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A Deeper Look at the Creation Story: an episode of Sanctuary with Jared Lambert
01:17:09
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- [00:00]
Jared Lambert
Hi, this is Sarah Perkins Sabie, one.
- [00:03]
Larkin Swain
Of the authors of the Bible Storybook.
- [00:05]
Aubrey Chavez
We're so excited to have partnered with Faith Matters to bring you beautifully told scripture stories as a podcast that you.
- [00:11]
Jared Lambert
Can listen to with your kids and.
- [00:12]
Aubrey Chavez
Share with your friends and family.
- [00:15]
Jared Lambert
We're making half of the stories available.
- [00:17]
Aubrey Chavez
Completely free, is a podcast called Scripture Stories for Little Saints, and the other.
- [00:21]
Jared Lambert
Half are available to donors and friends of Faith Matters as a thank you.
- [00:25]
Aubrey Chavez
For your financial support that makes this collaboration possible.
- [00:29]
Jared Lambert
If you have trouble accessing them, you.
- [00:31]
Aubrey Chavez
Can email faith matters@infoaithmatters.org and they'll be happy to help. Thank you so much for your generous and ongoing support. We're so excited to share these stories with you and can't wait for you to hear them.
- [00:44]
Jared Lambert
Now onto the podcast.
- [00:46]
Aubrey Chavez
Hey, everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today we want to introduce you to another podcast in the Faith Matters Podcast network called Discovering the Temple, hosted by Larkin Swain. Larkin brings a candid, curious, and thoughtful approach to conversations about the temple. And this episode was so fascinating and felt especially timely as we begin a new year studying the Old Testament. In this episode, Larkin speaks with historical linguist Jared Lambert, whose work focuses on language development, temple theology, and how translation and symbolism have shaped biblical traditions. Jared brings a linguistic lens to the Genesis creation story, uncovering rich meanings that have evolved over time and even been lost in translation. His perspectives are both mind expanding and spiritually moving. He re examines the portrayal of God in Genesis, unpacks the symbolism of the temple endowment, and offers what feels like a powerful missing piece in our traditional telling of Adam and Eve's story. We hope that this conversation sparks fresh insights and deep reflection as you revisit these foundational stories. And with that, here's Larkin Swain with Jared Lambert.
- [01:51]
Larkin Swain
Jared, welcome to Sanctuary. Thanks so much for coming down here and taking the time to have this conversation. Super stoked for it. I know you have a lot prepared and I'm really, really excited to dive in. But before we do, let's just start with having you share your background, how you came to this point of being a historical linguist. Anything you want to share that brought you to this point to give people some context for where you're coming from?
- [02:19]
Jared Lambert
Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, thank you for having me. This is really fun. So who am I? I am Jared Limber. I'm a historical linguist. What. What does that. Diachronic linguistics, which is the study of kind of you look at the. The oldest rendition or the etymological roots of a word and Then you trace that single word throughout history in order to better find the meaning and understand it of the morphology of that word over time. And you kind of trace that throughout time. So how did I come to do that? I it honestly, I don't think anyone wakes up and is like, I want to be a historical linguist, like, like nobody knows what that is. I fell into it, did I? I grew up in the church here in Salt Lake City, Utah, ran off to Africa and I served my mission on the islands of west, the islands of Cape Verde, which is West Africa. So these small islands off the coast of West Africa. Absolutely loved it there. The most incredible people in the world are there. Loved my experiences there and fell in love with language because there are a lot of different languages on those islands, a lot of proto languages and creoles. And so I fell in love with Lang, loved my mission so much. I stayed there, I, I bought a house on the island of Fogo and I would live and work, going in between college studies and working in humanitarian aid, and then learned a lot of different languages and loved studying linguistics. And then I was recruited in the United States army, so served as a military linguist there. And that was really interesting because then I just met a lot of different amazing people, all different branches, who had a lot of different perspectives on faith and understanding of gospel. And it became very clear to me with my linguistic understanding that we're all speaking the same language, we're just not understanding what that language is. So it was a linguistic problem that I noticed and it also gave me a lot more questions as to how to define that in the gospel. So I left the military with this goal, which is I'm gonna study until I have answered my questions for what the gospel is and how to best linguist lay that out for everyone. So that is a horrible idea. Most people go to college because they're like, I want to have this job, I want to do this, and I didn't do that. Right. I went to school being like, I need to answer all these