followHIM - 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, what have you done with those talents? Hopefully you've doubled those talents.

John, do you remember how old you were when you found out a talent wasn't a talent, but it was an amount of money? I think I was in seminary. It's like, wait a minute. What? What? Yeah. It was a bag of gold. I was wondering 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. Figure out how it became- basketball. He could play the piano. How did that become the other meaning? That's a fun etymology study someday, figure out how it became. How it became, yeah, 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. Avram Shannon back with us again. He's been with us

before, and I had an occasion at a follow 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. Dr. Avram Shannon was born in Quantico, 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 from Brigham Young 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 Avram, we're so glad to have you back again. Thanks for being with us. I'm very happy to be here. John, Avram is as kind as he is brilliant. He's just a fun person to work with.

We have good times in the JSB at BYU, right, Avram? We do absolutely have good times. Lots JSB at BYU, right, Avram? We do absolutely have good times. Lots of meetings. Yeah. Lots of meetings. Lots of meetings. You know, every year, we've talked about this before, they have this Sperry Symposium at BYU. And in 2021, they had an old, their Sperry Symposium was on the Old Testament. And that volume has been published called Covenant and Compassion, Caring for the Marginalized and Disadvantaged in the Old Testament. And Avram was a contributor to that. So I wanted to mention that because those books are deep and they're wonderful.

John, the Sperry actually has been changed recently. Avram, you know its name better than I do. What's the new name for the Sperry Symposium? The new name is the Come Follow Me Symposium in honor of Sidney B. Sperry. So it's still the same thing, but we're trying to align it more closely is the Come Follow Me Symposium in honor of Sidney B. Sperry. So it's still the same thing, but we're trying 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 evinced 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 Prologate Price. The Prologate Price is basically stuff from Joseph Smith that doesn't fit really well anywhere else. So we have extracts from the JST. We have Book of Abraham. We have Joseph Smith that doesn't fit really well anywhere else. So we have extracts from the JST. We have Book of Abraham. We have Joseph Smith history. We have the Articles of Faith in there. So the Joseph Smith translation of Matthew 24 and a little bit of Matthew 23 is the translation of this. And the reason we have him propagate Price is it's one of two sections that Joseph Smith published and circulated separately. You remember that he didn't publish the entire Joseph Smith.

He called it the New Translation. We call it the JST. Actually, we call it the JST because of the Bible manuscript. When they're producing the edition of the scriptures in the 1970s, you know, the new one. And they wanted for the first time to really include stuff from just miss new translation but if you put in the footnote with nt sounds like that means new testament new testament yeah our friends community of christ called the inspired version but you put iv it looks like four in roman numerals yeah And so the committee at that point in 1978 basically coins the phrase Joseph Smith Translation, which is why we now call it JST.

Joseph would have called it the New Translation. But there are two parts that he circulated. He circulated kind of the Book of Moses stuff, sort of the Enoch material that we have in our Book of Moses. From the New Testament, he published separately in a broadsheet, 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 of Latter-day Saints, we care deeply about the second coming.

In some ways, in the 19th century, we cared extremely deeply. It's pretty clear that Joseph Smith and Moses' 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? Where 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 our day. We'll get into that point. But one of the things I think is very clear about the Joseph Smith translation is, as we read it, sometimes we talk that the Joseph Smith

translation replaces the texts in the Bible. And it's pretty clear from Joseph Smith's own writings that he did not view it that way. That wasn't the intention. That was not the intention. As I read this in 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. Avram, 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 kind of the Joseph Smith Bible project sometimes. And actually, Doctrine and Covenants 128 gives us actually a really clear example of this. So, Doctrine and Covenants 128, this, of course, is the letter about the work of the dead and baptism for the dead and Doctrine and Covenants there. And in it, Joseph Smith quotes from Malachi 4, 5, and 6, right? You know, all said in the light of the prophet, the whole thing. And then this is, this is documents 128.18. He says, I might have rendered a plainer translation to this,

but it's sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. So it's very clear if doctrine comes 128 here that Joseph is okay using the KJV here alongside his own translation. Because there is a JST to Malachi here. He says, this is good enough by purposes. We're just going to 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? And I was like, uh-huh. Yeah, exactly. 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? It requires us to think and have the spirit even more strongly as we read scripture. That's fantastic. And to contrast and compare the different versions. Exactly. Okay.

So we're back in Matthew 24. Yeah, Matthew 24. And the key thing here is the whole thing is in response to a very specific set of questions. Okay. This is not just generic. Jesus talks about the second coming.

