Talk:Enos 1:1-5

From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.

Personal Comments

Enos litterally hungered for the gospel, for truth. He wanted to know if his sins would be forgiven, this strong desire is essencial. We all must have it in order to progress eternally, and when we do as Enos did, we will recieve great blessings, and the kingdom of God. --Travis Justin Kamper

Enos tells us explicitly that he has learned of the Lord from his father. For some reason, at this particular time those teachings become pressing, and I believe Enos feels the need to have a personal experience with the Lord regarding the things he has heard from his father. The key to Enos’ experience is this “hunger in his soul”. I don’t believe that Enos doe has this deeply spiritual experience because he thought it might be nice to have one. The effort he made to the Lord would have had to been a real struggle before the Lord. Enos speaks of a real desire from the heart of his soul. He accurately mentions it as a struggle. He didn’t have the experience of Alma the Younger or Joseph Smith- but I get the idea he was required to fight through his “natural man” to his spiritual self. His hunger for the spirit was greater than his hunger for food, for he indicates that he prays throughout a day and a night (I would have been famished). We do not really know with what topics Enos occupied his prayer for that length of time, but we may assume from his subsequent statements that it became a time of self-revelation and realization of his standing before God. It certainly became a time of sincere repentance of acting upon the self-revelations he uncovered. This is another personal story from a character we barely get to know in the Book of Mormon; but the lesson he teaches us is invaluable. If a man like this needs to find the Lord on a personal level, how much need do all of us have to find the Lord on this level? These are a powerful couple of pages that we can easily apply into our daily lives.

Username: Bunk April 25, 2006

If I had an opportunity to chat with Joseph Smith, and the question seemed appropriate, I'd like to ask him what Enos was like before the experience described in this book. For years, I assumed that this was his first religious experience, and that this is his conversion story. But it could also be that we're watching a person of some spiritual maturity -- while it ain't necessarily so, most people who have the privelege of speaking with the Lord have been working on their testimonies for quite a while. I've certainly had experiences where some principle "sinks deep into my soul" and I need to pray and ponder my way to a new level of understanding and/or faithfulness. (Not a *high* level, just new for me. At such times, I sometimes find myself wondering if I understand anything at all.)

Any thoughts on this? Or, even better, evidence?

--Rpederse 03:11, 15 Sep 2006 (UTC)

I'm wrestling with this. I don't know whether or not there is textual evidence enough to come to any conclusive decision on the question. But I think you're right that it doesn't seem likely that he would have such an incredible experience without at least some bit of righteousness previous to this experience. I think that this story has to begin with the detail about hunting and how it parallels his own hunger, and from there we can begun to unravel the story. I don't know that I've ever spent much time with Enos though. I'll do some pondering and see what I come up with. --Joe Spencer 14:37, 15 Sep 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question, though I agree that to a large degree it's beyond the scope of the text. But what does seem central to the text is the wrestle-struggle-rest thread in verses 2, 10, and 17 respectively. Whatever Enos's previos experience, he hadn't attained the rest that verse 17 describes (and note that rest seems a very important theme in previous and subsequent passages in the BOM...). I've contemplated this before, but hadn't really taken notice much of verse 10. That, I think, is a key verse, and I think it touches on the faith-hope-love theme Joe has been working on in interesting ways. In particular, the hope that Enos obtains here seems inextricably linked to the his people—thus obtaining hope, at least here, is not is a communal concept not just an individual concept (this notion seems to be developed more fully in Mosiah, and perhaps Mosiah cannot be fully understood without understanding how Enos sets the stage in terms of individual vs. communal salvation is concerned...). --RobertC 15:43, 15 Sep 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point on rest. As you may remember, one of the ideas on Alma 13:1-5 is that being ordained a high priest (one interpetation of which is that this corresponds to the temple endowment today) is that it is to enter into the rest of the Lord. The whole concept of entering into rest is interesting--especially because as a community we prize work, hard work. --Matthew Faulconer 05:43, 16 Sep 2006 (UTC)

Robert, your connection between this story and Mosiah has fascinated me thoroughly, and I will definitely dedicate some time to this (sorry I didn't get to these things earlier, I was out camping with the young men over the weekend to finish up an eagle project). I have always read the Book of Enos as a sort of last glimmer of hope before the veil of stupidity descended over the Nephites (mostly because we don't have Mormon's parallel text to flesh out the history), but this opens up a rather important aspect of it, as a sort of gigantic historical emphasis. I think, in the end, that such a focus on Enos would answer the question posed above by Rpederse, since there seems to be a sort overcoming of the personal conversion experience, and, then, in a sense, a sort of negation of it? A start, and a direction for me now.

Matthew, I think you are right to connect this up with Alma 13 as well. Alma 13 plays into Robert's comments in a powerful manner as well. That chapter becomes a radical moment in the development of the Nephite church, since it is clear there that Alma is acquainted with the Melchizedek priesthood as such, and certainly with some important themes of the endowment. Whether that has something to do with the transfer of the plates, etc., to him from the king (who clearly would have been acquainted with both of these things), or whether that has something to do with a broadening of the applicability of these two things, is a question I don't know how to regard yet. But Alma 13 would be, it seems, the other end of a story opened by the Book of Enos. Some major questions concerning the whole of the Book of Mormon open here for me. --Joe Spencer 14:06, 17 Sep 2006 (UTC)

admonition

Hi Jeff, I found your comment on admonition interesting thinking of how admonition and the reproof of D&C 121:43 compare. But though I appreciated thinking through that I utlimately deleted the connection in the lexical note as I wasn't sure if what Enos is saying that Jacob taught him ("the Lord's admonition") is the same as "reproving betimes with sharpness." --Matthew Faulconer 05:44, 30 Oct 2006 (UTC)