questions I have about the gospel. So hence I have been going to school for 20 years, I'm still a student, I have seven degrees, I speak eight languages, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to stop going to school. I have way too much debt. If I stop, I'm in trouble, so I will just go forever is the new plan. When I was working on my PhD, I was very focused on temple iconography of ancient texts and like the temple evolution, really focusing on the age of the first Temple transitioning to the age of the second Temple. I was studying that, I wrote a long paper on that and I sent that to a few people and they forwarded onto the church, which got my name into the church's system somehow. And so I got a random call one day and they offered me a job as the linguist over Sacred materials department of the church, I think is what it's called. And I would help implement the linguistic changes you're seeing in the temple today and the ones that are coming. And. And then I left and it was awesome. I loved that experience. It was super cool. Enjoyed that and love everybody there. And then I left there and I am now finishing my PhD in historical linguistics. Just the study of diachronic linguistics on the Scripture text. Right. Ancient. Ancient scripture. And yeah, so that's me in a nutshell. That's. That's what I do. And my, my main goal here is I, I try to show everybody if you study the linguistics of the Bible, you get a completely different narrative.
- [06:34]
Larkin Swain
Yeah.
- [06:35]
Jared Lambert
Of the Bible, because people don't get it. Like, the Bible is this traditional kind of group understanding of what has been interpreted as the gospel. And that has been influenced for geopolitical reasons. That, that influence for just, you know, it's political reasons. It's. It's a million different issues that we've seen projected onto this text that give the narrative that we have today. And so what I like to do for people is I like to take them through the scriptures and I like to show them just how different the linguistics are from that traditional narrative that you've seen, because it really opens up a whole new world for you.
- [07:15]
Larkin Swain
I would say what has been the most helpful in my study of the Scriptures is like looking up words in Hebrew, specifically, when I get stuck on something and I push up against something and it has opened up a whole new world for me and has deepened my testimony so much and helped. I feel like it's helped me to almost experience the message more instead of staying more in the cerebral space, like the deeper. I've. Not that I've done much, but that I've delved into the etymology and some of these ancient Semitic languages. I feel like I'm starting to encounter more the experience of the message, if that makes sense, as it's expanded my understanding of it.
- [08:00]
Jared Lambert
Oh, that's great. That's great. And I love to point out to everybody that you don't need to be a linguist. You don't need to. You don't need to go study you don't need to go get the degrees I have or take on the debt that I have to be able to figure that out. There are so many resources that you can, and like you said, you can, you can go to Bible Hub, you can go, you know, and dive into the Hebrew there. And there's been a lot of studies of, of that done so that it makes it accessible to anyone to be able to do that. Now there is a caveat that I love to point out to everybod that you can't rely on that scholarship because the, the issue we have with the Bible is this, is that the Bible itself, especially the Old Testament is written in. It's not Hebrew. I mean that's, that's the problem. We have Hebrew that we understand today versus the Hebrew that it was written in back then is a completely different language. And realistically, if you wanted to actually understand that, the best, you would study more like Aramaic today because it's more socially associated to that ancient proto Hebrew Hebrew that it was written in. And, and that proto Hebrew. And the reason I emphasize that is because, and what I think you're honing in on, which is awesome that you're doing that, is that proto Hebrew is what we call in linguistics a soft language versus our English language, which is a hard language. And what that means is hard languages are these kind of one to one ratio rigid languages and meaning. So I say dog. It always means dog. It's not going to mean anything else. But see, these proto languages are conceptual and soft in the, that they have so many different meanings. Like when you go to your Hebrew Bible and you look up this one word, you'll see there's seven or eight different definitions for that one word. And you have to ask yourself, okay, which definition applies? Because they're not always, you know, close to each other. But what you don't realize is those, those different definitions create a concept together. And that is how you're supposed to read your scriptures. It's in this concept of what it is. So it's much more fluid. We hate it as English speakers because we want that rigidity. We want that, we feel that it's grounded in this one definition. But you have to break out of that if you want to understand the language of God. Because it's these soft languages that these cons, these concepts that are conveying the message, not in this rigidity of, of our modern understanding.
