Why did Paul go to Arabia after his conversion?

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. (Gal 1:17)

Commenting on why the newly-converted Saul would go to Arabia, N.T. Wright offers this answer:

So why Arabia? . . . The word “Arabia” in the first century covered a wide range of territory . . . [however] one of the only other references to it in the New Testament—indeed, in the same letter, Paul’s letter to the Galatians—gives us a far more specific location: Mt. Sinai, in the peninsula to the south of the Holy Land and to the east of Egypt . . . Sinai was where Elijah had gone when it all went horribly wrong. Sinai was where Saul of Tarsus went—for the same reason.

The echoes of the Elijah story are small but significant. After his zealous victory over the prophets of Baal, Elijah is confronted by a messenger from Queen Jezebel, herself an enthusiastic backer of the Baal cult. The royal threat is blunt; Elijah’s life is on the line. Zeal turns to panic He runs away, all the way to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:1-9). (Horeb is either another name for Sinai or the name of a mountain close by from which the Israelites set off to Canaan.) There he complains to God that he has been “very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts” (in other words, he has killed the prophets of Baal), but that it hasn’t worked. The people are still rebelling, and he alone is left, the last loyalist. He repeats this complaint a second time after a powerful revelation of wind, earthquake, and fire had been followed by “a sound of sheer silence,” one modern translation of a Hebrew phrase that in the King James Version appears as “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:5-10).

When God finally answers, Elijah is told, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus,” where he is to anoint new kings for Syria and Israel and a new prophet, Elisha, to take his own place (1 Kings 19:15). They will do what needs to be done to remove Baal worship from the land. What’s more, God declares to the puzzled prophet, “I will leave seven thousand in Israel” who will stay loyal (1 Kings 19:18). (Paul quotes that passage in another letter, likening himself to Elijah as the focal point of a “remnant.”) (Rom. 11:3-4)

Already those with ears to hear may catch echoes of Paul in Galatians. He has been “exceedingly zealous for the ancestral traditions,” leading him to use violence in trying to stamp out heresy. Paul says that he “went away to Arabia”—just as Elijah did—and “afterward return to Damascus”—again just like Elijah. So what is this all about? Why did Saul go to Arabia?

The parallel with Elijah—the verbal echoes are so close, and the reflection on “zeal” so exact, that Paul must have intended them—indicates that he, like Elijah, made a pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai in order to go back to the place where the covenant was ratified. He wanted to go and present himself before the One God, to explain that he had been “exceedingly zealous,” but that his vision, his entire worldview, had been turned on its head. And he received his instructions: “Go back and announce the new king.” (N.T. Wright, Paul: A Biography [London: SPCK, 2018], 62-64; emphasis added; comment in square bracket added for clarification)

Paul's Speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17:22-31

Authors of Scripture clearly did not labour under the assumption that their works, whether standing alone or as a whole, would be formally sufficient. As one scholar wrote:

If you read the Greek text of Paul’s speech [at the Areopagus in Acts 17:22-31] as Luke reports it at the speed you might expect him to speak to a large gathering in the open air, it will take two minutes, or perhaps a little longer if you allow for a few well-judged rhetorical pauses. It is just possible that the court was busy that day, that Paul’s case was scheduled in between several others, and that the court officials told him (as I was once told in the House of Lords when we were debating “assisted dying” and far too many people wanted to contribute) that he could speak for only two minutes. But I find that highly unlikely. There is no evidence that the Areopagus rushed through business. And Paul, of all people, would not want to pass up a chance like this to address the highest court in the proud capital of ancient culture, the home of philosophy, the cradle of democracy. I suspect that he spoke for two hours, rather than two minutes. His speech would form a book in itself, but Luke has no space for such a thing within his own work. He has boiled it down to the bones. (N.T. Wright, Paul: A Biography [London: SPCK, 2018], 195; emphasis added; comment in square bracket added for clarification)

For more, see my lengthy essay (also available on Amazon as a book):

Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura

Dom Wulstan Mork on The Christian as Prophet

The Christian As Prophet

Several texts state that the Holy Spirit was the ruach that inspired the utterances of the charismatic leaders of the Old Testament. The word of Christ affirms this: “David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said . . .” (M 12:36). And Peter declared: “Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning Judas . . .” (Acts 1:16). And in the second epistle of Peter we read concerning the prophets: “no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pt 1:21) (f. Acts 4:25; 7:51; 28:25).

