Ezra Taft Benson at Moscow Baptist Church

June 29, 2009 in Religion by Greg | No comments

Earlier this month, the LDS Newsroom published a reprint of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson’s visit to Moscow’s Central Baptist Church in the midst of the cold war. According to an office memo from Grant Salisbury and Warren K. Leffler, the writer-reporter team who reported on this event:

Ezra Taft Benson in Russia in the 1970sTHE NIGHT we left Moscow to fly down to Kiev, Secretary Benson literally took us to church.

Many of the reporters laughed about it on the way, because Mr. Benson, who is a leading Mormon, had arranged for us earlier to attend a service at the Latter-Day Saints Church in West Berlin, but all the newsmen found one excuse or another for not going. In Moscow, we had no choice because the cars picked us up at the hotel and stopped at the church on the way to the airport. It was around 7:30 o’clock on the chill, rainy evening of October 1.

As the cavalcade of cars arrived at the Central Baptist Church, on a narrow side street not far from Red Square, somebody wisecracked, “Well, boys, you’re going to get to church whether you like it or not.”

It turned out to be one of the most moving experiences in the lifetime of many of us. One newsman, a former marine, ranked it with the sight of the American flag rising over the old American compound in Tientsin, China, at the end of World War II.

The small church was packed, with people standing wherever they could find room.

Secretary Benson and his family were ushered to the rostrum. After a hymn, sung beautifully by the congregation, Mr. Benson began to talk, drawing on his experiences as one of the leaders of the Mormon Church in America. Watching the Russian congregation, you could see tears welling up in the eyes of people as the Secretary’s words were relayed to them through a translator.

“It was very kind of your minister to ask me to extend greetings to you,” Mr. Benson began. “I bring you greetings from the millions and millions of church people in America and around the world.”

A soft, fervent “amen” came from the congregation. The Secretary continued, “Our Heavenly Father is not far away. He can be very close to us. I know that God lives. He is our Father. Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World, watches over this earth. He will direct all things. Be unafraid, keep His commandments, love one another, pray for peace and all will be well.”

By now there was scarcely a dry eye in the church. Even the few young people were weeping openly.

“This life is only a part of eternity,” Mr. Benson went on. “We lived before we came here as spiritual children of God. We will live again after we leave this life. Christ broke the bonds of death and was resurrected. We will all be resurrected.”

At the mention of the promise of life hereafter, muffled sobs could be heard in the small church. These people, after all, were sacrificing their chances of participating in the gains of the Communist society of Russia. Though worshipping God no longer is forbidden in the Soviet Union, those who do so usually find themselves cut off from advancement.

Ezra_Taft_Benson_at_Moscow-Central-Baptist_Church Communism in Russia remains avowedly atheistic. In Moscow there is one other Baptist church; there are 23 Greek Orthodox churches, two synagogues and one Moslem temple. In a city of 5.4 million people, it’s a comparatively tiny crack in the godless society. The dedicated Communists, when talking to visitors about religion, usually claim that those Russians who do go to the few churches in the city do so out of curiosity – much as they would visit a museum – and not because of their devotion.

“I leave you my witness as a church servant for many years that the truth will endure,” Mr. Benson concluded. “Time is always on our side. God bless you and keep you all the days of your life. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.”

As the Secretary returned to his seat, the congregation broke into the familiar hymn, “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” They were still singing and waving their handkerchiefs as we followed Mr. Benson out of the church. All the way along the crowded aisle, hands were outstretched to shake our hands.

On the drive to the airport one of the interpreters – a young Russian girl who has never known any life save that under Communism – said, “I felt like crying.”1

As backdrop to this event, some 21 to 22 years previous, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics sought to eradicate the influence of religion in the country.