- [10:22]
Larkin Swain
And I feel like it. That fluidity again draws us into the experience of the message and embodied experience, which I feel I Want so much more for us. We're really good at the cerebral. And like you're saying, we feel really comfortable in this rigidity and this singular understanding. But I just feel this continuous invitation to drop deeper into the experience of God and the message that's being conveyed to us because I feel like that's where the real transformation happens.
- [10:56]
Jared Lambert
Yeah, absolutely.
- [10:58]
Larkin Swain
Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing. I know that you've prepared so much on specifically the creation story in the first. Is it the first three chapters of Genesis?
- [11:10]
Jared Lambert
Yeah.
- [11:11]
Larkin Swain
That we're going to be exploring, which is super relevant to the temple experience as that's shared in the endowment ceremony. So, yeah, I'm excited to look at this with some fresh new eyes and extract some new, greater understanding from it.
- [11:28]
Jared Lambert
That's great. Yeah, no, I. I have a lot. So what I've done actually is I've developed like 27, 28 lessons, depending on how long they take. But that kind of help people understand the temple better. Right. And it is surrounded around the temple. And what I do is I take people from the very beginning. I go through Genesis and I walk them through the temple experiment of the old experience of the Old Testament, and then I bring them through the temple experience of the New Testament. I bring them through our modern temples and the evolution that that is in there to kind of show how this message of the temple has evolved over time and how God uses different narratives of the time. He. He really showcases different narratives that people understand. Right. We know this. This is Doctrine Covenants 1, 24. He speaks to us according to our understanding. And so the way he showcases that is the temple narrative changes from dispensation to dispensation, dispensation and, and changes kind of venue or narrative. But it. The message is always the same and it's those similarities that help us understand it the best. You know, the Adam and Eve narrative is not unique to the Hebraic nation. There are many. I mean, frankly, it. The. The creation narrative of the time, the. That we have that predates the Hebraic interpretation, like the Gilgamesh epic or the Pneuma Elish, they tell the same story of this. In. In a garden is where everything begins. And here's Adam and here's Eve, or here, these two first humans and the gods are here discussing over it, God, that narrative that everybody understood at the time. And then he applied his own message to it, that meant to teach us very specific lessons. And this is what God does. We see that same pattern that we have in in our modern times, him doing the same thing. You see the evolution of the. Of the temple and in our modern times and. And you see how it evolved in that same way. God uses narratives of the time and he. And then he applies his message. And I know this is not what we're talking about, but I like talking about it. So I'm just going to diverge for a second where, you know, when Joseph's trying to put in his. His revelation of the endowment into the temple, we see it evolve in different stages, right. His first stage of the Jackson plan was that he was going to have these 24 different buildings that would teach you all the different elements of the temple because there is this polysemic level to it, which means poly. Many semic meanings. There's many meanings that you find in this text and you find in this narrat that it's hard to express, that it's hard to get that out there. So Joseph had in Jackson the plan for 24 temples. When we got to Kirtland, he abandoned the 24 temples. They couldn't build one temple, let alone 24. So he abandons that plan in Kirtland, you notice he just has pews and then the. The main place. And so he wasn't planning on acting anything out. He wasn't planning on having different levels in. In Kirtland, he was really hoping everyone would just share in his revelation. He was hoping we'd all receive that witness. And if you notice today we're still told that. We're still told that you receive this by revelation. This is how it's supposed to be received. We go through the temple and we go through that experience to try to get us prepared to receive that revelation. But this, the end goal is always the