Pseudepigrapha (2020 Repost)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we explore the weekly Come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, and here with me in the studio, my friend and this show's producer, Nate Pifer. Nate, it's good. It's good to be back here. Midweek, a little past midweek. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Bonus podcast. I like it. [00:00:39] Speaker B: A little bonus. Yeah. We've got a few thoughts to finish from last time. We didn't quite have time to cover. And then a few stories from the Pseudepigrapha and just kind of some closing pseudopigrapha. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Pseudopigrapha, Man, I think that what I've been waiting for all week is to go through the Pseudepigrapha. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Good old Pseudepigrapha. [00:01:05] Speaker A: In fact, I've been waiting for this all my life. Sometimes when I'm down, I just think to myself, you know what I need? I need some passages from the Pseudepigrapha. [00:01:13] Speaker B: And you know what I like about the Pseudepigrapha? [00:01:19] Speaker A: Tell me. [00:01:20] Speaker B: As many books as I've read, it's been very interesting. Some crazy, some cool, some make sense, some don't. But I don't feel like I'm wasting any time reading begats because I have not seen a single begat in the Pseudepigrapha. [00:01:35] Speaker A: What? You want to know something? I take back everything I've said about the Pseudepigrapha. Whatever, man. [00:01:44] Speaker B: Let's go all meat. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Whatever. Let's do this. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Although some of the meat might be rank. All right. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Might be rotten. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Rotten meat. Might be a little. Might be a little off. Okay, starting off last. Last week, we were covering Doctrine and covenants, let's see, 89 through 92. And in 90, there's a verse, verse 25, that my family, we were reading through Doctrine and Covenants, and we came across this verse at a time in our lives where it just felt like we were stretched a little too thin. And maybe there's people that can relate with me on that. It's good to help people. And sometimes you get to the point where you're almost helping too much, and there's not enough time to balance things, and you just feel like you're a little overburdened. So when I read this, it was interesting. It says, let your families be small. You're like, wait a second. That seems counter what the church has been all about, right? And you look at it, okay, let's Keep reading. Let your families be small, especially mine, aged servant Joseph Smith Sr. And you're like, okay, he's obviously not having more kids. This is not what this council is talking about. And it finishes as pertaining to those who do not belong to your families. And so that kind of hit me. And I feel like sometimes we can get caught in a trap where we're helping so much. It's coming at the expense of our own family. We're not able to take care of them or be with our kids as much as we would like because we're getting stretched a little bit thin. So this counsel in this scripture, it was something I wanted to highlight because it. It was something that meant a lot to my family as we were looking at this and finding out how we need to prioritize. And I hesitate saying too much because I love it when people ask me for help, and I love being able to help. And so by saying this, I'm not saying that I don't want to help anyone out. Please keep asking me whenever, if there's something I can do, I'd be happy to help. But it also teaches me to help balance that, where sometimes I need to say no, or sometimes I just need to be aware of my schedule and I guess just to wrap it up. [00:04:05] Speaker A: What are you laughing at? [00:04:06] Speaker B: I don't know. I just got lost. I'm just. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Absolutely lost. [00:04:11] Speaker A: I look back there, and you were looking at me and you were like, laughing. I was like, did I do something? [00:04:15] Speaker B: No, no, I just lost my mind. You know, it happens from time to time. It happens when you're chasing a thought, and all of a sudden it eludes you, and you're just staring blankly, and the only thing you can do is laugh. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Did you find yourself. [00:04:28] Speaker B: No, I think I'm still lost. [00:04:29] Speaker A: United order. [00:04:32] Speaker B: Ah, I got it. All right. Here we are. Just to wrap it up on. Let your families be small. Outside of your family. Sometimes you might think, you know, I'm not helping that many people outside of my family. If somebody's asking you for help and you think it's just person, why am I so hesitant to help? Or why do I feel like I'm overburdened? But think about this. Outside of your family, you also have a work family, so to speak, and people that you're helping there. You have your callings and people that you're helping in the ward, and you have responsibilities to all sorts of people. The PTA or doing things at school or doing things for Your kids. I mean, you think about our families outside of our family, if you will, and. And it gets pretty large pretty quick. So sometimes when one person is constantly asking or you have something coming up, and it might not seem like you're having a large family outside of your own, but when you weigh everything in, you realize that your family might be a little bit larger than you thought. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Cool. [00:05:36] Speaker B: All right. Thanks for your patience. [00:05:39] Speaker A: No sweat. Let's keep going. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Let's keep rolling. 92 is a section. It's just a couple verses. It talked about the United Order. United Order was kind of code name for the United firm. The only reason I wanted to highlight or talk about this is in the early days of the church, the church had a couple businesses. They had the mercantile, they had the printing press. And they were supposed to be using the money that the businesses made from selling mercantile goods, selling print from Doctrine and Covenants of the Book of Mormon. They were supposed to take that revenue and use it to support the church. And not just the church, but also support those who were doing the work, work for the church. Joseph Smith, especially in this section, it's adding Frederick G. Williams to that list of people that were going to be supported. And so as we look at the church today and the church's businesses and what the church does with Deseret Industries, with Deseret, what do they have? Their investment group, Deseret Book. [00:06:43] Speaker A: They're actually independent, technically. [00:06:46] Speaker B: Whatever church owned businesses they have, if you look at that and say, what's going on? Why does the church have businesses? This is not something new. This was something going back to the 1830s, right with the beginning of the church. This has been part of the model with the Lord trying to find a way to help support his laborers as they built the kingdom of God. And how do you find that financial support to build the kingdom? So I just thought that was interesting. As we were talking about Doctrine Covenants 89 last week, and we were talking about the sanctity of life. This is something that's come up a few times, but I think we talked about blessing the food. And just these last couple days, I was really put. Putting some thought into that and thinking about my prayers as I bless the food and what it means to bless the food. And that phrase, bless the food. What's the purpose or point of blessing the food? [00:07:39] Speaker A: Obviously to nourish our bodies and do us the good that we need to. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Nourish and strengthen our bodies. That's a phrase we use quite often. Right. Is that the point, though? [00:07:47] Speaker A: Obviously is, though. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Isn't the food going to nourish us either way? [00:07:52] Speaker A: I mean, look. No. Like, dude, when you're at an activity and somebody brings out the cookies, clearly, if you don't bless them to nourish and strengthen your body, it'll just be sugar and it'll be bad for your body. But because you blessed it, we all know it nourish and strengthens your body. [00:08:09] Speaker B: I don't think the point of blessing is to convert starch or sugars into proteins and what? And vitamin C. I think the food is going to nourish us. That's the point of eating it. It does that. That's its role. I don't know. That blessing it so much is about nourishing and strengthening us. That inherently is going to happen whether we bless the food or not. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Right? [00:08:36] Speaker B: We put it in, we digest it, it goes into our blood system. That's going to happen inevitably. [00:08:42] Speaker A: That's what you say. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Well, in light of what we were talking about last week, it made me think from a different perspective. Maybe we're not the food as much as the food we eat, as much as the soul or the life that gave its life for us to sustain us. [00:08:57] Speaker A: The energy that we're giving thanks for that. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we're grateful for the animal. Please bless this animal that gave its life for me. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm totally down with that. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Maybe blessing the food is blessing and showing that gratitude and asking that the Lord blesses whatever life is no longer alive because we are using it to sustain it. I don't know. It's just kind of an interesting thought. [00:09:18] Speaker A: I totally appreciate that. I appreciate that. I was just giving you a hard time. [00:09:22] Speaker B: Just tweaking perspective a little. All right, now. [00:09:26] Speaker A: Okay. Now, the reason for the bonus part. [00:09:29] Speaker B: The content we've all been waiting for. Pseudepigrapha. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Pseudepigrapha. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Baby and I decided to jump right into the book of the Cave of Treasures. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Of course you did. [00:09:39] Speaker B: I find this one. I don't know. This one, to me, is fascinating. And this is gonna take you right down your alley there, Nate. [00:09:47] Speaker A: I can't wait. [00:09:47] Speaker B: The world of music. You're more of an expert than I. I can't wait. So here is a story. I will give you a little bit of context. The book of the Cave of Treasures is retelling the story from Creation, Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, all the way down into the coming of Christ. The importance of Christ coming. So it is almost like a retelling of the Old Testament, just with different context and different details that it is providing us with. So it gives us kind of a peek at at what people thought of these stories. And maybe there was different sources that they were using that there's providing more context that just kind of interesting. And the story goes that Adam and Eve, after they were cast out of the garden, they lived up in a mountain and their descendants lived in the mountain with them and they became the sons of God. And so here you have these sons of God living in the mountain. And Cain gets cast out for killing Abel. He's living down in the valley. And this is the story of the time of Jared. So Jared is one of the sons of going down the line Adam. And then you had Seth and all your begadding till you get to Jared. Not too far down from the list, but in the time of Jared. And it's interesting because the Hebrew name Jared means to go down. And this is the time that the sons of God go down out of the mountain and what brings them down into the valley. So here we go. I'm just going to read a little bit this and hopefully it's all right. So this is the descendants of Cain. This is Jubal. They had some crazy names. Good old Jubal. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Can't wait. [00:11:29] Speaker B: Jubal made the flutes, zithers and pipes. I don't know what zithers are. Nate, you're the music guy. Zithers. [00:11:37] Speaker A: It's an instrument. [00:11:39] Speaker B: It is, yeah. You've heard of zithers? [00:11:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:41] Speaker B: What does it do? [00:11:43] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure that it's Pretty sure. It's like it's got strings and you like turn like a little crank on. Let me just double check. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Z. I'm impressed. [00:11:54] Speaker A: I believe Z I T H E R. Yeah, that's right. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Wow. Oh, wow. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a. It's like an autoharp. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I swear my grandparents had one of those. [00:12:05] Speaker A: I have two. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, zithers. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Okay, well one's an autoharp, the other one is a zither. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Jubal, apparently these have been around for a long time because he made the flutes, the zithers and pipes. [00:12:16] Speaker A: I think that this. I think that again they're like big in like Asia. Like it's still, I think used a lot in various, you know, like Chinese, Japanese, maybe even like Southeast Asian stuff. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure that that's true. [00:12:35] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure I've played it a few times at my grandparents house. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Says it's used especially in In European folk music. Central European. So, okay, Central. Maybe a little Eastern European. [00:12:47] Speaker B: All right. [00:12:48] Speaker A: It was big in the Chinese dynasty from 221 to 206 BC Wow. There you go. See? I knew it, dude. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Well, Jubal, there's his contribution to society. [00:13:00] Speaker A: Okay. Can't wait. Thanks, Jubal. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Thanks, Jubal. Jubal made the flutes, the zithers and the pipes. And this is where it gets interesting. And the demons entered into them and dwelt within them. Whenever they blew them, the demons made music from within the flutes. Now. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Somewhere. [00:13:22] Speaker A: Somewhere President Boyd K. Packer is just like. I knew it. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Hang with me. It gets worse. Okay, this is great. [00:13:33] Speaker A: We need to do this more often. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Tubal Cain made cymbals. Rattles. [00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:41] Speaker B: And tambourines. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah. All the percussion. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Yeah. He's the percussion guy. Tubal Cain is the percussion guy. When lewdness and debauchery. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Had waxed great among the children of Cain, and when they had no other goal than debauchery, they did not compel anybody to work, nor did they have a chief or guide. Rather, they were eating, drinking, gluttony, drunkenness, music, dance. My favorite, diabolical jesting. Not normal jesting, Nate. This is diabolical jesting. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my God, dude. That's the name of my new band, Diabolical Jesting. In fact, honestly. Hold on, I'm writing this down. This is. Honestly, this is my next music project, Diabolical Jesting. [00:14:41] Speaker B: It sounds like kind of a crazy little music scene. [00:14:44] Speaker A: It sounds like a dope party to me. [00:14:46] Speaker B: All right. Diabolical jesting. Laughter which is pleasurable to the demons. [00:14:53] Speaker A: Of course it is. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Now, we've talked about laughter before and loud laughter, and maybe this gets us kind of this idea that there is a healthy laughter, an okay laughter, and it's good to have fun. But this is a diabolical jesting and laughter of a sense that it's laughter that is pleasurable to the demons. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Diabolical jesting. Oh, my gosh. I'm so happy about this. Okay. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:19] Speaker A: This is great. Keep going. This is my favorite. This is my favorite verses of anything. [00:15:23] Speaker B: All right. Better than begatting, right? [00:15:25] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Better than begetting. [00:15:27] Speaker B: Okay, here we go. And the lewd voices of men. Oh, this is where it gets pretty crazy. And the lewd voices of men braying after women. When Satan found himself, on occasion through the wrongdoing, he was exceedingly glad that thereby he could descend and bring down the Children of Seth from the holy mountain, for they had made a replacement by God for the rank which had fallen and were called evangelic people, the sons of God. And the blessed David sings concerning. I have called you gods and the sons of the Most High, all of you. So he says this, this. Let me just make sure I'm giving you this context here. For they had been made. He wanted to bring them down. The people that were on the mountain were called gods. The son of the Most High, all of you, the sons of God. And. And there's a verse in Genesis that does not make a lot of sense. It says, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men. And that's what this is going to reference. And you look at that and say, what are women like? Subpar. And men get to be gods and women are not what's going on. It's not that men or women are different. It's that the population that lived on the mountain were called the sons of God, where the daughters of men were the ones that lived down in the valley, at least according to this text. So I mean to keep going. It says. Now it gets even more obscene. It's a little bit descriptive here. So my apologies. It says, since debauchery ruled among the children of Cain, women shamelessly ran after men. They mingled with one another like a flock in agitation, and thus they openly fornicated in front of each other without shame. Two or three men fell upon one woman, and likewise the woman ran after the men. Abominable spirits entered into the woman so that they were even more furious in their impurity than their daughters. Fathers and sons committed abominations with their mothers and sisters, and neither did the sons know their fathers, nor could the daughters distinguish their sons, for Satan had been made chief and guide of their camp when they raved in diabolical merrymaking. They played flutes at the highest pitch and plucked the zithers with demonic skill and strength. Then the sound of tambourines and rattles, which they beat with evil spirit skill and the noise of laughter was heard high in the air and went up into the holy mountain. [00:18:09] Speaker A: So it sounds like when the neighbors needed to call the cops because my band practice was too loud. [00:18:14] Speaker B: That is exactly where we are going with this. That is exactly where we are going with this. [00:18:20] Speaker A: True story, by the way. [00:18:23] Speaker B: And, Nate, I mean, you're a music expert here. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Expert. [00:18:30] Speaker B: I like that. They talk about music having this influence and, you know, there's different music for different moods, and some music you use to set a stage to inspire. If music didn't inspire acts, then why in the world would they give people in the military a drum instead of a gun? [00:18:53] Speaker A: Oh, sure. [00:18:53] Speaker B: No, sure. [00:18:55] Speaker A: I mean, the thing is, every single. We talk about this all the time, both on the podcast and in just our little private conversations. And that is things can be a tool or a weapon. You know, things can build or break. The same thing can build or break. We told all the time about how the Internet is. The. Like has opened up the entire world and given the world the opportunity of so many blessings and has just like, destroyed lives and continues to just, like, rot people's brains and destroy the world at the same time. Right? [00:19:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yes. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Music is a funny thing. Music is a funny thing. Let's just say that you can. You can. You have people on the extremes that make a case for this idea that, again, like some old talks that you've probably read from kind of a hard line generation, which is if you listen to anything but this, you're evil. Like, it's. It. That's. There's only one purpose for this, and that is just for destruction. You're like, okay, that's. That's just so. Absolutely not true. Right? I mean, it's. You say you can say what you want, and that's just not true. And then you have people that say, oh, no, just listen to whatever you want to. It's. It doesn't. You know, it doesn't affect your mood enough that it actually makes a difference, whatever. And it's like, well, no, that's not true either. And like, with everything, there is nuance. And for some people, certain. Certain types of music do certain things that doesn't for other people. And like, all art, some of it works for some people, and some of it doesn't work for some people. And trying to draw hard lines between that stuff is. It's silly. I mean, truly, it's silly. [00:20:55] Speaker B: I like what you said. There's a lot of wisdom in that. [00:20:59] Speaker A: And I do love, though, by the way, that the pipes and, like, the highest pitch. I mean, it's just. It's funny because, like, to be totally honest with you, nobody likes listening to the pipes anyways. Sorry. Sorry. You bag Pipists. Like, we can do one or two songs, but they're all in the same key. It's like just droning the whole time. So, sorry, Pipists. Sorry, pipers. And nobody likes hearing super high notes anyway. So it's like, yeah, okay, I guess I can get down with that. When somebody has learned how to play something, and it's just squealing and shrieking at high pitches. I'm like, yeah, the devil's probably in that. Feels like it to me. [00:21:37] Speaker B: And I love approaching this topic. Coming fresh off of doctrine and covenants 89, because you look at doctrine and covenants 89, and we're not talking about very well defined. If we talk about something that's a little bit ambiguous and the choice is or the option, how does that make you feel? What does that do for you? And I think the same thing with music. It's hard to be very specific and say, no, listen to this, or listen to that. And the church is not about coming in and taking your agency, and God is not about coming in and trying to define everything that is good or bad. What does that do for you? How does that make you feel? Are you becoming a slave to the music? To where the. [00:22:25] Speaker A: Sure. Great. Yeah. It's a great. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I really think that music does have an impact. We can't say that it doesn't. And maybe we just need to check ourselves and say, what is the impact that this is having? And at the same time, lighten up and not be so critical of other people for what they're doing. Maybe there's something there that really. I mean, you've said this so many times, Nate. You look at. Strikes a chord with them or harmonizes. How many times do you see these music terms that resonates with me? Music becomes almost this universal language. There's a lot to it. [00:23:11] Speaker A: And the thing is, scientifically, certain harmonies blow up a brain scan. You know what I mean? If you had sensors like, measuring brain activity, it's. There's been study after study done of like, oh, yeah, certain types of things definitely inspire, and some things definitely depress, and some things can rile you up, and some things can mellow you out. Like, all those things are true. And by the way, like, the idea that you have to only have one of those things happening all the time takes away any sort of idea that, like, that a human being is so complex and nuanced, which, by the way, so is God, and. And God got angry. Sorry to break that to anybody that doesn't want to think that that isn't also a divine emotion. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Well, is it? That's the thing, isn't every emotion isn't. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Appropriate, doesn't encapsulate all of those things. Right? [00:24:19] Speaker B: And the wrath of God, the anger of God, or the sorrow of God, when you see the heavens mourn over or souls that are Lost or the fallen. All emotions are divine. I like the way you said that. Divine emotion. [00:24:34] Speaker A: And so the idea that, like, when you're maybe in a bummer mood. Yeah, man. There's times where I'm just like, cool, man. Play me some. Play me some music from some people singing from docile. Some bum moods so that I don't feel like I'm the only one feeling bummed in this world. It makes me eventually feel better. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:57] Speaker A: There are times where it's fun. You got sporting events. You turn on something loud and fast and get the adrenaline going and then go and play your butt off. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just. It's like, I'm glad that I feel like in general we're changing kind of the overall conversation about moderation instead of like, hard line. This is what you do and this is what you don't do. You know, that kind of has just been kind of cultural within all religions. But, you know, especially within our religion, the idea that it's like, you never do this, you never do that. And it's changing more to go, oh, yeah, all human beings are really different. Really, like, nuanced. And what works maybe for everybody in certain things doesn't always work for somebody else. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And if I were to sum up the whole, I guess, conversation of music from my point of view is even from the beginning, looking at Adam and Eve, not there long after, as soon as they start inventing instruments and whatnot. Music has always been something that is extremely powerful. And as you said, it's been used for good. God calling Emma to create a hymnbook. The idea of worshiping and angels singing the praise of God. And it's been used for evil. In either case, it's extremely powerful. And as with anything that's powerful, let's make sure that we're leveraging it to the best for our lives. However, that means irresponsible. Yeah. Be responsible with what you do. And that can mean all sorts of things. I'm not even going to try to define that. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Which, by the way, that's a good idea. We should all follow what you just said. Instead of trying to define what that means for everybody individually, state what is a pretty general good idea to follow, which is be responsible. Listen to your emotions, understand how you're feeling. Try to figure out. Try to figure out what things. What things edify you. What things don't. You know what I mean? [00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And then at that point, cool. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Now go. You go make sense of that. [00:27:12] Speaker B: Yep. Joseph Smith maybe said it the best when he said, I try to teach people correct principles and let them govern themselves. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Exactly right. [00:27:20] Speaker B: Okay, well, let's move to the part of the story where the cops get called. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Okay. It's a true story, though, by the way. I kind of feel bad about it. We had horns and everything. Speaking of. Speaking of the. Speaking of all of. Speaking of Satan inside of different instruments. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Sorry. Other horn players. I'm just kidding. I love horns. But they were loud and we weren't very good. And we were really loud and oh, man, the cops got called. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Well, here, here. The cops get called in this story too. [00:27:49] Speaker A: Can't wait. [00:27:50] Speaker B: It says, when the children of Seth heard this noisy uproar and laughter in the camp of Cain's children, about 100 valiant men. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:28:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's quite the police force. About 100 valiant men of them gathered and set their mind upon going down to the camp of the children of Cain. When Jared heard and began to know their words, he said, I implore you by Abel's innocent blood, do not go down from this holy mountain. Remember and think of the oaths which our fathers, Seth, Enosh, Canaan, Mahallelel, and us swear. Enoch also told them, listen, children of Seth, whoever breaks the commandment of Jared and his father's oaths and goes down from the mountain can never come back up again. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:28:46] Speaker B: Yea, and that puts you in a bind a little bit right here. You have got loud, noisy neighbors that are not letting you sleep. And not only that, but their influence is coming in and disturbing your families and disturbing your kids. And you get a hundred valiant men that say, we are going to put an end to this. And they are saying, wait, you have made covenants, and going down is going to break those covenants. But they did not wish to listen to Jared's advice and the words of Enoch. They became bold, broke the commandment, and 100 valiant men went down. And you make the choices you make. But I don't know. Anyways, let's keep going. I was going to go somewhere with that, but I'm just going to keep rolling. [00:29:36] Speaker A: So did they get to go back up? [00:29:38] Speaker B: This is what happened when they saw the daughters of Cain were beautiful to behold and exposed themselves without shame. The sons of death. Sons of death, the sons of Seth were inflamed by the fire of passion. Likewise, when Cain's daughters saw the beauty of the sons of Seth, they rushed on them like wild animals and soiled their bodies. Thus Seth's sons destroyed themselves by fornication with the daughters of Cain. But when they wanted to ascend the holy mountain from which they had fallen, the stones of this holy mountain appeared to them like fire. God did not allow them to ascend to the place on top of the holy mountains because they had soiled themselves by the filth of fornification. After them, a multitude of others became bold too, went down and also fell. Kind of a. Kind of a crazy story. [00:30:40] Speaker A: So just to be clear, this is text in books. Who wrote these? [00:30:48] Speaker B: This was from the Book of the Cave of Treasures. I believe this was written by Ephraim the Syrian. If I. [00:30:58] Speaker A: But I mean like historically, what, like 300 years B.C. [00:31:04] Speaker B: Let me give you some context. [00:31:07] Speaker A: The thing is, a lot of these stories I think can teach so many good things, like the books that were included in the Bible. But I'm always just curious as to like what the source is, you know. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yes, let's see. In the heading of some Syriac manuscripts among the British Museum upon which the present translation is based, the Cave of Treasures is attributed to Ephraim the Syrian about 306 to 373 AD. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Dang it. Dang it. I thought I was gonna, I thought I was gonna even nail like the general time frame. I said B.C. i blew it. [00:31:47] Speaker B: It's close. But this time seems out of question in the light of historical research. Since Cave of Treasures is first quoted in the so called Revelations of Pseudo Methods Methodius, an apocalyptic text written around the middle of the 7th century and furthermore does not show any knowledge of Muslim conquest, it seems safe to assume that it was written before 6:30 A.D. before Muhammad. Yep. The final redaction can be dated reasonably safe. So yeah, it's pulling from earlier sources, but the text that they have is coming from there. And remember, the oldest complete manuscript we have of the Bible is about 1100 A.D. oh really? Yeah. [00:32:32] Speaker A: The Old Testament, we just have like shards of manuscript though from. [00:32:38] Speaker B: Correct. And that was before the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls take it back even earlier. Yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls I believe, takes us all the way back to 200 B.C. [00:32:48] Speaker A: In some instances that's what it was, 200 B.C. i think that's probably what I was thinking of is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yeah, this is great. What other stories you got for us? [00:32:56] Speaker B: Well, I just wanted to take this story and put it in context with some of the weird things that we see in the Bible and some of the weird things that we see in history. So we have this in the Bible. All it does is says that the sons of man came into the daughters of the sons of God went into the daughters of man. And God was mad and upset. You're like, wait, why? What? It doesn't make sense. That's all it says in the Bible. But when you add this context to it and you look at it, it was the falling of these sons of sons of God that were the righteous, if you will, it makes a little bit more sense. And it says also in Genesis, maybe I should have just opened up the Bible. It says, and in those days, there were giants in the land. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I remember that. [00:33:41] Speaker B: And you're like, giants. That's weird. Well, the Hebrew word for giants is nephilim, right? And im is that masculine plural ending. Nephil means to fall. So the fallen ones. So in that day, there were the fallen ones. So it's not just that maybe they were giants. Physically, they were tall. But maybe it was the day, like Jared, his name means to go down. Maybe it was the day that they went down. And it's interesting that you associate this fall not with just a spiritual fall, but physically they descended into a lower state of existence. And the other interesting thing is it says that God was upset with the children of men so that he would shorten their days. But after that, we read about even all the way down to Abraham, who lived several hundred years, and he is saying he is going to shorten their days to less than 100 years. Why is it that all of these people still lived several hundred of years after God says that? Well, you look at this story, if you had sons of God, they were like, in fact, in here, they said they were gods, right? I have called you gods and the sons of the most high, all of you, if you have a society