A larger number of texts says the same thing with regard to Christians. First, Luke reports of the Pentecostal outpouring of the spirit of God: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). This recalls the ruach coming upon Saul and the prophets in 1 Samuel 10:10, whose prophecy was the praise of God. But more particularly the event is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, as Peter, immediately afterward, attests, quoting the passage: “But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and our daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour our my Spirit; and they shall prophesy’” (Acts 2:16-18 [Jl 2:28-29]) (Notice that where Joel has “in these days” in verse 29, Peter substitutes “in the last days,” knowing what the authority of the newly given Spirit that Joel was referring to Messianic times. Cf. also Is 32:15; 44:3; 59:21; Ezk 36:25-27; 39:29).). The gospel, the new word of God, is then preached “ . . . through the heaven-sent Holy Spirit” (1 Pt 1:12), who is the source of the word.

Through baptism the prophetic Spirit abides in the Christian. At the end of his first sermon on Pentecost, Peter’s listeners asked: “’Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:37-38). The Christian is said to be “full of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Acts 6:5; 7:55; 13:52), and this is his usual condition: “Did you,” Paul asks some Christian disciples at Ephesus, “receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When they confess their ignorance of the Spirit’s existence, and Paul learns that they had received only John’s baptism, “ . . .they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:2-6). God’s indication to Peter that the Gentiles also should receive baptism was the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius and his household before they were baptized (cf. Acts 10:44-47; 11:4-18; 15:8).

Because the Christian is filled with the Spirit, it is the Spirit who does the speaking when it is a matter of witnessing to Christ. Jesus tells this to the Apostles: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Mt 10:20) (cf. Mk 13:11; Lk 12:11-12). An example of this is seen in the case of Stephen and his disputants: “But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6:10). The Church increases in numbers “in the comfort of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:31).

This same Spirit of prophecy guides the early Church, indicating the divine will. It is the Spirit who tells the deacon Philip to attach himself to the Ethiopian official (Acts 8:29); and Peter allows himself to be taken to Cornelius’ house at the instruction of the Spirit, as he admits (Acts 10:19; 11:12). The Spirit warns of a coming famine (Acts 11:28), tells Paul not to go to Jerusalem through the Christians at Tyre (Acts 21:4), and indicates Paul and Barnabas for a missionary journey (Acts 13:2) (cf. Acts 15:28; 20:23; 21:11). As John resoundingly sums it up: “Let him who has ears listen to what the Spirit says to the assemblies” (Rev 2:7, etc.) (cf. Acts 13:4; 16:6-7; 10:28). As Filson notes:

“The fact of the Spirit’s presence and aid is so frequently noted in the New Testament that it obviously is a common point in the experience and teaching of the Apostolic Church. We have no evidence of a section of the Church which did not know the gift of the Spirit . . . Moreover, just as in the case of the relation to the risen Christ, the relation to the Holy Spirit included all of life.” (Floyd V. Filson, The New Testament against its environment, p. 72)

In view of the above-quoted texts, and others cited in the notes, we conclude that the evangelists, Luke in particular, regard the gift of the Holy Spirit as charismatic, as source and power for the Christian in his relations with the Father, with Christ, and with creation. The Spirit is to the Christian what he was to the prophets. (Dom Wulstan Mork, The Biblical Meaning of Man [Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1967], 92-94; emphasis added)

