First Vision and Asherah

[firepatch36]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

25 posts will give it to you.

I joined way back when in 2005 and had I don't know how many posts but they all disappeared. I mostly lurk now even though I've been here for 15 years.

[Calm]

59 minutes ago, firepatch36 said:

I joined way back when in 2005 and had I don't know how many posts but they all disappeared. I mostly lurk now even though I've been here for 15 years.

Yep, they deleted a bunch of threads many years ago.  I thought they kept the count even if they lost the posts, but apparently not.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Kevin.  Your perspective is heterodox.  One need only review LDS authorized study guides.  If they say that Asherah was an apostate fertility goddess, and they do, then a true scholar would at least acknowledge such.  The question is not so much what is the state of the art of Cannanite scholarship, but what is revealed doctrine. 

I don't think Kevin is an Asherah worshiper, as you seem to allege.  He correctly sees that Asherah was once the object of worship of Israelites.  That is an objective fact, and the symbolism is important as an interpretive tool.  There is a lot of Canaanite symbolism in the Hebrew Bible, and a lot of it gets applied by Israelites to their God.  Over time much of that has been demythologized, but a great deal of it still remains in the text.  That may make you uncomfortable, but scholars constantly make note of it.  I provide a number of significant parallels online at https://www.scribd.com/document/358400446/Ugaritic-Precursors-to-Israelite-Cult#user-util-view-profile

12 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

 Barker's doctorate is honorary.  In most universities she could not be tenured.  I'm surprised that one would try and dress it up.  At BYU she would be an untenured instructor.  

The top cleric in the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has the authority to issue doctorates.  That is a carryover from the time when all universities were clerical and all students were ordained clergy.   Isaac Newton, for example, was an ordained deacon, and this applied to all his classmates.  That isn't playing "dress up."  The caps and gowns of all modern universities go back to the medieval times when all university students wore priestly/clerical garb.  I guess you didn't understand when Nibley declared, at a BYU graduation, "Today we stand here in the robes of a false priesthood."  Do you even understand what you are wearing in an authentic temple setting?

[mfbukowski]

40 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

"Today we stand here in the robes of a false priesthood."  Do you even understand what you are wearing in an authentic temple setting?

But no more tassel - side switching.  And no mortar in the board. 

 

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I don't think Kevin is an Asherah worshiper, as you seem to allege.  He correctly sees that Asherah was once the object of worship of Israelites.  That is an objective fact, and the symbolism is important as an interpretive tool.  There is a lot of Canaanite symbolism in the Hebrew Bible, and a lot of it gets applied by Israelites to their God.  Over time much of that has been demythologized, but a great deal of it still remains in the text.  That may make you uncomfortable, but scholars constantly make note of it.  I provide a number of significant parallels online at https://www.scribd.com/document/358400446/Ugaritic-Precursors-to-Israelite-Cult#user-util-view-profile

The top cleric in the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has the authority to issue doctorates.  That is a carryover from the time when all universities were clerical and all students were ordained clergy.   Isaac Newton, for example, was an ordained deacon, and this applied to all his classmates.  That isn't playing "dress up."  The caps and gowns of all modern universities go back to the medieval times when all university students wore priestly/clerical garb.  I guess you didn't understand when Nibley declared, at a BYU graduation, "Today we stand here in the robes of a false priesthood."  Do you even understand what you are wearing in an authentic temple setting?

I never said Kevin was an Asherah worshipper.  I do not dispute that archeology shows that the ordinary Canaanite worshipped both Asherah and Yahweh.  I am not uncomfortable with that fact.

I have been clear.   What next?  Molech is a transliteration of Michael?  I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting.

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[mfbukowski]

23 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

I never said Kevin was an Asherah worshipper.  I do not dispute that archeology shows that the ordinary Canaanite worshipped both Asherah and Yahweh.  I am not uncomfortable with that fact.

I have been clear.   What next?  Molech is a transliteration of Michael?  I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting.

 

Remain calm.

We are talking about stories and parables here and their origination.  Nothing to get worked up over.

[Meadowchik]

I think it's an important exercise to consider the well-problem with male-dominated records. That well, if the collecting and transmission is done by men can easily and understandably favor male perspectives and tend to diminish and silence female perspectives, including the divine feminine. So I appreciate the interest in ancient perspectives of the feminine divine. They could tell us things about ourselves which have been hidden by the ways of the world.