that lives on top of a tall mountain, who are called gods, who are essentially immortal in the sense that they live hundreds and hundreds of years, almost 900 years. And yet in the valley, people are living to less than 100 years. They are living to 60, 70 years old. They have several generations that die, and yet these guys are still living, Right? Where do you see in history people that lived, gods that lived on a mountain, while men lived in the valley below. And you see Mount Olympus, Greek mythology, and what happened in Greek mythology, the gods that lived on Mount Olympus got bored and came down from the mountain and had intercourse with the women. In the Bible it says when the sons of God mingled with the daughters of men, men of renown, mighty men were born. So go back to Greek mythology. Zeus comes down from the mountain, and now Hercules is born, and you have these people that live hundreds of years versus these people that don't physically. There are some differences there. And now you have these mighty men, these heroes that are born from the fallen beings that came down from the mountain. So for me, looking at this story and reading it provides context that links the Bible to some of the mythologies that you see and some of the missing links that kind of connects and ties some of that history together. So, for me, this was kind of a fascinating reading. [00:36:32] Speaker A: I love. I love all those kind of interconnections. Is it any wonder, then, that pan was the one that had the pipe. The pan pipes. He had the devil, like, oh, you're right around. Playing on his little flute. [00:36:47] Speaker B: You're right. I didn't even think of that. [00:36:52] Speaker A: See, nobody likes the pipes and nobody likes goats. [00:36:59] Speaker B: All right. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Just kidding, all you pipers and goat farmers. I'm just kidding. [00:37:04] Speaker B: I enjoy listening to some bagpipe songs. [00:37:07] Speaker A: I. I enjoy one. [00:37:08] Speaker B: But that. But that's the. That's the. You're right. Like, you hear one, and it's almost enough to, like. [00:37:14] Speaker A: No, but they. Literally. You can only play the bagpipes in one key. I'm pretty sure, like, you just drone one of. Cause the. Cause one of, like, the little reeds coming out of the thing. It's just. You don't. You don't, like. You don't cover any holes, right? Like, you don't change the pitch of it. It just goes. And you just get that going. I went and saw a bagpipe performance one time down in Springville or Spanish Fork or Payson. It's like seven, eight of these kids with these bagpipes just, like, the whole time, and then they're like. And it was just that one note for 45 minutes, and you're just like, my goodness. My goodness. [00:37:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's hard to listen to over. [00:38:00] Speaker A: A long thing is again, like at a funeral or something. I'm like, yeah, man. Like, like, what's. What's the tune that everybody always plays at the funeral on the bagpipes? Oh, man. Dang. That's gonna bum me out. That I forgot. Anyways. Classic. [00:38:15] Speaker B: I know. I know it. I'm just as blank as I was earlier. [00:38:23] Speaker A: All right. I feel bad. I should know this. I do know this. It's just totally escape. Had I not. Had I not stopped to think about it anyways, for that, I'm like, yeah, man, give me that. Give me the dudes and the kilts rock that. [00:38:36] Speaker B: It's got its place. It's got a seasoning, but like any seasoning, if you. If you put that seasoning on the wrong thing, it's not going to taste good. [00:38:44] Speaker A: All right, I'm. Dude, I'm with you. [00:38:45] Speaker B: Okay. I thought this was interesting. This is still from the book of the Cave of Treasures. I'm just fast forwarding to the flood. Noah's entrance into the ark took place on Friday in the blessed month of Lyre, on the 17th of Friday. It's interesting, they said Friday twice, but we'll keep going in the morning. The wild animals and cattle entered into the lower deck. At noon, the birds and all reptiles entered into the middle deck. And at sunset, Noah and all of his sons entered the eastern side of the ark, while his wife and his sons wives entered on the ark's western side. Adam's body was put down in the middle of the ark, for all the mysteries of the church are foreshadowed in it. Inside church, women stayed on the western side and men on the eastern side, so that the men cannot see the women's faces, nor do the women see the faces of the men. Thus, also in the ark, the women were on the western side and the men on the eastern side. Adam's body, however, was put in the middle, like the bema. And just as there was in silence between men and women in the church, so there was peace inside the ark between animals, birds and reptiles. And I looked at this setting and it seemed fascinating to me that you have this aisle down the middle, and men sat on one side and women sat on the other side. And in the middle you had the coffin, if you will, the body of Adam. And to me, and the women couldn't see the men's faces, and the men couldn't see the women's faces. It reminded me of temple imagery. And the altar, an altar is built for sacrifice, right? And so we make the covenants on the altar. And the idea that the altar represents Christ's body, his death, his sacrifice, is what makes those covenants possible. So here you have the altar where Christ died, representing his body. Yet in here, it's Adam who is there. His body is almost this image of an altar or the one that is going to come to redeem Adam. And then you had this quiet reverence, and it is almost creating, if you will, a temple setting for the ark. And you have the waters of chaos and you have this creation. So you go back to the creation story, which is what we do with the temple, right? Well, here you have again these waters of chaos, and then There is going to be God creating orders and then there's going to be animals and then man again in this garden paradise with animals and peacefully getting along. It's recreating or taking you back to paradise, back to Eden. [00:41:40] Speaker A: It's awesome. It's Amazing Grace, by the way. [00:41:44] Speaker B: That's it. [00:41:45] Speaker A: I'm sorry. That was going to drive me nuts. And on the, the, the handful of people that are going to be listening to this midweek were probably screaming at their, their radios. [00:41:55] Speaker B: They're saying, you know, for. [00:41:57] Speaker A: They were like yelling like, this dude's supposed to be the expert, man. Jason keeps calling him the expert. He can't even think of Amazing Grace on the back vibes. Don't get upset with us. We're doing this for free. [00:42:11] Speaker B: Okay, that's true. All right, last story. [00:42:19] Speaker A: Here's a question. Why isn't some of this stuff included in like the Old Testament? [00:42:23] Speaker B: That's a good question. It's come down to discussions and people would look at it and say, what is canonical, what is not? I mean, the Old Testament canon should have