Dom Wulstan Mork on Psalm 51:16-17

Speaking of texts that seem, at first blush, to downplay the importance of sacrifice in the Old Testament, Catholic theologian Dom Wulstan Mork wrote:

Individuality in the context of sacrifice is beautifully expressed in two psalms. First, in David’s psalm of repentance: “For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps 51:16-17). The meaning here is that a sacrifice which is not prompted by sincere interior dispositions is useless. But note the personal, individual dispositions which God demands! The following passage from Psalm 40 is applied by the author of Hebrews to Christ: “Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire; but thou hast given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required. Then I said, ‘Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my heart’” (Ps 40:6-8; Cf. Heb 10:5-7). The sacrifices of the people of God simply because they belong to that people, have no meaning apart from the fundamental union of the individual’s will with the will of God. The mentality carries right on down to Christ, who is the perfection of biblical man. (Dom Wulstan Mork, The Biblical Meaning of Man [Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1967], 11; emphasis in original)

The Mesoamerican Theological Background of Alma 11:28-29 and other like-texts

Critics often claim that the Book of Mormon, in passages such as Alma 11:28-29 as “proof” that the Book of Mormon contradicts Latter-day Saint theology and other LDS Scriptural texts such as the Book of Abraham that teaches a doctrine of “the plurality of the gods.” I have refuted this many times before, including:

The Number of God in the Book of Abraham and Alma 11

The theology of Alma 11:44

Refuting Ron Den Boer

Critics are also guilty of ignoring the Mesoamerican background to the Book of Mormon and how such comments such as those in Alma 11:28-29 is not against the ontological existence of beings that can be called “G/gods” per se but a denial of Mesoamerican religious syncretism. As LDS Mesoamericanist Brant Gardner noted:

Bridging the Nature of God

Syncretizing Nephite and Mesoamerican religions had to deal with concepts of deity. On this most fundamental point, modern monotheists would see tremendous differences with the Mesoamerican polytheists, but there were sufficient perceived similarities with the Mesoamerican polytheists, but there were sufficient perceived similarities with the Nephite explanation of Deity could accommodate, or be accommodated to, Mesoamerican ideas about the nature of the divine.

Although the Nephites cannot be equated with the Maya, Maya culture was already widespread in Mesoamerica and in the Preclassic period (400 B.C.-A.D. 250) and appears to have exerted a great influence on surrounding cultures (Francisco Estrada Belli, The First Maya Civilization, 61-63). We have the best data for this culture, thanks to the preponderance of carved stone monuments and ceramic vessels painted with historical and mythological scenes and texts that have been preserved archaeologically. As plausibly influential neighbors of the Nephites, the Maya exemplify the kind of religious ideas to which some Nephites accommodated. Though certainly not homogenous, Maya beliefs and practices bear fundamental similarities to other Mesoamerican cultures and therefore exemplify the points of congruence along with our proposed syncretism occurred (Larks Kirkhusmo Pharo, “The Concept of ‘Religion’ in Mesoamerican Languages,” 28-70).

Maya scholars use god and deity interchangeably in their scholarly literature. The problem with the terminology is that our modern ideas of “god” and “deity” may not replicate the Maya notion of “supernatural sentient beings that appear in sacred narrative” (Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan, 8). Maya scholars Stephen Houston and David Stuart lament a scholarly ethnocentrism that has hindered understanding of Classic Period Maya deities. They argue that the Western conception of gods as perfect, immortal, and discrete beings is not applicable to the Mesoamerican pantheon (Stephen D. Houston and David Stuart, “Of Gods, Glyphs, and Kings: Divinity and Rulership among the Classic Maya,” 290). Gabrielle Vail’s assessment of the Preclassic Maya (A.D. 900-1521) representations of gods found in their bark-paper books can usefully be applied to the earlier Classic depictions of gods found on ceramics and monuments: “The picture that emerges is one of a series of deity complexes or clusters, composed of a small number of underlying divinities, each having various aspects, or manifestations” (Gabrielle Vail, “Pre-Hispanic Maya Religion,” 123). Vail argues that in a “deity complex,” a variety of distinctive gods could be lumped together into a single category, predicated on a core cluster of bodily features or costume elements. Conversely, a single god could be represented with a variety of differing characteristics or manifestations. Their names, attributes, and domains of influence were fluid, yet they retained their individual identity. Each of the elaborations that a modern reader might see as a different deity was actually considered to be merely an elaboration of the complex essence of one particular deity.