[Bob Crockett]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Remain calm.

We are talking about stories and parables here and their origination.  Nothing to get worked up over.

One way to minimize your opponent is to say that he's emotional.  That he can't control himself.

[Boanerges]

12 hours ago, firepatch36 said:

I was going by memory of what was said on one of the podcasts. He was going through what could have been present. 

It is possible, we don't really know what Joseph considered to be "early in the spring." It could have been a particularly chilly spring or perhaps he measured spring by some other way. It is not unusual for our furnace to regularly run in May, and it is usual for it to run throughout April. Frost in this part of the country can come through the end of May,  and light snow is not unusual in April (heavy snow is very possible and not uncommon in March). So, not going by "calendar spring" Joseph could have been referring to a much later time than the sometimes conjectured early April (specifically April 6) and it would then be possible that there were cherry blossoms. In truth the first day of spring here is usually much more winter like.

[pogi]

8 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting.

Or...perhaps the Canaanites stole the most holy Goddess from the early Adamites and corrupted her image, and now we are stealing her back...

Is she the wife of El?  The fact that early Israelites believed that God had a wife parallels our own beliefs - a “restoration” of former knowledge perhaps, which became corrupted to the point of erasing her from history completely?

Edited February 26, 2020 by pogi

[Kevin Christensen]

18 hours ago, pogi said:

Thanks for the references.   I agree that symbols can have more than one referent and meaning, but I fail to see where Ashera is ever worshiped or symbolized as a fountain.  You mention Jer 17 but the tree by the fountain in that verse is suggested to be a man who trusts in the Lord and whose roots are nourished by the fountain (the LORD - vs 13).   If the tree symbol of Ashera is frequently seen in imagery next to a fountain it is likely because Ashera (tree) was considered to be the cohort of Jehovah (fountain).  Those two symbols may have been frequently paired together in imagery for that reason.  This brings up another question with Peterson's essay for me.  Ashera was understood to be the cohort of Jehovah/Jesus, not his mother, so that link to Mary doesn't make sense to me.  Correct me if I am wrong, but Ashera was not perceived to be the literal mother of mankind was she?  Why would the word of God lead to Ashera, and why would she be associated with the love of God for mankind?  To understand the love of God, Nephi was shown the birth, life, ministry, and atonement of Jesus Christ - the fountain of living waters, why would he be shown all of that if Ashera was the intended symbol of the love of God and not Christ?   To me, the fact that the fruit is said to be grapes is yet another strong association with Christ - a.k.a the true vine.  It all points to Christ.  

Of course the grape is also associated with the symbol of his blood.

The question still remains, why did Nephi have to ask if he already understood the association of the tree of life with Ashera?  It seems highly unlikely that Nephi would have worshiped or associated himself with Ashera in that time period if worship of her was completely absent by the time of the Babylonian conquest. 

I admit that I haven't read all of your references yet, but so far I remain unconvinced.  Nephi's entire vision was of Christ (that shouldn't be downplayed), the symbol of the fountain is undeniably linked to Christ, the vine is Christ, the tree is associated with Christ (the cross), the grapes are associated with Christ.  The scriptures state that the very manifestation of the love of God is made manifest in Christ (1 John 4:9)  Every single last detail points to Christ.  The one sole association to Ashera is the coincidence that it was a tree.  But that tree (Ashera) was never understood to be the mother of man (as far as I understand) and neither was she understood to be the mother of God/Jehovah.  It just doesn't add up to me. 

 

In the Mother of the Lord, Barker discusses sources that associate Wisdom with the tree of life and the living waters.  And she discusses how Asherah was originally seen as the consort of El Elyon, the mother of the Lord, and why, in the shift to strict monotheism, when El Elyon and Yahweh were conflated during the Exile, various titles and roles originally belonging to El were applied to Yahweh.  She cites the DSS version of Isaiah and other Biblical passages:

