Comments on: Book of Mormon Lessons 12 and 13

By: Ben McGuire

Ben McGuire — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:09:39 +0000

By the way, it has occured to me in times past that one resolution to the dating issue is to make Jacob 6 and Jacob 7 have different authors (albeit of the same name). If Jacob the son of Jacob concludes the Book of Jacob, then the dating for Enos as the son of Jacob Jr. isn’t quite so bad, and it deals with the end of Chapter 6 (which reads like the closing of a book) and the beginning of Chapter 7, which otherwise would have to be a postscript.

By: JennyW

JennyW — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:50:08 +0000

As an afterthought, here’s the quote from Elder Kikuchi commenting on D&C 97:9 that I’ve been mulling over, just in case anyone’s interested:

“As we partake of the tree of life in the house of the Lord—as we come to ourselves in his holy bosom—as we serve—then we can drink from the fountains of the living waters or the tree of life, just as we partake of the sacrament (the love, the blood)—then we can bring forth precious fruits.”

By: JennyW

JennyW — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:45:34 +0000

Thanks Cherylem—I’ve been thinking about “trees” since last night when Elder Kikuchi spoke at the adult session of our stake conference. He spent a lot of time working through D&C 97, and focused on v. 9 which reads “For I, the Lord, will cause them to bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit.” He interpreted this scripture as talking about temple worship, and described the temple as fertile soil in which we may plant ourselves both so that we may partake of the tree of life and so that we may ourselves bring forth precious fruit.

The talk was really interesting, and it was helpful to read over my notes in light of your notes on trees above. I especially liked the comparison between olive oil and the Holy Ghost—in light of Elder Kikuchi’s talk, it made me think about the Holy Ghost as the gift that comes from/through the precious fruits of the tree of life. I need to play around with the image a bit, because I haven’t thought it through clearly yet, but your comments are helping me to think about the Holy Ghost from a new perspective, which I appreciate.