Thanks to Reed and all of you for a great discussion today. Hopefully, you went away with much to ponder. Next week we are going meet in the Relief Society room. I think our numbers are such we should be comfortable there. It is located in the southwest corner of the building.
February Reading
February 12--Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon
February 19--Mosiah 1-3
February 26--Mosiah 4-6
OLIVE TREES
- Prevalent in ancient Middle East
- Live an average of 500, sometimes 1500 years
- Fruit used for food or oil, which was used for anointing, cooking, skin, hair, medicine, fuel, lubrication, massage, etc.
- Famous Greek poet Homer called olive oil “liquid gold”
- Greeks consume 24 liters of olive oil per year
- Olive trees first cultivated in what is modern-day Israel near 5000 BC
- Trees spread by planting cuttings or grafting domesticated trees onto wild trees Grow in dry, rocky soil
- Grown in North America, but only in Arizona, California, Argentina, and Chile
- “from the Greek word ALLEGOREIN, meaning to speak figuratively”
- “a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral of political one”
- “a work of written, oral, or visual expression that uses symbolic figures, objects, and actions to convey truths or generalizations about human conduct or experience”
- can invite subjective and/or multiple meanings
Jacob 5 and Joseph Smith
According to Dr. Daniel Peterson, LDS and BYU scholar in ancient near eastern studies, horticulturalists have “found that in virtually every detail, it (olive cultivation as recorded in Jacob 5) matches what we actually know about how olive trees are treated, how they are grown, cultivated, and cared for.” Dr. Peterson pointed out that “it has to be understood that olive trees do not grow in New York State. Joseph Smith probably didn’t ever see any. He certainly wouldn’t have known much about olive trees and olive cultivation, and olive trees are very, very different from the kinds of trees he would have known. So where did he get this information from? It seems to me that the most conservative notion, the best explanation, is that whoever wrote the parable of the Olive Tree in Jacob 5 knew olive cultivation first hand.” Dr. Peterson summarizes that Jacob 5 is “a very detailed account, a very rich account, because of course it’s an account of the history of the world (in the past and on into the future) using the olive tree as a metaphor for the House of Israel.”
Zenos’s Seven Allegorical Historical Periods
- 1st Period: The Founding and Aging of Israel. (v. 3)
- 2nd Period: The Nurturing and Scattering of Israel. (v. 4-14) 3rd Period: The Day of the Gentiles. (v. 15-28)
- 4th Period: The Great Apostasy. (v. 26-49)
- 5th Period: The Gathering of Israel. (v. 50-74)
- 6th Period: The Millennium. (v. 75-76)
- 7th Period: The End of the World. (v. 77)
- Disease/Problem/Diagnosis/Symptoms: Jacob 4: 15, 5: 4, 32, 37, 40, 46
- Cause: Jacob 5: 48
- Treatment/Prescription: Jacob 5: 15, 4, 8, 9, 47, 61, 70 Patient Compliance Requirement: Jacob 6: 5, 8, 11 Prognosis: Jacob 5: 75, 77, 6: 11
- Appears twenty-one times. What is it? (See Jacob 6: 7) What is it’s purpose?
- How does God do it?
- Appears seven times.
- What is it?
- What is it’s purpose?
- How can God dig about you?
- Does God always dig everyone the same?
- Appears nine times.
- What is it?
- What is it’s purpose?
- How can God “prune” you? How does it feel to be pruned?
THE SMELL OF THE MANURE
“On my way the James’ the other evening, I saw a wheat field that appeared to be greener and taller than the others. Thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that occasionally some loving farmer drives over the field and pumps manure all over it. (Dung, in other words.). I thought, my, it’s just like life. Here we are minding our own business, growing our little hearts out; we’re really quite green, somewhat productive, and very sincere. When out of the blue, life deals us a dirty one, and we’re up to our elbows in manure. We, of course, conclude that life as we know it has ended and will never be the same again. But one day, the smell and the shock are gone, and we find ourselves greener and more productive than ever before. Unfortunately, no matter how often we go through these growing experiences, we are never able to appreciate the sound of the tractor or the smell of the manure.”
Harold W. Wood, source unknown.
Grafting
- Appears twenty-one times.
- What is it?
- What is it’s purpose?
- How might God graft us?
- Where does God graft us? (See v. 8) Is being grafted pleasant?
- Appears eight times.
- Why did the Lord of the vineyard “grieve?”
- What are the different ways the Lord expresses his grief? (See v. 41, 47)
What is the connection between the Lord’s grief and the nourishing, digging, pruning, dunging, and grafting?
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