Reading the Inka Empire

 

Malpass, Michael A., Daily Life in the Inca Empire (2nd edn, Westport, Connecticut, 2009).

I’ve studied and taught much about the Inka Empire, and have sometimes briefly consulted Malpass’s first edition, but nothing can prepare the reader for this second edition, which brings together and thoroughly treats the findings of the last decades, rich with surprise. The reader finds himself newly evaluating everything previously known. Malpass is such a well-organized and gifted writer that there seems to be room for presentation of all the various novel views, featured as if miniature debates. The ordering of the chapters, the coherence of the entire volume, how it captures what it captures, is a perfect model for how a book ought to be written. The comprehensive recapitulation of the many ancient Andean cultures, forerunners to the Inca, is a marvel of both detail and clarity. It can’t be topped anywhere. 

Of tremendous interest are discussions about textiles and social classes, a discussion rich in semiotics and cultural history, and a chapter on the true purpose and significance of Machu Picchu, and its architectural marvels. The book turns Peru into worlds yet unknown. The bibliography is worth its weight in gold. 

Nothing of value escapes Malpass. He ends with a plea to protect the rich ruins scattered throughout the Americas and details the threats. Already in January 2021 I’ve read an article in The Guardian about how a group has recently rented a backhoe and destructively plowed through a site in the archaic Supe Valley, which houses the oldest settlements and cities of all the Americas. The same party has also threatened to kill the famous archaeologist working there. Why? An extended family claims the land.

D’Altroy, Terence N., The Incas (2nd edn, West Sussex, 2015).

Malpass considers D’Altroy’s book, addressing his first edition, to be the latest word on the Inca (or Inka) Empire, but here we find the 2015 edition, new, ambitious, encyclopaedic, with beautiful chapters on Inca artisanry, institutions, religion, history and the sources of history. A surprise, a correction to what I've repeated for years, is learning that Quechua was not the language of the Inca rulers, a language—their language--then imposed on the conquered populations as an instrument of oppression. Nothing of the sort. The linguistic realities are far more complex and fascinating than one had supposed. Neither is the history of the Incas as clear cut as earlier authors suggested—I had discovered Catherine Julien’s revolutionary 2009 Reading Inca History just last year (2019), 19 years behind schedule. Everything we once thought we knew, even the short list of Inca rulers, has been turned on its head.

D’Altroy is proud of a new chapter on Andean philosophy in the 2nd edition. “Thinking Inka” is intended to soften the etic tone of the book and duly provides the reader a jot of linguistic analysis, thoughts about space-time, and a rather stilted overview of Science v. Religion. “Thinking Inka,” though ambitious, lacks nuance and remains incomplete and intellectually unsatisfying. That said, I wish to read it again, ponder on how the Inka organized their universe.

The updated bibliography, on the other hand, is marvelous, though it omits one remarkable historian who dedicated two large and beautifully written books on the Inca Empire—books marvelous in their creativity, emic approach, and evaluation of the early source material. The reputation of the historian is considered mere dross today, unworthy of mention, though the reader who often enough grits the teeth at D’Altroy’s dense, repetitive, and utilitarian prose style (though he shows himself capable of some fine style when discussing Incan artisanry), and hardly endures D’Altroy’s repeated apologies for that style, knows that the unnamed and unnoted historian might have taught today’s most acclaimed anthropologists both a little something about beautiful writing as well as the emic approach to the Inca that D’Altroy so ambitiously tries to convey. [Burr Cartright Brundage ought yet to be read.]

The strongest chapters treat Peru’s natural setting and the astonishing environmental zones exploited by the Andeans, the social engineering that moved populations hither and yon to work the imperial bidding, the crafting of stone to blend with natural outcrops, the shaping of canals and fountains, and cutting the limitless and imaginative road system. The book thus captures, with comprehensive force and beauty the Andean mastery of the environment. One doesn't see in the Inca Empire the widespread ecological destruction found at Cahokia and Chaco Canyon.

