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The Book of Mormon > Ether > Chapter 12
Questions
Verse 2
- What does it mean when it says that Ether "could not be restrained" from going and preaching the Gospel to the people? Was he physically compelled? In Alma 43:1 it mentions Alma the younger having a similar experience: "And Alma, also, himself, could not rest, and he also went forth." Did these men both just have such strong convictions of the Gospel that they couldn't bear to not be preaching it? Do the prophets today experience the same thing?
Verse 4
- What is the "better world" mentioned here?
Verse 5
- It is clear that "seeing" is a major question here for the Jaredites, as well as for Moroni in the next verse. What role does seeing play in these verses, and how does it open up the themes Moroni is considering as he recounts the Jaredite history?
Lexical notes
- Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes
Exegesis
Verse 4
- See "Hope is a Vision" on the discussion page.
- Hope cometh of faith. One might think that hope precedes faith in the sense that one hopes that God exists and then develops a belief in God and eventually genuine faith in God. However, this verse suggests the opposite (see also Alma 32:21). First one has faith in God and then, somehow, out of that faith comes hope. One way to think of this is in the temporal sense that, since God currently exists, it is possible to believe in God now, whereas one hopes for things that are to come. For example, one must first have faith that God has the power to grant salvation. Then, once this faith is established, the believer can look forward to—that is, hope for—the salvation which will eventually come. (See also Moro 7:40, 42; Moro 8:26; 2 Ne 31:19-20.)
- Hope and knowledge. In Alma 32:21, the prophet says that faith is "not to have a perfect knowledge of things," apparently opposing faith to knowledge. A closer reading, however, suggests that faith is precisely a question of knowledge, just not a question of a "perfect knowledge." Since faith, a "less-than-perfect knowledge," is according to this verse (Ether 12:4) what issues from faith, there is at least a suggestion that hope is that "more-perfect-knowledge," perhaps even "a perfect knowledge of things." If this is a justified reading, it should be noted that this verse demolishes the dichotomy often read into faith/knowledge: faith is a kind of knowledge, and hope is a surer kind of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge itself should therefore be rethought: it is apparently not a question of confirmed belief, but rather a question of relation to something (faith is one relation, one kind of knowledge, and hope is another).
- Moroni on faith, hope, and charity. The explicit demarcation between faith and hope that is asserted in this verse seems to corroborate (unlike some other verses) with 2 Ne 31:19-20. It seems, in fact, that Moroni is the first Nephite prophet after many years clearly to understand the implication of what Nephi there writes. This fits in well with the many other broad parallels between Nephi's teachings and those of Moroni. However, it must be admitted that Moroni is here citing the teachings of Ether, the Jaredite prophet. This raises an interesting question. Did Moroni understand Nephi through Ether, or did he understand Ether through Nephi? That Moroni takes up a tangential discussion throughout the present chapter, introduced by his explicit desire to "speak somewhat concerning these things" (verse 6), suggests that Moroni wants to clear up much of what has been said concerning the three-fold theme of faith, hope, and charity. Why, however, Moroni would later quote the lengthy discourse of his father on the subject (Moro 7), which seems at times to revert to a different (or even unclear) reading of faith and hope, must then be handled. Perhaps it is safest to acknowledge that Moroni is here citing Ether, and that Nephi remains—at least for the moment—at a distance from his thoughts.
Related links
Verse 4
- Hope and predestination. See this post by LXXLuthor at the FPR blog for a discussion of Paul's teaching on communal predestination and how it contrasts to the more common individual-foreordination interpretation of Paul by Mormons, and how these issues suggest a predestination reading of this verse that affords more assurance than a foreordination-type reading.
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