Latest / Scripture Central / Genesis 6-11 & Moses 8 I Come Follow Me I Handmaidens, Harems and Heroines I Lynne Hilton Wilson

Transcript

Genesis 6-11 & Moses 8 I Come Follow Me I Handmaidens, Harems and Heroines I Lynne Hilton Wilson · Scripture Central

• 0:00
  The ark is about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
• 0:05
  This is an enormous wooden boat. However, the Titanic was bigger
• 0:10
  than Noah's Ark, which means the Queen Mary is is even bigger
• 0:13
  still. Whenever a man marries a woman
• 0:17
  in God's law in the new and everlasting covenant in verse
• 0:22
  19, it says, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of
• 0:26
  promise, it shall be. And then they go on to talk
• 0:29
  about how their names are recorded in the book of life.
• 0:35
  Hello, I'm Lynn Hilton Wilson and I'm so excited to talk about
• 0:39
  Noah's family today. We at Scripture Central tried to
• 0:43
  build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by illuminating and
• 0:47
  restored scripture. The Old Testament has fattest
• 0:49
  examples of handmaidens and heroines and harlots, and I feel
• 0:53
  like today we are able to jump into Noah's family and get a
• 0:57
  beautiful view with Moses. 8 of some of these great women, you
• 1:02
  know, the chapter begins talking about the daughters of men
• 1:04
  versus the sons of God. And as I mentioned earlier, that
• 1:08
  people of the Bible, I guess it was a couple weeks ago, we had
• 1:11
  another reference to the children of God or the children
• 1:13
  of men. And they didn't quite understand
• 1:16
  that they're righteous people or wicked people.
• 1:20
  They thought that the sons of God were actual angels coming
• 1:23
  down and, and reproducing with the daughters of men.
• 1:27
  And it was a wicked outspring that, that, that we don't see it
• 1:30
  that way. You know, we with restored
• 1:32
  Scripture were able to see that these are all Eve's
• 1:35
  grandchildren and children and Adam's and Eve have been
• 1:39
  preaching to them. But some choose righteousness
• 1:41
  and some do not. And so we get a a combination of
• 1:44
  this. But Enoch's great grandson is
• 1:48
  Noah, and he is left on the earth with his wife and his many
• 1:54
  of his posterity. Three of his sons are righteous
• 1:59
  and they each have righteous wives.
• 2:01
  The wicked are destroyed and as Noah is left on the earth to
• 2:06
  preach repentance, only Noah and his sons hearkened to the Lord
• 2:11
  every. All the other righteous were
• 2:13
  taken up to the city of Enoch and it wasn't just a one time
• 2:17
  deal. We'll talk about this when we
• 2:18
  get to Genesis 14. Melchizedek City was also
• 2:21
  translated as others are we learn and restored scripture.
• 2:24
  We also learn about this in 3rd Nephi where the righteous
• 2:28
  becomes sons of God. But in Moses chapter 8, we have
• 2:33
  now already arrived at about 3000 BC, you know, on the
• 2:37
  timeline of the Old Testament. It'll be very filled when we get
• 2:41
  down to the times of the prophets and the and the kings.
• 2:45
  But initially the Bible's dates, our Adam was about 4000 BC, Noah
• 2:51
  about 3000, and Abraham about 2000.
• 2:54
  And we'll bridge that thousand year period today as we look at
• 2:58
  Moses chapter 8, we're very fortunate not only to have the
• 3:01
  Joe Smith translation of Moses chapter 8, but also to have
• 3:04
  Genesis 6 and seven and eight talking about Noah.
• 3:09
  First, Peter talks a little bit about Noah.
• 3:11
  We also have the Doctrine Covenant section one O 7 that
• 3:14
  talks about Noah and we learned how old he was when he was
• 3:16
  ordained and we learned how old he was when he got on the boat.
• 3:19
  Moses chapter 8 verse 12 says Noah was 600 years old when he
• 3:23
  got on the ark and we learned the ages of his sons.
