Difference between revisions of "Talk:Abr 3:1-21"

Latest revision as of 19:09, 24 November 2013

light of LDS teachings about spirits being conceived by Heavenly Parents?

I've heard this before, but is there any recent authoritative discussion of this? Or anything about this in the D&C? --Matthew Faulconer 17:36, 14 April 2007 (CEST)

Joe, I enjoyed reading through this. I'm waiting with baited breath to see where this is going next... On a side note I wonder if there is some relationship between the logic of verse 16 and Anselm's proof for the existence of God. --Matthew Faulconer 18:43, 14 April 2007 (CEST)

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I haven't really digested this comment yet, but thought it might be interesting to ponder.... --RobertC 18:09, 3 Jul 2006 (UTC)

broad outline[edit]

I always wonder if there isn't some sense in which the purpose of chapter 3 is to teach us how to understand chapters 4 and 5. There is a certain pattern at work here. Here are the major indicators of the pattern. First, the pattern is stated explicitly in proof-like wording (Abr 3:8 (in relation to stars / time), Abr 3:16 (in relation to stars / time, Abr 3:18 (first half--apply what Abraham has learned about start to spirits.} Next, the fact that Kolob signifies the first creation (see explanation on Figure 1 for Facsimile 2) and Abraham chapter 4, more than any other creation story, makes a point of Adam being the first creation.

If I try to put it all together, maybe it gets a bit strained. You'll all have to tell me what you think.

A couple of to-do's: Fill this out and think through. Add scripture references. --Matthew Faulconer 06:46, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I've got to learn to make those tables! I like this, Matthew. I like especially the Kolob-Christ-Adam thing, since it goes beyond the Kolob-Christ thing usually read into this chapter. In my own researches on this chapter, I've tried at times to work out a separation between planets and stars (a separation that seems to parallel the separation between men and angels). If that is read into your chart... might there be another column? Stars as one, planets as another. In which case, there is a sort of double parallelism: stars vs. planets against spirits vs. bodies (if you will). In short, just as the "spirits" parallel the "earth's creations," there may be a parallel between "stars" and "planets." While it would complicate things some, it would also, I think, be more archaic (double parallelism is certainly common in Hebrew thought), and it would set all of this up as a sort of fourfold structure: mortals and immortals dwell on planets and stars, etc. Perhaps I'm too Heideggerian, but I think there is something here. --Joe Spencer 16:00, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Joe, I am only half following the double parallel. I like the idea of stars vs planets in contrast to spirits vs bodies. Can you explain more on this?

As something of an aside, Abraham 3 for me is odd enough that I have wonder if my time isn't better spent on more of what we are working on in 3 Ne 11. But when I think of this as a preface or context setting for the creation story, I keep coming back to it. I also feel like the skill (not sure if that is the right word) required to understand Abraham is the same skill required to understand the temple ceremony. Abraham gives me a chance to develop this skill in relation to others since we can openly talk and think about the text here--a skill which I can then apply to better understanding the temple. --Matthew Faulconer 13:50, 30 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Concerning stars and planets. Take D&C 130:4-11 on this account. One's time is clearly tied to the planet/star on which one stands, but Joseph is at pains there to make quite clear that angels do not reside on a planet like this earth. They dwell on a sphere of glass and fire, an earth already exalted... a star? The earth, Joseph goes on to explain, will become just such a thing eventually. Planets as potential stars, stars as exalted planets, etc.?

Abr 1:31 seems to draw a distinction between stars and planets, and, coming as it does before chapter 3, might that verse be taken as a presupposition to the present discussion? The first half of chapter 3 seems to maintain the distinction. Abraham sees the stars and is told of Kolob. Then, starting with verse 4, he is given to see the planets, but apparently from the point of view of one of the stars (even of Kolob?). Hence, verses 5-9 consistently discuss planets and not stars. These planets have "reckonings," while the stars, as they are discussed starting in verse 10, have "set times." There is clearly some distinction. Does "same order" in verse 9, then, mean planets in general?

I take facsimile no. 2 (how does one link to those, by the way?) to be drawing the distinction as well. Figs. 1 and 2 are described as "creations" and are clearly tied to the "stars" mentioned in chapter 3. Fig. 5, however, is called a planet, and is said to govern over planets. I don't know why the "or stars" is there, though. But the hypocephalus itself seems to be split down the middle: the top half represents the stars as they appear to Abraham, with the possibility of gathering their light into the sun during the day (weird, I know, but wonderfully ancient), while the the bottom half represents the system of planets. This follows with the four corners: fig. 4 is heaven, fig. 6 is the earth; fig. 3 is God in heaven, fig. 7 is Abraham on earth. The strip across the middle seems to be a sort of veil, then, and one that marks the stars as stars and the planets as planets.

How is this parallel to the spirit/body distinction? Roughly, as Paul delineates it. There is a body according to mind (psyche) and a body according to spirit (pneuma). Not spirit (non-body) versus body so much as spiritual body verses phenomenological body (I have Michel Henry's thought here in mind, perhaps). The parallel, then: the spiritual body is the resurrected earthly body, just as the star is the exalted--even resurrected?--earth. D&C 88 might be talking about this sort of thing when it discusses the quickening of the earth and the body together. I don't know.

All of this opens onto your comment about how to study such a book. I agree that Abraham is rather difficult to think, but I don't believe that it is any more difficult than the Book of Mormon. My understanding of canon makes Abraham as vital, as central, as focused, as relevant, etc., as anything in the Book of Mormon. And, as you say, it is a way of thinking out the temple without stepping out of boundaries. The two projects at once? I think we will find they have something to do with each other. --Joe Spencer 14:58, 30 Aug 2006 (UTC)

Joe, link to Facsimile No 2 like this. --Matthew Faulconer 04:45, 3 Sep 2006 (UTC) PS still working through some of this. I will have more to say later.

Thanks. --Joe Spencer 15:49, 4 Sep 2006 (UTC)