Talk:3 Ne 16:4-20

The trinity (vv. 4ff)

Interesting chiastic structure: first the Father gave the covenant to Israel, then the Son appeared to Israel, then the Holy Ghost manifests the truth to the Gentile. Then, through the Gentiles, the Holy Ghost witnesses the truth to the remnant of the Lamanites which ushers in the coming of the Son and prepares us for judgment before the Father.

Even in 3 Ne 11, the Father's voice introduced the Son, and then the Holy Ghost bore witness of the Son's words (or made them comprehensible?).

Prophets, through love, preach in hopes that we will have faith. We then have the opportunity to have faith and, if we continue through the threshhold of faith Nephi mentions (in 2 Ne 31 was it?) and obtain a perfect hope and love then, like we will be whole and complete like the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are. But if we do not continue through the threshhold, then we fulfill the prophecy in v. 8 and become "unbelieving Gentiles" (or like the Jews described in v. 4).

On this way of thinking, the Father represents love, the Son represents hope, and the Holy Ghost faith. When we obtain faith through the H.G., hope through the Son and finally love through the Father, then we become father-figures in an effort to bring others to through the same process, with the Son always as the intermediate step, along the path to the tree of life...

Also, these chapters parallel Isaiah's call in many intersting ways. Notice the "tread down" motif in v. 14, the watchmen/vineyard motif in v. 18, the healing in 17:7-19 (incl. deaf and blind), the tongue of angels in 17:16-17, and the seeing and hearing again in 17:25. Also, since I've been looking at the wine motif in Isa 28, I think the wine of the sacrament in 18 is also interesting in terms of reinforcing the proper use of wine (wine usually has a negative connotation in the OT, but it has a good connotation in several places when it's used for celebration—thus the wine of the sacrament is for celebration of God in contrast to hasty, premature, and mocking use of wine for drunkenness, analagous to the unworthy partakers of the sacrament in 18:29). --RobertC 20:04, 19 Aug 2006 (UTC)

This is some beautiful work, Robert. Thanks.

I've been thinking about the connections between faith/hope/charity and the Trinity. Moreover, there seems to be reason to connect it to the celestial/terrestrial/telestial trio, to some degree at least. I'm wondering still how the rather lengthy (and confusing) discussing of the Trinity in the last ten verses or so of 3 Ne 11 affects any reading of this passage.

Your connections to Isa 6 come right out of my book (have you been haunting my study?), which might be taken as a segue to some discussion of its contents. Ultimately, I argue that Nephi's careful placement of Isa 6 points toward the first day of Christ's visitation. The almost complete lack of any discussion of Israel/Jacob/Abraham/covenant/Gentiles/etc. between 2 Ne and 3 Ne seems to be implicated here. In my book, I'm trying to think Isaiah's role in the larger Nephite history, and how that opens onto Christ's visit in particular (note that Nephi quotes Isa 48-49, Jacob 50-51, Abinadi 52-53, and Christ 54-55, so that the whole second half of Second Isaiah spreads itself across the development of Nephite history; the interlude characterized by uninterest in things Abrahamic might well be the necessary turn towards things Christic, etc.; who knows what more will come as I continue to study). I've wrestled with hammering into those sorts of details here, but perhaps we should? --Joe Spencer 20:56, 19 Aug 2006 (UTC)