During these years [1937-1938] the authorities sought the “complete liquidation” (to use their own expression) of the last remaining members of the clergy. The census of January 1937 revealed that approximately 70 percent of the population, despite the pressures placed on them, still replied in the affirmative when asked “Are you a believer?” Hence Soviet leaders embarked on a third and decisive offensive against the church. In April 1937 Malenkov sent a note to Stalin suggesting that legislation concerning religious organizations was outdated, and he proposed the abrogation of the decree of 8 April 1929. “This decree,” he noted, “gave a legal basis for the most active sections of the churches and cults to create a whole organized network of individuals hostile to the Soviet regime.” He concluded: “The time has come to finish once and for all with all clerical organizations and ecclesiastical hierarchies.” Thousands of priests and nearly all the bishops were sent to camps, and this time the vast majority were executed. Of the 20,000 churches and mosques that were still active in 1936, fewer than 1,000 were still open for services at the beginning of 1941. In early 1941 the number of officially registered clerics of all religions had fallen to 5,665 (more than half of whom came from the Baltic territories, Poland, Moldavia, and western Ukraine, all of which had been incorporated in 1939-1941), from over 24,000 in 1936.2

Sources:

  1. “U.S. News & World Report: A Church Service in Soviet Russia – October 26, 1959”. 5 June 2009. LDS Newsroom. 29 June 2009.↩
  2. Werth, Nicolas. “The Great Terror (1936-1938)”. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard, 1999. 200-201.↩

Cause of Economic Crisis

June 23, 2009 in Government by Greg | No comments

Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Causes of the Mortgage Meltdown is a research report written by a University of Texas at Dallas economics professor about the cause of the current economic crisis. If you’ve read Pharaoh’s Dream – A Modern Interpretation by J. Reuben Clark, Jr., then you’ll be especially interested in this excerpt from the executive summary of the report:

Train_wreck Why did the mortgage market melt down so badly? Why were there so many defaults when the economy was not particularly weak? Why were the securities based upon these mortgages not considered anywhere as risky as they actually turned out to be? This report concludes that, in an attempt to increase home ownership, particularly by minorities and the less affluent, virtually every branch of the government undertook an attack on underwriting standards starting in the early 1990s. Regulators, academic specialists, GSEs, and housing activists universally praised the decline in mortgage-underwriting standards as an “innovation” in mortgage lending. This weakening of underwriting standards succeeded in increasing home ownership and also the price of housing, helping to lead to a housing price bubble. The price bubble, along with relaxed lending standards, allowed speculators to purchase homes without putting their own money at risk.1

As Robert Higgs noted in Participatory Fascism:

In all cases a coalition of big business and the government has emerged, as “fascism’s abrogation of the market in favor of political control over the economy inherently favors big business at the expense of the small entrepreneur.” Characteristically there has been an “extensive interchange of positions between ranking civil servants and high corporate executives”.

If you have time, you might enjoy this video that explores the cause of the crisis from the PBS show McCuistion.

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Sources:

  1. Leibowitz, Stan J. “Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Causes of the Mortgage Meltdown”. 3 October 2008. The Independent Institute. 21 June 2009.↩

Careerism and BYU

June 21, 2009 in Education by Greg | 1 comment

The following quote by Dr. Hugh W. Nibley about careerism at Brigham Young University hit close to home when I first read it. In the intervening years, I have come to appreciate the fact that education goes far beyond having a career and can be obtained in many different ways.

BYU_Logo Dr. James R. Kearl, the Dean of Honors and General Education, and Professor of Economics and Law at the BYU, reports the situation in BYU Today: “It’s pretty clear that we have a student body who come here only for job training. They’re bright, they’re capable, but they’re not interested in liberal arts. I visit high schools in an effort to help recruit good students . . . : `Tell me about your dreams and aspirations and hopes.’ It’s always `money and a job.’ None of them dream of becoming educated people. That just never comes up; . . . institutionally, it appears, we are committed to a different model than our new students seem to be.” Just yesterday [May 18, 1987], it was announced on KUTV that Utah has more teenagers working outside of school than any other state. Earlier it was reported that Utah pays less for a child’s education than any other state in the Union. That is great for employers who pay the lowest wages and taxes possible; but, as the report noted, it tends to produce young people who are poorly educated and materialistic–qualities that I have found over many years of teaching large Sunday School classes to be conspicuous among their elders.