same. He, Joseph wants you to have the vision of the endowment that he had, because otherwise it's ineffable. Otherwise you can't get every aspect of it. But then when you get to Nauv, Joseph takes a new tactic. And in this tactic, he. He borrows the. The ritual drama of Freemasonry, and he uses that as the vehicle to teach it this form of larping, right? This. We're going to act this out. We're going to go through this narrative and we're going to. So it's not that he steals the content of the Freemasons. They don't talk about any of the things. The meaning behind what we talk about is nothing like that. But he uses. He speaks to us according to our understanding. So he uses A narrative at the time that everybody understands. This ritual. Dr. Is in freemasonry at the time. And then he hijacks that. He takes that and teaches these incredible truths in it. This is really where our narrative starts. And you notice they do the same thing in the beginning in the Hebrew text. They steal this Enuma Elish doctrine, this, this notion of how the world began. Yeah. And they hijack that. They don't teach it the same way. God's not evil. He's not trying to get you. Like they talk, you know, the mean gods punishing their. Their children. They switch that narrative. I. And they make it now about a loving God and, and the gods, the, the, the. The Elohim, which is the gods. Right. Who are trying to help their children. And, and, and then this is how this narrative builds out. Right.
- [16:15]
Larkin Swain
Which is so interesting, so fascinating. So this larping that you speak of. So how much of this creation story, this Adam and Eve in the garden, is literal versus a vehicle to convey the message? Because I think that a lot of us, I think the narrative is that we perceive the story as very literal. I think that's partly what makes it so confusing.
- [16:43]
Jared Lambert
Yeah. Yeah.
- [16:44]
Larkin Swain
But is it just the same situation as what Joseph did with the Freemasonry rituals is there was this great vehicle made available to him that the people could, could understand through. And so that vehicle became what God used to convey a much deeper message that you can only understand through revelation. Is that what's happening with the creation story?
- [17:08]
Jared Lambert
That's what's happening. That's. That's what happens. Now. The problem is you're getting very pharisitical on me because you're like, where's the line? Yeah, I don't know if you could answer that. Geez, you. You'd be very, very wealthy. Because the whole world would like to know that. Yeah, we can, we can decipher quite a bit. It. Linguistically, I can show the parallels between the Numa LS and the Gilgamesh epic that show it. And it is marginal. Right. You only have this much now. All this is new content. We could do it that way. But in reality, I think that's the whole point. I use this word a lot, and you're going to hear it a lot. It's this word polysemy, which is many meanings, and it's a very fluid concept. Right. This conceptuality of God's language is polysmic. There's all these different meanings in that because you have to very fluidly take that. Right. And you have to approach that in a very fluid narrative of, okay, I generally understand what the script is saying to me. Now, as you keep going, as you learn more and more about this gospel, slowly that, that conceptual language gets such incredible depth. And it does become clear. You know, when we talk about these soft languages as being conceptual, it makes you think that it's fuzzy, that it's inefficient. It's not true. They were able to do everything that we were able to do that we're able to do today. They're able to barter, they're able to get down to specifics. It just requires a little bit more to be able to define those things. So as you read the scriptures, as you come to know the gospel or Jesus Christ more, that message becomes clearer and clearer. And clarity. The problem is your clarity and my clarity are always going to differ because my understanding, your understanding are always going to differ. There's always going to be date. Your interpretation is going to be different. My interpretation, who's right? Well, frankly, we're all wrong until, until we get that pure revelation, until we get that pure knowledge.
- [18:50]
Larkin Swain
So, yeah, fascinating. Sorry, that was, I love, I love.
- [18:54]
Jared Lambert
That was a tangent. I'm so sorry.
- [18:56]
Larkin Swain
I love that tangent.
