been something else that they were using. I do think there is some other sort of Canaanite and other ideas as to why they think it's going to be sea mammal skin, and there's a place for that in terms of waters and dwelling in waters and things like that we get in some places in the Psalms. But one of the things I love is that God says all this, he says, and I want you to bring this of your own free will. One of the cool things about what happens here is this is not God saying, this is whatever, I need this much stuff. He says, bring so that we can build me a house. Anybody who can help with this, anybody who can do with this, just bring what you want. And verse 21 is great, 35, 21. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him up and everyone whom his spirit made willing. And they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the Tabernacle of the congregation and for all the service and for all the holy garments. Their hearts are stirred up, they're in the middle of the desert and they're bringing all their precious things. It reminds me of Kirtland a little bit, the willingness of them in their poverty to sacrifice for this building, that they don't need to survive in the desert.

Speaker 1:
[19:55] Avram, I love this. I love that this tent, this Tabernacle is going to be built with so many precious things that are a real sacrifice for these people and how it is that same way today. I want to read this quote from sister Sharon Eubank. This was up in BYU-Idaho. She said, I am occasionally asked, why doesn't the church spend more money on humanitarian work? Why doesn't it stop building expensive temples and focus its resources on relieving the poor? This is a legitimate question for the Church of Jesus Christ. But is it money that solves society's ill? Yes, the world has poured $2 trillion into addressing chronic issues in Africa. Why isn't the situation better? Because money isn't a real issue. Lasting progress comes through trusted relationships, infrastructure, reducing corruption, and the ability of people to work together. Money doesn't necessarily create those things. They must be developed alongside the resources. And frankly, it is a much harder work. I will never discount the one thing this church does that lifts entire communities in rapid development. It invites men and women of all social classes and backgrounds to enter sacred buildings and make the most binding and important promises of their mortal lives in those buildings. They promise not to steal or lie. They promise to be faithful to their spouse and children. They vow that they will seek the interests of their neighbors and be peacemakers and become devoted to the idea that we are all one family, all valued and alike unto God. If those promises made in holy temples are kept, it transforms society faster than any aid or development project ever could. The greatest charitable development on the planet is for people to bind themselves to their God and mean it. So thank goodness the church builds 335 temples and counting. It is the greatest poverty alleviation system in the world. The most important thing you can do as a humanitarian is to keep your covenants with God. The second most important thing you can do is connect in goodness with others around you. Is that not beautifully put? Avram, when she said, keep your covenants and connecting goodness with others around you, I thought of you and Thora. You do that as well as anyone I know.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] We try. It reminds me a little bit actually to this question of the, there was a time when I was many babies ago. We were probably only like five or six of them.

Speaker 1:
[22:33] Many babies ago.

Speaker 2:
[22:35] We were in a ward, had a lot of young families, and I had somebody ask me, they're like, how do you do it, Avram? How do you do these things? I say, I do it badly. But there are things that are worth doing badly. You think about the process of being made holy and this process of building a place where God can be. Like, how are we doing this? Well, I'm doing it badly.

Speaker 1:
[22:58] I'm doing it badly.

Speaker 2:
[22:59] But it's absolutely worth doing it badly.

Speaker 1:
[23:02] Maybe I didn't do it as badly as I did last year.

Speaker 2:
[23:05] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[23:06] Oh, that is so funny. John, I love that. Many children ago, it's like Star Wars. Many children ago in a land far away.

Speaker 3:
[23:16] I love that twice in Leviticus 19, it has love thy neighbor as thyself. When you think about what Sister Eubank said, the one by one nature of the temple making covenants with God, and how that will change a society faster if one by one, we are all love thy neighbor as thyself. I think the talk she gave was called The Sacred Life of Trees. You want to read that one slowly about what a society that starts going to the temple and making covenants with God, what that does to the society. It's a really interesting point.

Speaker 2:
[23:54] The other thing there is if we talk about covenants, our culminating covenant is consecration, which literally means to make holy. The whole idea here is we're pushing ourselves to this to give everything to God already anyway. All that we have, all that we are. I love the next verse, this is great, in 22. And they came both men and women, as men as were willing, and they brought bracelets and earrings and rings and tablets and jewels of gold. And every man that offered offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. I think you can make a comparison, I think you ought to make a comparison actually, between this and what happened in Exodus 32. That's the whole golden calf thing. And they told Aaron, they said, make us gods. And Aaron said, okay, break off your earrings, put them in, break them in, I'll make this for you. There's a direct parallel here between breaking off your stuff and giving it to an idol, whatever's going on with the golden calf there, and breaking them off and let's do this for the temple. Here they're like, oh, we had this problem, it was bad, now we've changed, let's do the same thing, but now we're doing it for God. And there's a fun little connection there with that.

