April 3 - Tying the Law of Moses to the LDS Sacrament Table

1. *There were three kinds of sacrifice under the Law of Moses, and an order by which they were carried out. These are outlined as follows with regard to sin. When one committed a sin, they would follow the steps outlined below. But first, it is important to understand that food and the eating of it represents a feeling of being satisfied. The consuming of sacrifices whether by eating or burning representing the satisfying of the demands of justice.
1. The Chatat חטאת. An animal was killed upon the altar and divided two ways. The first half was for the priest and his family and represented becoming reconciled with the church, and with the Savior (represented by the priest). The second half was consumed on the altar, and went up in smoke, symbolically going up to God. Scriptures often refer to the sweet savor, or smell, etc, that a burnt offering was to God. 
2. The Olah עֹלָה. (The one God asked Abraham to perform with Isaac) The animal is slaughtered, divided, washed, annointed, and burned completely. This sacrifice belonged entirely to God. The entire aspect of this sacrifice represents the total consecration necessary to satisfy God, and fully repent.
3. The Shalom. An animal is slaughtered and divided 3 ways; The first was eaten by the offender; the 2nd by the priest, and the 3rd was consumed by God. This three way participation represents oneness and unity that follows true repentance among the offender, the priest (the church/Christ), and God.
2. *Genesis 22:16 - Grammatical mistranslations: Extra emphasis on the me/I pronoun. Should be translated more like "I am swearing to myself...". Then there were many words and Direct Object Markers that created repetition and emphasis. The message in Hebrew that was lost in English was "This Covenant is a DONE DEAL, absolutely, completely, wholly."
3. *Once again, the covenant with Abraham involved the following: 1) A city (the worldwide Zion that is yet to be built) 2) Become a God and have endless posterity, and so will his children 3) Priesthood/ordinances/covenant marriage ordinance of exaltation.

April 1 - Intelligence, Visions, and Intergalactic time travel

1. Genesis 22:12 - The Lord says "Now I know that...", wait a minute! Doesn't God already know all things? Yes, but He speaks to us according to our understanding, and according to our time reckoning. God can SEE the timeline, he does not MAKE the timeline. The Hebrew name, יְהוָה (Jehovah) has the imperfect verb form meaning it has never had a beginning or and end. Like as in "I AM", rather than "I WAS". Yes, God always knew Abraham would make the choices he did, but NOW he is seeing it. A slightly missed translation here points out that Abraham did not only prove that he learned to fear God, but God recognized that Abraham actually IS the Fear of God. 
2. Big discussion on Fear, and what that means in English vs. what that means in Hebrew. In short, they really are very much the same. There really is a bit of the English "FEAR" in the real Hebrew word, meaning, if you are afraid of a certain consequence, then you don't do that thing. Elder Christofferson has a talk on Fear "A sense of the Sacred" (Part 5 entitled "Godly fear". When you fear God, you depart from evil. We don't' naturally want bad consequences in our lives.
3. There are many scriptural synonyms terms for light: Glory, Intelligence, Power, Light, Truth, Power, Life, The Light of Christ.Gods learn to control this perfectly and completely, and have FULL CONTROL over it. (As a side note, I recently read a talk by Cleon Skousen who taught that these particles of intelligence respect God, and God respects them). The Lord is ALL POWERFUL within parameters/natural laws. D&C 88 - Light is in everything, priesthood, ordinances, etc.
4. We have had a lot of light infused into this world, especially since the 1700's. This light will continue to grow until we make this world the Terrestrial Kingdom, and Christ's light will be added through the Millennium until this world becomes the Celestial Kingdom. The purpose of this dispensation is to PREPARE FOR THE MILLENNIUM!! 
5. The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, at 2.5 Million Light years away. This means, as we look and behold the galaxy with our naked eyes, we are literally beholding it as it was 2.5 M years ago, in the present. Energy/Light/Intelligence/Power/Truth/Etc left that sphere all that time ago, and we are now seeing what was recorded on those energy particles with our mortal eyes in the present. This is how God can use light to show things past, present, and future. If he wants to give someone a vision of the Savior's atonement, he controls the light/energy/etc, etc which directly witnessed that event and calls it to the attention of the person beholding the vision. 
6. Abraham was faithful to all the tests presented to him. If WE want to be as Abraham, and be promised all that was promised to him, then WE must be tried as Abraham!
7. The Holy Ghost Administers the Light of Christ
8. Marion Romney spoke of light coming to us in three phases. The first is the light that comes to us at birth; the second is the Gift of the Holy Ghost; the last phase is The more sure word of prophecy, and is directly administered by Christ. (The Light of Christ - Marion G Romney, April 1977)

