Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - JS-Matt 1: Matt 24-25; Mark 12-13; Luke 21 Part 1 • Dr. Avram Shannon • May 22 - May 28

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

How do we prepare to receive the Savior? Dr. Avram Shannon examines Joseph Smith–Matthew, the signs of Jesus’s Second Coming, and the power of faith.00:00 Part 1–Dr. Avram Shannon01:39 Introduction of Dr. Avram Shannon03:21 Background to the Olivet Discourse06:58 Joseph Smith Translation09:17 JST restoration of ancient text or clarification10:05 Matthew 24 response to a specific set of questions12:02 Temple stones and the Law14:33 End of the world vs end of worldly16:55 When does Jesus return?18:35 Bar Kokhba21:55 Wars and rumors of wars23:45 Calamities are hardest on the most vulnerable25:10 Eschatology 27:25 False prophets28:02 70 AD and 120 AD31:09 The Western Wall and localized deities33:56 Judaism, sacrifice, and synagogues36:45 Jewish temple and headquarters in Missouri38:35 How do we apply the destructions of 70 AD and 120 AD40:14 False prophets and treasuring the scriptures43:35 Symbols of fig tree, eagles, and moon not giving light48:24 End of Part 1–Dr. Avram ShannonPlease rate and review the podcast.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.coFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith, and I'm John, by the way, we love to learn, we love to laugh, we want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith and I am your host, and I'm here with my talented co-host, John, by the way. John, when I was reading the parable of the talents,

and it said that one of the men received five talents, I thought that is John, by the way. He's a five talent guy. What have I done with them though? Yeah, I've done with those talents. Hopefully you doubled those talents. John, do you remember I told you where when you found out a talent wasn't a talent, but it was an amount of money? I think I was in seminary. Wait a minute. What? What? Yeah. There's a bag of gold.

I was wondering, well, you know, what the guy could do. He could speak Spanish. He could play basketball. He could play the piano. How did that become the other meaning? That's a fun etymology study someday to figure out how it became, how it became the amount of money became a talent. Maybe our Bible expert can help us out today. Who's joining us today? Well, Hank, we're excited to have Dr. Alvarm Shen and back with us again.

He's been with us before and I had an occasion that I followed him function to sit at the same table and I could Listen to him forever and I love reading these bios when we hear how far and wide some of our guests have been and studying in their education So let me share this with our audience doctor Aubreym Shannon was born in Quantco, Virginia Spent most of his young life in Virginia. He served a mission first in the Oregon Portland Mission, then in the Washington, Kennewick Mission,

after the Oregon Portland Mission was split. Dr. Shannon earned a bachelor's in ancient near Eastern studies for Brigham University, a master of studies in Jewish studies from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in near Eastern languages and cultures with a graduate interdisciplinary specialization in religions of the ancient Mediterranean from Ohio State University. And he and his wife Thora have seven children, some of his areas of expertise I just really wanted to read this rabbinic Judaism, ancient Mediterranean religions as I just mentioned, Jewish studies and ancient biblical interpretation.

So Aubrah, we're so glad to have you back again. Thanks for being with us. I'm very happy to be here. John Aubrahm is kind as he is brilliant. He's just a fun person to work with. We have good times in the JSP at BYU, right? Aubrahm, we just... We do, absolutely have good times. Yeah. Lots of meetings. Yeah.

Yeah. Lots of meetings. Lots of meetings. You know, every year we've talked about this before, they have this spurious symposium at BYU. And in 2021, they had an old spurious symposium was on the Old Testament. And that volume has been published called Covenant in Compassion, caring for the marginalized and disadvantaged in the Old Testament. And Auburn was a contributor to that. So I wanted to mention that because those books are deep and they're wonderful. John, this spary actually has been changed recently. Auburn, you know it's named better than I do. What's the new name for the spary symposium? The new name is the Come Follow Me symposium in in Audner, Sydney, B.S. So it's still the same thing, but we're trying just to align it more closely with the Come Follow Me curriculum.

Beautiful. Speaking of curriculum, we are going to be in Matthew 24 and 25 today, also in Mark and Luke and in the pull of great price. So we've got plenty of places to go. Avram, what do you want to do for come follow me this round? So this is as it is by the fact that it's so distinctive and so used here. This is one of the most important discourses in Jesus' mortal ministry. It's both important in terms of what Jesus is doing with it, but especially important in terms of Latter-day Saints' self-understanding. I.E., this is one of those passages that becomes incredibly important for us in the restoration as we work through really what it means to be Latter-day Saints. That's kind of one of the key notions here.

