Come, Follow Me: Old Testament - Moses 1; Abraham 3
Week 1: December 27th – January 2nd
Week 1 of the ‘Come, Follow Me’ lessons starts in an unexpected place (but I guess it is pretty logical when you know a bit about Mormon theology). Instead of diving straight into Genesis, they start off discussing some background on the pre-existence, our purpose on Earth, and how we can. Instead of using the Bible this week we focus on some verses from Moses and Abraham (both in the Pearl of Great Price) to get an understanding of their beliefs on divine destiny, foreordination, and how we can resist the influence of Satan.
The book of Moses is a revision of the first 6 chapters of Genesis, this text was revealed to Joseph Smith through “divine revelation” in June of 1830. It contains some additional verses, as well as some revisions of the original text of Genesis.
For some in-depth information on the Old Testament and the Book of Moses, I would recommend this video with John Dehlin and with Bible scholar David Bokovoy.
Scripture study
Moses 1: As a child of God, I have a divine destiny.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught, “Much of the confusion we experience in this life comes from simply not understanding who we are” (“The Reflection in the Water” [Church Educational System fireside for young adults, Nov. 1, 2009], ChurchofJesusChrist.org). Heavenly Father knows this, and so does Satan. God’s first message to Moses included the truths “thou art my son” and “thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten” (Moses 1:4, 6). In contrast, Satan addressed Moses as just a “son of man” (Moses 1:12). How would your life and decisions be different if you thought of yourself like Satan wants you to, as a “son [or daughter] of man”? How does knowing and remembering that you are a child of God bless your life?
It is a common theme from the LDS church that people are confused or lost without some sort of divine destiny. Spencer W. Kimball once went as far as to say “immortality and eternal life constitute the sole purpose of life…if there were no God, life would indeed be meaningless” (Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness; pg 2-3). I find this narrative particularly tragic because it manages to keep people from questioning their beliefs out of fear of what it could mean, I know from personal experience how hard it is to lose that comforting feeling that death is not the end.
The good news is that we can find purpose in life outside of religion. The lesson states that Satan knows that we can experience “confusion” from know knowing who we are, and it implies that we can then become subject to temptation by the adversary who will do all he can to be sure that we can don’t fulfil our destiny. Again this can cause undue fear or paranoia about some sort of supernatural influence on our thoughts or actions that might be leading us away from “God” or our true purpose, but this is something that is just not demonstrable. We can find purpose in life by making a difference now, we can take steps to help ourselves and others achieve things in this life.
While I did struggle for some time over not being reunited with my family in heaven I would never be able to go back to this belief now. I now believe that I need to make the best of this life, and as a result I am making the most of the time that I have now - this gives me more meaning to life than the LDS church ever gave me.
Moses 1:27–39; Abraham 3: God’s work and glory is to help me gain eternal life.
After beholding a vision of God’s creations, Moses made a request of the Lord: “Tell me … why these things are so” (Moses 1:30). What impresses you about the Lord’s response in Moses 1:31–39?
Abraham also had a visionary experience, recorded in Abraham 3. What do you find in verses 22–26 that could help answer Moses’s request?
Consider listing other truths that Moses and Abraham learned in their visions: truths about God, about themselves, and about the purposes of God’s creations. How do these truths affect the way you view yourself and the world around you?
See also Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “You Matter to Him,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2011, 19–22; Gospel Topics, “Premortality,” topics.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The term “truth” seems to be used differently by LDS leaders, they seem to mean a belief they accept as true and not meaning a truth that is in accordance with fact or reality. This is an important distinction because their definition gives members an idea that they are living the “truth” when in actual fact it is just a belief that is not founded in fact.
This lesson assumes that the words written in the book of Moses are true, and that that the experience of Moses, and the revelation to Joseph Smith are unquestionably factual when in reality neither of things can be proven to any extent. This lesson encourages us to consider the “truths” that Moses and Abraham learned in their visions, and how these truths can affect how we view ourselves and the world around us but I would argue that before we can even get to this question we need some sort of evidence that these visions happened. To me truth is important and it is exceptionally important where the doctrine has the potential to cause harm to others. We should not be taking it for granted that these things are true, but rather we should be looking to see what evidence we have that they are true and what implications that this could have.