• 3:27
  Now in the places where his sons are mentioned and their wives,
• 3:30
  it's different times in different places with different
• 3:32
  ages. But in restored scripture, we
• 3:34
  learn that Japheth is the first born, and Moses was 450 years
• 3:40
  old when Japheth was born, and the same mother was delivering
• 3:45
  Shem 42 years later. Moses was nine, 492 years old
• 3:51
  when he delivered Shem. And then it's a little bit
• 3:55
  confusing the text. It sounds as if Ham has a
• 3:57
  different mother, but we know that women had very long periods
• 4:01
  of fertility if the same woman is reproducing over almost a 50
• 4:05
  year period. But it appears that Ham may have
• 4:08
  been born from a different mother.
• 4:09
  The only wife of Noah we're told about is the wife that enters
• 4:13
  the ark, and she is an amazing woman.
• 4:17
  Well, all three of these women, all, all eight of these people
• 4:21
  are amazing for the amount of work that they have been given
• 4:25
  and that they do it. They follow through no matter
• 4:27
  how hard it was. Noah's wife enters into a
• 4:30
  covenant with God before she entered into the ark.
• 4:34
  You know, God promised to protect her and the seven other
• 4:37
  family members if they would maintain his covenant, and they
• 4:42
  did it. And these her daughters in law
• 4:46
  are working along beside her. You know, I just did a little
• 4:49
  math to figure out how much work was involved.
• 4:52
  We have 1000 animals. If there were only 72 clean
• 4:56
  animals, we have thousands of just clean animals, let alone
• 5:01
  the unclean animals because we have 7 pair of not just the
• 5:05
  clean, but also all the Flyers, all the birds.
• 5:08
  These women were absolutely key to creating God's covenant
• 5:13
  people and Noah's wife, like Eve, speaks of this need for
• 5:19
  mutuality and companionship in life and working together.
• 5:23
  I, I just love these chapters. They're called on this mission
• 5:27
  to not only build the ark, which is enormous, but it's a 12 1/2
• 5:31
  month mission on the ark. You know, they're in charge of
• 5:34
  feeding and cleaning and exercising these animals.
• 5:37
  They probably have to help with reproduction.
• 5:40
  If the animals were old enough, I hope they had very young
• 5:42
  animals. I'm sure they had to learn
• 5:44
  patience and sensitivity. long-suffering.
• 5:48
  I mean, Can you imagine the excruciating smells and that
• 5:52
  ours? How would it be to take care of
• 5:53
  an animal who seasick, you know? Oh, it's just a gargantuan
• 5:57
  amount of workload for these 370 or 375 days on the ark,
• 6:02
  depending on what you're using. In Genesis 6, verse 15, it says
• 6:06
  the ark is about 450 feet long. Now they're using cubits, so
• 6:11
  it's a little different size. It's about 450 feet long, 75
• 6:15
  feet wide, and 45 feet high. This is an enormous wooden boat.
• 6:20
  According to the text of Genesis Chapter 7 in the NIV
• 6:24
  translation, we have 7 pairs of clean animals and all the fowls.
• 6:28
  So seven pair each and then the unclean is 1 pair.
• 6:33
  I thought it would be fun to look at a little comparison.
• 6:35
  So I I found this chart on Noah's Ark.
• 6:38
  If you compare it to the Santa Maria, Columbus's largest
• 6:40
  shipped and it's like 3 times as large.
• 6:44
  But the Mayflower is much, much smaller than the Santa Maria.
• 6:47
  However, the Titanic was bigger than Noah's Ark, which means the
• 6:51
  Queen Mary is is even bigger. Still.
• 6:53
  This was about the largest wooden ship known.
• 6:56
  So that's that's quite amazing. But we're told about the wife of
• 7:00
  Japheth and the wife of Sham in Genesis six.
• 7:03
  They repeated 4 different times. They had an important
• 7:07
  relationship. But Shem's wife, we learn in
• 7:10
  restored Scripture, was a priestess.
• 7:12
  Section 84 and 76 and 138. She was approved of God.
• 7:18
  We also learn in restored Scripture that whenever a man
• 7:22
  marries a woman in God's law in the new and everlasting covenant
• 7:28
  in verse 19, it says, And it is sealed unto them by the Holy
• 7:32
  Spirit of promise, and by him who is anointed, unto whom I
• 7:36
  have appointed to give power to the keys of this priesthood, it
• 7:39
  shall be. And then they go on to talk
• 7:41
  about how their names are recorded in the book of life,
• 7:45
  and that is when you become a priest and a priestess unto God.