Although not precisely the same concept, Nephite religion understood a proliferation of “names” for the Messiah. For example, Isaiah declares that “his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6; 2 Ne. 19:6). Each of these names proclaims a different quality, yet all apply to the same God. The Maya deity complexes similarly expanded the qualities of the underlying deity, albeit with a more complete elaboration than just a name.

An example from the modern Ch’orti’, a designation for a Maya people and language, demonstrates how this Mesoamerican deity complex expands the names and manifestations of an underlying deity according to different conditions. One particular god manifests itself as a solar being during the dry season but transforms into a maize spirit during the rainy season (Rafael Girard, People of the Chan, 350). Even as a solar deity, it has multiple manifestations throughout the course of a single day that also demonstrate syncretism with Christian ideals: “They say that the sun has not just one name. The one which is best known by people continues to be Jesus Christ. They say that when it is just getting light its name is Child Redeemer of the World. One name is San Gregorio the Illuminator. One name is San Antonio of Judgment. One name is Child Guardian. One is Child Refuge. One is Child San Pascual. One is Child Succor. One is Child Creator. They say that during at each hour, one of these is its name” (John G. Fought, Chorti (Maya) Texts, 485. Among the Ch’orti, San Antonio is the fire god, San Gregorio emits beams of light, and San Pascual is Venus as morning star).

Although it is foreign to the way we understand our Christian tradition, a people who lived in the context of a world that saw manifestations of the divine in deity complexes might easily reenvision the Nephite God (with multiple names) as a deity complex, being composed of distinctive manifestations in different circumstances. For example, God the Father and Christ the Son are considered “one Eternal God” (Alma 11:44). From a syncretic perspective, the Book of Mormon can be read as teaching that each deity had his own identity and at times was described by different manifestations. When the text declares, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son” (Ether 3:14), the syncretist might easily interpret it as a deity complex. Abinadi’s explanation in Mosiah 15 of how Christ is both the Father and the Son could also be read as an example of multiple manifestations of a single deity:

And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—

The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and the Son—

And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.

And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people . . .

Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father. (Mosiah 15:2-5, 7)

Once a Nephite apostate accommodated the idea of a deity complex, that concept could easily be read into the scriptural tradition, and the Nephite God of many names could be reinterpreted in much more fluid Mesoamerican terms. Such a syncretic perspective would reread descriptions of God as differing manifestations, such as a creator deity (Jacob 2:5), a destroyer (3 Ne. 9), a rain god (Ether 9:35), a god of agricultural fertility (Alma 34:24), a solar deity (1 Ne. 1:9; Hel. 14:4, 20), a fire god (1 Ne. 1:6; Hel. 13:13), a king (Mosiah 2:19), a god of medicine (Alma 46:40), a shepherd (Alma 5:38), a lamb (1 Ne. 14), and even a rock (Hel. 5:12). Clearly, some of these manifestations are metaphorical in their appropriate context, but the ancient Maya similarly used rich metaphorical language, and they often used visual metaphors in their art. In an apostate/syncretic mind-set, the metaphor shifted to express a different underlying meaning (Kerry M. Hull, Verbal Art and Performance in Ch’orti’ and Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, 337). (Brant A. Gardner, Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015], 263-65)

Brant Gardner on Oliver Cowdery's Failure to Translate the Book of Mormon

Commenting on D&C 8-9 and Oliver Cowdery’s failure to translate the Book of Mormon, notwithstanding the promise that he had such an ability and could do such (further evidence of contingent foreknowledge?), Brant Gardner, in his volume on the translation of the Book of Mormon, wrote:

Although no available record suggests that Oliver had ever tried to use a seer stone, he was, however, able to use a “rod of nature,” (a dividing rod or witching stick). The original revelation that later became section 8 specifically assured Oliver: “Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands, for it is the work of God; and therefore whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you, that you shall know.”

