Talk:2 Ne 25:9-27:35

Verse 20

Scriptures using the phrase "none other name" seem to be quite familiar. So it was surprising to only find it in 3 verses; one each in the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine & Covenants.

Acts 4: 12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

D&C 18: 23 Behold, Jesus Christ is the name which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given whereby man can be saved;

Two other verses use "no" instead of "none:"

Mosiah 3: 17 that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men,

Mosiah 5: 8 There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ,

--RM Matheson 10:02 2005 Nov 12

RM,

Nice cross-references. I'm pasting these on a user subpage and creating a link to them on the commentary page so that they don't get lost. Discussion pages will probably get archived after they get too long, and I'd hate to see these x-refs get archived.

--RobertC 13:45, 14 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Why "nations" not "individuals" in v. 20?

I think this is an interesting question and I'd love to hear others' thoughts. I think the use of "the nations" sheds light on Moses' calling to redeem the nation of Israel. This brings to mind a section from the book The Literary Message of Isaiah by Avraham Gileadi where he discusses the Davidic covenant and how it works in contrast to the Sinai covenant. Under the Sinai covenant, Israel as a nation must be righteous down to the last man, whereas under the Davidic covenant, only the king needs to be righteous to warrant the Lord's protection. The point is that both of these covenants pertain to Israel as a nation, not Israelites individually. I think there's a lot to learn and study regarding God's covenants with Israel as a nation in the scriptures--things that I think challenge our contemporary emphasis on individual responsibility and worthiness, an emphasis that often ignores or at least taints our perspective on the inter-dependent aspects of blessings and salvation.

--RobertC 14:15, 14 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Prevenient grace

I edited out the reference to Mosiah 5:15 and Hymn 243 since I did not see the relevance to the idea of prevenient grace. I may be missing the relationship, or possibly my explanation was poor and the anonymous poster misunderstood. At any rate, I'm posting what I edited here in hopes that others can help me better represent this viewpoint (perhaps I am too close to the issue to understand the point that was being made):

The alternate meaning of after in Romans and Isaiah ("according to the direction and influence of" does not support that assertion. after starts a prepositional phrase - the object of after is "all we can do", not "grace".

Thus the available alternative is as follows:

"for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, according to the direction and influence of all we can do".

That is plausible for various reasons (grace in the Book of Mormon generally follows works, not the other way around) but it is in opposition to the Arminian / Calvinist scheme of grace driving good works, instead of sustaining good works, which is the classical Mormon perspective - Compare "Let us All Press on" (Hymn #243). Also Mosiah 5:15.

The "classic view" I could probably be expounded upon, but I don't see how the above is addressing the precedence (or causality, or temporality?) of grace in relation to works. That is, I understand the "classic view" to be that works precede grace, whereas Ostler's view is that this verse can be read so that grace precedes works (with the additional clause that it is grace therefore that actually saves us and our works follow from that grace—if such works do not follow, then it is b/c we have not properly accepted that gift of grace to enter into an indwelling relationship with God; cf. James 2:18).

--RobertC 18:00, 2 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Robert, I have to admit that I think your reading here is forced. I'm still not sure what to make of this verse, though I confess I like Stephen Robinson's reading in Believing Christ. I totally agree with the idea of "prevenient grace" (even if I hate that name for it... "grace" is good enough, isn't it?), but I think the obsession with this verse that is so common among those who read Paul can only be motivated either by a sort of ideology on the one hand or by a fear that grace is ultimately questionable on the other hand. I won't remove the comment for now, but I think that a better approach to this verse would be by taking up its textual thickness, both in its immediate context, and in its connection with 2 Ne 10:24, the words of Jacob to which Nephi is obviously making reference. I will have to work on this, and perhaps I can make some more concrete suggestions, some positive suggestions at any rate. --Joe Spencer 15:41, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Here's another comment (on that unwieldy thread of Geoff's) that I think probably does better justice to Blake's view than I have (for the record, I'm still trying to stay non-commital regarding what I think!). --RobertC 17:25, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

Notwithstanding (v. 24)

I like where you're going with this Joe. Please feel free to start over with verse 23, I'm not too happy with the work I did on that verse. --RobertC 19:04, 28 March 2007 (CEST)

I may do so, but I think I'm going first to work through to the end of verse 24. I'm actually working this out in an attempt to think through some texts I will soon engage in my book on typology in the Book of Mormon, not primarily to engage the difficulty of interpreting verse 23. When I came to the page today, the comments posted before made me begin thinking about how 24-30 bear on 23. --Joe Spencer 22:10, 28 March 2007 (CEST)

Prevenient Grace Again

I'm trying to think very hard about this passage, and I want to make sure that I'm reading it well. I posted yesterday a quasi-reading of the verse on the blog, but it outlines my thoughts for now. I suppose what I'm struggling with in reading the grace-apologetics readings of the verse is that they all ignore the context (as do the works-apologetics readings of the verse). In the end, I'm not sure that the term "prevenient grace" is helpful or desirable. The term is borrowed from evangelical theology, and it seems to me to be based on rather modernistic reasoning.