• 7:50
  And so I believe we can refer to these women, like Shem's wife as
• 7:56
  a priestess according to the definition given in restored
• 8:00
  scripture. But we also have information on
• 8:03
  Ham's wife that is different. In Joseph Smith's translation of
• 8:07
  the Book of Abraham, we learn the names of Ham's wife, the
• 8:13
  only one that we have the names for.
• 8:15
  And in our copy it says Ham's wife is named Egyptus and her
• 8:19
  daughter's name is Egyptus. But in the original scribal
• 8:23
  copy, as we look at the quill that was written down as
• 8:26
  Josephus translating those scrolls that were found in the
• 8:28
  Egyptian mummies, that Hams wife is Zepta.
• 8:33
  But it's crossed out and there's a carrot put above.
• 8:36
  And I've got this on my slide here from the Joseph Smith
• 8:38
  papers. I just took a picture of it and
• 8:40
  they named both the mother and daughter Egyptus.
• 8:43
  We also learned that Ham and his wife Zepta or Egyptus had four
• 8:48
  sons, Kush, Mirazam, Puta and Kanan.
• 8:51
  This is beautiful to me because Zeptha or Egyptus is a righteous
• 8:58
  daughter from the land of Canaan.
• 9:01
  This area that was not taught the gospel, but she is a
• 9:03
  convert. She joins the sons of God and
• 9:07
  the as a daughter of God she makes covenants and it is
• 9:10
  through her posterity that we are blessed with a righteous
• 9:14
  lineage of the people of Cana. Their daughter is the one who
• 9:18
  discovers Egypt. Do you remember this from
• 9:21
  Abraham one verse 24. This woman discovered the land
• 9:24
  that was underwater who afterwards settled her son in
• 9:27
  it, and one of those sons her first born is Pharaoh.
• 9:31
  We learned that he was righteous and they tried to establish
• 9:34
  their government after the order of the priesthood, but it was
• 9:36
  not the priesthood because the priesthood came through Shems
• 9:39
  lineage. We also learned that later on in
• 9:42
  the descendants, there are three young girls who are very
• 9:45
  righteous and they were from this lineage of Ham who were
• 9:49
  taken because of their nobility and righteousness to be
• 9:52
  sacrificed on an altar to false gods.
• 9:54
  And that's an Abraham 111. So we get a little bit of her
• 9:57
  genealogy sprinkled through here as we bridge the time down to
• 10:00
  Abraham. Even though we don't have the
• 10:02
  name of Noah's wife and two of her daughter in So if you look
• 10:10
  at the Book of Jubilees, this is one of our that's very old,
• 10:14
  that's not canonized. It's from about 160 to 150 BC is
• 10:17
  the best guest right now. But in chapter 4 of Jubilee, we
• 10:20
  get names M Zara and Adopthenes and Sext Squamptilimi.
• 10:26
  I don't know how to pronounce them.
• 10:27
  And then Ham's wife is a different name than Egyptus or
• 10:30
  so we don't really know. But these are the names that are
• 10:33
  assigned there that are used in that Ethiopic Orthodox Church.
• 10:37
  Even today, as we look at the story of Noah and the ark and
• 10:40
  the flood and the cleansing of the earth, it's very interesting
• 10:43
  to see how many other traditions, ancient traditions
• 10:47
  around the world also have a story of a flood.
• 10:50
  And one of those from Mesopotamia is the Epic of
• 10:53
  Gilgamesh. And he is striving to seek a
• 10:59
  life eternal, and he's striving to come into the presence of
• 11:02
  God. And they have different names.
• 11:05
  And we know that all the languages which were changed at
• 11:07
  the Tower of Babel shortly after, a few centuries after
• 11:10
  Noah. So I'm not surprised that these
• 11:12
  names are different. But it's interesting that even
• 11:15
  in the Epic of Gilgamesh, we have a righteous wife who is a
• 11:20
  guide to help. And we have another woman who is
• 11:22
  a veiled Tavern keeper. And these women were very
• 11:27
  important to the lineage that followed.