Speaker 1:
[25:10] Avram, I was taught by Dr. Dan Belknap, who's also in our hallway. Something that I loved and I wanted to get your take on, you just said, consecration, to make holy. Four years ago, he was with us and he said, the ancients didn't see themselves as giving something up. It was more, I'm making this holy. So I'm not giving up my money, I'm making it holy. I'm not giving up my time, I'm making this time holy. And you just said that very thing.

Speaker 2:
[25:40] I just had a great prize class, I spent a lot of time. Cause of Zion, I'll bring it up with Fourth Nephi. And every so often, a student will ask me, so what about tithing? I'll do the same, I'm like, look guys, we can't make excuses and say we're not economically consecrated. Everyone who's been endowed has promised that their money is not their own. We are all part of this. Like, so what's the difference between tithing and consecration? When you tithe, you give 10% and you say, God, this is yours for your church to use. And when you consecrate, you say, God, this is yours, and then God says, for you to use for me. The idea is it's all still belongs to God. The tithing we give was the church's stewardship. The other stuff we've already given all of it, but now it's God's for us to use for His kingdom.

Speaker 1:
[26:33] That's beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[26:34] In verse 10, it says, And every wise-hearted among you shall come and make all the Lord has commanded. The people are not just giving their stuff. They're giving their time. They're giving their talents. These are people, the wise-hearted here, ha-ham-le literally means wise of heart, but it means here that they're people who are good with their hands, who are clever at building, who have something to give that's not just stuff. They're giving what they are. And we'll call out in 3530, we have two unsung heroes in the Bible, Bezalel and Aholiab, who are the foremans of this, but they have an entire team of people who are working on this, who are literally volunteering their time and their talents to build this building for God.

Speaker 1:
[27:25] John, do you remember a couple of years ago when Dr. Wilcox was with us, Brad Wilcox, he said, all of our talents are in the Bishop's storehouse.

Speaker 3:
[27:34] The footnote under Wise Hearted says, everyone that is talented or skilled, that's exactly what you're saying. You're bringing your talents and your skills. That's consecrated too.

Speaker 2:
[27:45] All that we have, all that we are. When he's talking about Bait Saleh, when he's talking about Aholiab, he says, because I put it into their hearts. i.e. we have these abilities, we have these talents because they, as Benjamin reminds us, like the air we breathe, are already a gift from God. We're just giving back what's his. There's reasons for this, good and bad, but sometimes we're a little hard on the ancient Israelites. We focus on their murmuring, we focus on the golden calf, the whole thing with the quail, partially because they're fun stories to talk about. But we don't talk enough about this. The primary thing you're going to see with the tabernacle is gold. Every time you go to the temple, you say, you can't see your earring, it's been melted down, it's right there. But you gave something that's now part of the whole that beautifies God's temple. I think there's a valuable image there in our notion. Even our little earring gets melted down, but you look there and you say, what I gave is what makes this edifice of God's church beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[28:53] That's fantastic. I'm going to walk up to the temple and be like, that brick right there.

Speaker 2:
[28:59] It came from me. Sometimes I'll turn the light on and say, yep, these are my tithing dollars, guys.

Speaker 1:
[29:04] Yeah, you got the lights on for the next 10 minutes.

Speaker 2:
[29:08] But recognizing part of what this does, again, purely anthropologically, is that there are, of course, all the gospel benefits. But the fact is that, and Joseph Smith talked about this a lot, tithing, consecration, these ideas, they mean that we have skin in this game. That we are part of this covenant community. One of the things that is really important, President Nelson, he emphasized very strong the name of the church. And we spent a lot of time there talking about the Church of Jesus Christ. And that's absolutely right. The Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. He's the head of it. We do what he says. He's our boss. But that's not the name the Church gave us through revelation. The name of the Church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's absolutely the Church of Jesus Christ. He is our head. It's also the Church of the Latter-day Saints. We are part of a Covenant community where we meet together with Jesus and we build this thing together, recognizing both those are an important part of becoming God's people.

Speaker 3:
[30:16] I remember hearing Brad Wilcox talk about, we don't want our young people saying, this is my grandma and grandpa's church, or this is my mom and dad's church, but being in the sense, this is my church. I've always loved the name of the Church. It's his and it's ours. It's my church too, of Latter-day Saints. I like that.

Speaker 2:
[30:35] I've seen this in my children. It's a hard transition sometimes to move church from something that's done to you to something you do. We have these great youth programs, and they're all planned for whatever. I know I had friends even when I was younger. You moved your first youngster in the adult ward, and like, okay, do church for me.

Speaker 3:
[30:59] Right.

Speaker 2:
[31:00] It's really hard than a tradition being, oh, I now do church. I now do this. I now do this for others. I think it's important, and one of the things we're seeing modeled here a little bit here in Leviticus and in Exodus.

Speaker 1:
[31:14] You might say, well, if someone is so poor, they should be exempt from tithing. We don't see tithing as a bad thing. We actually see it as a blessing that you're contributing to this, and God is going to see that contribution. Why would we say, no, no, no, we don't want you to contribute to God and have him see that contribution. No matter how small it is, even if it's the eight cents that you give, you gave.