Last semester, to find out whether an honors class of remarkably devout students (their unusual final examination papers showed that) made any connection between the gospel and their careers, I asked them, as a midterm assignment, to assume that they had been guaranteed a thousand uninterrupted years of life here on earth, with all their wants and needs adequately funded: How would you plan to spend the rest of your lives here? I explained that this is not a hypothetical proposition, since this is the very situation the gospel puts us in. Whether we want to or not, we are doomed to live forever–even the wicked–for “they cannot die” (Alma 12:18). In accepting the gospel, we are already launched into our eternal program. We can take covenants and receive ordinances for those who are on the other side because they are the identical covenants and ordinances we make on this side. When Elijah announced the establishment of the work among us with the ringing words “The time has fully come!” (D&C 10:14), we no longer ask when, but only what. We are taught to think of ourselves here and now as living in eternity, and how can it be otherwise, since the contracts we make and the rules we live by are expressly “for time and eternity”? So I asked them, How are you going to get started on that thousand-year introduction to a timeless existence? After reading Professor Kearl’s report, I should have known what to expect. Here are some typical answers:

Overwhelmed by the proposition . . . [I] would have to refuse it ["Deny not the gifts of God!" (Moroni 10:8). And the greatest of these gifts is the gift of eternal life (D&C 14:7).]

First I would go crazy, . . . then I would be bored after 100 years. I would be like John and the three Nephites.

I would not want to live here that long. I would make long-term investments in the money markets, . . . would complete my education in business, get an MBA, would find a part-time job and teach my children the value of work. [All this is precluded, of course, by the premise, yet these students have been so brainwashed that they fail completely to see the point.]

It would be a dubious honor to prolong this probationary existence. [And when are we ever to be off probation, if even the angels (fell) "who kept not their first estate" (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6; Abraham 3:26).]

It’s not a nice question, the pressure would be too great from people who would like money from me. How should I pay tithing on it? How would I use all that money? [For this person the whole question is an economic one.]

I would spend my time in recreation with some serious moments. For a sense of success I might build or write something.

I don’t know if I would want a thousand years. . . .Travel, study, and teach. [You have signed up for the duration and now you want out?]

Could be a blessing or a cursing; I would excel in athletics and general education, would procrastinate a good deal, live in the style of the well-to-do, . . .shopping, camping, dancing.

First I would pay tithing! I would stay out of debt. How to use the funding money is the problem.

I could do nearly everything there was to do several times over. Perform service and drive a Porsche 911.

I can’t imagine changing things much; I am content with the path I am following.

I would turn it down. This life is okay, but I am anxious to get on with my progression in the hereafter. [Doing what? This is your progression into the hereafter!]1

Sources:

  1. Nibley, Hugh W. “But What Kind of Work?”. Approaching Zion. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989. 256-259.↩

Pravda on American Capitalism

June 11, 2009 in Government by Greg | 6 comments

Thanks to Beetlebabeee at Beetle Blogger, I came across the article below in Pravda on the downfall of American capitalism.1. Here is a Russian’s perspective on America’s slide toward Marxism:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Dollar Sign Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

Read the rest of this entry »

  1. Beetlebabee. “Yes We Can Be – A Communist Nation”. 4 June 2009. Beetle Blogger. 11 June 2009.↩

Case Against the Fed

June 8, 2009 in Government by Greg | 6 comments

The “Case against the Fed” by Murray N. Rothbard was posted on the Mises Daily last week. This is a must read for anyone who is concerned about inflation, savings, gold and silver coin as tender in payment, monetary and economic freedom, and fiat money (see Fiat Empire Videos).

Murray RothbardAs Congressman Ron Paul wrote in HR 1207 – Audit the Fed, “Fundamentally, you cannot defend the Federal Reserve and the free market at the same time.” Continuing that theme, Dr. Rothbard wrote in 1994:

By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is informed of their covert activities. It is true that the committee hearings and activities are closed to the public; but at least the people’s representatives in Congress insure some accountability for these secret agencies.