The Hojoki

 

The following review of Kenko, Yoshida and Kamo no Chomei, Essays in Idleness and Hojoki, tr. with forward, Meredith McKinney (London, 2014).was penned in 2020:

The classic of Chomei, Hojoki, or Record of a Ten-foot-Square-Hut, is often noted for the simple beauty of Chomei’s escape from the world and simple, peaceful life in a ten-foot-square hut, but it is in the immediacy of his vivid descriptions that pour from his pen of fire, tornado, earthquake, political disruption, famine, and plague that visit the capital, in terrifying clusters, during his lifetime that concerns students today. Reading tragic literature yet works its catharsis. The unfamiliar place names provide us with a safe distance as we experience through Chomei’s eyes, how the residents of a faraway Kyoto once confronted battalions of natural disasters. 

Safe distance? Not for this Californian. What comes to mind is a sequence of paintings, LA Burning, which I discovered one calm day in the Laguna Beach Art Museum, the most shocking art I had ever seen outside Goya. Much later, though not long after a destructive fire rubbed out every other mansion, sad row of teeth, perched in magnificence above Laguna, including, so far as I could discern, one in which I had once set foot and admired (with some inner reproof at the ostentation), a towering Christmas tree, I again saw the museum. LA Burning was nowhere in view, and my inquiry was met with a startled look. Shawn Gargiulo is the artist.

After a devastating famine, the fire within, Kyoto met a fresh disaster: “So the first year drew somehow to a close. We hoped for recovery in the new year, but instead a plague was added to our woes, and every semblance of the old life was now gone. All despaired, and we were like fish in a fast-drying pond, as calamity tighten its grip on the world from day to day (9).” “Again, in the fourth month of the fourth year of Jisho a great whirlwind sprang up in the Nakamikado Kyoguku area, and swept down through the city to around Rokujo. Over three or four blocks, every single house, large or small, in the path of the swirling wind was destroyed. Some were utterly flattened, while only the pillars and beams of others remained (6).”

“The wind was fierce and the night tumultuous, and at the Hour of the Dog a fire broke out in the capital’s south-east, and spread to the north-west. Eventually the Shujaku Gate, the Hall of State, the University Hall and the Civil Affairs Bureau all caught fire, and in a single night were reduced to ashes (6).”

The distance found by modern readers in the unfamiliar names helps work the catharsis. When will we sort through the desecration of our own Hall of State? The resolution to live a simple life, unattached, days taken up with reading, music, gardening, show how one individual, long ago, coped, in lock down, with natural disasters.

We now turn to Kenko’s Tales of Idleness: “And so, watching the new year dawn in the sky, you are stirred by a sense of utter newness, although the sky looks no different from yesterday’s" (Chapter 19). Chapter 20 follows: “A certain recluse monk once remarked, ‘I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky.’ I can quite see why he would feel this.”  We recall Calvin at Geneva, the man who daily, weekly, forever, refused to let his eyes gaze on the world’s most stunning lake. 

Then Chapter 21: “You can find solace for all things by looking at the moon. Someone once declared that there is nothing more delightful than the moon, while another disagreed, claiming that dew is the most moving—a charming debate.” These Essays in Idleness, another classic from Medieval Japan, are aesthetic Ramblings, random jottings on the beautiful and the lost, on the unusual or unexpected.

“Foxes will bite people.

A retainer at the Horikawa mansion was once bitten on the foot by a fox while he slept. And one night, three foxes leaped out and bit a junior monk who was passing the main hall of Ninnaji Temple. He drew his sword and defended himself, managing to cut down two of them" (Chapter 218).

Kenko surprises in passing from one random note to another, in the Japanese fashion: foxes, streams, the moon, trees, women of elegant taste not long passed from the world, empty space. How can we reach such a faraway aesthetic?

I remember Autumn 2019. The sun had set, the classroom grew dark, and, lights out, the Asian history class loved listening to the tale of Japan and autumn, the impermanence, the falling leaves, the moon. The responsiveness of all the students surprised me. But this is Utah, and Utah and autumn, I have learned, is the high point of the year. Fall in California always caught the attention, leaves everywhere, but it was also our winter, a season of mixed responses and dark evenings. We can all share Chapter 212, with a touch of nostalgia: “The moon of autumn is especially splendid. It is a sorry man indeed who cannot understand this distinction, and claims that it is no different from the moon at other seasons" (Chapter 212).

