Talk:1 Ne 14:18-30

I am interested in the what it means in verse 23 when it says (as I understand it) that the revelations of John are "plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all men." Here are some other scriptures I want to look in that will hopefully shed some light on what "plain" really means: Gen 25:27, Prov 8:9, Hab 2:2, Mark 7:35, 2 Ne 25:4, 2 Ne 26:33. I am going to spend more time on this later. In the meantime I thought maybe someone else might have some ideas on this. --Matthew Faulconer 16:05, 23 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Matthew--I took a stab at responding to verse 23. I didn't get very far with the topic you identified, but I think I put down some related thoughts. It is still rough and I'll try to clean up over the next few days. Troy

Thanks Troy. --Matthew Faulconer 06:02, 24 Aug 2005 (CEST)

I'm coming back here after more time. There have been several recent helpful posts on the blog about Revelation. But I'm still struggling with what to make exactly of this verse 23. I wonder if there is something to the idea that you don't need an angel or prophet to tell you that Joseph Smith's story is plain. In other words, the scriptures where we are told something is plain are precisely those cases where the scriptures are not easy to understand. But this does raise the question of what it means to take a set of scriptures that are difficult to understand and tell people that they are not difficult.

Alternatively, maybe in this case the emphasis is here on "at the time they proceeded out of the mouth of the Jew" to suggest a recognition that Revelation is no longer easy to understand.

--Matthew Faulconer 07:21, 17 December 2007 (CET)

Matthew, I've been really stewing on this question. Although I think there are other ways we might think about plainness, and possibly even "easy to the understanding of all men," I can't reconcile any of these other ways of reading this with 2 Ne 25:4 where Nephi says that Isaiah is not plain (though he qualifies this: "not plain unto you, nevertheless they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy"). That is, there seems to be some sense in which Revelation is plain that Isaiah isn't. Isaiah, however, seems to be not plain only because we are not trained in the ways of the Jews (2 Ne 25:1). But this suggests that Revelation is not drawing on this same "manner of prophesying among the Jews." So, what is so different about Isaiah and Revelation? Or, might the same caveat apply to Revelation and Nephi just didn't add this caveat--that is, could we not apply the same "spirit of prophecy" condition that Nephi articulates regarding Isaiah to Revelation? This seems a bit forced to me. Joe's posts and seminary lessons have me thinking that the temple is indeed an important key to understanding Revelation and Isaiah--is "the manner of the prophesying among the Jews" such that it draws richly on temple imagery? Another thought is that we simply are so untrained in reading scripture carefully that Nephi is talking in sort of a relative sense: compared to the many hidden mysteries that we should be drawing out of scripture, reading Revelation is a cinch. This last thought betrays my own frustration with how this notion of "plainness" has been used as a rationalization for not reading scripture very attentively or carefully: thinking beyond anything more than a first-pass reading is oftentimes condemned as "looking beyond the mark" because, after all, Nephi himself says his words are plain. This, I think, is a very bad way to understand "plainness"!

Others' thoughts? I'm very interested.... --RobertC 21:05, 21 December 2007 (CET)

Thanks Robert. I like the idea that maybe we should be adding the same "spirit of prophecy" caveat to revelation. This may be another case where seemingly important caveats are left out (and the question we should be thinking about is why the caveat is left out). And I agree w/ your concerns about using plainness to justify shallowness. I'm still hoping somoene will come along and straighten out this enigma for us :) --Matthew Faulconer 05:56, 24 December 2007 (CET)