These various passages are often called the Olivet Discourse because Jesus gives it on the Mount of Olives. But it's really about his second coming. That's actually part of why we have it in the pro-Great price. The pro-Great price is basically stuff from Joseph Smith that doesn't fit really well anywhere else. So we have Extract of the JST, we have Book of Abraham, we have Joseph Smith history,

we have the Ark of the Faith in there. So the Joseph Smith translation of Math 24 and a little bit of Math 23 is the translation of this. And the reason we have in the Progate Price is it's one of two sections that Joseph Smith published and circulated separately. Okay. You remember that he didn't publish

the entire, he called it a new translation. We call it the JST, actually we call it the JST because of the Bible manuscript. When they're producing the addition of the scriptures in the 1970s, you know, the new one. And they wanted for the first time to really include stuff from know, the new one. And they wanted for the first time to really include stuff from just this new translation.

But if you put it in the footnote with NT, sounds like New Testament. New Testament. Yeah. Our friends are going to have Christ called the inspired version. But you put IV, it looks like four in Roman numerals. And so the committee at that point in 1978 basically coins the phrase just met translation, which is why we now call it JST, Joseph would have called it the new translation.

But there are two parts they circulated. He circulated the kind of the book of Moses stuff, sort of the enit material that we have in our book of Moses. From the new testament, he published separately in a broad sheet, actually. So it was a single-page newspaper. He published what we now have as Joseph Smith Matthew. And so that's part of why we have it, is because it was published separately from the rest of Joseph Smith's New translation.

And the reason is because it bears so much on this notion of what it means to be a Latter-day saint. In the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, we care deeply about the second coming. In some ways, in 19th century, we cared extremely deeply. It's pretty clear that Joseph Smith, then most as co-religionists, thought that the second coming was happening in their lifetime. They were pretty sure that this whole restoration thing was in preparation for Jesus coming back like right now.

That's part of why it's so important to them and us in many ways. So, do you want to jump in here, Avram? Or do you want to start? We're going to be jumping around here. We're primarily going to actually be in Matthew 24. We will be in Joseph Smith, Matthew. There are some key things that the translation does, but we're going to be in Mark 2, but primarily our text is going to be Matthew 24.

Matthew has, I feel, the most complete and fullest version here. And Joseph Smith really focuses on things for RD. We'll get into that point. But one of the things I think is very clear about the Josephine's translation is, as we read it, sometimes we talk that the Josephine's translation replaces the texts in the Bible. And it's pretty clear from Josephine's own writings that he did not view it that way. That wasn't the intention. That was not the intention. As I read the Josephine's translation, I think God

just wants us to have more because he wants us to know more and to see more. We're going to think through things together. Abraham, I think that's a crucial piece of understanding. Maybe we've talked about it in the past, John, but Joseph Smith's inspired version of the Bible is not meant to say, let's throw out what we have in the Bible and just read this, because I've had students ask me before, why don't we just use that Bible? And I've said, no, it's meant to be a supplement. It's meant to be some inspired help for us

instead of replacing the Bible. And that's something I think is pretty crucial to understand about the, I call it the Joseph Smith Bible project sometimes. And actually, Dr. Evans 128 gives it actually a really clear example of this. So Dr. Evans 128, this of course is the letter about the work of the dead and baptism for the dead

and the dr. N. Covenant's there. And in it, Joseph Smith quotes from Malachi 456, right, you know, I'll send the Lajj of the prophet, the whole thing. And then this is this is documents, 128, 18. He says, I might have rendered a planar translation to this, but it's sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. So it's very clear for Dr. Cummins 128 here that Joseph is okay using the,

we could get a KJV here alongside his own translation. Because there was a JST to Malachi here. He said, this is good enough by purposes, we're just gonna go ahead and use it. Yeah, different scriptures can be rendered differently and all of them can be correct. Yes, right. There's levels of meaning and I think my son

was asking me the other day, is it restoring ancient text or is it more of a clarification? Is it more additional revelation? I was like, uh-huh. Yeah Ken Jackson and Robert J. Matthews did really good work showing very strongly that it's all of those things all at once It which means by the way in some ways that increases the importance for us as readers of it, because we can't just read it as a blanket. We have to take each JST change and say, oh, what is this doing? How is this working?

And it requires us to think and have the spirit even more strongly as a read scripture. That's fantastic. And to contrast and compare the different versions. Exactly. Okay. So we're back in Matthew 24. the different versions. Exactly. Okay, so we're back in Matthew 24. Yeah, not 34. And the key thing here is the whole thing

isn't a response to a very specific set of questions. Okay, this is not just generic Jesus talks with the second coming, the JST does this. That it actually includes the last verse of Matthew 23, remembering that our chapter and verses are recent comparatives, definitely middle ages, but they're not original to the New Testament texts.