"The Great Qualifications and Powers of the Daughters of God"

In his first interview with the press, Dallin H. Oaks, newly ordained President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared that "We have not always been wise in using the great qualifications and powers of the daughters of God." "We have work left to do" (https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2025/10/16/president-dallin-h-oaks-first-interview-as-church-president/).

I attended a Saturday student symposium today at Brigham Young University. Things got going at 9:30 a.m. the Joseph F. Smith Building, kept going for five hours, and every one of the students I listened to in the various sessions impressed me deeply.

A little while before the event started, I was walking in the Student Center.

A knot of students were laying out some extensive contraptions in a large space for yet another big BYU production. Meanwhile, the best laid plans were moving toward the oft awry.

A young man, standing at some distance, suddenly shouted at me in a very determined voice: 

“Hey!”

He then pointed at a young woman—one of those shining BYU students—and yelled:

“Never listen to HER!”

 

“Well, I never have,” I replied. 

 I then added, “But I am planning to be listening to her in the future.”

One can only imagine the context; the young woman's only response to her introduction-at-large was a bewildered: "What!?"

Within a couple of hours I found myself--a guest on campus--moderating a student panel for music and art, the speakers being four poised young women, all clear of voice, articulate, and enriched by languages, international experience, and science galore. They created paintings, sculptures, whatever it took, to illustrate their themes. None of them struck me as arrogant, only as qualified and powerful--and we'll be hearing much more from each of them.

It’s clear that the future of this Kingdom will have everything to do with whether we (all of us) always listen to the women of the Church. God gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, it is true, and in that truth we remain doctrinally secure—but above and beyond all else, gift of gifts, He gave His Kingdom not only the Three Zinas but numberless exemplary women. We should all plan on listening. 

Drunk with Wine in The Reign of Zedekiah

 In 1 Nephi 4 we learn that Laban "had been out by night" "with the elders of the Jews."

He returned "drunk with wine."

And it was by night; [and] I, Nephi, crept into the city and went forth towards the house of Laban.

And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine.

And when I came to him I found that it was Laban. 

So what had Laban and the "brethren" or "elders", "out by night," been drinking? 

Nothing less than "wine infused with vanilla!" 

Yes, "vanilla-infused wine was widely consumed by Jerusalem's wealthy during the reign of King Zedekiah," the king whom Laban served. "One of the excavated buildings [in which wine jars with vanilla traces were found] was an impressive two-story structure, which may have served as a bureau for senior royal officials," including a large wine cellar.

To some such place Laban had repaired by night to meet the elders of the Jews.

Notes

Consider the following: Steinmeyer, Nathan, "Biblical Kings Drank Vanilla-Flavored Wine," 1 April 2022, Biblical Archaeology. 

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/biblical-kings-drank-vanilla-flavored-wine/?mqsc=E4143000&dk=ZE2140ZF0&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDA%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=4_1_22_Biblical_Kings_Drank_Vanilla_Flavored_Win

Bibliography: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0266085

https://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2022/03/vanilla-flavored-wine-in-ancient.html

Shulem

Damaged Copy of 2010 original. I'm repairing the gaps by consulting a hard copy.



The Prophet Joseph Smith's Explanation of Book of Abraham Facsimile 3 introduces "Shulem, one of the King's principal waiters." Contrary to expectation, a principal waiter holds a high post at court in the Ancient Near East: "Facsimile 3 may well be a copy on papyrus of the funeral stele of one Shulem who memorialized an occasion when he was introduced to an illustrious fellow Canaanite in the place. A 'principal waiter' (wdpw) could be a very high official indeed, something like an Intendant of the Palace" (Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 451).