Speaker 2:
[31:44] Because what God ultimately wants is you and I, whatever that is, the amount doesn't really ever matter. Well, they didn't work as hard as I did or they didn't do. We don't get to say that. We don't know. I think of people who have, you know, are depressed where everything it takes that day is to get out of bed and get dressed. They have worked harder that day than I have probably worked in the whole week. It is not my place to say, oh, you didn't work hard enough to build Zion today. They absolutely have.

Speaker 3:
[32:20] And Hank, what you said reminds me of the widow throws in her mites. The Lord doesn't say, oh, I'll take that out. Give it back to her. She doesn't have anything. No, it meant something to her. It was her contributing. They kept that.

Speaker 2:
[32:37] Partially because of, you think of something like fast offering. I was a clerk for a while. And of course, one of my jobs is to work through and distrust and distribute and things like that. And of course there, every dollar helps. Every penny helps. It's being used for God's kingdom.

Speaker 1:
[32:52] And you made it holy. You made that part of you holy.

Speaker 3:
[32:56] Sanctified, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:58] We're in 36 now. They're bringing stuff, Aholiab and Bezalel in verse five. They say, the people bring much more than enough. We have too much stuff to work with now. And so God says, you know what? You don't have to bring any more stuff. And the people were restrained from bringing, in verse seven, I love seven. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much. And I'm reminded of when the Lord talks about consecration in Doctrine and Covenants 104. He talks about his stewardship and he talks about how we do this. And he says, for the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare. These people are experiencing that kind of abundance. There is enough and to spare.

Speaker 3:
[33:56] I'm glad you said that thing about don't we sometimes are too hard on them. We notice the murmuring or this or that. But look how excited they were to give.

Speaker 2:
[34:04] Again, they struggle. But you know what? So do I. I do my fair share of murmuring. I do my fair share of lusting for the flesh pots of Egypt, which is way more like terrible sad. It just literally means meat pots, which is really funny. But this model for, this is what it means to give, to build God's kingdom and build God's house.

Speaker 1:
[34:28] Yeah. Isn't that a beautiful blessing to have? Stop. Stop. Yeah, there's too much. We don't know what to do. Wouldn't it be great if President Oaks said, he just started receiving so much diving, so much fast offerings? We've got to slow down.

Speaker 3:
[34:44] Stop it, people.

Speaker 2:
[34:47] That would be a great thing to happen.

Speaker 1:
[34:49] The people were restrained from bringing. Like, please let me give.

Speaker 2:
[34:54] The text here now moves into some technical stuff. I want to spend a little time with this because the biblical authors do. Sometimes people will talk to me and they'll say, well, it doesn't seem very relevant or very important. It was to somebody who wrote it down to present what they think, but actually talking through what the Tabernacle looks like can give us a better appreciation of our own temple worship. I'd like to spend a little bit of time just thinking through some of these things because the first thing we recognize is that when we say tent, it wasn't really a tent the way we think about it. In that it was actually a series, it was a structure of boards that was then covered by a series of overlapping curtains. So when they put the Tabernacle, just in terms of our imaginations here, we shouldn't imagine it like pitching your pop-up tents, the three-minute tents we buy now that are super easy. I remember my day as a boy scout, your head was like, it was terrible.

Speaker 1:
[35:45] And now you just push a button, right?

Speaker 2:
[35:48] It goes right up. You have the size also. I want to think about this here because the Bible, of course, measures things in cubits. Like most ancient measurements, it was based on body parts. A cubit is from your elbow, tip of your forefinger there. And of course, obviously, that varies from person to person. It would even vary from time to time and place to place. Usually when I'm calculating numbers in the Old Testament, I use 17.5 inches as my base cubit. Occasionally, as we're talking about this, I'm going to give numbers to give a sense of the size of this. So for example, these boards I'm talking about, it says they're 10 cubits. So that means they're about 14 and a half feet or four and a half meters tall. About that big is how big this building is. Again, when they're assembling it, they're going to be working through this. This is just to help for people reading it. This word tenons, it's a fine word in carpentry. But if you've never done any carpentry, a tenon is a little protrusion of wood they use to put into another, usually mortise or another socket. These are the grooved boards that they then put together with these bars and this little structure thing. Then these boards are gilded, okay, which means they're covered in gold. So they're made out of acacia wood. They cover in gold. By the way, we know this, we have gilding as early as the Old Kingdom in Egypt. This is a very ancient technique. It's a way to make something gold be there. But again, gold's pretty heavy. So even gilded makes the wood heavier. As we think about the Tabernacle being this portable temple, and it is portable in the sense that you can take it down and put it back up again. But they're not doing this a lot. Even as you read scripture, you'll see it tends to stay in places sometimes for decades because you set it up, it's gonna take a day or two to set it up, a day or two to take down. Even when the Israelites are moving to wilderness, they tend to set up camp, they're there for a while, take it again, and then they move again. Very, very heavy, heavy to set up. You'd have entire teams that are standing there with the boards, that's set to put in the right places, put the pieces in there. It'd take an entire crew to put this thing up and down. But again, part of it is this idea of, but I love this still here, that God doesn't wait until they're settled in the land. It's only another 40 years before they get in the land, give or take. And from God's perspective, it's not that long. But it's important, even though you guys are still traveling here in the wilderness, I want you to have a place where you can be with me right now. Then the tent part, or after you've got the structure, then they have these layers of first sort of dyed linen, and then you have wool, and then you'll have the ram's leather, dried red, and then over top of that, you'll have whatever the Badger skins are. We already talked about that. Whatever those happen to be. And then you have these coverings inside it. One thing I want us to think about here, our temples, they're very white. I did my mission in Oregon. The ordinance rooms in the Oregon temple were made of a dark wood. It was like the accents for it, and it was a very different experience. But these would have been riotous in their colors. Red and gold and blues and purples. Going there and looking at it would have been visually impressive. Especially in a world that's important. For you and I, color is cheap because of chemical dyes. If I want a blue shirt, I just go and I buy a blue shirt. I don't even think about the fact that it's blue. They have to go and they have to find these colors. They have to dye these colors. They have to get enough to make the fabric for it. Their clothes would have been a lot of brown. And then you go to the Tentra, you go to the Tabernacle, and suddenly you see something just spectacular. We talked about consecration. We talked about this before. Holiness, it's this idea of being set apart, being different, being different from the rest of the world. And part of this is that this is something that's different from a day-to-day tent, from day-to-day clothing. I love that. Again, you have these divisions here. And the temple, of course, is divided into the holy place and then the most holy place, what KGV calls the holy of holies. All of the places where God is, but there's this division here in sacred space. You've got these curtains. So you have the over things, and then these curtains that we call veils. They were embroidered and they were shiny and they were covered in all kinds of cool stuff. So again, a visually impressive experience. Then the author of Exodus goes, and having established at least the place where we built this up, covered it, now we talk about the various parts of the furniture. So the first, probably the most famous of the Ark of the Covenant. Now, Ark is Hebrew, Aron. It just means box or chest. It's about three and a half feet. So about a meter, 1.5 meters by about two feet. So about 6.67 meters. It's a relatively good size box. It's also made primarily out of acacia wood. It's gilded on inside and out. It's pretty heavy. It'll get heavier because on top of it is what KJV calls the mercy seat. Or the kaporet is the Hebrew word for that. It means covering thing, but the root kafar primarily means to cover, but it's also the source of our word for atonement, which seems to me part of what the KJV translator trying to capture by calling it the mercy seat. This is the covering atonement thingy. Now, I want to talk a little bit about this because on top of it, there are of course these cherubim. Cherubims, as you see in your KJV is an abomination. I will often joke with my students that I say, if you ever say the word cherubims, I will fail you automatically. You may not say the word cherubims. So the word is cherub, cheruv. Then in Hebrew, you make plurals by adding yod me'm at the end, so cheruvim, cherubim, that's fine. Cherubs is fine. Cherubims is a double plural and is bad.

Speaker 3:
[42:00] Yeah, it's like geese's.

Speaker 2:
[42:04] Exactly. Don't do that either, right?

Speaker 3:
[42:08] Don't do that.

Speaker 1:
[42:09] You also fail.

Speaker 3:
[42:11] I think that's in the calling of Isaiah, doesn't KJV say seraphims?

Speaker 2:
[42:16] I'm sure it does.

Speaker 3:
[42:17] In Isaiah 6?

Speaker 2:
[42:19] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[42:19] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[42:20] The Book of Mormon gets it right, seraphim.

Speaker 2:
[42:22] The Book of Mormon does get it right. The Book of Mormon corrects it, either Joseph knew better or whatever. When they did the 2013 edition of the scriptures, I'm like, I know we're not updating the text. Can we just change that one little? I mean, Dr. Rhino, just take the S out the end. Everyone would be happier if we did.

Speaker 3:
[42:41] That's great.

Speaker 1:
[42:43] Fingernails on the chalkboard, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:45] No, in some ways, it really does. I actually wrote an article about divided space here years ago for Asperry where I talk about cherubim. They're actually not really very common in the Old Testament. They show up in Genesis 1 rather famously with a flaming sword guarding the way to the Tree of Life. They show up here as part of the furniture on top of the Ark. They show up other places in the Tabernacle and then in the Kings for the same reason as I was talking about Solomon's Temple. They're in a couple of Psalms and then they show up in Ezekiel 1 and 10 and that's about it for what they're doing. They're not really common. It looks like they are actually composite animal beings. The cherubs are like griffins or like the Egyptian sphinx. There's some differences with that. There's a Mesopotamian figure called a Lamassu that's a winged bull with a man's head. These appear to what cherubs, how they're understanding them. Because like all those things, their purpose is they guard. They guard between spaces. This is why they put them on the veil of the temple. They are guarding the way into God's presence. This is what they're doing in the Garden of Eden. They are guarding the way to the Tree of Life. There are these guardians that stand in the way and keep the way whole to protect us. Because again, back to Book of Mormon, this idea that no unclean thing can dwell in God's presence. And of course, that means that if you do enter God's presence uncleanly, then you, according to scripture, you die. What God does is he puts covenants in place. He puts space in place. He puts people in place. He puts symbolic, we'll call them semi-mythological, you want for this, beings in place that protects the way. It's not because he's so scared of us. It's to keep us from entering his place unfairly and unprepared. And in many ways in our temples, we still use guarded space. The recommend desk is fundamentally a cherub placed there to prevent you from entering unworthily. You don't go by yourself, you wait until you're invited. And the cherub's job is to keep you out until you're invited.

