Dc 77 - do We as Members Believe it?

[JLHPROF]

D&C 77:6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

And following on from that do we believe the last (seventh) thousand years will be with Satan bound and the Savior ruling personally?

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

How close to Sunday is this Saturday night?

Edited July 28, 2020 by JLHPROF

[sunstoned]

I don't think many people believe that humans have been on the earth for only 6000 years. 

[strappinglad]

One can hope. As a kid from the '60s I never thought the Berlin wall would ever come down or that the Soviet Union would ' dissolve ' . Someone living in 1910 would likely never expect an Israel and the Jews had been waiting for that for centuries. We are currently watching a scenario where civilization as we knew it can change very quickly. Personally , my biggest worry is that pesky " abomination of desolation " which comes first. What is that ? Nuclear war? an asteroid? Plague??? 

When reviewing the mess that was the first half of the 20th century, what is happening now is a cake walk , but I fear another shoe ( or a store full) is yet to drop. 

Look at how small the cause and how big the effect has come with world wide panic and widespread civil unrest. 

The Math is imprecise about the timeline for the millennium. The parable of the tree and the leaves changing has more value I think. 

[strappinglad]

10 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

I don't think many people believe that humans have been on the earth for only 6000 years. 

I take some comfort in the idea from Joseph S that this earth was made for many reasons. It would not bother me to find that there were civilizations that existed and disappeared 30,000 years ago, or 12000 years ago. Our iteration may just be the latest. Now, if you say that men as capable as us lived in caves for 200,000 years and just recently created language and art and farming, I say that is stretching my faith ! 

[OGHoosier]

One concept that may be relevant in this case is the idea of "sacred time", or to put it another way, the time of the timeless. D&C 130 gives a hint that the question of time is more complicated than we think:

Quote

4. In answer to the question - Is not the reckoning of God's time, angel's time, prophet's time, and man's time, according to the planet on which they reside?

5. I answer, Yes. But there are no angels who minister to this earth but those who do belong or have belonged to it.

Abraham 5 is also pretty clear that time is defined and appointed by God:

Quote

13 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the time that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now I, Abraham, saw that it was after the Lord's time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning.

So, time in the scriptures and the temple (two shades of the same thing) is frankly fluid (and that's even before we factor in the possibility that God exists in a higher dimension and may not even view the arrow of time in the same way as us). In December of 1844, W.W. Phelps published a letter to William Smith in the Times and Seasons where he put the age of the earth at 2.5 billion years old, based on D&C 77. His logic was that one day in God's time equals a thousand years in man's time, so if you take the 7000 year figure to be God's time and multiply it by 365 to get the number of days, and then multiply that by 1000, you'd get the number of human years, which was 2.555 billion. Of course, this is assuming that God's year has 365 days, which is not a safe assumption at all! The point is, D&C 77 has been taken for different than face value almost since Joseph was in the ground.

My source on that is this article in Interpreter, which features a more in-depth treatment.

Given the symbolic time so common in esoteric visions like those of Ezekiel and John the Revelator, I think taking the 7000 years at face value is not simply inaccurate but somewhat naive. It's possible that there's a numerical symbolism to it. I tend to think that the "thousand years" are akin to the days of Genesis - fixed periods of time in the scriptures which are meant to be symbolic in value, representing different epochs of activity. Perhaps dispensations, perhaps just eras in global history. Do I believe in 7000 literal years? No. But I don't think that's the way it should be looked at at all.

Tl;dr Time in the scriptures is weird, highly symbolic, and almost never to be taken at face value, especially where symbolic imagery is involved.

Edited July 28, 2020 by OGHoosier
typo

[OGHoosier]

duplicate, sorry

Edited July 28, 2020 by OGHoosier
duplicate post, sorry

[CV75]

8 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

D&C 77:6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

And following on from that do we believe the last (seventh) thousand years will be with Satan bound and the Savior ruling personally?

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

How close to Sunday is this Saturday night?

Looking closely at the Questions, I think the "understand" in the Answers refers not to measured time, but to the events that are framed in the book and in the seals, which represent the mortal boundaries of earth's time, continuance, and temporal existence.