Quote

The Isaiah scroll here differs from the Masoretic Hebrew by one letter, and reads: ‘Ask a sign from the Mother of the LORD your God, and, when Ahaz refuses, Isaiah says ‘Then the Lord himself will give you a sign... ‘Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel’ (Isa.7.14). This would make very good sense if Jerusalem had had a Great Lady who had been the heavenly Virgin Mother of the earthly king, a king who was himself the sign of God with his people, Immanuel. The promised child then appears: ‘Unto us a child is born’ (Isa.9.6), the song of the angels in the holy of holies as the new king is born as the divine son. The other account of this birth in Psalm 110 includes, in an otherwise unreadable patch of Hebrew, the name ‘The Morning Star’. Isaiah’s contemporary, the prophet Micah, also spoke of an unnamed woman who was about to give birth to the great Shepherd of Israel. The familiar words of this prophecy are: ‘You, Bethlehem Ephrathah... from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days’, and the word is ‘olam, eternity, the holy of holies. The lines about his mother are rarely noticed, but this is another text describing the mother and her royal son who is born in the holy of holies and will come forth (Micah 5.1-4). There is also the prophecy in Malachi 4.2, which foretells the return of Elijah before the Day of the LORD, and the gospels identified John the Baptist as Elijah heralding the coming of the LORD (Mark 9.11-13). The other part of Malachi’s prophecy is often overlooked, or mistranslated. When Elijah returns: ‘The Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in her wings’. The sign in heaven in Revelation 12 is the Queen of Heaven in the holy of holies with the ark. She is clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars, and she gives birth to the Messiah. Later she flies with the wings of a great eagle to escape from the serpent. This vision is set exactly in the centre of the Book of Revelation. Wisdom describes herself in the holy of holies in Proverbs 8.

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/WhereshallWisdombefound.pdf

  And she also talks about the Bread of the Presence in the First Temple as a symbol of Wisdom.  I noticed that there were 12 loaves and that in 3 Nephi the word bread occurs exactly 12 times.  All of this is to say that reading The Mother of the Lord, and Daniel Peterson's essay, and Val's and Alyson's, and Eugene Seaich's, is worth your time.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

One way to minimize your opponent is to say that he's emotional.  That he can't control himself.

Oh my! Pardon me!

" I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting."

Nothing emotional there, no siree! 

I'm glad it wasn't Princess Lea in the story. Who knows what might have happened then.

[Bob Crockett]

59 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh my! Pardon me!

" I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting."

Nothing emotional there, no siree! 

I'm glad it wasn't Princess Lea in the story. Who knows what might have happened then.

Look, the topic is not worth this kind of interchange.  I don't get worked up about anything, really.  

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

I don't get worked up about anything, really. 

Perhaps not, but hard to tell when you choose terms referring to strong emotions that are also value/morality judgments. (Despicable:  "deserving hatred and contempt" according to google)

Edited February 26, 2020 by Calm

[Ryan Dahle]

12 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I have been clear.   What next?  Molech is a transliteration of Michael?  I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting.

I think part of the challenge is that the line between heresy and true doctrine is often pretty thin. For instance, it could be argued, based on a narrow reading of the Old Testament, that Latter-day Saints are heretical polytheists. You could easily group us in with the Canaanites, as some Christian groups are prone to do. After all, we believe that Christ and the Holy Ghost are distinct divine beings, and we accept that, in a sense, others can become "gods." The Bible doesn't really provide the types of distinctions and clarifications needed to render Latter-day Saint beliefs as clearly non-heretical. Of course, it also doesn't provide enough detail to provide a clear condemnation of our beliefs either. There is gray area that must be informed by the light of further, clarifying revelation.

I think that Latter-day Saints who accept that the tree in Nephi's vision holds at least some symbolic elements of the Divine Feminine approach the issue similarly. Even though the worship of Asherah clearly has negative connotations in the Bible, it doesn't mean that there isn't something true and misunderstood at the core of that worship. Similarly, even though polytheism is clearly a hereitical belief, especially in Israel's later history, there is still something true at its core. The nuances matter when characterizing something as revolting and heretical.