Joseph the Seer, in explaining Facsimile 3, thus saw beyond the fragmentary Book of Breathings to grasp what appeared on the original stele from which the Breathings vignette was taken. Where we see "Osiris Hor, the justified forever," Joseph Smith saw "Shulem." And Latter-day Saints will hardly apologize for Joseph Smith having seen a genuine Eblaite name and a genuine Egyptian title of office from a record now lost to knowledge and surviving only in a re-purposed copy used by a Ptolemaic priest. Even though memorial stele memorializing the presentation of Standard Bearer, Queen's Chief Cook, Fan Bearer, etc., are common, as Hugh Nibley further observes, Joseph Smith brings us Shulem at Court out of the blue--we encounter this character nowhere else in the literature. (For a translation of the vignette, see Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary, 23-25.)

Any leads? The Prophet gives us both Ether's Mount Shelem and Pharaoh's Shulem, at one vowel difference, and leaves us to sort out the nuances. And while it's the root that holds the meaning, it's the vowel that carries the nuance. Ether 3:1 introduces the mystified latter-day reader to "the mount, which they called the mount Shelem, because of its exceeding height." Height, much less exceeding height, throws the everyday reader for whom Sh-l-m speaks to peace. Yet as long ago as his World of the Jaredites, Hugh Nibley had this to say about exceedingly high Mount Shelem: "The original meaning of the best known of Semitic roots, SALAM, may be 'a high place' (Arabic sullam, ladder, stairway, elevation) with the idea of safety, and hence peace, as a secondary derivation," 242. And from an offhand cough or "mutterance" made from the lectern years ago, I took it that Brother Nibley thought Shulem might well signify Ladder. A "good Syrian and Canaanite" name is how he characterizes it in Abraham in Egypt, 451.

And he is right.

In Mitchell Dahood's "Hebrew Hapax Legomena in Eblaite," Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Giovanni C. Pettinato, ed.), 443, we find the following:

"Eblaite PN sulum/sullum "Ladder"


II

Ladder is just the beginning of possibilities. A good Canaanite name Shulem may be; still, the vocalic nuance remains uncertain--a rung or two away from reach. As far as the Book of Abraham is concerned, there's no particular symbolic meaning intended anyhow; Shulem's just a good Northwest Semitic name--a genuine touch.

Professor Dahood, changing his mind, elsewhere matches the same personal name, now transcribed Zulum, with Hebrew tselem (Image). (The second vowel in Zulum is not the original, but alters in harmony with the first.) The latest list of Ebla names yields Zulum(u) or Sullum and gives the meaning as Reconciled, which returns us to the familiar root s-l-m/sh-l-m (see Cybernetica Mesopotamica. Morphemics: Ebla PN's, numbers       Coogan

Note to Reader: About two lines with references were erased from the original essay; I'm searching for the hard copy or cloud copy to restore them. 

Meanwhile:

While doubling of the middle consonant--Zulum or Sullum?--would perforce also change the nuance, we don't know whether we have the full writing or not. Slight vocalic shifts in the Semitic root also modify mood and state--all of which can complicate the translation of names. Translation is tricky and nuanced anyhow: Reconciled may also be understood as Pacified or Appeased, that is, put at peace, put (back) in(to) a state of well-being (or health or safety), put out of reach of danger. We have not forgotten Mount Shelem, so Sullum, at least as place name, also may well evoke a high ground.

Now, Shulem's just a name, a common name likely built from the most common of all verbal roots--let's not be silly. I have never attributed any symbolic meaning to Shulem in respect of Facsimile 3. There is no hidden reference to ascension, for instance. Still, Abraham looks safe and snug up there on Pharaoh's throne. But in an earlier scene, we see the great patriarch bound on Egypt's sacrificial altar. In a moment of Retribution (cf. the modified root of shlm: shillem, shillum), the sacrificing priest of Pharaoh met his doom; now in a moment of Reconcilation, Abraham meets Egypt. Shulem simply had to be there. His name is just his name, I suppose; yet his dramatic appearance on the scene, by name, at once suggests the long-due moment of Appeasement and Reconciliation, "by the politeness of the king."