Other scriptures more fully inform us about the nature of time from God's perspective/reckoning in relation to Adam's and ours. Other scriptures are more explicit about the proximity of the Second Coming, Millennium, etc. in terms of our reckoning.

[stemelbow]

8 hours ago, strappinglad said:

I take some comfort in the idea from Joseph S that this earth was made for many reasons. It would not bother me to find that there were civilizations that existed and disappeared 30,000 years ago, or 12000 years ago. Our iteration may just be the latest. Now, if you say that men as capable as us lived in caves for 200,000 years and just recently created language and art and farming, I say that is stretching my faith ! 

Do you find room in the revelation that is D&C 77 quoted in the OP to think this earth's temporal existence extends back beyond 6,000 years ago?  What in the records of all the sciences indicates it's possible the earth went through various iterations of a temporal existence?  

[LoudmouthMormon]

9 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

You don't have to look far to find a "we".  I've personally met several who are quite passionate about it.

 

Quote

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

There is ALWAYS a historical or mathematical way of considering The End (tm) to not be very far off.  You can fill libraries with books written on end times.

I figure eventually one of them will be spot on.  It's sad to think about the amount of effort people have put into such things, knowing that all of them will be wrong except one.  But hey, the solution to all of them is the same: Live life as if "it" was going to happen tomorrow.

[california boy]

I remember sitting in a seminary class during high school where my instructor wrote out all the math from Bible calculations that the world would end in 1980.  I mean this was down to exact math, not a guess.  Since then, I have not even given one iota of credence to those who claim to know when the world is about to come to an end.  

[Ahab]

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

D&C 77:6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

We are the ones who teach it.  Some of us believe it, and some of us don't, yet.  At least the math works.

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

And following on from that do we believe the last (seventh) thousand years will be with Satan bound and the Savior ruling personally?

Again, we are the ones who teach it.  Some of us believe it, and some of us don't, yet. 

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

I don't think so, because those are events that haven't happened yet.  So there is no historical precedence to show that those events didn't or can't or won't happen in the future.  And we're within the mathematical time frames.

13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

How close to Sunday is this Saturday night?

What time on this Saturday night.  I don't usually call it Sunday until I wake up even if I am going to bed after midnight on Saturday night,

[Ahab]

8 minutes ago, california boy said:

I remember sitting in a seminary class during high school where my instructor wrote out all the math from Bible calculations that the world would end in 1980.  I mean this was down to exact math, not a guess.  Since then, I have not even given one iota of credence to those who claim to know when the world is about to come to an end.  

I'd be interested in seeing how that teacher calculated that time frame.  As far as I know, we haven't been given enough info to time it down to the year it will happen.

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

...................................

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

How close to Sunday is this Saturday night?

Well, at least we know that Chad Daybell wasn't quite on the mark.  His July 22 Doomsday came and went last week with little to show for it. Was his math wrong?  By how much?

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I don't think many people believe that humans have been on the earth for only 6000 years. 

No doubt of that.  However, even if the Earth is at least 4 billion years old, and humans (hominins/hominids) around 2 million years old, that does not obviate the possibility that a special endowment rite was held in a temple-garden setting only a few thousand years ago to kick off modern civilization in a series of formal dispensations.  I tend to think of that in symbolic and ritual terms learned in my own temple experiences.

[pogi]

14 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

I don't.  I would think that it is a very small fraction of Latter-day Saints who believe that.  I don't think there is a collective "we believe" here. 

[The Nehor]

Quote

Q. When are the things to be accomplished, which are written in the 9th chapter of Revelation?A. They are to be accomplished after the opening of the seventh seal, before the coming of Christ.

The beginning of "Sunday" is not the immediate return of Christ so the Millenium may not be a full millenium in length. In theory it could already be Sunday. To continue the metaphor the sun has just not come up yet.

[pogi]

16 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

If the "meridian of time" is meant to be the mid-point, that might give you some clues.  If so, it means that we still have a LONG ways to go (if you believe these things as literal). 

