I had a rather interesting flash of inspiration over the weekend.
I’ve been pestering the LORD with the same basic question for several months, and lately that pestering has been more and more frequent. The root question I’ve been drilling on is how these different seers can bring forth these different records that are at odds with one another. And, to compound that problem, the prophets themselves tend to not feel particularly inspired about the records brought forth by other prophets.
As I’ve been preparing the presentation for the Book of Mormon Forum group that meets on Mondays, where I will be presenting on the various methods of translations used by modern seers, I have re-hashed in my own mind how, taken individually, I can easily get behind any of these records, but when taken together there are uncomfortable contradictions, and I sat pondering on the problem.
I’m not sure if I dazed off or not, but I had mentally “checked out” while I was pondering (or maybe I had finally exhausted my desire to argue about it and was finally open to inspiration). Then, in my mind, I saw a picture. The picture of the Miktabim or seal found on page 289 of the Torah of Moses from the Plates of Brass. And, in an instant, I understood.
The Miktabim has many paths. They are not all parallel paths, there are perpendicular paths. But, at the center of the Miktabim is righteousness, and water. (the characters Mem and Tzadi) There is one righteous from whom flows the living water.
The tree of life is said to have 32 paths. This number is symbolic. All of God’s paths are counted in those 32. (NOTE: this is not the same as the new age idea that all paths lead the same place. Clearly there are forbidden paths leading away from the tree of life, where people wander off and are lost.) But I was made to understand that, just as David’s vision of the different perspectives of the tree of life, depending on where you stand as you look upon her, you see different fruits (or lack of the various fruits). The shape of the tree changes based on perspective, and our perspective today is more like the tree of life as drawn in the Miktabim with perpendicular paths that cannot be reconciled or made to be parallel from our current vantage point.
And, I understood that I could teach from each of the books that I was asking about because they were all given by inspiration of God and are profitable for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). And, that the seeming contradictions will melt in His presence, even the passages which, to me, seem irreconcilable.
Which reminded me of the admonition of Moroni that was the focus of our conference from last week (part of which is quoted here):
And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge, ye shall also be judged. Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ, that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ. – Moroni 7:17-18 RAV / 7:18-19 OPV