Shulem, a fellow Canaanite, appears as if Abraham's brother, even his twin or double--a spitting image (tzelem?). If Abraham sits where the king ought to be, then Shulem, who is being presented at court, stands where visiting Abraham, by all rights, ought to be standing (cf. Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 450). Abraham on the throne finds balance in Shulem at presentation. All is balanced, all Reconciled, all at "happiness and peace and rest" at the moment of Shulem's presentation (see Abraham 1:2). No wonder the Prince of Egypt, who leads Shulem to the throne, comes to us in the form of Ma'at, the goddess of universal order and harmony. The goddess who makes all things right takes the man of peace and reconciliation by the hand, and brings him to Abraham, who has long sought to be "a prince of peace" (Abraham 1:2). The Egyptian court becomes a great hall of mirrors: King and Prince, Abraham and King, Shulem and Abraham. Olimlah, the Prince's slave (perhaps another mirroring: prince and slave), alone stands out. Why? The Egyptian artist valued a "broken symmetry"; by breaking the symmetry, we can get a sense of difference, even of immediacy. "I'll teach you differences," says the Earl of Kent: Facsimile 3 is royal, not commonplace or stereotyped, material.

At once, "each of the five figures in our Facsimile 3 represents a different social stratum, from divinity to slave, though (and this is important) all belong to the same universe of discourse--it is all the same family" (452). This combined theme of social status and of "participating in the king"(!) belongs, says Nibley, to the rites of coronation and panegyris, to which "all the world was summoned." Here, in simple formula, Egypt conveys what Persian artisans took walls to cover at Persepolis: all peoples, all classes, all professions gathering in homage. Hieroglyphs at the bottom of the facsimile duly yield the blessing of prosperity (sw3D) pronounced by "the gods of the south, north, west, and east"--mirroring not only the acclamation of the entire world at the new rule, but also the four cardinal figures, the four sons--or doubled twins--of Horus, as found on Facsimiles 1 and 2 (see Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary, 25. The four figures beneath the altar, at the moment of death, now become the vehicle of prosperity and health. They witness everywhere, for they have at each stage certified, that the king has obtained the victory over his enemies (m3'-xrw r xft.jw). New rule? Yes. That's why Hathor and Ma'at represent the transfer of legitimate rule to the new power on the throne. It is only through Hathor and Ma'at that we can symbolically "participate in the king."

Shulem as twin of Abraham? After all, Shulem also figures in the name Ahe-Shulim (without the vowel harmony seen in Sulum), which Albert Tobias Clay, writing in 1912, translates My brother is kept safe, or preserved (see "List of Elements," in Albert Tobias Clay, Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Cassite Period). Abraham's Shulem, a principal waiter for the king, though far from home, is kept safe and sound in Pharaoh's court. And thanks to the seeric insight of Brother Joseph, the name of this special Shulem is, for all time, Preserved.

Professor Clay translates correctly but we can add a touch of local mythology. "My divine brother is Shulim" reflects the Canaanite myth of the birth of the divine twins, Shahar and Shalem or Shalim (Shulim), who name the Morning and the Evening Star. We hear in the Cassite period name, however vocalized, the words of Shahar, the Son of the Morning: My twin is Shulim, the Evening Star. Shalim, the Requiter, or Reconciler, is thus now come full cycle in his setting as Shulim, the Reconciled (See the Ugaritic evidence at KTU 1.23, "the Gracious and Beautiful Gods". See also Nicolas Wyatt, "The Religious Role of the King in Ugarit," in Ugarit at Seventy-Five). Here we also might mention Egyptian Stela Aberdeen 1578 in which a certain Ahmose evokes the Canaanite deity Reshef-Shulman or -Salmanu, which perhaps signifies Resheph (the flaming one), bringer of retribution, or, though less likely for the fiery, armor-clad deity, bringer of welfare and well-being (see I. Cornelius, The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Ba'al, 36; Maciej M. Muennic, The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East, 89-90). Whether one star (Venus) or as twins, both Morning and Evening Star must come to completion or fullness. Altar to Throne, Shahar and Shalem, Morning and Evening Star--Facsimile 3 grants us a glimpse of the never-ending cycle: but only a name and just a glimpse. The Ancient Egyptian verb, by the way, that best evokes fiery, retributive Shalim in his setting is hotep (to set, of the sun or stars; to rest or to be at peace; to be appeased, satisfied; to be content). The flame burns itself out; all nature rests.