There's oftentimes you read scripture, you're gonna wanna read across chapter and verse lines because sometimes you're gonna miss things. And we're gonna say that too, because Matthew 24 and 25 are the same discourse. Yeah, so you're saying Matthew 23 verse 39, Joseph Smith, that's right. into Matthew 24. Okay, I didn't know that. And again, Jesse actually does this. For I say unto you, you shall not see me henceforth, to you, you shall say, bless you

that come with the name of the Lord. And so here Jesus introduces this notion that he's coming, but also he's coming again. Right, this idea you're not gonna see me again until you can say, bless you, that comes the name of the Lord. So we've pushed it to some future date. And this kind of disciples a little confused. This isn't the resurrection he's talking about.

This is a second arrival, second second come. That's what the disciples are gonna ask him basically. They're like, what are you talking about here? What's going on? Because then they either go out, he's been preaching the temple remember, this is holy week. So this is like Wednesday, Thursday,

it's depending on when you wanna date it, in there, and his disciples look on, and they point out the temple to him. And Jesus says, you look at that. This verse two, Matthew 24, see not all these things. Verily I say into you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another

that shall not be thrown down. That's gotta be the biggest structure they know of. It's enormous. I mean, Herod had made the temple in Jerusalem one of the great temples of the ancient world. Yeah, massive, right? Right. Massive, covered in great stone, covered in gold, and in ancient Judaism in this period, again, we've talked a lot this year and come follow me. And previously about various Jewish group, about, you know, the Pharisees and Sadducees and all these various things. And kind of what we see is kind of things that all Jews agreed on,

kind of two things, law and the temple. And so this idea of Jesus saying, look, you think this temple, you know, whatever, it's gonna get destroyed. Destroyed so you won't even see it anymore. The two together make the disciples going, oh, what does this mean? Yeah, I mean, when he says one stone not upon another,

we're thinking small little stones. No, these are massive. Massive, like these blocks of stone are tons, and they're all on one on top of the other, it would take significant force to move all those and throw them down. So, which is why they knew they go out and his disciples are like, huh, tell us more.

Right, and it's actually interesting because in Mark's version, in Mark 13, like said, we'll be jumping around a fair bit today. It's actually in verse 13, three in Mark, it's Peter, James, and John John and Andrew, who ask him privately. It's not all of the disciples in Mark. They're a little bit like, so what do you mean by this, Jesus? This is a hugely shocking statement that Jesus has made here.

Yeah. Peter, James, and John and Andrew asked him privately. Tell us, when shall these things be? What shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? In Matthew, that's what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? Yeah, the difference set a question. From Matthew, it's very much framed in terms of both

Jesus Christ's coming and also specifically the end of the world. There are also framed as two questions. I'm not sure the disciples think that those are going to be identical events. Jesus will kind of explain this to them. There's one of the, where Joseph and Matthew had something very key here. Joseph and Matthew says, again, in terms of these different questions, you get Mark and Matthew, Joseph and Matthew has what should we sign to your coming and end of the world or the destruction of the wicked, which is the end of the world.

So Joseph Smith Matthew does not understand the end of the world as this kind of zombie apocalypse, this kind of everything ends, the total cessation of all society, that's not just Matthew understands in the world. The end of the world there is world, and we're talking about the world versus the church, or the world versus wickedness. So the end of the world there is the end of wickedness. And we'll see that that play distinctively in how Matthew understands and how I think we're supposed

to understand what happens at the second coming. It is not the total solution of all society before or after. It's the destruction of the wicked according to Joseph Smith Matthew one for exactly which is the end of the world. The end of the world or the end of the world Lee at the end of worldly things because the planet continues and we know that from Article of faith 10. It's pretty clear from Brigham and Joseph Smith on all places, and actually even from here,

from Joseph's Matthew and Matthew, that society continues. Partially because it's also very clear that especially in the Gospels, Jesus' primary purpose is to prep the disciples for the destruction of the temple. Remember that that's kind of the first question they asked. When shall these things be, the destruction of the temple?

Yes, JST will be something's around because that's already happened for us. So Joseph Smith is like, let's talk about the second time, because that hasn't happened yet. There is second time in Matthew 24, but one of the things I think that I read scripture that's very clear is,

prophets primary audience is the people hearing it right then. And then through the Holy Ghost, we can learn other things about it. Jesus is gonna answer both questions and then Joseph Smith is going to say, look, the destruction of the temple happened. That was 70 AD. So let's kind of clear that out so we can focus on the second question, the sign of the

coming and the end of the world or the destruction of the wicked. That's exactly right. So as you read Joseph Smith Matthew, verse, Matthew 24, you'll see that Matthew 24 tends to focus much more on the events that it play out in first and second sensory, juudent Christianity, well, just with Matthew, it was going to really focus on those things that are happening at the second coming. Got it. That makes perfect sense because of the audience, like you said. Yeah.