It is little known, however, that there is a federal agency that tops the others in secrecy by a country mile. The Federal Reserve System is accountable to no one; it has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations. The Federal Reserve, virtually in total control of the nation’s vital monetary system, is accountable to nobody — and this strange situation, if acknowledged at all, is invariably trumpeted as a virtue.

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General Motors Bankruptcy

June 3, 2009 in Business by Greg | 6 comments

General Motors Corp. filed for bankruptcy and became the second-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. According to the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama defended his decision to take a majority stake in GM, saying it was unavoidable and temporary. “We are acting as reluctant shareholders,” he said in a televised address.1

2006 GM TEN Event - Stacy Keibler The story went on to state:

Some Republican lawmakers called the move another sign of the administration’s deepening incursion into the private sector. And the risk remains high that the administration or Congress could meddle in the company’s day-to-day affairs, an experience familiar to banks that took government bailout cash last fall.

Since it was reported that General Motors approached the government about a possible bailout2, this scenario reminded me of the following quote about how business leaders often seek government to intervene for the so-called “public good”:

Businessmen have done more than their full share to foster the active regulatory state from its very inception. Consider William Simon’s recent description of the relation of business and government as he witnessed it during his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury in the 1970’s:

“I watched with incredulity as businessmen ran to the government in every crisis, whining for handouts or protection from the very competition that has made this system so productive. I saw Texas ranchers, hit by drought, demanding government-guaranteed loans; giant milk cooperatives lobbying for higher price supports; major airlines fighting deregulation to preserve their monopoly status; giant companies like Lockheed seeking federal assistance to rescue them from sheer inefficiency; bankers, like David Rockefeller, demanding government bailouts to protect them from their ill-conceived investments; network executives, like William Paley of CBS, fighting to preserve regulatory restrictions and to block the emergence of competitive cable and pay TV. And always, such gentlemen proclaimed their devotion to free enterprise and their opposition to the arbitrary intervention into our economic life by the state. Except, of course, for their own case, which was always unique and which was justified by their immense concern for the public interest.”

One wonders whether anyone – with the possible exception of a few right-wing ideologues – any longer supports the free-market system as an inviolable desideratum; whether anyone is willing to bear its costs in order to preserve its benefits. Talk is cheap, and accordingly business people often talk as if they favor capitalism. But the blatant hypocrisy of their rhetoric suggest that it is either a political device, deliberately employed as part of a “public relations” strategy, or a mindless reflex inherited from the past and readily abandoned when it seems incompatible with short-run gain.3

What’s your view point?

Should the U.S. government continue to intervene in free-enterprise?

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Sources:

  1. King, Neil, Jr. and Sharon Terlep. “GM Collapses Into Government’s Arms”. 2 June 2009. The Wall Street Journal 3 June 2009.↩
  2. Rasmussen, Scott. “Americans Have Voted ‘No’ on GM Bailout From Day One.” 1 June 2009. Rasmussen Reports. 3 June 2009.↩
  3. Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. 243.↩

Truman Madsen Tribute

May 29, 2009 in Religion by Greg | 4 comments

Last night while watching the news, I learned that Truman G. Madsen recently passed away due to cancer. The following is a short tribute to his lasting memory. Dr. Madsen’s biography states:

Truman_G_Madsen Truman G. Madsen is a philosopher, essayist, teacher and biographer. He is emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University, and was Director of the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies in Jerusalem. He held the Richard L. Evans Chair in Religious Studies at B.Y.U. He has been guest professor at Northeastern University, Haifa, and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He sponsored several symposia on comparative religion published as Reflections on Mormonism, The Temple in Antiquity, and Chosenness and Covenant in Judaism and Mormonism. Among his volumes on Mormon thought are: Eternal Man, Christ and the Inner Life, Four Essays on Love, The Highest in Us, The Radiant Life. Five Classics, Joseph Smith, the Prophet, Defender of the Faith, a biography of B. H. Roberts and On Human Nature. He is one of the editors and a contributor to the five-volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Mormonism. He is married to Ann Nicholls Madsen. The couple has three children and a Navajo foster son.1

Dr. Madsen has had a profound influence for good in my life, through his writings as well as through those whom he directly influenced. As I perused his web site, I came across one of his talks called “Foundations of Temple Worship”, an excerpt of which appears below:

I’d like to talk today out of fifty years experience in participating in temple worship, but also in interviewing literally thousands of people for temple recommends, and in conversation about their experiences. I’d like to talk in a way that I hope will sink more deeply into you than ever, to motivate you to focus your lives on temple worship, and on the power of Jesus Christ, which is there. So I’m going to give you an acronym, a few ABCs, and use each of those letters as a lead-in, a memory peg, for my remarks and testimony.

