Built by the Hands of God

In scripture we read of men building many things: Cities (Moses 7:19, Genesis 4:17), a city and a tower (Genesis 11:4), a Temple to God (1 Kings 8:19). I may be wrong and thus invite correction, but in our King James Translation of The Holy Bible we read of God building only one thing: The family house; the home. (Psalm 127:1,3).

Except The Lord build a house they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain...Lo, children are an heritage of The Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

But there is one other act of building of The Lord, and this one is His greatest, and yet the translators translated this right out of our text. How so? The translators translated "make" instead of "build". So what is the difference? The difference is that God made all things, but He built this one, and aside from the later reference to His building "a house" in reference to the family, the first actual reference to "God building" is direct, not conditional, but descriptive of the actual event. If I order the events, it will be obvious why the translators translated as they did, but word choice will have been critical.

Genesis 2:3 And Elohim blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which Elohim had created [in Hebrew "create" means 'to purpose, set out to, intend to' and as regards Elohim, for Him to say He will is as real as for Him actually to have done it] to make [this is why in Hebrew it made sense to say "Elohim created to make" because in English that would be "Elohim purposed to make"].

Genesis 1:7 And Eloihm made the firmament...

Genesis 1:16 And Elohim made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also.

Genesis 1:25 And Elohim made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind...

Genesis 1:26 And Elohim said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

Genesis 1:31 And Elohim saw every thing that He had made, and behold, very good...

Later the account is retold with special emphasis on roles. Here we are told, in Genesis 2:7, "And Jehovah Elohim formed the Adam of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [in Jewish Scripture that was later excluded from The Bible, the "breath of life" is the Priesthood]; and the Adam became a living soul.

Now follow the narrative on Eve, Genesis 2:18,21-22:

And Jehovah Elohim said, Not good for the Adam to be alone. I will make an helper suitable to him.

And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

And the rib, which Jehovah Elohim had taken from the Adam, made He a woman, and brought her unto the Adam.

Now, although I have been deferring to the Hebrew source text quite a bit already, let me present the reader with what Genesis 2:22 actually says:

And Jehovah Elohim built the rib which He had taken from the Adam to Woman, and He brought her to the Adam.

Is it not interesting that The Lord God later commanded His people to build a Temple, The Lord God later is said to build a "house" meaning 'the family, the home, posterity', but the only being ever to have been built by The Lord God is woman, and her He built to build the family?

I do not ascribe to that verve in my culture of pretending to elevate womankind by deprecating mankind, or to praise women by disparaging men. The Lord works wonderfully: He makes all equal, and yet can assign different roles. He ennobles men, and He ennobles women, and He makes each indispensable to the salvation of His children. 

Well, Sisters, The Lord God built woman, or built "for/to" woman. Either way, this is just plain awesome. Should any feel to disagree with me, by all means, though please bear in mind that what I have written, at least, all differences aside, is actually textual.

Adam, Male of Perfections, Son

Knowing a couple of foreign languages and having familiarity of and finding affinity with several others gives me some sensitivity to the matter of translation.

Sometimes folks think that converting a message to another language is simply a matter of swapping out words from one language for words of the same meaning in another language. The actual process of translation involves more than merely substituting words. The translator has to convert the structure that the source language used to convey sense to some equivalent structure in the target language. And the translator must choose the style he/she believes captures the tone of the source language message.

Take for instance these three words from Latvian:

Tev piedzims bērns.

Literally the three words mean (to you) (born shall be) (child). How would the translator fashion this to English? Watch five different decisions made depending on the style the translator believes fits the context.

Standard American English:

"You will have a child."

Standard British English (Besides the Above-mentioned Example):

"You shall have a child."

Colloquial American English:

"You're gonna have a baby."

"You're having a baby."

Jacobean Era English:

"Unto thee a child is born."

These examples are not necessarily instances of translator arbitrariness or license, but of the challenge faced by converting sense conveyed in one language and culture to sense conveyed in a different language and culture.

Sometimes a feature that is salient in the source language gets lost, as it were, in the translation process, not through deception or inadvertence, simply because the mechanism of one language differed just enough from that of the target language as to lose the salient feature.

We read the following passage in The Book of Moses, as revealed to Joseph Smith in June-October of 1830 (Moses 5:4-8):

4: And Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of The Lord, and they heard the voice of The Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them, and they saw Him not; for they were shut out from His Presence.
5: And He gave unto them commandments, that they should worship The Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto The Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of The Lord.
6: And after many days an angel of The Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto The Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save The Lord commanded me.
7: And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of The Only Begotten of The Father, which is full of grace and truth.
8: Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of The Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of The Son forevermore.

First of all, thank goodness for the gift of repentance and the Atonement of Jesus Christ which allow a sinner like me to feel hope and bright resolve to do as father and mother Adam and Eve did, to obey God, worshiping together by His Temple, as He commanded, in preparation for the restoration to His Presence. Second, notice how Adam is taught that his obedience to sacrifice is symbolic of the sacrifice of The Only Begotten Son. But also focus on the usage of the name "Adam". To be sure this specific event involved the father and mother of humanity, hence it is only expected to find "Adam" addressed repeatedly here.

Now, I will cite a passage from Leviticus in our ever superb King James Translation, then a more precise translation from the Hebrew. In the instance of the more precise Hebrew translation I will suspend syntactical considerations (rules for putting words together) to allow all to see how Hebrew constructed the thought. From opening words of Moses' great book on Priestly officiation, Leviticus 1:1-5:

1: And The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
2: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto The Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
3. If his offering be a burnt offering of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before The Lord.
4. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5. And he shall kill the bullock before The Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Now from the Hebrew:

1. And Jehovah called to Moses and spake to him out of the Tent of Meeting, saying:
2: Speak unto the sons of Israel and say unto them: If Adam from among you bringeth forth an offering to Jehovah from the cattle, from the flock, ye shall bring your offering forth.
3. If his burnt offering from the herd is a male of perfections, he shall bring it to the door of the Tent of Meeting, he shall bring it at his pleasure before the face of Jehovah.
4. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
5. And he shall kill the son of the herd before the face of Jehovah, and shall bring the sons of Aaron, the priests, the blood and sprinkle the blood on the altar all around, which is the door of the Tent.

The similarities are striking. Both Adam and Moses were commanded to offer sacrifices, both by the door (gate) of the Temple or Tent, both by shedding blood, and (as one reads Leviticus further), both by fire. Adam was told that his sacrifice was in similitude of The Only Begotten Son, and Moses was told to sacrifice the "son of perfections" of the herd, the key words "son" and "perfections" being lost in translation. But also, the Hebrew communicated the idea of  "if any man of you bring an offering" as "if Adam of you brings an offering." So yet again I find in the Hebrew source text confirmation of the truthfulness of what was revealed to Joseph Smith and to me, that is, in my case, that these Holy Writs are true. As I ponder this circumstance the truth becomes so plain, namely, that what The Lord commanded Moses to do would clearly have been what He had always ever commanded His people to do, from the beginning. What was revealed to Joseph Smith as teachings that Moses once received, but were lost, still have their echo in that record of Moses that survives to the present day. However, as the King James Translation did not convey the key concepts of "Adam" or "Son", the only way Joseph Smith could have been so right was to have received this knowledge from The Lord through His Holy Spirit.

There is something more I could say about the idea that "any man" offering sacrifice is referred to as "Adam", but as our British brethren say, "I shan't explain it here". The Temple is the place where I would mention it.

The reader may take these observations to be coincidence, happenstance, insignificant, curious, or confirming of truth. Whatever the reader sees in this, my observations are, in the very least, actually textual.