WHY ISAIAH, NEPHI?

Nephi, Isaiah, Jacob - The Law of Witnesses

Many readers of the Book of Mormon skip over the Isaiah passages in 2 Nephi. That's a shame because Nephi put those passages in his record for very good reasons. The number one reason is that of the 425 Isaiah verses Nephi quoted, 391 of them are about the Savior.* Nephi had seen Christ.  His brother, Jacob, had seen Christ.  Isaiah had seen Christ.  These 3 powerful witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ come together in 2 Nephi. As disciples of that same Jesus Christ, we should not be avoiding these chapters, but flocking to them to gain a greater understanding of our Savior and Redeemer from three men who all knew Him well.

Like Nephi, we should be drawing on all our available resources to more fully understand the Lord and His mission. With the advances in communication and electronics, we have many such resources at our fingertips.  Anyone old enough to have struggled through doing research in a library card catalogue with notecards will appreciate this flood of information.

As any researcher knows, the best resources are primary, such as the Books of Isaiah and 2 Nephi themselves.  Those, along with the Spirit, are the best teachers.  However, secondary sources can help broaden our understanding.  They won't give us a testimony - only the Holy Ghost can do that - but it can help strengthen that testimony if we are prayerful about our research.

The Church's website is an amazing source of information: Scriptures, Lesson Manuals, Conference talks, and so much more.  Most of the new additions, such as the manual, have links within the program to talks, videos, and scriptural references. You can spend hours doing research and finding enlightenment and joy, just within the website.
Link to the website of the Church of Jesus Christ

There is an amazing app for your phone called Scripture Plus.  It is linked to the 2020 study, Come Unto Me.  With one click, you can access everything related to that course of study.  I have been thrilled and enlightened by this app.
Link to Scripture Plus

Another resource is done by a group called Book of Mormon Central. It is funded by donations and is a great source of deep information about all things Book of Mormon.  It is linked to the 2020 curriculum, so if you go to this page today, you will find ways to attack the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. Renowned Book of Mormon scholars contribute to the site.  (The first name I recognized on the site was John Welch, a well-know BofM Scholar and the man who first identified the Hebrew poetic form of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon while serving a mission in 1962.) You can even subscribe to their mailing list and get daily updates of a part of the program called Now You Know, aligned with the reading for the day.
Link to Book of Mormon Central

Inside Solomon's Temple

Before I close and go dress for Church, I want to share one insight into the ancient Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.  The outer court represented the world or the Telestial Kingdom.  As one progresses through the outer court, one enters the Holy Place, which represents a higher spiritual level, what I would compare to the Terrestrial Kingdom.  Finally, one comes to the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwells. I immediately equated that sacred space with the Celestial Kingdom.  In Solomon's day, only the priests could enter the Holy Place and only to perform sacred rituals. (John's father, Zacharias, was serving at the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place when the Angel announced that he and Elizabeth would have a son, whom they should name John.) The Holy of Holies as so sacred, it was entered only one day a year and only by the high priest. The day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  These priests represented all of Israel before the Lord.

Inside the Salt Lake Temple

In our temples today, we still progress from Telestial, through Terrestrial, and finally, to the Celestial. The difference today is that we no longer offer blood sacrifices and burning incense, but the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  Each member of Christ's Church who is worthy to enter the temple makes his or her own covenants personally with God. As I understand the connections between ancient and modern temples and temple worship, I appreciate more fully the Prophet Joseph Smith and the great work he performed in this, the Last Dispensation, of the Fullness of time.

© February 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson

 * Institutes student manual

Assignment from our 2020 lesson for this week:

2 Nephi 12:1–3 If you have been to the temple—“the mountain of the Lord’s house”—you might share with your family how temple covenants are helping you “walk in [the Lord’s] paths .”