Exactly. And Jesus answered in sentence, the very first thing is to answer the question. Take heed that no man deceive you. At the very outset, and we'll talk about this a little bit later on when we get to the hour and day of the coming. At the outset, if you make this very clear, this is a topic about which there is possibility for deception. We need to be aware of that.

We need to think through that because in Christianity broadly, throughout the last 2000s of Christian history, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because we want Jesus Christ to come back so badly, I'm right there with them, even so Lord, come quickly, right? I mean, that's it. Come back, please. But because of that, this is a place where sometimes we get too excited and we can be deceived. Okay. And I think it's very compelling that Jesus starts

all thing by saying, look, don't let anybody confuse you on this. So, almost a listen closely, type message. Yeah, I got a quote from President Ballard, I think is really helpful on this. So almost a listen closely type message. Yeah, I got a quote from President Bowie that I think is really helpful on this topic about who knows when Jesus Christ coming back. We'll get to that when he talks about who knows when he's coming back, which is spoiler alert, nobody basically. Um, so. But then he goes through when he talks about he's like, look, people are going to come in my name saying, I am Christ. And by the way, in sort of that first century, Christian environment, this, sometimes we mean people saying, I'm Jesus, but it also meant other people saying they're the Messiah.

After the Jewish revolt in AD 70, there was another revolt about seven years later. This guy named by the name of Barkhochba, son of the star, and Barkhochpa was actually from a truly messianic context, more successful as a messiah than Jesus was. I mean, that's successful in sort of salvation from sins, but in terms of driving up the Romans, at least momentarily, and setting up a Jewish state, Barkhochpa was pretty successful. He coined his own money, did these things.

I mean, he also liked everybody who fights Rome got crushed. In the end, what is that? 120? 120 to 150, yeah. That's when the whole thing happens. That's when the temple gets raised, Jerusalem gets knocked down and rebuilt as a Roman city, Aliyah, capital, Alina. Jews are not allowed to go there anymore. It is a major major, like in some ways, the destruction, even worse than the first Jewish revolts. So there's two Jewish revolts after Jesus. There are two roads after Jesus.

But the reason why the Barclup was interesting is because Jesus says, look, he's like, there's gonna be other christs. Don't believe them. Other Messiahs, okay. Yeah, other Messiahs, exactly. And they show to Steve many. Then he says, but look, there's going to be fighting. And in some ways,

this is something I want to think through as we do this together today is in some ways, eternal applicability of these prophecies. They have specific performance in second temple, Jesus Christ second coming. But there are always wars and always rumors of wars. There's always people fight. In some ways, in a lot of ways, actually, the world's always ending. When has there not been a war somewhere on the earth? Sadly.

Exactly. And when have people not had to struggle? Part of the whole thing is, we're going to get to, especially when we get to Matthew 25, is that parties' point here is to kind of help change our thinking a little bit. One of the things about life, I call this thinking cosmically, the end, you and I can go through our life every day,

eating, drinking, getting dressed, getting other people dressed, got other people at the bed, doing our work, doing every day what Corvore calls the management of the creature. We can spend every day just living without a thought for our eternal nature, our destiny. And of course, that's not what God wants. He wants us thinking about higher and more eternal things. Part of the purpose of this discourse with all these things is to sort of shock us out of our every day, doing things the way we've always doing them so we can think again about something bigger and more than ourselves.

That's great. Look around. Look around exactly. See what's happening. See the world around you. Do you guys know what would Clayton Christiansen call that? Disruptive. It's disruptive innovation. That's a good thing because part of the point is, is that, and this is something that we don't always think about,

but the presence of God is disruptive. It changes things. It moves things. It makes things different. It disrupts. So Jesus is saying, if you think things are going the way they're going, they're not. So we have to move past the management of the creature. This is verse 6 and 7, which is moved by Joseph Smith to a different part of the chapter. You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you be not troubled for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. So you're hearing all this and you don't need to be troubled, but don't think it's right around the corner.

Right. So that's a key. They will talk about that a little bit because he moves things around quite a bit. Joseph Smith. And in many ways, that's his hinge verse, though. As Joseph Smith does it, sort of, 26, I'm sorry, well, honestly, sort of the 30 in back is referencing Jesus' first coming and the structure of the temple, and things like that. And then 31 forward, he says, all right, now we're reading the talk about the second coming in earnest. So he says, because it's not yet, guys,

it's not here. We're not ready. More rumors. There's some things he does with that that are that are pretty key in terms of how he rearranges it for it. All the way nine through twenty one, very much this notion of the disruption that's happening in the Jewish revolts, the destruction of the temple, the Donge Nessilation. And and actually this is kind of fun in verse 16, it says, let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains, lessen the arm in the first Jewish revolt, but during the Barcourtba revolt, there were Christians

who had Matthew 24, who actually, when the Romans were coming down, fled from Jerusalem, and were spared some of the reprisals that happened against there by the Romans. Is this where they fled to Pella? Yes, that's exactly. And they did so explicitly because they were reading their scriptures and saw that as a fullment of the prophecy, which I think is really cool. I mean, save their lives.