Read the rest of this entry »

  1. “Truman G. Madsen Biography.” Truman Madsen web site. 29 May 2009.↩

History of Socialized Medicine in America

May 23, 2009 in Government by Greg | 7 comments

The history of socialized medicine in America is an interesting read1 given President Barack Obama’s recent interview with C-Span on health care reform (see video below).

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Writing in the Medical Sentinel in 2002, Dr. Edward R. Annis, former president of the American Medical Association, traced the history of socialized medicine in the United States:

We are at war — an unconventional war. I am not referring to our nation’s war against the terrorists — no. I am referring to war as described by Webster as being in a state of forceful opposition. It has been carried on for a number of years, slowly, craftily and by surreptitious incrementalism with such success that most doctors fail to realize its true origins or the sources of its present strength.

In the 1920s, England had a group of primarily wealthy heirs, writers and self-styled intellectuals who founded the Fabian Society, its aim to transform Britain into a socialist society.

They were the authors of permeation which purpose was to infiltrate major political parties so that socialistic programs could be implemented no matter which party was in power.

Shortly thereafter the Fabians assisted the formation of a sister society in the United States called the Intercollegiate Socialistic Society. Because it failed to take hold, it wasn’t long before they changed the name to The League for Industrial Democracy.

The League continued its efforts through the twenties and thirties without obtaining any substantial support for widespread socialism. Around 1932 they tried to get President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to incorporate medical care along with social security for the elderly, but FDR then said no because “it would lead to socialized medicine,” which he opposed. I remember: I was in my pre-med at the University of Detroit and on the debate team.

It was in the late thirties that they revised their efforts toward incrementalism whereby they would first seek to socialize medicine for the elderly and then pursue their overall objective, one by one.

Read the rest of this entry »

  1. Annis, Edward R., M.D. “Towards Socialized Medicine: A Historic Chronology”. 23 May 2009.↩

HR 1207 – Audit the Fed

May 20, 2009 in Government by Greg | 6 comments

Yesterday Congressman Ron Paul blogged about HR 1207 “which calls for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve.”1 He wrote:

Financial_Transparency This bill now has nearly 170 cosponsors, with support from both Republicans and Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a companion bill in the Senate S 604, which will hopefully begin to gain momentum as well. I am very encouraged to see so many of my colleagues in Congress stand with me for greater transparency in government.

Some have begun to push back against this bill, and I am very happy to address their concerns.

The main argument seems to be that Congressional oversight over the Fed is government interference in the free market. This argument shows a misunderstanding of what a free market really is. Fundamentally, you cannot defend the Federal Reserve and the free market at the same time. The Fed negates the very foundation of a free market by artificially manipulating the price and supply of money – the lifeblood of the economy. In a free market, interest rates, like the price of any other consumer good, are decentralized and set by the market. The only legitimate, Constitutional role of government in monetary policy is to protect the integrity of the monetary unit and defend against counterfeiters.

Instead, Congress has abdicated this responsibility to a cabal of elite, quasi-governmental banks who, instead of stabilizing the economy, have destabilized it. It took less than two decades for the Federal Reserve to bring on the Great Depression of the 1930’s. It has also inflated away the value of our currency by over 96 percent since its inception. It has invisibly stolen from the poor and given to the rich through this controlled inflation, and now openly stolen through recent bank bailouts. It has predictably exacerbated the very problems it was meant to solve.

HR 1207: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 would be a huge step towards providing much needed transparency to our financial system. The United States’ monetary and economic freedom may be at stake. For an overview of the history of the Federal Reserve System, watch the Fiat Empire Videos. These videos may surprise you.