Joseph had also had some experience with the rod before he learned that his talent was in seeing rather than working with the rod. He clearly believed that both methods accessed something beyond this world. In the context of the sacred translation of the Book of Mormon, he believed that his stone accessed the divine and that Oliver’s rod would do the same.

Just as Joseph had transferred his talent with a particular medium—the stone—to the task of translating, both young men understood that Oliver could transfer his talent with the rod to the task of translation. However, more was involved than the bare facts of a different medium. When Joseph used the stone, he could see a translation in words. The rod or witching stick could indicate a direction, or give yes/no answers, but it did not produce an answer in words. B.H. Roberts also understood Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-10 as describing a process that might have differed from Joseph’s. Although we don’t have specific descriptions of how one used the rod to receive revelation, the instructions given to Oliver suggest that it was still considered a yes/no instrument.

Right after the promise that Oliver could translate (D&C 8:1), the revelation continues: “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart” (D&C 8:2). This instruction is echoed when the next revelation explains to Oliver why he failed:

Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.

Now, if you had known this you could have translated; nevertheless, it is not expedient that you should translate now. (D&C 9:7-10)

The Lord is describing a binary confirmation of a translation already attempted. We can easily see how we might present a binary question to the Lord and receive a yes/no answer. However, as a means of receiving a text, it must have been extremely difficult. I submit that it is this difference between the two media that governed how their users could receive inspiration and, hence, what made the difference between Joseph’s and Oliver’s attempts to translate.

When Joseph translated, he used a seer stone in which he “saw” a translation which he read. He was certainly unaware of the physiological structure of his brain that allowed that mode of translation. He was simply aware that his ability was divinely ability was divinely provided and, hence, that the translation occurred by the gift and power of God. Oliver was unable to read a translation with his rod and therefore had to find a way to understand what the sentence should be, then ask for confirmation. That process required more of Oliver than he was able to produce.

The Lord’s explanation of why Oliver failed tells us that Oliver supposed that translation would be easy as it appeared to be for Joseph, who dictated with no apparent effort. Oliver’s efforts failed to produce a translation. Section 9 explains that he had to exert the kind of effort that could be submitted to the revelatory tool he was using for a yes/no response.

Nevertheless, Oliver wasn’t doomed to fail. He had been promised the ability to translate, and we must assume that the Lord understood how to communicate with Oliver. We may presume that under the appropriate circumstances, the Lord could have imparted prelanguage meaning to Oliver as he did with Joseph. Ultimately, the process would have been the same. The Lord would give the meaning to Oliver’s mind at the level of mentalese. Oliver would construct the concept in English, and then confirm that it was correct. The difference for Oliver was the method by which he would know whether he was translating. For Oliver, he wouldn’t know he had translated until after he had produced and confirmed a text. For Joseph, the fact that he could see the words already confirmed that translation had occurred. Fortunately for current readers of the revelation, the method explained to Oliver is quite appropriate to the kinds of issues with which we might opportune our Father in Heaven. (Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 20111], 312-15)

"Believing Women" Includes Believing Joseph Smith's Plural Wives

My friend Stephen Smoot has posted an excellent article (which, naturally, has annoyed SJW types [you know--those who think there is an infinite number of genders, but also believe that it is okay to murder an unborn child]):

"Believing Women" Includes Believing Joseph Smith's Plural Wives