Exactly. Well, first 19, one to them better with child than they give suck in those days, and this something the scriptures are concerned very deeply with, is that these kinds of calamities tend to be hardest on those who are most vulnerable. Nursing mothers, pregnant mothers. Children.

Children. And he says, this is gonna be hardest on them. We're gonna see when we get to the parables in Matthew 25, Jesus gonna say, we've got to do something about this. But part of the warning here is just like, this is gonna be hard guys. And recognize that the being hardness of it

is in some ways part of the point, but it's also just part of the world we live in. It does sound like he's trying to get them to think more globally than just about themselves. Yes, absolutely. Famine's pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places, nations rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, kind of think about the world as a whole instead of just our area, our little area. Yeah. And when you say perhaps knowing that this text is going to outlast those that he's talking to, and will be a benefit to us, you know. Absolutely. And it has been a benefit to Christians for millennia. This is one of those things

where we have specific examples of early Christians and medieval Christians reading this text and actually following its advice and using it to help them. One of these fun big words is eschatology. Eschatology comes from Greek the end, eschaton, but it's that part of sort of doctrinal and theological discourse that's concerned with the end of the world and the afterlife.

We can also talk about groups that care about these things and Those groups are eschatological Among world religions Christianity is an eschatological religion Concerned with the end. We're concerned with the end deeply deeply about the end partially because Christianity is as you're saying But however, it's an inherently disruptive message. Jesus comes and says, I'm going to change everything. We said that extensively in the gospels this year and come follow me. He comes and says, look, you thought things were this way, I'm going to change it all for the better guys, but I am going to change it all. And actually, even within Christianity, the Churches Christ Latter-day Saints is an eschatological

religion within those confines. Because as Elder Holland said in the devotional once, he was talking about this and somebody asked him about End Times, whatever. And other Holland said, what do you think the latter day part in Latter-day Saint means. Yes. It's the, I know the story. It's a missionary who says, Elder Holland are these the last days. And he said, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know the name of the church, right? The church of Jesus Christ of last day saints. Yes.

These are the last days. It's been the last days for at least 100 years now. All right, well, want to think through that because that's one of the key, we can say difficulties that maybe too strong award. One of the key things to talk about in this particular discourse is this nature of why is Jesus talking about his second coming so early in human history? Again, the whole thing begs this question is, Jesus Christ says, I'm coming back. And we'll get there when he says that, but you're like, been a really long time, Jesus. And that's one of the great questions we need to think through as we read and teach

and think about this particular passage because it's not easy. And we'll talk about that. I'm in Matthew 24. He talks about false prophets shall rise. That's verse 11, and Niquity shall abound. Love of many shall wax cold. I look around and I think we are definitely living

during these times. Specifically, the abomination of desolation of Daniel the prophet. Is that the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem? Yes, that's going to be its primary initial on focus. This idea of again, you'll see it. It's actually probably Roman individuals on the night that somebody coming who's desecrating the temple stands in the temple and then destroys it. That's exactly what it is. Now you mentioned that the temple has destroyed in 70 AD, but then it's raised in 120 AD.

What's the difference there? So destruction of temple, I mean, they burn it down. The sacrifices cease. Really, that we're talking about the destruction of the temple in AD 70. We're talking about the cessation of the sacrificial system. I.e. that no longer is there an operative Jewish sacrificial system. Actually, somebody once called Titus and Vespation,

the greatest religious reformers in history, because they pushed Judaism in very distinctive directions and Christianity, as we're gonna read in the book of Acts, the early Christians continue to sacrifice throughout their testament period. Peter, Paul, Paul gets arrested because he's going back to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice, to fulfill a vow that he made according to the law of Moses. It's very clear that Christianity and the

earliest Christians continue to offer sacrifice up until the point it's destroyed. They hang on to their Judaism. Yes, and my friend and colleague, Jeff Chadwick, he's done some good work on this. He postulates that that's what God intended. That is actually a different situation than what we see in the book of Mormon where Jesus says, look, we're done with this now. He thinks that there's two different things happening in the old world and the new world with this.