Our Shulem, despite the shared verbal root, stands at a safe remove from the mythology of Shahar and Shalem; Shulem's just a good Canaanite name. Here's another: at Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) in Syria we find the previously unknown name, Lushalem (May [lu] he [the newborn son] be healthy, safe, sound). Though the tablets predate the Patriarchal Age, Tell Beydar comes close to our story; for here we also find the name borne by Abraham's own son: Ishmail, or Ishmael. The name had not previously been attested in ancient times outside the Hebrew Bible. Newly discovered Tell Beydar names further include the gates or districts of Malum and--Sulum (fullness--and completeness?). Tell Beydar, we are assured, lay on a route Abraham himself would once have traveled and "is of potentially great importance" in understanding his story (David Key, "Discovering the Missing Link," The Independent, 23 November 1993). The book of Abraham describes such places, beginning with the all-important hill of Olishem. (For Tell Beydar, see http://www.beydar.org/ ).

Worldwide Fast for Healing during the Coronavirus

On Saturday, April 3, 2020, President Russell M. Nelson, the Lord's Prophet to the world, invited members and friends of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to participate in a worldwide fast:

"So tonight, my dear brothers and sisters, in the spirit of the sons of Mosiah, who gave themselves to much fasting and prayer, and as part of our April 2020 general conference, I am calling for another worldwide fast.

For all whose health may permit, let us fast, pray, and unite our faith once again. Let us prayerfully plead for relief from this global pandemic. I invite all, including those not of our faith, to fast and pray on Good Friday, April 10, that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthen, and life normalized."

Did the fasting have any effect? Were blessings laid up in store? Latter-day Saints know the power of fasting and prayer. We've proved Him many times.


Consider the following item--and the reader may add hope and possibilities of his or her own--which I noticed on the very day following the fast--on Holy Saturday. The item comes in the form of a tweet, a "small and simple thing," and was posted by a well-known UK medical doctor, Professor Karol Sikora, a man of great optimism and kindness. Dr. Sikora is the CMO of Rutherford Health plc and Founding Dean and Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham Medical School. The entire Sikora family blesses all of our lives: Mrs. Sikora, a nurse, has come out of retirement as the battle rages on.

Here is the tweet from Saturday, April 11:

"Extremely encouraging report in The Times this morning.

Professor Sarah Gilbert is '80% confident' the Coronavirus vaccine she is developing at Oxford will work and if all goes perfectly, it could be ready by the Autumn.

80% is a very positive number indeed."

I've seen additional good news about the Oxford vaccine, so let's see what continues to develop.

Alma speaks to fools like me:

37:6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

Again:

Ether 3:4 "And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones [or elements], O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.

5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men."

Despite it being "the worst of times," we live in a season of hope, "the best of times," and fasting and prayer intersect with every hope and righteous endeavor at all times.

Each reader, following our fasting for Italy and the two worldwide fasts led by our Prophet--the Prophet to the world--may see budding "signs of Spring." In fact, Dr. Karol Sikora himself, through his candid but encouraging tweets awakens hope in many a reader. Grateful comments accompany his every post.

The Lord tells us in a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that "fasting and prayer" really amounts to "rejoicing and prayer." And our current Prophet teaches how "Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!

My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives" ("Joy and Spiritual Survival," General Conference, October 2016).

That focus returns us to Easter morning. And it returns us to the joy of this special bicentennial year in which we commemorate the appearance of the Father and His resurrected Son, "early in the Spring of 1820," to the boy prophet, Joseph Smith.

Let's see what continues to develop from the vital work at Oxford.