Speaker 1:
[45:13] Could you say even the recommend process?

Speaker 2:
[45:16] 100 percent. The same kind of thing of making sure that you were ready. The other thing they do is cherubs support God's throne. In Psalm 1810, the psalmist there cries to God, he says, please come rescue me. God actually rides to their rescue on the back of a cherub. In Ezekiel 10, when God leaves his temple before it's destroyed, he does so on the backs of a cherub. In fact, the full name of the Ark of the Covenant as given in 1 Samuel is the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, the God who sits between the cherubim. This mercy seat here is God's throne on earth. It marks the presence of God.

Speaker 1:
[46:01] Avram, if someone were to ask me something like, well, how come this bishop or this stake presidency member, they get to decide if I'm worthy to go to God's house? I've heard that question a couple of times. I like how you explain this, that no, no, no, that's not what this is about. God wants you to be prepared to come into His presence. This isn't about, are you worthy to come in? It's more, are you prepared? Yes, I am. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[46:30] We get caught up in word of wisdom or for most people, the chastity issue. But the final question is very key. Are you worthy? Are you considered worthy to enter the house of the Lord? You can say that that's in some ways the most important part.

Speaker 1:
[46:45] Worthiness is almost a form of readiness.

Speaker 2:
[46:48] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[46:50] I remember just the question coming up in class about, there's so many different judges. Is God the father of the judge? Is Jesus the judge? And then places where it says the 12 will judge, the house of vision of the possible judge. I found an Elder McConkey quotation where he said, in reality, there are a whole hierarchy of judges. I always bring that up in the temple. You think it's the bishop? No, what's the bishop's last question? You're your judge there. Then you'll go to the stake president and you yourself again. There's partial judgments. Coming to earth meant that you supported Heavenly Father's plan. What happens at death, spirit prison, spirit paradise, there's partial judgments happening. To break it up that way is interesting and helpful. But yes, the last question is yours. It's not someone judging you, it's you judging yourself.

Speaker 2:
[47:48] So even in the endowment, before it starts, you've got a chance to say, I'm not ready yet. I shouldn't be here. I really appreciate this notion that one, these levels are a chance for everybody to make sure that yes, I could be coming to my office and like I don't really feel worthy or not. And I'm like, well, Jesus said you are in certain levels. You're putting levels on yourself that he has not. But I do appreciate this willingness to say, if you're not doing this, you come back when you're ready.

Speaker 1:
[48:23] I like that. It's not a matter of I'm judging your worthiness. It's, hey, are you prepared? Are you taking this seriously? Because the Lord is. So we're just making sure you are.

Speaker 2:
[48:35] And in Old Testament context, because if you don't, you'll die.

Speaker 1:
[48:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[48:40] So it's kind of an important question.

Speaker 1:
[48:44] Avram, this has been fantastic. I really have learned a lot and had like light bulb moments. What do you want to do next?

Speaker 2:
[48:52] In Exodus, first of all, there's this really interesting thing with the furniture is that everything inside the temple is overlaid with gold. Everything outside the temple proper, the Holy Holy Holy, is overlaid with bronze. This is the successive holy space kind of thing. The sacrificial altar is a bronze altar. The laver you wash with is a bronze altar. The incense altar is a gold altar. The other thing that I want to talk about just briefly is this figure of the clothing of the high priest, because he's like the tabernacle in microcosm. He's dressed in the same kind of stuff. It's the same kind of clothing. He's got gold and he's got the same kind of dyed linen on him. And there's some evidence that he kind of maybe even blended in maybe even the actual same fabric that he had on him. In a story that probably lets you know more about me than I want you to know, my mother's a great sewer. She's a wonderful woman. She used to make Halloween costumes for us. And one year when I was a teenager, I went as the Aaronic High Priest for Halloween.

Speaker 3:
[49:58] Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2:
[49:59] And we spent hours reading over this passage here and trying to figure out what was meant by all these parts. We made an A-FOD. We didn't have pomegranates. We put little like bells in the end because we couldn't get pomegranates as such, but it had bells. So I jingled when I walked.

Speaker 1:
[50:14] That is awesome.

Speaker 3:
[50:16] So who are you? I'm Spider-Man. Who are you?