But the point is suddenly everything ceases and suddenly you've got a chain circumstance. But there's always still a hope that, again, with Barcocman, things like that, we can get these things back, which is why after barcookba room says, nope, we're done. It's all over. We're going to take it all the way down to the ground. But although, again, Julian apostates, at least talks about the easier Roman emperor after Roman empires have Christianized Julian converts back to paganism, and basically writes a letter where he says,

I'm gonna let the Jews rebuild the temple because I hate Christians, but he never gets killed in battle with the Persians. So it never happens. Do it, it never happens. No, okay. I didn't know that, that's really interesting. So 70 AD would be the destruction of kind of the temple

on top of the platform, the actual temple itself. Do you see if it's actually burning and things like that? Yeah. And then the 120 is the, let's pull down the entire platform. Let's put on a whole city, basically. They re-found Jerusalem as a new city, as a pagan city dedicated to Zeus. Okay. I had people ask, how do you tear down stone?

And one of the things I've heard and correct me if I'm wrong is they could paint these huge blocks that we talked about with pitch or tar or something and then light it on fire, which they get so hot they would crack and fish her and that's how they would fall. Exactly and of course Romans had had siege materials and you get enough people dedicated to taking something down and you can take it down. Just your manpower in certain levels. If you go to Jerusalem today, right, you can see where some of those rocks were pulled

down and they destroyed the road when these stones hit it just to pieces. But some of the original stones are still there. So they didn't take all of them. Some of the original stones of the platform. Of the platform. Yeah. That's important because sometimes you hear people say, oh, the western wall of the temple, no, no, no, the temple, the temple's gone. But there are still some of the platform. And again, those apparently were buried. I forgot. Occasionally, we see some reuse of some of these things, secondary usage in places. If you go to Jerusalem today, you can see Jews going to that wall. Yes. And worshiping I would say, or praying at that wall.

Last remnant of the outside wall of the temple area. I don't think of it like temple square, where there's a wall around it. Very much so. You've got the sacred precinct, and then you have divided space in various levels of sacredness inside the temple grounds itself. Even like temple square and then you've got the gate around the temple proper grounds proper. You've got a temple itself and you've got even inside the temple there.

Wow. Rome was sure dedicated to, could you rid of that temple? In their mind, is that the end of Judaism, if they can destroy that temple? And their mind is at the end of Judaism if they can destroy that temple, it's... It's the end of their problems, right? I don't think they care about Judaism as a religious system in many ways. They'll actually create the fiscus, you dieus, where they will make Jews pay to Rome,

the redemption of the temple tax, that they used to pay to the Jerusalem temple. Okay. They'll actually extract tribute from, and they just, they just, um, throughout the diaspora. So Jews all over the Roman Empire have to pay this, this, this tax for it. So it's not Judaism as such,

because again, there are Jews all over the world. Remember that religion and antiquity, even in this period, is fairly locative. By which I mean, it's fairly focused on place. Okay, all of this is an example of this. Remember, name in the Syrian. I'm on the Syrian. Remember, he's he'll buy a lysha, dips in the water.

He's like, take these gasses, he knows. And he's like, all right, but let your servants take two bags of dirt from Israel so that I can worship Jehovah. The idea here is that Jehovah is the God of the land of Israel, and so you need the land of Israel to worship Jehovah. He's taking a little bit of the land. So even though that's our time to break down in this period, this idea that the temple is Jehovah's house is huge because temples are often associated with a polity. It's the symbol of the polity.

And basically, the idea here is if we can destroy the temple, then we can root out the polity. They will no longer, anything to rally around and they will no longer be able to revolt. Because that's all Rome really cares about. Are the revolts. All Rome cares about is are the taxes coming in and is everything fine? Are they loyal to the...

Loyal to the emperor in the case of being obedient to what we want them to do? I've had students ask, well, what happened to Judaism? Did they still offer sacrifices? And I'd love your insight on this. They kind of adopted a post temple way to worship. Is that what we call that? We yeah, I mean, you see elements of it already even before the destruction of the temple. There are synagogues already there, prayer houses, is what they're called in Hebrew. They're

gathering places, places where you come together. So they're already in place, they're worship and ideas and prayers that are already extant before the destruction of the temple. In many ways, the temple does accelerate that process, partially because, and again, my friend Matthew Gray, who's also teaches with us, and they're in the JSP, Matt Gray has done some really good work on the priests don't go away But they're sort of incorporated it actually the famous Jewish scholar Jacob Newsner once basically wrote this He talked about the temple in rabbinic Judaism and he says basically the temple is everywhere absent It's not so much that it's post-tempor It's that it's taking the temple and applying it in

ways that do not involve animal sacrifice. For example, there are prayers in the Jewish prayer book to this day that have the names of the sacrificial system. The specific names of the sacrifices and part of the idea is that when you say these prayers, you are still participating in the sacrifice. But even there, this idea of, it's almost passed over time. Pesach here is in a couple of weeks.