March 30 - The Many Names of God

1. The English words for Deity, God, Gods, gods, Jehova, Lord, LORD, etc, come from three basic Hebrew words (Elohim, Jehova, Adonai). The English word choice depends upon the context of the sentence. In many cases it simply is not known which specific God is being dealt with. 
2. Deuteronomy 10:9 is a good example of the frequent repetition of various names for Deity. What is the point of this repetition? Anytime a word is repeated is for emphasis (Verily, Verily / Wo,wo / Lord of Lords, etc). The point of the repetition in this verse is simply to say "The True God"... Which true God? It doesn't matter, because as we learned from the word Ma'lak, anyone who is a messenger of God will deliver the same message.
3. Genesis 22:12 - There are two words used before verbs that NEGATE the verb : אַל־ and לֹו. The first use means "Not right now", and the second means "Not EVER". The "Not Ever" form is the one used with regard to the Ten Commandments. In this verse, the messenger of the Lord told Abraham not to lift his hand (to slay) using the "Not right now" form, because a ram was about to become the sacrifice. 
4. Sometimes literary license is needed in translation, due to idiomic expressions, or cases where there are no similar words in English. This license can introduce doctrinal/theological bias. The ram is significant to Christians because it becomes a symbol of the Savior's sacrifice in saving Isaac. To the Jews, who don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah, this command to not slay Issac is interpreted as the divine direction not to perform human sacrifice. Bruce Satterfield's argument then is "Why did they use the 'don't kill right now' form of the negation word?", surely the Lord would use the "Not Ever" form if that were the case.
5. The sacrificed ram following the test of Abraham sealed the Abrahamic Covenant.

February 18, 2015 - Amen; Hebrew Verbs; Church/State

1. * Every language has at least one Hebrew word... "Amen" אַמּן. It is most often translated "Verily", and means "Of a truth". We do not use the word "Amen" in English the way the Savior used it, in fact, it is usually used as a meaningless word to us. He often used it in the middle of sentences, and even twice to place emphasis on particular doctrines, many of which uses had reference to covenants.
2. The Hebrew bible has 23,000 verses, and contains 72,000 verbs, averaging 3 verbs per verse. This means Hebrew loves the verb! This is convenient to English which also loves the verb, unlike Latin which favors the noun. Therefore Hebrew to English translations flow better. All nouns are derived from verbs, such as "Walk" to "Walker".
3. * The sense of the horrific nature of the Lord's commandment to Abraham to offer his son Isaac is lost in the English translation. The King James version renders the command "sacrifice", but due to some grammatical conditions in the original text a more accurate translation might be "Slaughter". The point is that it would have been a difficult command to heed. 
4. *When you explore the bible it is important to understand it in all of its contexts, such as:
1. Language, 
2. Culture (Religion and State)
1. * Our culture has a strong divide between church and state, and that divide grows day by day. This divide was not present in Hebrew culture, as church and state were one. Our divide was necessary to bring about the restoration of the gospel, but secularism continues to grow as the religion of the state
3. History
4. Geography
5. Climateology, etc
5. Hebrew verbs fall in one of two categories:
1. Actions
2. Can describe the state of being (to be).

_____________1st Person_________2nd Person____________3rd Person

• PAST           I was                      You were                         He/she was, They were
• PRESENT   I am                        You are                            He/she is, they are
• FUTURE     I will                       You will                          He/she will, they will

6. Verbs turn into nouns through the participle aspect