The JST does this. It actually includes the last verse of Matthew 23. Remembering that our chapter and verses are recent compared to the recent, they're from the middle ages, but they're not original to the New Testament texts. There's oftentimes you read scripture, you're going to want to read across chapter and verse lines because sometimes you're going to miss things. And we're going to see that too,

because Matthew 24 and 25 are the same discourse. Yeah. So you're saying Matthew 23, verse 39, Joseph Smith puts into Matthew 24. Okay. I didn't know that. And again, JSC actually does this. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, to ye shall say, blessed ye 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 going to see me again until you can say, bless you that comes in the name of the Lord.

So he pushes it to some future date. And this gets the disciples a little confused. This isn't the resurrection he's talking about. This is a second arrival, second coming. That's what the disciples are going to ask him, basically. They're like, well, what are you talking about here? What's going on? Because then they're going out.

He's been preaching the temple. Remember, this is Holy Week. So this is like Wednesday, Thursday-ish, depending on when you want to date it, in there. And his disciples look out, and they point out the temple to him and jesus says you look at that this is verse 2 of matthew 24 see not all these things verily i say unto you there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down that's got to 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? 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 groups, about, you know, the Pharisees and Sadducees and all these various things. And kind of what, you know, as 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 going to get destroyed, destroyed. So you won't even be able to 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 on one on top of the other. It would take significant force to move all those and throw them down. So, which is why then 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 I 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, and Andrew who ask him privately. It's actually in verse 13, 3 in Mark. It's Peter, James and John and Andrew who asked him privately.

It's not all 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 thy coming and of the end of the world. Yeah, a different set of questions. For Matthew, it's very much framed in terms of both Jesus Christ's coming and also specifically the end of the world.

They're also framed as two questions. I'm not sure the disciples think that those are going to be identical events. Jesus will kind of help explain this to them. There's one other thing where Joseph and Matthew add something very key here. Joseph and Matthew says, in terms of these different questions

you get in Mark and Matthew, Joseph and Matthew has, what should be the sign of your coming and the 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 talk about the world versus the church or the world versus wickedness. So the end of the world, there was 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 1.

Exactly. Which is the end of the world, the end of the world or the end of the worldly at the end of worldly things, the planet continues and we know that from article of faith 10 it's pretty clear from brigham and joseph smith and other places and actually even from here from joseph matthew and matthew that society continues partially because it's also very clear that especially in the gospels j' 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 moves things around because that's already happened for us. So Joseph Smith is like, let's talk about the second coming because that hasn't happened yet. There is second coming in Matthew 24, but one of the things I think as 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 going to 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 thy 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 24, you'll see that Matthew 24 tends to focus much more on the events that play out in first and second century Judaism and Christianity, while Joseph Matthew is 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 and said, and this is the very first thing he has to answer their 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, he makes it 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 2000 years 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, you know, come back, please. But because of that, this is a place where sometimes we get too excited and we can be deceived. And I think it's very compelling that Jesus starts the whole 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 um 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 means people saying I'm Jesus, but it also means other people saying they're the Messiah. After the Jewish revolt in AD 70, there was another revolt about seven years later, this guy by the name of Bar Kokhba, son of the star and bar kochba was actually from a traditionally messiah messianic context more successful as a messiah than jesus was i mean less successful in sort of salvation from sins but in terms of driving out the romans at least

momentarily and setting up a jewish state bar kochba was pretty successful he coined his own money did these things i mean he also like everybody who fights Rome, got crushed in the end. What is that, 120? 120 to 150-ish, yeah. That's when the whole thing happens. That's when the temple gets razed. Jerusalem gets knocked down and rebuilt as a Roman city, Elea Capitolina.

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 revolts after Jesus. But the reason why the Bar Kok was interesting is because Jesus says, look, he's like, there's going to be other Christs. Don't believe them. Other messiahs. Okay. Yeah. Other messiahs. Exactly exactly and they shall deceive many then he says

but look there's gonna 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 fulfillments second temple jesus christ second, but there are always wars and always rumors of wars. There's always people fighting. 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 was, we're going to get this, especially when we get to Matthew 25, is that Partius' point here is to kind of help change our thinking a little bit.

One of the things about life, I call this thinking cosmically, thinking of the end. You and I can go through our life every day, eating, drinking, getting dressed, getting other people dressed, getting other people fed, doing our work, doing every day what Korah 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 everyday 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 Christensen 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'd 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 to go on the way they're going, they're not.