And the way the Passover ends, we eat the Passover here and now, but next year, next year we're gonna eat it in Jerusalem. This idea that even as we're doing it here, we're doing it, we've got, we've adapted it, but this isn't the end of the story. We're still, we'd call it an eschatological, perhaps, hope for that return. And so that's why I like to think of it as ever absent, and Judaism is still very much a temple-focused system, but a temple-focused system where there's a temple-shaped hole in their religious discourse. The mission is the earliest codification of Jewish law,

and there are huge track dates. Track it to how they divide up mission, concerned with how the sacrifices are run and concerned with how you keep purity laws and concerned with all these these temple concerns because it is still central to their conception of what law is. Even though it's no longer there. Wow. Even though it's no longer standing exactly. Got it. And some might be asking why don't they rebuild it? And there's a kind of a simple answer to that is the property is not theirs anymore.

Yes. I mean, in some ways, the answer to that question is, so why don't we build a temple in Missouri? Go back to independence. We could go back to independence. Why don't we move headquarters back to independence? There is nothing to stop us from moving headquarters to Kansas City. What are we waiting for?

We're waiting for God to tell us to. And for our Jewish friends, they're also waiting for Messiah to come back There are lots of different opinions how this works out, but many of them the whole point is redemption the temple is the same thing as redemption of the world got it and right now there is a Islamic mosque right there. Yes, there it actually to the ass So the dome of the rock is where Muhammad goes up to heaven to have his great vision. He's taken up there. And then Al-Aqsa is actually the one that represents the temple and temple spot.

And it's where presumably the Shatika is. The Shatika is the stone at the center of the temple, where Ark of the Covenant would have played. According to one tradition in Judaism, it's the center of the universe. So it would be very difficult for the Jews today to build a temple where there are now two Muslim mosques. Although there is that fun anecdote from President Hunter. President Hunter was up on the Kramel shirt. He was on Temple Mount and somebody asked him

how are we going to build a temple here, our temple or their temple. What temple is going to be here? And President Hunter kind of looked around, paced off a little bit and he said, I think there's space. There is some space up there. Yeah. So his idea was that we'll have a Jewish temple, we have our temple. We'll have all of it up there.

Yeah, have the Muslim mosque. Yeah, let's have them all up there. That's great. Let's jump back to Matthew 24 here. How can I tell which verses are meant to be about the second coming and which verses are meant to be about the destructions of 70 AD and 120 AD. Or do you think maybe I can apply them universally? I would apply them as broad as you possibly can.

That's my general policy. There's some that pretty clearly seem to speak to the second coming. Like when he says, you'll see me come and power in Great Glory, right? Things like that pretty clearly apply to us I can come in, but generally speaking, I think, and I think it's true, basically all scripture.

The more applicability you see, I think the more we're kind of thinking the way that God wants us to see them. Now, again, Joseph Smith Matthew does make a stronger distinction, and that's one of its great blessings about it. It actually right about verse 23. The end is not yet, then 24. Justmouth Matthew, 24.

I have told you, they won't go. They such are the gathering. Social come in the sun of man be. So in justmouth Matthew, there's a clear sort of before 23, it's mostly talking about the Jewish revolts, about the destruction of the temple. 24 and following is mostly about the second coming. So, Joseph Smith kind of rearranged the verses and the signs to make it clear in two clear categories. That's right. Because again, for him, and then also for us,

the destruction of the temple, that's ancient, ancient history. But the second time he's doing the future, so he's making it relevant to us right now as he works through his inspired translation. All right, where do you want to go next, Alvar? So he talks about, again, you got all these false Christ, false prophets, the key thing here to remember, we started in the beginning here, part of his point is because when things get hard, that's when we tend to be, you know, our term here, part of these at this point is because when things get hard, that's when we tend to be, you know, our term here, more eschatological, that's when we tend to look for answers, most likely for us to be deceived.

Not at all. It is saying, we're, of course, spoiled for answers. We have so many good answers about so many questions. We want to have these answers. We want to have these answers. We want to have these answers. We want to be clear and laid out. And so part of these lays like, you've got to be careful.

There's going to be false people talking about this. You need to be careful. To see if we're possible even the very elects. Yeah. That's first 24. And this is a key thing for you and I, just being a faithful out of their saint is not sufficient

guard against deception. To see if we're possible, the very elect. He says, you've got to be careful, guys. Be careful. This may be jumping ahead too far, but in Joseph Smith, Matthew 137, who so treasured up my word shall not be deceived. That's, I guess, what this is all about. We're trying to be familiar enough with this and then to learn to hear him, to learn to let God prevail, to be inspired,

and at peace, if possible. It's why when I students ask me any question, the last man will say, how do I know anything, right? How do I know if I'm right? How do this is the right thing? How do I know? And I say, well, the short answer is, how the Holy Ghost with you. I mean, the long answer, you can talk about ways to think through and then tools and things for that. But the short answer is always, how the Holy Ghost with you.