All of this seems all the more frustrating because it seems to miss the most important fact: obedience itself is dependent on a call, which comes (of course) as a gift. "All we can do" can only be in response (how else could it be?), and so it seems rather odd to feel it necessary to argue about the "prevenience" of grace. By definition, grace comes before any response, any obedience, any thought, any action, any word, anything.

Well, jumbled thoughts for now.... --Joe Spencer 17:09, 1 April 2007 (CEST)

Joe, thanks for pressing me to keep reconsidering this passage. A couple quick thoughts: First, I think I've always skipped over the context of writing that verse 23 itself so obviously provides. That is, perhaps we should read this verse more like the beginning of Alma 29, where "all we can do" is in reference to writing about Christ, trying to persuade others to come to Christ, not so much the law of Moses per se (though I think it's also a mistake to try to disentangle the two; that is, perhaps the phrasing is intentionally ambiguous so as to refer to both--somethink like "we write of Christ like the law of Moses is supposed to be a way of writing Christ in the hearts of those that follow it...").

Second, I was wondering about the timing Nephi might have in mind regarding when being "saved" occurs. I'd be inclined to think this being saved occurs at the "last day" (cf. 1 Ne 22:31; 2 Ne 31:15; 2 Ne 33:12).

Note, however, Jacob's words in 2 Ne 10:24, where it seems grace is used to describe the part of saving that occurs "after" reconciliation with the will of God. Jacob's words force me to reconsider the traditional Mormon reading of this verse (and to reinterpret the "traditional" reading). I'm currently inclined to read verses 23ff as saying, very (very!) roughly: "We write about Christ b/c he is the embodiment of grace, and we know (emphatically!) that it is by grace that we are saved, despite (and "after" b/c chronologically this occurs at "the last day") everything we do--e.g. keep the law of Moses, write as diligently as possible etc. So we do everything we can do, not b/c that helps us "earn" grace, but b/c we are made alive in Christ and we've realized that everything--esp. the law of Moses, and all commandments--point us to Christ who makes us alive...."

Hmmm, not sure any of this is really helpful or very accurate, but some thinking anyway.... --RobertC 16:53, 2 April 2007 (CEST)

I'm wondering if this section might be improved if we removed reference to the term "prevenient grace." I'm not sure what the terms adds here. Thoughts? --Matthew Faulconer 07:00, 30 June 2008 (CEST)

I agree that the term prevenient is probably not ideal, so I welcome any revisions that nix the term. It does seem to be a convenient shorthand, however, for the idea that grace precedes works in some (however vague) sense. At least that's the reason I used the term when I was working on the commentary--I simply couldn't think of another way to conveniently refer to this idea (which was important central to how I was thinking about this passage then). --RobertC 08:05, 5 July 2008 (CEST)

Well, I tried, but didn't come up with anything better. I would like to think that a discussion of this verse could dwell entirely on the scriptures--which is why I wanted to reject a term which is foreign to the scriptures--a term that is situated within a debate foreign to Nephi. In my mind I'd like to think that there is a difference between using the scripture to inform the debate and using the debate to inform the scripture. Following that view, I wanted to reject the idea that we needed this debate highlighted by the word "prevenient" (so foreign to Nephi) to understand the scripture. But the fact that I wasn't able to figure out any good way of rewriting this section calls into question my premise that we should separate out the concepts of a debate informing a scripture vs the scripture informing the debate. Myabe I'll return to this again later. Thanks, --Matthew Faulconer 07:34, 7 July 2008 (CEST)

after=despite

I took out the reference to Joseph Smith's translation as supporting this reading and the associated link. I think little was added which the dictionary.com didn't already illuminate. The only difference is the appeal to Joseph Smith. But I wasn't clear on where the quote was from. Who is Lambert? From what book? Also I was bothered that lambert refers to "an authority." Who? For these reasons I thought it best to remove the reference until someone can provide some authority for the 2 claims therein a) Joseph Smith translating this into French b) after could mean despite in Joseph Smith's day just like it can today. --Matthew Faulconer 07:38, 16 June 2007 (CEST)

Good changes, Matthew. I'm still a bit curious about Lambert's claim here regarding "despite" and Joseph Smith's French translation, but I doubt I'll get around to trying to track this down anytime soon. And I'd like to work on this commentary much more at some point.... --RobertC 16:26, 16 June 2007 (CEST)

We don't quote authors, but Stephen Robinson's reading of this is, of course, pretty interesting as well. I'll see if there is some appropriate way to work it in. --Joe Spencer 22:02, 16 June 2007 (CEST)