Speaker 1:
[50:20] That's funny as he goes through the elementary school parade.

Speaker 3:
[50:23] You have to explain to everybody what you are. In the original Hebrew. Who are you?

Speaker 1:
[50:30] Quick note, those of you who are watching on YouTube, you may see some of the B-roll of what Avram is talking about. That comes from our friend Daniel Smith. His YouTube channel, which is Messages of Christ. Fantastic channel. Daniel does incredible work there. So we want to thank him for allowing us to use some of his footage. Avram, tell us more about the High Priest. I just picture you going trick-or-treating.

Speaker 2:
[50:57] It was fun. Part of it, and actually we'll see this again with Leviticus, is both very, very specific and sometimes not very clear about these things. For example, the primary garment for priests, whether the High Priest or regular priest, is this linen coat. Linen is undyed. It would have been a white linen. Then there was what's called the robe of the Aphod over that. Then you get this question, but that begs the question. There's this thing called the Aphod, and biblical scholars aren't sure what it looked like. It's some kind of over garment. It seems to be some kind of long apron-y thing, but it's not entirely clear what it's supposed to be, partially because you can wear it alone. Samuel, when he officiates an alinine aphod, when David dances before the ark, when he brings it in there in Samuel, David's wearing an aphod, and Michal says it's not covering enough. It seems to be some kind of brief garment that goes over everything else, but can also be worn by itself. We don't know. Mine was this weird fabric, was kind of this weird hard fabric. I had to like, I had to help getting into it because it was hard to dress myself with it. It overtopped my head. Very constrictive. On top of the aphod, there's this breastplate. And it's not a breastplate in terms of armor. It's this little square, actually linen, thing that is then embedded with gemstones that represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And it's connected to these onyx stones. Mine were just buttons. But these onyx stones that have inscribed then the names of the 12 tribes on the shoulders. Because the whole idea is, God says to the priest, to Aaron and his sons, you will bear the name of Israel before me. And the idea is, the priest puts Israel on him, and then he carries that into the presence of God. The other thing, then, is that he has the special hat on. I think KJV says, mitre, because of the old church, whatever, it's a turban is what it's gonna be. And there on the front there is a gold plate that says, Hebrew is kado shlabonai, that means KJV is holiness to the Lord, but holiness there means consecrated to, set apart to. When we say holiness to the Lord, that's what we're meaning. It means that this is consecrated to, this is set apart to God. So literally, God puts his name on the priest's forehead and says, you belong to me. And the priest puts Israel on his body and then goes and walks in and represents God's presence before God.

Speaker 1:
[53:36] Wow. So he represents Jehovah. So when I see him walking across, I think of Jehovah. Wow. Look at that.

Speaker 3:
[53:45] Right.

Speaker 2:
[53:45] He's representing God on the, he belongs to God. And then he's the other way around. He's representing Israel back to God.

Speaker 3:
[53:52] Did he also have the Urim and Thummim with him?

Speaker 2:
[53:55] Yes. And also probably is kind of the answer to that question. The Urim and Thummim seem to have been primarily used in antiquity by the priest. It looks like one of the early responsibilities of priests is to obtain God's will through divination. In Israel, that means the Urim and Thummim. So we associate it because of Joseph, for the Book of Mormon, with prophets. It's a priestly prerogative in the Old Testament. You only see priests using Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament. Whether it folded up, whether it was the one behind it, it's actually kept in the breastplate because they put it right next to their heart, it says. And then they used the divine, however that worked. However, they obtained God's will. Obviously, we have the Book of Mormon, we have those dismissed experiences. The Bible is very vague on what they're doing with them, but priests would use the Urim and Thummim to obtain God's will.

Speaker 3:
[54:45] Would it be true then? I just feel like we hear in our conversations, in our classes, a lot of Hebrew, are we putting together that anytime there's an I am on something, that's plural. Is that good?

Speaker 2:
[55:00] Seraph Seraphim, Haruv Haruvim. The only place a little bit tricky is Elohim.

Speaker 3:
[55:07] So Urim and Thummim, say it the way you would say it, is plural.

Speaker 2:
[55:10] Urim and Thummim. So lights and perfections, is how it's translated.

Speaker 3:
[55:17] So interesting.

Speaker 2:
[55:18] The other thing with this notion of the priest representing is, of course, this brings our errands family, and the everlasting priesthood. This is where, if we're gonna talk about the Church of Latter-day Saints here, when we talk about the Aaronic priesthood, this is where we're tracing it back to. And if you make a connection, the Aaronic high priest is like the presiding bishop, in that he's the head of all Aaronic priests, not just the individual priests, but he's the head of all of them all together, would be a place to think through what he's doing.

Speaker 1:
[55:52] Offer him to what we know is the high priest at the Tabernacle every day?