Because he speaks to us in real time. Exactly. Matthew's been dead for 2,000 years. He needed help then. We need help now. So that edition, John, is great. That verse 37, who so treasureeth up my word shall not be deceived. To my knowledge, that's not found in Matthew 24, that phrase. No, that's not. Part of it is, I think he's also telling the saints and the latter days, because we also get really, really excited

because we want Jesus to come back so much. I want him back so much. But because of that, sometimes we say, oh, this is it, we've got it, we've figured it out now. And Jesus is like, be careful, be careful. Don't let anybody deceive you. Yeah, it's almost like Jesus is saying, stay in the text. So treasure up my word shall not be deceived.

As in there's other people's words you could be deceived by. So treasure up my words. Stay in the scriptures. I love that phrase. Treasure up. They are treasured words and there's something we can hold that treasure inside of us and then be guided in real time when Holy Ghost. Yeah, that is a great phrase, treasure up. It's not unusual to have lots of different things in the synoptic gospels. Even sometimes John agree with what we've got, but I think part of the reason why we have four gospels is the Lord's advocating at this time. But let's try again. Let's give you a little more treasure. Let's give you something else to treasure up here. So we have more chances to find and read

and think about all of these things. I've noticed in both Joseph Smith Matthew and in Matthew 2428, you get some interesting analogies. You get, for wherever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Joseph Smith Matthew says, now you learn the parable of the fig tree. When its branches are yet tender, it begins to put forth leaves, and you know summer is nigh at hand.

That's also a found in Matthew 24. Alvara, what do you think of all these symbols? And should I take the sun being darkened, the moon not giving light, stars fall from heaven? Should I take that literally? Or do you take of all these symbols? And should I take the sun being darkened, the moon not giving light, stars fall from heaven? Should I take that literally, or do you take that more figuratively? The answer to that, of course, as always is yes. Yeah.

We'll start with the Eagles first, just to point out that that's actually not a very good translation. Something like buzzards is better. The whole idea here is that this is vultures, where the carcasses, that's where the buzzards go, where the action is, is where you want to gather to. It's kind of the point of the simplest. And of course, Joseph Smith,

I'm just with Matthew 27, so likewise, she'll mind elect to be gathered from the four corners of the earth. So, it doesn't have math, it makes explicitly about the gathering of Israel. And the idea behind it is that, it's actually not a very lovely phrase in terms of on the imagery of it, but not a very lovely phrase in terms of the imagery

of it, but the idea is you want to go where the action is. You want to go where what you need is there. The image is almost like the gradual nature of this too. You've got an animal carcass and you know, birds to start coming. And they start kind of gathering around it so they all get there. I'm sure for it. It's not like everybody comes together. So I think part of the point of this imagery is this gradual nature of the gathering around it, so I'll get there. I'm sure for it. It's not like everybody comes together. So I think part of the point of this imagery

is this gradual nature of the gathering. This idea that they're coming a little bit here, a little bit there here, and they know there's a place to be because that's where the carcasses. So when you see a gathering happening, that's where you wanna be. In Matthew, it's right after the same thing of the deception thing.

He says, don't go to the secret chambers. See, he's in the deserts, don't go. He's in the secret chambers, don't go. Go where the eagles are. Believe it not. He says, go where the gathering is. And so part of the point of this is again, because we want Jesus to come back so badly,

he's giving us clues here. He says, if you want to do this this the way that we want to find it, go where the people are. Go where Zion is. That's where you're going to find me. You're going to find me in God's covenant community. That's where the carcass is. And you can tell because that's where the vultures are going. Is it something they would see often? They're like, well, when you see a bunch of vultures, you know, there's a dead carcass over there. So just like if you see a bunch of people gathering, you know, that's where I am.

They have to. Exactly. And of course, even in the American West, I've seen plenty of my fair share of carcasses and, you know, there were a bunch of vultures who roosted one of the trees by my house. And it's always a little disconcerting to wake up in the morning. There was 12 vultures who roosted one of the trees by my house. And it's always a little disconcerting to wake up in the morning. There was like 12 vultures staring in your window. Today, that was something I don't know exactly. I like that it uses those words gathering too.

And that has been so emphasized. Can I say it this way? Also, it's what are the first presidency and the 12 talking about? Those are the topics we can be concerned with, another way of gathering, oh, I'm gonna go find YouTube's about the second coming or we could go where the 12 and the first presidency are and see what they're admonishing us to do right now. Is that possible way to look at that?

Yeah, absolutely, but as I read it, this is part of what Jesus is saying, because again, the very first thing he says is take heed that no one decays you. And then he comes here and he says, Here's a way to help avoid deception. If you stay with your community, if you stay in the covenant community, then this will be a guard for you against deception.

And I think that's very important. Please join us for part two of this podcast.