Kent P. Jackson, professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, will be the keynote speaker at Brigham Young University’s 42nd annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium on the Scriptures, titled “Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise and Worship in the Old Testament,” Saturday, Oct. 26.
Admission is free, and no registration is required. For a complete schedule of events, visit religion.byu.edu/events.
Jackson’s keynote address, “The Old Testament and Easter,” will begin at 11 a.m. in the Joseph Smith Building Auditorium on the south end of campus. Additional lectures will continue in the auditorium, the nearby Thomas Martin Building and Ezra Taft Benson Building, with seven concurrent sessions held each hour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Presenters include faculty from BYU’s Departments of Ancient Scripture, Church History and Doctrine and faculty members from BYU-Hawaii, as well as instructors from the Church Educational System’s seminaries and institutes and other Church scholars.
The general objectives of the symposium are to increase gospel knowledge and strengthen individual testimonies. The material presented in the symposium will be an important aid to the 2014 Church Gospel Doctrine Sunday School curriculum. Addresses will be both informative and inspiring and should bless the lives of all participants.
A collection of papers from the symposium has been published in a book, “Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament”, released by Deseret Book and the BYU Religious Studies Center.
For more information, contact Patty Smith at (801) 422-3611 or visit religion.byu.edu/events.php.
Chuck WhickerOctober 3, 2013
I do hope that it is eventually understood, among the saints, that the law of Moses was not a "lower" law as current tradition suggests, but is much higher than the law that was given to the Gentiles, beginning with Paul's ministry -- and appropriatelyl so, since it would have been backwards for the Gentiles to be given a higher, more demanding law than the chosen seed. Paul, who was the "apostle to the Gentiles" admitted that he withheld the meat and gave them only "milk" - which would indicate that it is a lesser covenant fit for "babes," a term that he, himself, coined to describe the Gentile status. It is the law of Moses that Paul, himself, referred to as "holy" in several places. Those who come unto Zion will live holier laws than now, as D&C sections 82, 103, and 105 clearly indicate; and in section 84:56-57 the Lord makes clear that the "whole church" is "under condemnation" for having failed to live the "new covenant" which contained the "former commandments" which the Lord had "written." D&C 4:1 indicates that the united order was intended by the Lord to last "until I come." Thus we see it is something we fell away from (see D&C 105:2) and not something that was merely taken from us because of persecution. Had we been obedient as a church, the Lord had promised to wipe away the persecutors and empower us over all other powers (see D&C 103:5-10).