I would encourage anyone taking part in this lesson to consider what evidence they have that this incident happened, and why it is important.
The book of Abraham is surrounded by a lot of controversy about its origins and its translation. this video done by Brother Jake is a lot less serious than the one with David Bokovoy (you can continue watching the video above for a more scholarly insight on the book of Abraham), but I do think this video provides an apt summary.
To put it bluntly the book of Abraham and its translation is a sham.
Abraham 3:22–23: Were others besides Abraham “chosen before [they were] born”?
“In the premortal spirit world, God appointed certain spirits to fulfill specific missions during their mortal lives. This is called foreordination. … The doctrine of foreordination applies to all members of the Church, not just to the Savior and His prophets” (Gospel Topics, “Foreordination,” topics.ChurchofJesusChrist.org)”.
The Gospel Topics essay on foreordination is short and not very specific, a better account of the LDS belief on this topic can be found in Chapter 2 of the Gospel Principles book, this chapter is titled “Our Heavenly Family”.
Unlike the Gospel Topic essay which states that “foreordination does not guarantee that individuals will receive certain callings or responsibilities. Such opportunities come in this life as a result of the righteous exercise of agency”, the Gospel Principles chapter explains that “the prophets prepared themselves to become leaders on earth while they were still spirits in heaven (see Alma 13:1–3). Before they were born into mortal bodies, God foreordained (chose) them to be leaders on earth. Jesus, Adam, and Abraham were some of these leaders. (See Abraham 3:22–23.) Joseph Smith taught that “every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was [fore]ordained to that very purpose” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 511)”.
How did we get the books of Moses and Abraham?
The book of Moses is the first part of Joseph Smith’s inspired translation of the Bible. The book of Abraham was revealed to Joseph Smith during his work with Egyptian papyri. These books, found today in the Pearl of Great Price, provide much information about Moses, Abraham, and other prophets that is not found in the Old Testament. To learn more about how we got these books, see “Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible” (Church History Topics, ChurchofJesusChrist.org/study/history/topics) and “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham” (Gospel Topics, topics.ChurchofJesusChrist.org).
I highly recommend watching the above videos linked in this article because they will give you some more history on these books and will go some way to demonstrate that they are not exactly what the LDS church purports them to be.
Key Questions:
Why do we have to have a “divine purpose” to have a meaningful life?
Are there people outside of religion that seem to have meaningful lives and experiences?
Do you care that what you believe is true? If so then how do you then determine what is true?
Currently is there anything that would change your mind about what you believe?
Additional information - The Book of Abraham
Originally, Joseph claimed that this record was written by Abraham “by his own hand, upon papyrus” – a claim still prominent in the heading of the Book of Abraham. This claim could not be evaluated for decades as many thought the papyri were lost in a fire. The original papyrus Joseph translated has since been found and, as stated in the Church’s July 2014 Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham essay, “scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts...[that] date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.”
We know this is the papyrus that Joseph used for translation because the hieroglyphics match in chronological order to the hieroglyphics in Joseph’s Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which contains his Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL). Additionally, the papyrus were pasted onto paper which have drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area on the back and they were companied by an affidavit by Emma Smith verifying they had been in the possession of Joseph Smith.
Egyptologists have also since translated the source material for the Book of Abraham and have found it to be nothing more than a common pagan Egyptian funerary text for a deceased man named “Hor” around first century C.E. In other words, it was a common Breathing Permit that the Egyptians buried with their dead. It has nothing to do with Abraham or anything Joseph claimed in his translation for the Book of Abraham. The Church admits this in its essay:
None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the Book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments. Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.
If you want to see more information on this check out the CES letter here: https://read.cesletter.org/boa/#papyrus-found