So we have to move past the management of the creature. This is verse six and seven, 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. That's a key thing. We'll talk about that a little bit because he moves things around quite a bit. Joseph Smith.

In many ways, that's his hinge verse though. As Joseph Smith does it, sort of 26, I'm sorry, honestly sort of 30 and back is referencing Jesus' first coming and the destruction of the temple, things like that.

And then 31 forward, he says, all right, now we're going to start talking about the second coming in earnest. So he says, because it's not yet, guys. It's not here. We're 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 um for it all the way 9 through 21 very much this notion of the disruption that's happening in the jewish revolts the destruction destruction of the temple the dosh desolation and actually this is kind of fun in verse 16 it says let them which be in judea flee into the mountains less than the um in the first jewish revolt but during the barkopla revolt there were christians who had matthew 24 who actually when the romans coming down fled from 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 fulfillment of the prophecy, which I think is really cool. I mean, it saved their lives. Exactly. Well, verse 19, we'll want them that are with child, then they give suck in those days. And there's 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. Yeah. Children. Yeah. Children.

And he says, this is going to be hardest on them. We're going to see when we get to the parables in Matthew 25, Jesus is going to say, we've got to do something about this. But part of the warning here is just like, it's going to 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. Famines, 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 our little area and wouldn't you say perhaps knowing that this text is going to outlast those that he's talking to and will be a benefit to us yeah absolutely and 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. It's concerned with the end.

We're concerned with the end, deeply, deeply about the end. Partially because Christianity is, as you were saying earlier, it's an inherently disruptive message. Jesus comes and says, I'm going to change everything. We've seen that extensively in the gospels this year in 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 Church church of jesus christ latter-day saints is an eschatological religion okay within those um confines because as elder holland said in the devotional once he was talking about this and somebody asked him about end times whatever and our holland said what do you think the latter-day part in latter day saint means. 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? 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 and we'll want to think through that because that's one of the key we can say difficulties that may be too strong or 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. Iniquity 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 focus. This idea of, again, you'll see it. It's actually probably Roman individuals or something like 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 is destroyed in 70 AD, but then it's raised in 120 AD. What's the difference there? So, destruction of the temple, I mean,

they burn it down, the sacrifices cease. Really, when we talk 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 Vespasian the greatest religious reformers in history because they pushed Judaism in very distinctive directions and Christianity. As we're going to read in the book of Acts, the early Christians continue to sacrifice

throughout the New 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, the new world with this. But the point is, suddenly everything ceases and suddenly you've got a changed circumstance. But there's always still a hope that, again, with Bar Kokhba and things like that, we can get these things back,

which is why after Bar Kokhba, Rome 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 the Apostate at least talks about,

he's a Roman emperor after the Roman emperors 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 he gets killed in battle with the persians so it never happens do it it never happens okay i didn't know that that's that's really interesting so 70 a.d would be the destruction of kind of the temple on top of the platform, the actual temple itself. Josephus talks about burning and things like that.

Yeah. And then the 120 is the, let's pull down the entire platform. Let's put on the whole city, basically. They refound 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 fissure and that's how they would fall. had had siege materials and you get enough people dedicated to taking something down and you can take it down yeah just your manpower in certain levels yeah 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 blew it 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 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. Think of it like Temple Square, kind of, where there's a wall around it. Very much so. You've got the sacred precinctinct and then you have divided space and various levels of sacredness inside um the temple grounds itself even like temple square and then got the gate around the temple proper grounds proper they've got a temple itself and they've got even inside the temple there wow rome was sure dedicated to getting rid of that temple in their mind is that the end of jud 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 Amidius 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 um throughout the diaspora so jews all

over the roman empire have to pay this this tax for it so it's not judaism as such because again there are jews all over the world remember that religion in antiquity, even in this period, is fairly locative, by which I mean it's fairly focused on place. A great ultimate example of this, remember Naaman the Syrian. Naaman the Syrian, remember he's healed by Elisha, dips in the water. He's like, take these gifts as you know, and he's like, all right, but let your servant 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 already tried 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 have anything to rally around and they will no longer be able to revolt because that's all Rome really cares about. Or the revolt. 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 you know ask well what happened to Judaism do they still offer sacrifices and I'd