• 11:30
  But as we continue on in Genesis and we leave the wonderful
• 11:34
  account of God saving a righteous posterity to try again
• 11:39
  and allow the people who are wicked to have another chance in
• 11:43
  heaven and allow His mercy to extend even beyond the veil.
• 11:47
  The next righteous family we're introduced to falls about the
• 11:51
  time of 2000 BC, and it's a man named Abram.
• 11:55
  On my slides, I've got Abraham's genealogy.
• 11:58
  His father is Tara. He has two older brothers, Haram
• 12:02
  and Nahor. Either Sarai or that's the
• 12:06
  English way of saying it, but in Hebrew you pronounce the second
• 12:09
  syllable and it's more Sahi. It's more of a guttural or I
• 12:13
  didn't do it very appropriately, but she's either a niece or a
• 12:19
  half sister with a different mother.
• 12:22
  It's unclear because we have different accounts and different
• 12:24
  texts. But it's also unclear because in
• 12:26
  Hebrew you could be a father or a grandfather and still claim
• 12:31
  that as your son, or you could be a great grandfather and still
• 12:34
  claim it as your son. And many times the genealogy
• 12:36
  skipped generations. We see that even down in the New
• 12:38
  Testament with Matthew and Luke's genealogy where they
• 12:40
  skipped generations. So it's not clear who some of
• 12:44
  these people were. But in Genesis 11 were
• 12:46
  introduced to these two women that become very important in
• 12:49
  the family of Abram. The first one is either his
• 12:53
  sister or his niece, Ishka. Now, some people think Ishka is
• 13:00
  actually Sarah or Sarri in Hebrew, in the Jewish faith.
• 13:05
  We really don't know. We just know that she's the
• 13:07
  daughter of Herron and the sister of Milka and Lot, and
• 13:11
  she's only named once in the Bible, so most English
• 13:14
  translators just place her as Abraham's niece.
• 13:18
  However, later on in Hebrew she became linked with Sarah and
• 13:25
  they think maybe this was Abraham's niece, not his half
• 13:27
  sister. But Sarah becomes one of the
• 13:30
  most famous woman in all scriptures.
• 13:32
  She's mentioned in all four standard works, is the
• 13:35
  grandmother of all Israel, and she is the first of our great
• 13:40
  matriarchs. I think she's probably left a
• 13:43
  legacy of faith and love and patience.
• 13:46
  But she's also portrayed as a whole woman.
• 13:49
  You know, we see her jealousy, we see her suffering, we see her
• 13:53
  relationship struggles. I, I, I think all of us can
• 13:55
  really relate to her. She, we see her flexibility.
• 13:59
  She's a whole person. I love the fact that she is
• 14:03
  known for her tolerance, but also her intolerance.
• 14:08
  You know, when she laughs at she doubts the fact that now at age
• 14:12
  90, she's going to have a child. When the Angel comes to report
• 14:15
  it again, she laughs and then is embarrassed about it and and
• 14:19
  denies it. She probably wasn't laughing out
• 14:20
  loud or something. But then she laughs again when
• 14:24
  she delivers her son Isaac. The text is written very
• 14:28
  interestingly so that we can see the opposition and this, this,
• 14:32
  this, all sides of this wonderful woman, but there's all
• 14:35
  sides to all disciples of Christ.
• 14:38
  And sometimes we do things that we are embarrassed of as well.
• 14:42
  And that's why the great plan of salvation is so beautiful and so
• 14:46
  needed. We are given a second chance.
• 14:50
  We are given an opportunity to repent, and we, like Sarah and
• 14:55
  Abram or Abraham, are called of God to bless the world.
• 15:00
  We, as Noah and Noah's family are called of God to save those
• 15:06
  around us. And I pray that as disciples of
• 15:09
  Christ, we can strengthen our testimony and that these little
• 15:13
  snippets on these great people in the Old Testament will
• 15:17
  encourage you to step into the text and seek the Spirit of the
• 15:21
  Lord to guide and direct your life.
• 15:24
  And I leave this with you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.