Speaker 2:
[55:55] It's tricky. Probably he was, yes, because that's his job. He's the head of it. His job is to basically be in charge of what the priests are doing there. He's sort of a presiding officer there. He probably wouldn't be offering sacrifice very often. But there are a couple of things, as we'll see later on in Leviticus, that are his job exclusively. Probably his role is mostly ceremonial administrative.

Speaker 1:
[56:22] All the other priests are dressed the same. They're in the white linen.

Speaker 2:
[56:25] That's right. They just wear undyed linen. They've got different hats. They have these special underclothing breeches, it says in KJV. They're some kind of breech cloth. Because it says to protect their modesty. So it looks like they go up to the altar and you can kind of see up their skirts. That actually seems to be what the Bible is suggesting actually.

Speaker 1:
[56:46] Yeah, the first guy was like, whoa. And they're like, yeah, let me do something about that.

Speaker 2:
[56:50] The only final thing about Exodus is of course in 40, one of the most important things is they built the Mishkan, this dwelling place for God to come to. They finish it, they dedicate it, they anoint it, and then God comes. And His glory fills the house. And He's there, and He says, yes, this is my place. I will be in your midst in this house. Powerful stuff there. And it then becomes the center in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1:
[57:18] Avram, we might get to this later, but I'd like to ask you now, if someone has a concern that, well, why can't I just go to the mountains? Why does God have a place? Because I can, I can commune with God, I can pray to Him in my home, I can pray to Him in my closet. That's all throughout the scriptures. Why does God want a place? Why does He seem to want, I should say? I won't make you speak for Him.

Speaker 2:
[57:46] So it's intriguing because we do sometimes see God taking people to mountains. They've just come from Sinai. What makes Leviticus special and unique in this notion of people will tell me, and correctly, I can feel the spirit in the mountains. Maybe even, I feel the spirit better in the mountains. That could be true. But that suggests to me that because God makes other spaces, that He's looking for more than just you filling the spirit. That there's something else that's being done. Because you're right, you can feel the spirit there. You do feel the spirit there. But that seems to suggest then that filling the spirit is not perhaps what's going on here primarily. Back to Exodus 19, when he talks about what he's going to make Israel, he doesn't say, I'm going to make you, Hank Smith, a holy person. I'm going to make you, Avram Shannon, a holy person. I'm going to make you into a holy people, a kingdom of priests, a community. Part of this is that the purpose of temples, of church, of covenants is to build community. It's something you do together.

Speaker 1:
[59:09] I really love that. I can go be spiritual by myself, but go put me around some humans. It was way back in Mosiah 18, Dr. Melissa Inouye, she said, God wants us to love our enemies. So he put them in our wards. And then John said, So many enemies, one convenient location. I just had never thought of this, but a temple, tabernacle or a church building brings people together. Lord's like, now watch what happens when you get a lot of humans together. They bump into each other and you get to deal with that. And that is so good.

Speaker 2:
[59:50] Moving ahead a little bit to Leviticus 19, you know, the Second Great Commandment, you love your neighbor as yourself. It's really, really easy to love your neighbor when your neighbor means somebody you've never ever met.

Speaker 1:
[60:04] Right. Someone you never see.

Speaker 2:
[60:06] It's a lot harder to love your neighbor when that's that person sitting in the pew in front of you who totally dropped the ball in planning that last activity, and you had to put up all the chairs by yourself. Suddenly, you have to learn how to love that neighbor. Not neighbors generally.

Speaker 1:
[60:23] The Lord could say, yeah, you could all go to the mountains, but then you wouldn't be next to each other. I want you next to each other because you're going to grow next to each other.

Speaker 2:
[60:32] It's worth noting the Tabernacle's courtyards only about 10,000 square feet. So big, but not very big. Especially, you know the animals and the place for that. God's in his temple, He says that, and we turn the page and we're in Leviticus. There's almost no narrative in Leviticus at all. There's like one story, two stories. Most of it is a series of legal and ritual instructions. The first seven chapters are about how you do a sacrifice. And so the eight through 10, Aaron and his family, how they serve God. 11, 16 are about ritual purity. How do you keep yourself the right way before God? Then 17, 26 are subunits called the holiness code, which is about how you become like God through specific behaviors. We have stories to emulate and those are great, but Leviticus says, let's stop and let's talk specifics. Let's talk theory. Let's talk about how we do this. The center of Israel religious life was the sacrificial altar. Most of their temple worship, they never went in the temple proper because the sacrificial altar is in the courtyard rather than the holy place or the most holy place. For most of Israel, when they go to the temple, they never get past in some ways the recommend desk in that sense. This can be fully compared to our own experience in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The endowments, the ceiling ordinances, the other temple ordinances, these are the highest ordinances we perform and practice in the Church. For most of us, we do them periodically. We work through them, you'll do an endowment so often until you have enough through ceilings, cycle through your names. However, the most important meeting in the Church is the sacrament meeting. And we do that weekly. And of course, the focus of sacrament meeting, and therefore in some ways, the focal point of our ritualist experience is the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. That for you and I, the place we encounter God is at the sacrificial altar. It is no mistake that it is one of the most iconic priests who officiate the sacrament. They are doing now what they have always done. This notion that we think about sacrifice, the temples are the false expression, but we still only go so far almost all the time. And we still encounter God right there in the sacrament.