- [18:56]
Jared Lambert
So if we go straight into the Genesis narrative, right, we can see this very different. Like we have this traditional interpretation that's been passed down to us, right? And that traditional interpretation is awful. It's, it's has all these different influences on it. But most of all, it's telling us that women are dumb. Eve is bad, right? She made a mistake, she screwed up. And that Adam is incred. And so right off the bat, if you believe in a just God and you believe in a God who's, you know, there's something wrong here, you can go, Jesus, from a perspective of a woman, this doesn't feel right. And that's good because it's there. But more so, I believe in a God. I believe I'm a Concordus. And what a concordance is, is somebody that believes that when God gives revelation, he gives it with absolute truth. He is revealing pure knowledge to his prophets. The problem we have is that, that the prophets are being accommodated because we as Latter Day Saints also believe in free agency. So we believe that this life is a test. We believe that you've come to this earth and you are going to be tested. Not A, B, C, D, scantron test, but rather pushed to your limit and tested and tried in your faith. Meaning you're going through the fire, right? And so we believe that's the purpose of this life. And if God's greatest gift is this agency, he has to let us use that agency. Right? And that results in a lot of big issues that we have. Right? So when he reveals revelations of the prophet, it is pure knowledge, pure understanding, absolute truth. The problem is the prophet receives that knowledge according to his understanding at the time. And so what I like to show in the scriptures, like right from the beginning, is that we have a narrative that lines up very, very nicely with our understanding today. But you can also see how they're not understanding it back. So, for example, the traditional narrative we hear is that God created the earth ex nihilo out of nothing. And it's this magical God theory, right, where God is snapping his fingers and now there's the world, and then here's man being made. But that's not what the linguistics tell us. Right. Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. Okay, so that does sound like a magical God. He just created it from the beginning. Right, but that's not what the linguistics say. Word here for beginning is bereshit. Bereshit, which is it's. It does mean the beginning, but it's not indicating in any way that this is the beginning of all things. This is more like this is the beginning of our narrative or once upon a time, or, you know, this is the word used to be able to set up the story. It is letting us know the beginning of this narrative. God created. Well, Jared, it says created, so that means God made it. So ex nihilo seems pretty corroborated here. But what is this word for created? Well, it's bara. Bara does not mean created. Snap my finger and now it's made. It is to form, to put together. Right? So if you're putting something together, what does that indicate? That indicates there is stuff there, right? And right from the. The get go, we see Joseph when he gives us our version of this in A Pearl of great Price. We see this notion of matter unorganized. It corroborates so perfectly with this that there's already things in existence that then come together. But then we also have this interesting notion of God at the beginning of this. Because what is God? Well, the trinitarian perspective of God is that God is this one God. It's this kind of male blob God. And, and the problem with that is the word for God here is Elohim. Him. So Elohim, everybody understands, is the name of God. But what does Elohim really mean? So what I love is Joseph hires a Hebrew, Josiah, sexist to come and teach him Hebrew. And right from the get go, they start in Genesis 1 and Joseph stops him right at the beginning, says, so the word there is not God, the word there is gods. It's plural. That's why it's Elohim. And he's right, it is plural. Plural. And Josiah 6 says, no, I'm sorry, you're, you're incorrect. Sure it's plural, but it's kind of a royal. We like God is so royal, he's so amazing. He's speaking to himself in the third person. And this was the reply. And Joseph said, you know, I think you're wrong there. And it's because Joseph is doing the translation of the book of Abraham and it makes it very clear the gods went down and said, here is matter and organized. We will form together a world. Right? And so he's already onto this clue. And Joseph's exactly right. Because if first of all, the concept of a trinitarian God doesn't exist in Hebrew. Like they had no concept of it. That was invented at the ecumenical councils. So they're not writing about a trinitarian God, right? This trium concept doesn't exist. What are they talking about? What is this Elohim that they're referring to? Well, Elohim's interesting because etymologically speaking, the morphemes of the word Elohim themselves indicate that it's referencing more than one God because it's comprised of different elements. Because if you wanted to make L the male God, God plural, you wouldn't say Elohim. The plural for El is Elam. So why, even if you're trying to indicate the royal