There are also good linguistic reasons to believe that Nephi associated the Tree of Life with Mary, an unarguably holy feminine figure:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-didnt-nephi-mention-marys-name 

Another example of something that seems heretical in the Book of Mormon, but actually isn't when the nuances of the issues are looked at carefully, is the Book of Mormon's use of necromancy as a metaphor for its ability to speak to future generations out of the dust:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/how-are-the-words-of-the-book-of-mormon-like-one-that-hath-a-familiar-spirit 

It seems prudent, when dealing with such issues, to not portray others' views in the worst possible way. Maybe the problem isn't that some Latter-day Saints have "taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna" as you aver, but rather that some ancient Israelites took true concepts about a divine mother figure and transformed them into an aberrant cult. No one is saying that Nephi was a worshiper of Asherah. I think what is being argued is that Nephi was able to discern true principles about the Divine Feminine from his vision of the Tree of Life, and that (just as "folk magic" may have prepared Joseph Smith to understand his gift as a seer) Nephi's surrounding culture may have played a role in his ability to understand and interpret the new, clarifying truths that were being shown unto him.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Ryan Dahle

[Bob Crockett]

4 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Maybe the problem isn't that Latter-day Saint have "taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna" as you aver, but rather that some ancient Israelites took true concepts about a divine mother figure and transformed them into an aberrant cult. 

However, LDS study materials and institute manuals do not agree.  In particular, Barker makes an important point in her analysis that the Josian reform stamped out the true worship of the feminine divine, leading to a patriarchal rewrite of the OT in the form we have it today.  However, under LDS theology revelation has put a divine stamp on the Josian reform. 

Barker's thesis of patriarchy rewriting authentic Canaanite religion is not new.  It follows the evolution of thinking since the mid-seventies, where scholars have merely assumed (especially Dever) that because the Asher figurine is found along with Yahweh cultic materials, they were thus worshiped together.  This kind of thinking led to Dr. Peterson's Asherah paper.  Latter-day Saints fell prey to this thinking because they have a sort of unofficial view of the divine feminine which resonates today with the cultic Asherah, the groves and the tree.  But this kind of thinking requires the thinking Latter-day Saint to reject the counsel of the Brethren.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I never said Kevin was an Asherah worshipper.  I do not dispute that archeology shows that the ordinary Canaanite worshipped both Asherah and Yahweh.  I am not uncomfortable with that fact.

Bill Dever (who signed me up for my first excavation back in 1970) pointed out that the Israelites (not just the Canaanites, as you specify) worshiped Asherah as the consort of Yahewh.  We have the figurines and the inscriptions to show that, and we have the biblical texts condemning it.  You clearly want us to ignore all that.

10 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I have been clear.   What next?  Molech is a transliteration of Michael?  I mean, you have taken the most despicable and obscene goddess of the Canaanites and have made her a Madonna.   How revolting.

Michael is derived from Hebrew Mi-ka-'El "Who-is-like-God.'  In your snide, false comparison, however, you could not have picked a better example than Molech, which (just like Ahserah) has two distinct sides: 

On the one hand, Molech (Molek) means "King" in Hebrew, the King of the Underworld, who was believed by Israelites to be a member of YHWH’s divine assembly, despite denials by prophets like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, 32:35a).[1]  Molek worship and necromancy were very popular in preexilic Israel and Judah, and were "tied to ancestor worship” (Isaiah 18:19-20a), which included teraphim, which were “ancestor figurines used in divination,”[2] even though Teraphim were once highly regarded by both Jacob's wife Rachel (Gen 31) and by King David's wife Michal (I Sam 19:16-36).  Indeed, the Teraphim were somehow connected with the high priestly ephod (Hosea 3:4), and William W. Phelps even discussed them as positive items,[3] while King Josiah and the prophet Zechariah condemned them (Zech 10:2, 2 Kings 23:24).  Archeology verifies the tremendous extent of Israelite idolatry during Iron Age II,[4] and of a “sharp distinction between the official and popular cult.”[5]  In addition to these considerations, we should also the compare the Ammonite god, Milcom as Malkām “Their King” (Zephaniah 1:5, 2 Samuel 12:30, Jeremiah 49:1,3, Amos 1:15),[6] or “Their Melekh, Molekh.”[7]  The vowels of LXX Greek Molech may be a dysphemism based on Hebrew bošet “shame.”[8]