Below is the Young Americans for Liberty video on HR 1207.

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Sources:

  1. Paul, Ron. “Audit the Fed, Then End It!” 18 May 2009. United States House of Representatives, 111th Congress, 1st Session. 19 May 2009.↩

Belemnites and Thunderbolts

May 17, 2009 in Religion by Greg | 2 comments

In Abraham in Egypt, Dr. Hugh W. Nibley wrote about ancient belemnites and thunderbolts. According to an online magazine:

Isle_of_Skye_Belemnite Belemnites are probably the most well known extinct cephalopod after the ammonites. They are quite common fossils and have a worldwide distribution. They are a very characteristic and easily recognisable fossil usually resembling a bullet in shape, although this only represents the extreme ‘tail’ of the animal.

The name ‘Belemnite’ is derived from the Greek word belemnon which means javelin or dart due to the obvious resemblance in the shape of the fossil. It was a common folklore tale that belemnites were formed from the point of strike of lightning bolts into the ground; hence they are frequently referred to as ‘thunderbolts’.1

A few months ago I blogged about the name-title Boanerges which Mark records as meaning “sons of thunder.” This may have some connection with belemnites and thunderbolts. For example, these thunderstones seem to have quite a history. A quote from that post states:

Besides the conventional flint axes and celts, which commonly pass as thunder-missiles all over the world, the Danes regard the fossil sea-urchin as a thunderstone, and give it a peculiar name. Such stones are named in Salling, sebedaei-stones or s’bedaei; in North Salling they are called sepadeje-stones. In Norbaek, in the district of Viborg, the peasantry called them Zebedee stones! At Jebjerg, in the parish of Cerum, district of Randers, they called them sebedei-stones . . . The name that is given to these thunderstones is, therefore, very well established, and it seems certain that it is derived from the reference to the Sons of Zebedee in the Gospel as sons of thunder.

Dr. Nibley traced these concepts back to a prehistoric Egyptian milieu:

The story opens with Re in heaven commissioning his daughter, regularly designated as his “Eye,” to go down and finish up the liquidation of the human race in the flood. As in the book of Enoch, we hear a good deal of comings and goings between heaven and earth in preparation for the flood; we see Shu, the inspired contact man between the two worlds, depart from earth in disgust. So does Re himself, who up until then had consorted with men on earth; now he withdraws his presence from them and calls a council in heaven to decide what is to be done with the unruly human race. He tells the assembly that he is about to send a flood and that all things, are to return to the primal ḥuḥu of the great waters of Nun, even as it was before the creation, in the beginning. Ḥuḥu is the primordial chaos, the tōhû-wā-bōhû of Genesis 1:2. So even as in Abraham 1:24, the Egyptian story of earthly dominion begins with the flood. And there can be little doubt that it was the flood, and not the seasonal inundation, that even so was regarded as but a repetition of the original.

As the curtain rises we see all nature in upheaval as the skies darken and the waters descend. The turmoil of nature is ritually represented as the work of Seth, who throws all things into confusion. The personification of violent atmospheric disturbances and world disorder, his thunderbolt emblem, the belemnite, which is found at prehistoric shrines throughout the land and in many other parts of the world, attests the reality of those early catastrophes. But human depravity contributes its full share to the vast calamity, for mankind had turned against is loving creator (Moses 5:28-34). It sounds very much like the Enoch literature, and Shu, in order to accomplish his mission between heaven and earth, must move through the same cosmic storms as those faced by Enoch and the other holy messengers.2

Perhaps there is more to these concepts than is apparent. Future posts will explore their significance in relationship to water and fire (these belemnite thunderbolts were formed in the ocean) and as an emblem of Min, who is prominently displayed in the Book of Abraham, Facsimile 2, Figure 7.

Sources:

  1. Eyden, Phil. “Belemnites: A Quick Look”. The Octopus News Magazine Online. 17 May 2009.↩
  2. Nibley, Hugh W. “A Pioneer Mother”. Abraham in Egypt. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000. 468-469.↩

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