The Mormon Monk

Ok, so you didn't ask for a post on the semantics of reception. But, I've written one, and now you get to decide whether or not to receive--read? internalize? act on?--it. During his post-resurrection minister Jesus Christ appeared to his apostles behind closed doors, "where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19). After giving them verbal instructions, "he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:22).  This injunction to  receive  is one that Jesus Christ adapted to multiple occasions. When Pharisees asked him whether it was "lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause" (Matt. 19:3) Jesus responded with the admonition that marriage is be a permanent institution, not a coupling of convenience: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and t...

At the end of chapter twenty-two, Isaiah speaks of a steward, Eliakim, in Messianic terms as the savior of Judah: "And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons" (22:21-24). This beautiful metaphor describes the Savior as a source of strength that will support all of the trials and tribulations of his covenant people; he will carry burdens both large (flagons) and small (cups...

So I've just been doing a little reading in Christopher Columbus's letters. On his second voyage to the Caribbean Columbus took along Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician who wrote a letter describing the voyage to his hometown of Seville. Chanca--like everyone else who traveled to the New World--spends a lot of time talking about gold, and I was struck by the way in which he describes native practices of shaping the metal: "At the time of their departure [the explorers'], he [Guacamari, the native chief] gave to each of them a jewel of gold, to each according as each seemed to merit. This gold they fashion in very thin plates" (Jane 56). Chanca's phrase is Spanish is actually, "Este oro facian en fojas muy delgadas," which could also be translated, "this gold they fashion in very thin pages ." In other words, among this group of Native Americans on the island of Hispaniola, all gold was first shaped into very thin sheets that Chanca thoug...