On the other hand, we have Book of Mormon Mulek (although the best Printer's MS spellings are Mulok or Muloch), the royal son of King Zedekiah of Judah, a name which the best non-Mormon scholars verify was in fact the name of one of Zedekiah's sons:  The late Professor Yohanan Aharoni believed that MalkiYahu "My-King-is-Yahu,"was a name “borne by a contemporary son of King Zedekiah,“ based on the name’s appearance several times in Arad inscriptions as well as in Jeremiah 38:6.[9]  Jeff Chadwick also calls attention to the discovery of a Judean stamp seal of “Malchiah son of the King,”[10] or, as John Bright translates it, “Prince Malkiah.”[11]  A short-form of the name, Mulk, Muloch (a hypocoristicon), in the primitive Hebrew qutl-form[12] is certainly possible, and in early 1984 the late Professor David Noel Freedman said to me about the Book of Mormon naming the son of Zedekiah Mulek: “If Joseph Smith came up with that one, he did pretty good!”  Freedman then suggested that Mulek might be Phoenician in vocalization.[13]  That may in turn tell us what sort of vessel and crew brought him to America.

---

[1] Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible), 1374, 1379-1380; Greek Moloch Acts 7:43.

[2] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1380-1381.

[3]  Evening & Morning Star, 1st ed., I/8 (Jan 1833):58b = 2nd ed., 116b.

[4] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1387-1391.

[5] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1386-1387.

[6] Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (Anchor Bible), 75; 76, saying that lemolek (1 Kings 11:7) = Milcom.

[7] Berlin, Zephaniah, 77.

[8] HALOT.

[9] Aharoni, BASOR 197:22.

[10] Chadwick, JBMS, 12:2 (2003):73-74, online at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/ .

[11] Chadwick citing John Bright, Jeremiah, Anchor Bible 21 (Doubleday, 1965), 226.

[12] P. Joüon and  T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 2^nd ed., with corr, §88Cj.   Dr. Muraoka taught me biblical Hebrew in the Summer of 1970 at the Hebrew Univ in Jerusalem..

[13] Robert F. Smith, FARMS Update Feb 1984 = Welch, Reexploring the Book of Mormon, 142-144; John Tvedtnes, “Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon,” 1994 FARMS Book of Mormon Lecture (Provo: FARMS, 1994), 12.

 

[mfbukowski]

38 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

Look, the topic is not worth this kind of interchange.  I don't get worked up about anything, really.  

Except apparently this issue.

You are the one who is making a big deal about it.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

However, LDS study materials and institute manuals do not agree.  In particular, Barker makes an important point in her analysis that the Josian reform stamped out the true worship of the feminine divine, leading to a patriarchal rewrite of the OT in the form we have it today.  However, under LDS theology revelation has put a divine stamp on the Josian reform. 

Barker's thesis of patriarchy rewriting authentic Canaanite religion is not new.  It follows the evolution of thinking since the mid-seventies, where scholars have merely assumed (especially Dever) that because the Asher figurine is found along with Yahweh cultic materials, they were thus worshiped together. 

This is blatantly false, Bob.  We not only have the ubiquitous figurines in Israelite homes, we also have multiple inscriptions about YHWH and his Asherah.  Why were the Israelite prophets inveighing against this, if it didn't exist?  The LDS manuals you refer to give the once over lightly, hitting only the main points.  LDS Sunday School lessons and Institute classes are not designed as university seminars on advanced biblical history and archeology.  Why are you so doggedly determined to confuse the very different venues and content for this sort of discussion?  Why are you afraid to go to the actual canon of Scripture to study these issues?

12 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

This kind of thinking led to Dr. Peterson's Asherah paper.  Latter-day Saints fell prey to this thinking because they have a sort of unofficial view of the divine feminine which resonates today with the cultic Asherah, the groves and the tree.  But this kind of thinking requires the thinking Latter-day Saint to reject the counsel of the Brethren.

Nonsense, Bob.  No such thing has happened.  Instead, our understanding of the underlying symbolism has been enhanced.  One does not find Asherah figurines in LDS homes, nor does the use by modern Israeli women of the Hebrew term ba'al to refer to their husbands indicate a return to Canaanite Ba'al worship.  Both those threats disappeared long ago.  So, get over it.

[Ryan Dahle]

1 minute ago, Bob Crockett said:

However, LDS study materials and institute manuals do not agree.  In particular, Barker makes an important point in her analysis that the Josian reform stamped out the true worship of the feminine divine, leading to a patriarchal rewrite of the OT in the form we have it today.  However, under LDS theology revelation has put a divine stamp on the Josian reform. 