And elsewhere:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/25/21236187/coronavirus-uchicago-medicine-cannulas-ventilator-alternative-hospital-covid-19

https://www.foxnews.com/science/uk-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-could-deliver-30-million-doses-september-government-says

Thoughts on the Novel Coronavirus, Ether 3, and the Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Manual

Thoughts on the Novel Coronavirus and Ether 3

As we now navigate what the head of the World Health Organization today calls the "uncharted territory" of the novel coronavirus--including what for many Latter-day Saints is already a limited access to public worship--it surely will be things "which [look] small unto the understanding of men" (and are sometimes even despised) that may fire souls with joy, encircle hearts with peace, sustain all in comfort. 

Consider the 2020 Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Manual, as prepared for both Sunday School and home study. There may be a few for whom such a vade mecum to unlocking the Holy Scriptures looks small indeed (and it is unusually sparse), utterly lacking in any and all learned profundity or sophistication. Yet if touched by the Lord with His finger, the verses of Ether, Helaman, Mosiah, and the associated questions and comments found in a simple manual, "shall shine forth" unto us as if an inexaustible fountain of light--shining stones--an everflowing source of bright joy. 

It is yet Bicentennial 2020, and we can still respond to the invitation of a living Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, to celebrate, to immerse ourselves in the glorious light of the Restoration. By doing so, we yet observe the prophetic counsel of Elder Neal A. Maxwell about not mistaking instances of "local cloud cover," however glum today, for "general darkness" (from a talk given at BYU in 1999).

And let's remember one thing which we've probably considered only a curio of the past, a remainder of the premature apocalyptic worldview shared by our millennially minded ancestors, and that is: One cannot read the first volume of the History of the Church, without noting how the outpour of revelation after revelation runs alongside the contemporary outpour of a cholera pandemic of startling measure. The outbreaks, as recorded and tallied in the Prophet's History, hit with a fury beyond anything we can imagine today. 

We skip over those tales of the past. And what of the Saxton Letter? 4 January 1833: Does that ring any bells? Latter-day readers of the Prophet's earnest letter to editor Saxton find in the Prophet's poignant sentences about plague and pestilence simple, even simplistic, reflections of a millennial imminency that today's student, in fulsome 21st century sophistication, can scarcely tolerate. Even the helpful and thoroughgoing commentary in the Joseph Smith Papers Online pauses to nuance for the latter-day student how Joseph Smith "saw these events, on which Saxton had reported in several issues of his newspaper, through a millenarian lens." 

No, Brother Joseph, child of your times--mumbles the reader--you shot your bolt too soon. No. This alarm bell you sound concerns a typical 19th century pandemic, no Millennium in sight; wait a century or two--or even three or four. Maybe even wait until the end of the world. Yet on his second visit to the boy Prophet, Moroni "informed me" of the coming pestilences. It is Moroni's voice, a voice and mantle now assumed by his young Yankee apprentice, that we so urgently hear in the Saxton Letter.

There was nothing pertaining to the unfolding of the Kingdom for which the young Joseph Smith was not carefully prepared. And the same tutoring--daily study of the Book of Mormon--is available to each of us in all our varied circumstances, and throughout the prosperous years to come, the years of Gospel prosperity and continuing Gospel restoration. And some of those years will surely be joyfully spent, under Brother Joseph's continuing dispensational direction, in perfoming temple ordinances for those very souls who once perished of disease in the first decades of the 19th century.

The only "millenarian lens" through which Brother Joseph gazed, unlike every other man of his times, was the Urim and Thummim, the same that was given to the Brother of Jared on the Mount (see Doctrine and Covenants 17). And who knows but what our own personal Urim and Thummim might be the 2020 Come, Follow Me vade mecum? 

And now Ether, and the prayer of Jared's brother on Mount Shelem, a location most of us would place in eastern China:

 3:4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones [or verses], O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.

5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men.

The Book of Mormon and the 2020 study manuals, however small these may look unto the understanding of men--and I'm afraid that they often are made out to look very small indeed--can be touched by the Lord with an ever brighter, and forever inexaustible, light, a light which is the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.