Thursday, November 16, 2023

On the law of Moses as a system of "types of things to come"

  

Like King Benjamin (Mosiah 3:15), Abinadi describes the Law of Moses as a system of “types of things to come.” The name Moses itself, which in Egyptian denotes “[the God is] begotten” and which acquired the Hebrew connotation “drawer” or “puller,” is loaded with christological typology. Moses as a royal “begotten” son, “pulled” from the waters of birth/death (cf. Exodus 2:10; Romans 6:4), would “pull” Israel from the waters (cf. especially Moses 1:25) — i.e., “baptiz[ing] Israel” (1 Corinthians 10:2). One who baptizes, as Abinadi’s lone convert Alma the Elder does in Mosiah 18, represents Jesus Christ himself who “pulls,” redeems, and resurrects Israel from physical and spiritual death, and divine “rebirth” into the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and “newness of life” here and hereafter. (Matthew L. Bowen, “Becoming Men and Women of Understanding: Revisiting Wordplay on Benjamin,” in Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon: Toward a Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ [Salt Lake City: Eborn Books; Orem, Utah: Interpreter Foundation, 2023], 180-81)