If meridian doesn't mean mid-point, what does it mean?  I have heard it stated that it means "high point".  I can see defining Christ as the "meridian" but that is not what the passage says.  It doesn't say that Christ is the meridian, it states that he will be/was born in the meridian of times.  How can anyone say that the "times" were at a "high point" 2,000 years ago?   Wouldn't the "fullness of times" better fit the description of "high point" or "meridian of times"? 

Edited July 28, 2020 by pogi

[The Nehor]

23 minutes ago, pogi said:

If the "meridian of time" is meant to be the mid-point, that might give you some clues.  If so, it means that we still have a LONG ways to go. 

If meridian doesn't mean mid-point, what does it mean?  I have heard it stated that it means "high point".  I can see defining Christ as the "meridian" but that is not what the passage says.  It doesn't say that Christ is the meridian, it states that he will be/was born in the meridian of times.  How can anyone say that the "times" were at a "high point" 2,000 years ago?   Wouldn't the "fullness of times" better fit the description of "high point" or "meridian of times"? 

One explanation I have heard is that the final conflict at the end of the Millenium when the devil is released will last a millenium and make it roughly 4,000 years both ways. Possible I suppose.

[pogi]

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

One explanation I have heard is that the final conflict at the end of the Millenium when the devil is released will last a millenium and make it roughly 4,000 years both ways. Possible I suppose.

I have heard that too.  However, when the millennium is defined as a thousand years of peace, where devil "cannot be loosed for the space of many years (1 Nephi 22:6)", and that "at the end of the thousand years, Satan will be set free for a short time", I don't find that explanation convincing. 

[Kevin Christensen]

I've occasionally commented here that I don't think D&C 77 ought to be canon.  If you look at the MS in the Joseph Smith papers, there is nothing particularly "thus saith the Lord" with specific authoritative provenance about it.  It's very odd in the Q&A format compared to everything else in the D&C.  (Quinn did see that kind of format in various Bible commentaries). And the one time that Joseph Smith gave a discourse on the Biblical book of Revelation, (See Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 287-294) on the occasion when "the High Council undertook to censure and correct Elder Brown", he went on for several pages on the topic and made no reference to D&C 77.  Several notable general authorities, including Brigham Young, seemed not at all bothered by the notion of a very old earth and cosmos.  (David Bailey has demonstrated this at length).  And given that my skepticism on this issue is not a common or official view, I also think it notable that there is a four asterisk break in the TPJS account of that sermon right where Joseph made the interesting statement that "It don't prove that a man is not a good man because he believes false doctrine."  Which good, since D&C 1 formally states of all LDS authorities that "inasmuch they erred, it shall be made known."  

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited July 29, 2020 by Kevin Christensen
Typo

[InCognitus]

I was intrigued by what Nick Frederick said about D&C 77 in his LDS Perspectives Podcast, episode 114 on The Book of Revelation:

Quote

Nick Frederick:           Looking at Joseph Smith versus, perhaps, how people read the book of Revelation today, Joseph gives a very pragmatic reading. I like to say he demystifies the book of Revelation—he has concrete answers for things. History is very realistically portrayed in the book of Revelation. I’ll give you a couple of places where Joseph, perhaps, parts ways with how modern scholars would read it. We have to remember D&C 77 only goes through chapter 11, so we only have half of the book of Revelation before Joseph moved on to other projects. And it’s also worth noting that Joseph doesn’t include D&C 77 in the 1833 Book of Commandments or the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. It’s not until 1876 that Brigham Young puts it in the D&C, so it’s kind of hard to know how Joseph wanted us to interpret the book of Revelation.

                                    When you look at the Q&A that Joseph does in D&C 77, there are a couple of really big ones that stand out to me as far as Joseph’s diverging from modern scholarship, or modern scholarship diverging from Joseph Smith, however you want to look at it. The first is the seven seals that appear on the scroll that the lamb opens. Joseph looks at those seven seals and says these are seven distinct, thousand-year historical periods. All the way up till today, we still talk about the earth as being 7,000 years old—that Adam and Eve, perhaps, are 4,000 BC, and we’re at the end of the 6,000th year right now, or something like that. That really doesn’t work as far as the book of Revelation goes, partly because you have three sets of seven in the book of Revelation. You have seven seals and seven trumpets and then seven bowls, and they seem to be recapitulations of the judgments that are going to come upon the earth. It’s hard to see the seven seals as acting so differently from the trumpets and the bowls that come later.