Speaker 3:
[63:14] When someone says, but I can go feel the spirit in the mountains. Yeah, you can, but where can you go get the sacrament from authorized servants?

Speaker 2:
[63:24] There's a relationship created when you eat together. This is why when you take people on dates, you take them out to eat because you are creating a relationship by eating. This is why when you have tough meetings, you put food in there. There's good science on this. And this is why in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, you eat together, you eat with everybody around you, you eat with Jesus. One of the other names for the sacrament is communion.

Speaker 3:
[63:54] You are community.

Speaker 2:
[63:55] Community, exactly. When you eat together, when you drink together, you are part of a covenant community. And of course, Mosiah 18 does this, this notion of this is us together. The prayer sanctified, there's that made holy again, to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance, to all those who drink of it, that they may drink in remembrance. We're remembering Jesus, but we are coming together as a covenant community, experiencing that sacrifice every week, together.

Speaker 3:
[64:33] How often in the New Testament was Jesus criticized for eating with sinners because he was inviting them and he was affirming them. And isn't that what's happening at the sacrament table? Come and eat with me. Come and have the last supper with me.

Speaker 2:
[64:47] We take it and you have that sacrament tray, you're sitting next to that guy who dropped the ball, your pew, you hand it to them and you see them take Jesus' sacrifice just like you did. And you say, you know what? It's hard, but we're all in this together.

Speaker 1:
[65:05] Wow, Avram, that connection to the sacrificial altar, because that's where they were going, right? Avram, that's what they saw of the temple, the bulk of them. That's what they saw of the temple.

Speaker 2:
[65:16] And again, we don't like to talk about it because it's weird and whatever for this. We put this white cloth over it, and it's white for symbolism and whatever, but it's also, it's a shroud. This is what we're doing with this. And he says, eat my flesh, drink my blood. This is a sacrifice. This is one of the things, by the way, where Leviticus informs so much in ways that we don't always think about as Latter-day Saints or his body. The word atone and atonement appears more times in Leviticus than the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine Covenant, and the Pearl of Great Price combined. Atone and atonement, it's a priestly concept. It's what God is doing through sacrifice. When the Book of Mormon offers you atone, it's basically always in temple contexts. It's not a generic word in the scriptures. It's a specific sacrificial word.

Speaker 3:
[66:18] Talk about kafar, K-A-P-H-A-R. Isn't yom kippur the same word?

Speaker 2:
[66:26] So it's the same root. Hebrew does this thing where words are built from mostly three-letter root. So zavach means to sacrifice, but amiz beyach is an altar, a sacrificial place. Shekhan is to sort of dwell with, be with. Mishkan is dwelling place. Shekhinah, same root, is God's actual presence. Hebrew loves to do things called calling the accuser. They will use the verbal form, the nominal form. The other thing that Hebrew does, though, and this is to your question, John, the other thing that Hebrew does is it has a series of what are called, in Hebrew, they're called binyanim. They're forms. You can take a root and you can do different things with it. It'll mean slightly different things. There's a form called bo. Bo means to come. But then you put it into a form called the hefil, havi, and it means to bring, literally to cause to come. It's a causative. It'll do that with all kinds of words. So kaffar, to cover, is in this form. We call it the call. It's kind of the base form. It means to cover there. But kiper is in a form called the pl, and it's there suddenly then it means reconciliation. It means atonement. It's the same root, but it's in a different form, and that form gives it a different nuance. Usually that form has an intensive nuance or a derivative is doing over and over again, but it seemed to biblical scholars entirely clear how you get from cover to reconcile. Is God covering our sins? Is it always covered? Is it happening with that? Maybe, but the fact is that kiper itself as this form just means reconcile or expiate or bring together or atone if you like.

Speaker 1:
[68:23] I wanna keep going, Avram. What specific things do we want to look at in Leviticus?

Speaker 2:
[68:29] One through seven describes a complex sacrificial system. I wanna highlight this for us because it's really easy for us to say, oh, male lamb without blemish, Jesus, the sacrifices all point to Jesus.

Speaker 1:
[68:45] Why did they take seven chapters just to say that? So apparently there's more.

Speaker 2:
[68:50] Partially because they sacrifice, how does a female goat represent Jesus? Or a pigeon? Or for that matter, a handful of flour? All of those are sacrifices under the sacrificial system.

Speaker 1:
[69:05] Coming up in part two.

Speaker 2:
[69:07] The going rate for a male cow for food is about $2,000. The whole burnt-off means a pig taking a stack of $50 bills, setting them on fire and saying, that's yours, God. I don't want it. This is for you.

Speaker 1:
[69:24] You imagine taking cash to the bishop and he's like, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[69:29] And then putting setting on fire.