been established long before Ephraim The Syrian in 300 AD comes along. But you've got to have these writings and these fragments. And Moses himself, when he puts together the Book of Moses, the law, the first five books of the Bible, he's not just writing this from scratch, but he's got access to libraries and sources and fragments and writings. And I think that's what people don't necessarily realize. You think of the Bible as just this very clean history of this tradition that's been carried on over and over again. But there's all sorts of religious writings and fragments and some that got compiled and included. And this idea of a canon that this measures up, it depends on a lot of different things. And does it agree theologically with thought at the time when whoever is discussing it, or is there a disagreeance theologically that this does not support what we think? So some things get included, some things don't. One of the cool things about this book I have is they list all of the non scripture scriptures. And by that I mean in the Bible, they reference books. Is it not written in the Book of the Upright, Is it not written? And they mention it four or five times and you are like, oh, well, the Book of the Upright, if it is written about in the Bible, should be part of the Bible. Where did that book go? The thing is, they did find a book labeled the Book of the Upright and the guy was translating it. Here's the problem is in the 1800s, right before he finishes translating it and publishing it, a fraud writes a fake book of the Upright and publishes it and gets all of this attention. And then it comes out to be this huge fraud. And so then everybody's spoiled on the idea. So now this guy finishes his translation, he's like, hey, I've got. And then everyone's like, be quiet. We don't want to hear it. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's a bummer. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Crazy, though, how, like, that little moment changed everything though, right? Like, it's just funny how delicate little moments in history are for, like, the. We all don't know about that book because right at the last minute, right before it's translated, some dude, some knucklehead, whatever, soured everybody on it. And now it was just like, it's a forgotten thing, you know? [00:45:07] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not near as big as it could have been or it would have been. And maybe that is by design. And it is interesting. We might not relate to it as much, but it also happened in our time period, especially as we are looking at Doctrine and Covenants. We think of Doctrine and Covenants as just this clean, simple book that was written. But here is the thing. When Joseph Smith received a revelation, and before this was published into a book, people wanted to have that revelation. So they would ask for copies and they would write their own copy. And we have different copies of the revelations based on translation or not translation, because it's all English. Right. But sometimes you transcribe it wrong or you would. Yeah, sometimes you'd focus on something here or you'd miss something there, or you'd copy the same line over. And so there are different versions of the revelations that we have in Doctrine and Covenants, and who decides which one is the most accurate? And sometimes we might have picked the wrong one. But looking back in hindsight scholar, we look at it and say, oh, maybe. Maybe we should have gone with this. Or maybe this is more complete. This one has this person's handwriting versus this one's handwriting. And where does it come from? There's an interesting story behind Doctrine and Covenants that matches that of your New Testament and your Old Testament. Just these fragments and these manuscripts and trying to figure out what is going to be your authoritative source for the Scripture. [00:46:36] Speaker A: It's awesome. It's good perspective. [00:46:41] Speaker B: And, man, maybe I'll post this on the website rather than try to look for it. But what this has here is it'll quote all of the Bible verses that mention a book that is not in the Bible and then it lists out every non biblical biblical book, if that makes sense. And it's actually a pretty long list. So it's kind of. Kind of interesting that way. Trying to make sure I'm wise with time. I think we're. I think we're running close to. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we can. [00:47:15] Speaker B: We could probably, but I know there's a lot of things that I wish I could still say. [00:47:20] Speaker A: Then just. Yeah, just knock them out then. [00:47:23] Speaker B: Okay, we're gonna go think of what's most important. All right. There's Impalia Historica. There's a story tells the story of David and Nathan. And we know the story of David. Right. I think most of us know the story of David. [00:47:41] Speaker A: I thought we all. Isn't Nathan in the Bible too. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Nathan sure is. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Comes and tells him like, yo, dog, you gotta chill. [00:47:48] Speaker B: That's it. Okay, so here it is. So the Lord said to Nathan, the prophet, go out and reprove King David for having committed adultery. The prophet said to the angel, I am afraid lest perchance the king will not accept my rebukes and put me to death. That's a legitimate fear. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Go tell the king he's wrong. The angel of the Lord told him, go ahead, for you will see me before you. And the prophet left for the king. As he was going in, he saw the angel holding in his hand the drawn sword and standing before the king. If he planned to resist the rebuke, the angel would kill him. So the prophet said, I have a case to make to you, my king. And the king said, state your case. The prophet had the following reply. A certain man owned 99 lambs, and he sat with them and enjoyed being with them. But a poor man lived near him who had only one lamb, which ate from his table, drank from his cup, and slept at his knees. Now that wealthy man left behind the 99 lambs that he owned and enjoyed and took the one lamb of the poor man. I bring this case before you, my king. And the king replied, if the one who did this in my kingdom is found, I'll have his head. And the prophet answered, you are the one, my king, who did this. So the most gentle king immediately arose from the throne and made obeisance, saying, I have sinned against my Lord. I have sinned. When at that time the prophet saw the angel turn his sword away, he told the king, the Lord has taken away your transgression. Yeah, well, it's good. Yeah. What? I wanted to focus on this. Where have you seen somebody leave the 90 and 9 and go after the 1. And I had never thought of that before. And so it is interesting because in the Old Testament it doesn't say 90 and 9. He says he had many sheep and then he goes after the one sheep, right? And so I caught onto that and I think he was making that connection with Christ in the New Testament when he was saying Christ says, but Christ is comparing himself to David. I left the 90 and nine and went after the one, right? But David is leaving a different kind of 90 and nine. He is leaving 99 wives to go after one wife that he shouldn't be chasing. Where Christ is leaving 99 saints, if you will, to look for the lost soul, which is very different. But he is almost like by stating this, he is almost telling the Pharisees, I am David, I am the king, I come from David's land. I am, what is it, the stem of Jesse, the one that is going to come from David's line, I am the Messiah, I am the one who is going to leave the 99 and go after the one. So it gives me a little bit of appreciation from that story that way. And I think of it like this. As in Adam all shall die, even in Christ shall all be made alive. Christ comes to be a new Adam, if you will, to. To take the role of Adam and reverse it and make things better. Well, in this case he's taking the role of David and making things better. He's doing what David did, but he's doing it better. He's doing it perfectly. He's leaving the 90 and 9 to save one, not to condemn. So it's kind of interesting that playoff. But as I was looking at the story too, here you have this wealthy powerful man, he's being compared to a king and he has 99 sheep. And I was looking at shepherd sizes and most shepherd, you're talking like 50 to 60 is a good sized herd. The fact that he's got 99 makes him extremely wealthy on one end, where the guy that has one makes him extremely poor on the other end. If 50 is about average, this guy's doing super well for himself and this guy's not doing so well. So then you go look at the Bible when he says, what manner of men of you would leave the 90 and nine and go after the one? It's not like you have three sheep and you lost one, then you are desperate to find one, right? But if you have such a large Herd, you have 99 sheep, why would you chase the one? It's not. We look at it and Think, oh, yeah, he leaves the 99. He's a good shepherd. It's not. [00:52:31] Speaker A: It's not out of necessity. It's out of love. [00:52:33] Speaker B: It is out of love. And it's almost crazy. Like, nobody does. That is the point. And to put it in context, he takes the story even a little bit further and he says, okay, there's the woman that has 10 pieces of silver, right? And she loses one. Let me ask you, Nate, and let me ask anyone who's listening to this podcast, if you had $500 and you lost a $50 bill, which one of you would pull out the lanterns and the flashlights and whatever it takes, sweeping the floor and searching for that all night long? And as soon as you found it, call everyone you know and throw a huge party, Would you? [00:53:13] Speaker A: Would you call everybody out to lunch? [00:53:15] Speaker B: Would you call me, Nate, and have me come over to your house and celebrate the fact that you found a fifty dollar bill when you had five hundred? [00:53:21] Speaker A: No, but, I mean, maybe I am the weird one, but no, I wouldn't do that. [00:53:25] Speaker B: No, the cost of the party is more than the amount of the money you lost. That's the point. We look at these stories and we think, oh, yeah, no, it's supposed to be absurd because the Pharisees were looking at them. You're eating with sinners and publicans. And he's like, yeah, that does look absurd to you. You wouldn't do it. That's the point. Which one of you would call everybody and celebrate? And if you have 99 sheep, by the way, 100 sheep, and you find that one little lost one, which one of you is going to carefully put that over your shoulders and run into town and say, hey, look, everybody, I found my sheep. Yeah, I know I've got 99 over there, but this sheep right here, it better have golden fleece if you react that way. So I don't know, reading this gave me different appreciation for some of the parables in the New Testament as well. [00:54:20] Speaker A: You've already got my brain racing. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Yeah, there's some cool things. And maybe I'll just kind of wrap up the Pseudepigrapha by saying there is, like Joseph Smith said with the Apocrypha, there is some things that are true, there's some things that are translated correctly, and there's some value in there. And there's some things in there that are just crazy. I don't know. There is some value. But know this, you're probably going to swim through a lot of weird stuff before you Find those stones. Okay, last thought, and I promise I'll end this. This was just kind of a weird, random thing. I thought I'd tag in at the end of the show. I've been trying to get healthy and get to the gym a little bit more often. Going and exercising five times a week and just 40 minutes to an hour. I don't have a ton of time, so usually less than an hour. But I decided to add up all of the weights that I'm lifting. And it's not like I'm doing a ton. I'm just doing like, three sets of five repetitions and then maybe four different exercises, and that's it. And I'll run a mile and a half or something. But as I started adding up each one of those Reps, and for five days a week, it came out to £68,000. And that seems like a lot. Like, if someone were to ask me to go move £68,000, I would laugh and say that that's ridiculous. It's not going to happen. And yet just taking less than an hour, five times a week, breaking it up like that is actually pretty easy. And it's not that much effort. It wasn't all that much, but it amounts to something and it changes us. Right? And sometimes it's easier to notice the physical transformation of doing something like that over time. So I thought that was interesting. But then it made me think, well, if I'm studying my scriptures and diving into my scriptures an hour a day or up to sometimes 10 hours a week, what's that doing to me intellectually or spiritually? That's equivalent. If five hours a week is giving me £68,000 physically than doing 10 hours a week of studying and thinking and reflecting and trying to search for God. It's giving me, like, £130,000 of spiritual development. It just seemed kind of fascinating to me because we say it all the time, like the small and simple things or the little things that matter, and they don't seem that big. But putting it in context with that massive amount of weight that you end up moving at the end of a week, I just thought that was kind of a cool note to end up on. I mean, what do we focus our time on? And maybe saving just that 30 to 40 minutes a week adds up in significant ways that you could never predict. [00:57:17] Speaker A: I love that. It's great. [00:57:19] Speaker B: All right, thanks for hanging out with me on this bonus episode. [00:57:22] Speaker A: Bonus episode. What are we talking about next week again? [00:57:25] Speaker B: Next week is Doctrine Covenants 93. Seeing God kind of a common theme in these last few sections. [00:57:31] Speaker A: Okay. Can't wait. All right, well, I guess I'll see you in a couple days. [00:57:36] Speaker B: Yeah, won't be long for us. [00:57:38] Speaker A: All right. [00:57:39] Speaker B: See ya. [00:57:54] Speaker A: Sam.