Barker's thesis of patriarchy rewriting authentic Canaanite religion is not new.  It follows the evolution of thinking since the mid-seventies, where scholars have merely assumed (especially Dever) that because the Asher figurine is found along with Yahweh cultic materials, they were thus worshiped together.  This kind of thinking led to Dr. Peterson's Asherah paper.  Latter-day Saints fell prey to this thinking because they have a sort of unofficial view of the divine feminine which resonates today with the cultic Asherah, the groves and the tree.  But this kind of thinking requires the thinking Latter-day Saint to reject the counsel of the Brethren

This hardly seems like the type of esoteric issue that the Brethren themselves would feel has been resolved by revelation. In my experience, the Brethren seem perfectly open to allowing new advances in biblical scholarship to inform, enrich, and, yes, sometimes even clarify and refine our understanding of the scriptures. They allow the same thing to take place in our understanding of our own Church history. Any attempt to leverage what has been said in an institute manual or some other Church publication about esoteric research that most likely wasn't even known to the authors of those texts, seems misguided. Besides, I doubt much if anything in any Church manual pushes directly against what Peterson and others have written. 

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

But no more tassel - side switching.  And no mortar in the board. 

 

Yes, kind of like this Levitical priestly clothing:

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/3f/ce/b0/3fceb00ff079a9119436a7d6d9c92aeb--day-work-the-mosaic.jpg

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Boanerges said:

It is possible, we don't really know what Joseph considered to be "early in the spring." It could have been a particularly chilly spring or perhaps he measured spring by some other way. It is not unusual for our furnace to regularly run in May, and it is usual for it to run throughout April. Frost in this part of the country can come through the end of May,  and light snow is not unusual in April (heavy snow is very possible and not uncommon in March). So, not going by "calendar spring" Joseph could have been referring to a much later time than the sometimes conjectured early April (specifically April 6) and it would then be possible that there were cherry blossoms. In truth the first day of spring here is usually much more winter like.

We actually have no idea exactly when in early 1820 Joseph had that experience in the grove near the old log cabin, but Mike Quinn finds plenty of justification for his memories surrounding it -- https://ldsfocuschrist2.wordpress.com/?s=quinn .  It could have been in a very late Spring. The kid was only 14, after all.

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Robert F. Smith

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Bill Dever (who signed me up for my first excavation back in 1970) pointed out that the Israelites (not just the Canaanites, as you specify) worshiped Asherah as the consort of Yahewh.  We have the figurines and the inscriptions to show that, and we have the biblical texts condemning it.  You clearly want us to ignore all that.

 

I have repeatedly said that I concede this fact. 

[Boanerges]

56 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We actually have no idea exactly when in early 1820 Joseph had that experience in the grove near the old log cabin, but Mike Quinn finds plenty of justification for his memories surrounding it -- http://ldsfocuschrist2.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/2006‑joseph‑smiths‑experience‑of‑a‑methodist‑camp‑meeting‑in‑1820‑d‑michael‑quinn/  .  It could have been in a very late Spring. The kid was only 14, after all.

Absolutely, and he was writing/talking about it several years later, even in the earliest recorded account (1832). Recollection of specific times could be very fuzzy given those factors. 

 

(BTW, your link takes me to the account page but not to the specific post.)

Edited February 26, 2020 by Boanerges

[pogi]

5 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

In the Mother of the Lord, Barker discusses sources that associate Wisdom with the tree of life and the living waters. 

I'd be interested to see the sources which associate Wisdom with "living waters".  Not just fountains or water, but "living waters".  

5 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

And she discusses how Asherah was originally seen as the consort of El Elyon, the mother of the Lord, and why, in the shift to strict monotheism, when El Elyon and Yahweh were conflated during the Exile, various titles and roles originally belonging to El were applied to Yahweh.  She cites the DSS version of Isaiah and other Biblical passages:

I don't disagree with any of that but the question is, how would Nephi have perceived Asherah?  Impossible to know for sure, but more likely than not, he didn't worship her in that time period, and if he did, he would have likely perceived her as the consort of Yahweh based on historical evidence from that time period.  There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone from that time period perceived Asherah as the wife of El Elyon, who were the mother and father of Yahweh.  It just doesn't add up that Nephi would have made that association given his likely cultural perceptions of Asherah, and given what he saw in the vision.

If you don't mind addressing my last post about the context of Nephi's vision, I would interested in what you have to say.  

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by pogi