                                    The second way Joseph parts with modern scholars (and we kind of hinted at this earlier) is in regard to these two witnesses in Revelation 11. There is this kind of fascination amongst Latter-day Saints for these being two actual people—two apostles who are going to travel to Jerusalem, who are going to be killed, who are going to lie dead in the streets, then who are going to be resurrected. Again, when you read chapter 11, it doesn’t really fit that these are actual individuals. It seems pretty clear that what’s being talked about in the church as a whole. That’s the church people being unified, the membership, however you want to look at it. It’s when they do their job as witnesses. It may be hard, they might suffer, but ultimately God will vindicate them. That seems to be the point of those two witnesses. The witnesses can do what God can’t with his threats of judgment, which is to bring repentance.

                                    Joseph’s answers to this are very pragmatic. They are periods of time, and they are two actual people—but I don’t know how well those really work within the context of the book of Revelation itself. Hyrum M. Smith made the comment that D&C 77 is not an interpretation, but it’s a key. It’s enough to get you into the house, but you have to do the interpretive work yourself. One of the problems I see a lot with Latter-day Saint commentaries and statements on the book of Revelation is that we just plug in the answers from D&C 77 and say, “Well, here’s the interpretation.” I don’t know if that’s what Joseph wants us to get. I wonder if this is, in fact, a key—we should be building on that—more than just assuming this is the interpretation.

 

[JAHS]

ONE THOUSAND
This number serves mainly to magnify or embellish that with which it is associated. The number one thousand evokes images of "power, strength, and magnitude. Anytime it occurs, by itself or as a multiple of another number, it symbolizes greatness and vastness. It traditionally represents a "multitude" or that which is "incalculable." Thus, this number may be used in scripture without literal intent, but rather in an effort to highlight an event or numerical symbol with which it is associated.
(Information taken from "The Lost Language of Symbolism" by Alonzo L. Gaskill)

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, pogi said:

If the "meridian of time" is meant to be the mid-point, that might give you some clues.  If so, it means that we still have a LONG ways to go (if you believe these things as literal). 

If meridian doesn't mean mid-point, what does it mean?  I have heard it stated that it means "high point".  I can see defining Christ as the "meridian" but that is not what the passage says.  It doesn't say that Christ is the meridian, it states that he will be/was born in the meridian of times.  How can anyone say that the "times" were at a "high point" 2,000 years ago?   Wouldn't the "fullness of times" better fit the description of "high point" or "meridian of times"? 

Correct, meridian is not median.  4000 years from Adam to Christ and 2000 years from Christ to the Millennium shows that.

Meridian literally refers to noon, the time of most light.  IE, when the Savior was on the earth and broke the bands of death and darkness.

[JLHPROF]

6 hours ago, california boy said:

I remember sitting in a seminary class during high school where my instructor wrote out all the math from Bible calculations that the world would end in 1980.  I mean this was down to exact math, not a guess.  Since then, I have not even given one iota of credence to those who claim to know when the world is about to come to an end.  

I don't think for a second any calculation or prediction is going to be right.

I'm talking broad doctrine here.  If the earth has a temporal lifespan of 7000 years from Adam (ignoring anything before that estimated date) AND the Millennium accounts for the final 1000 that mean 6000 years to play with in between.

If D&C 77 represents a literal revelation from God, then I think it's unavoidable that the Millennium is within a reasonable amount of time.  Otherwise we have to rationalize away the scripture.

[2BizE]

21 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

D&C 77:6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

Do we actually believe (leaving the creation out of it) that the temporal lifespan of this earth from Adam's time to the end is 7000 years?

And following on from that do we believe the last (seventh) thousand years will be with Satan bound and the Savior ruling personally?

If we believe both of these things, is there any historical or mathematical way of considering the Millennium to be very far off?

How close to Sunday is this Saturday night?

If it is in the D&C can you not believe it?