love your insight on this they they kind of adopted a post-temple way to worship. Is that what we call that? 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. There are gathering places, places where you come together. So it's already in place there, 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 also teaches with us, I mean, they're in the JSB. Matt Gray has done some really good work on the priests don't go away, but they're sort of incorporated. Actually, the famous Jewish scholar, Jacob Neusner, once basically wrote this, who 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-temple. 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, like specific names of the sacrifices. And part of the idea is, is that when you say these prayers, you are still participating in the sacrifice. But even there, this idea of it's almost Passover 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 going to 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. There's still what we'd call an eschatological, perhaps, hope for that return. And so that's why I like to think of it as ever absent in it. 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 Mishnah is the earliest codification of Jewish law. And there are huge tractates, tractates how they divide up Mishnah, concerned with how the sacrifices are run and concerned with how you keep purity laws and concerned with all 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 church 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 the Messiah to come back. There are lots of different opinions on how this works out, but many of them, the whole point is redemption of the temple is the same thing as redemption of the world. Got it. And right now there is a Islamic mosque, right? Yes, there are actually two.

But yeah, 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, the temple spot. And it's where presumably the Shetikha is. The Shetikha 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 Kham al-Shuri.

He was up 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. Yeah. So his idea was that we'll have a Jewish temple of our temple, we'll just have all of it up there.

Yeah, have the Muslim mosques. 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 broadly as you possibly can. That's my general policy.

There are some that pretty clearly seem to speak to the second coming. Like when he says, you'll see me come in power and great glory, right? Things like that pretty clearly apply to a second coming. But generally speaking, I think, and I think this is true of 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's actually right about verse 23. The end is not yet. Then 24, Joseph Smith Matthew 24. I have told you they won't go. They shall start the gathering, socially coming the son of man be. So in Joseph Smith Matthew, there's a clear sort of before 23. It's mostly talking about the jewish revolts about 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 coming soon in 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 we've got all these false christs false prophets the key thing here to remember we start at the beginning here part of this point is because when things get hard, that's when we tend to be, using our term here, more eschatological. That's when we tend to look for answers. It's most likely for us to be deceived. Not only saints, 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 it to be clear and laid out. And so part of it is 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 elect. Yeah. That's verse 24. And this is a key thing for you and I, just being a faithful Latter-day Saint is not sufficient guard against deception. Deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. He says, you got to be careful, guys. Be careful. This may be jumping ahead too far, but in Joseph Smith, Matthew 137,

whoso treasureth 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 my students ask basically any question, they'll ask me and they'll say, how do I know anything, right? How do I know if I'm right? I don't know if this is the right thing. How do I know? And I say, well, the short answer is have the Holy Ghost with you. I mean, the long answer, you can talk about ways to think through and tools and things for that. But the short answer is always have 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 addition for 2,000 years. He needed help then. We need help now. So that addition, John, is great. That verse 37, whoso treasureth 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 in the latter days, because we also get really, really excited because we want Jesus to come back so much.

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

As in, there's other people's words you could be deceived by. So treasure up my word. Stay in the scriptures. I love that phrase, treasure up. They are treasured words, and they're something we can hold that treasure inside of us and then be guided in real time by the Holy Ghost. Yeah, that is a great phrase, treasure up. It's not unusual to have lots of different things in the synoptic gospels. And even sometimes John agree with what we've got. But I think part of the reason why we have four gospels

is the Lord says, okay, you didn't get 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 24, 28, you get some interesting analogies. You get for wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Joseph Smith Matthew says, now you learn ye 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 found in Matthew 24. Avram, 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 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 carcass is, that's where the buzzards go. Where the action is, is where you want to gather to is kind of the point of the symbolism. And of course, Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, Matthew 27. So likewise, shall mine elect be gathered from the four corners of the earth. So Joseph Smith, Matthew makes it explicitly about the gathering of Israel. And the idea behind it is, is that it's actually 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 kind of the gradual nature of this, too.

You've got an animal carcass and, you know, birds just start coming. And they start kind of gathering around it. They all get their share 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 carcass is. So when you see a gathering happening, that's where you want to be.

In Matthew, it's right after the same thing of the deception thing. He says, don't go to the secret chambers. He's in the desert. Don't go. He's in the secret chambers. Don't go. Go where the eagles are. Believe it or 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 the way that you 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 yeah there are 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 they're watching you've got like 12 vultures who roosted one of the trees by my house and it's always a little disconcerting to wake up in the morning they're watching you've got like 12 vultures staring in your window do they know something i don't know exactly 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, I'm going to go find YouTubes 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 a 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 deceives you. And then he comes here and he says,, take heed that no one deceives 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.