we of God as, as Josiah Sex has said, why did you say it that way? Why did you say Elohim? That makes no sense. Well, the Elohim is a much older tradition in the Hebraic faith. It is this council, right? We see this laid out again and again in the scriptures. Psalms talks about the Elohim, the council where God resides amongst the gods. And, and again I love to point out to people is when they reference God there, it's still in the plural, separated from the lower gods. So this old Hebraic belief system is very similar to us in the fact that we are not monotheistic. We are, we believe it in a monolatrous system. What we, what we believe in Latter Day Saints is there's a heavenly Father and a heavenly mother, and then below them are their divine Children. Children. And that's us. What's so cool about that is in the age of the first Temple, in the Temple of Solomon, the first one that was built, you have the notion of a mother, a father and their children or these lower deities. And this is what they worshiped as God. This is the word Elohim. And so they worship the whole relational unity of that as God. Now why is that so cool? Well, as Latter Day Saints, how do we become. We're the God makers, right? Right. So how do you become God in the Latter Day Saint faith? Well, you go, you find a spouse, you go and are sealed together, and now you can become God. It is the union of the masculine and the feminine, these two opposing traits that make you whole to be able to be God. Right. There is no God and there never will be, except they be made of these two component parts, male and female united. This is what Joseph taught. Right. So this is our notion of God. And what I love about that is the etymological roots of that word. The morphemes of that word is L, the male God. Now what is this O? Where does that come from? That's not the plural for it. And then there's the ilum at the end, which is the council. So we're missing, what is this O factor. Well, it's L, the male God, allot the female God and the Ilam, their children. And this is the word for God in the Hebrew understanding at the time. Now what's so funny is they become monotheistic and they ultimately ditch this concept of multiple gods, the way we understand it as Latter Day Saints, and they now believe in just one God where they merge the two male gods together, Yahweh and L into one God. And. And then they completely erase the mother from their text, even though she exists throughout it. But I love so much is this notion that this word Elohim is this. We call it a palimpsis. It's this archaic notion of a previous tradition. It's kind of like, you know, we always. There's so many different ways we do this. I used the example last time of, of, you know, we say hang up the phone, but none of us, you know, we all have cell phones, we don't hang up. You don't physically hang it up. We just say that. Because the old tradition was you literally take this old rotary phone and you put it on top of the receiver and that's how you hang it up. That's how you end it. So that that's a plimpsitz It's a fossil of a previous time where you bleed something different, where you did something different. That's what the word Elohim is. It's a previous dinosaur fossilized form. They always said God that way, but it's the combination of the male and the female together as one with their children. So right from the get go, this narrative changes drastically. It is not the singular male God. He is not forming it out of nothing, he is creating it from the substances that exist at the time. And then we can keep going down the text because it keeps going, but we just don't have the time to go through everything. But we could go word for word here and we'd have a difference. Verse 2 and the earth was without form, right? Again, it's not saying there's nothing there, it's saying it doesn't have form yet, it's floating and then it comes together slowly. And so when I say that I'm a Concordus, what I love is we know today, at least most of us know today, that the Earth was created through this very natural means, right? This, this process of evolution where there's this big bang or whatever initiated this. Our sun ignites, our sun spews olivine, this special mineral into the crust of the Earth and then the earth is formed through the gravitational pole and it forms into this earth as we know it today. And then we know asteroids hit it and it causes water that's inside of the, the material that is the Earth to rise while also spewing water out so that the earth then gets covered with water and then it slowly rescinds and islands are formed. And then these geothermic vents heat up the water to this perfect temperature where that olivine is then heated up to a point where a single cell organism is formed in a multi cell and this process of evolution is formed. And so what I love showing people in the scriptures is that I believe as a concordance, God is revealing that truth to them. They just don't have the vocabulary to be able to say it. Because when you read the text you'll see this lines up point by point. It's now there's, you know, the earth is then formed and then it says that all the creatures of the earth are come out from the waters and, and all life is formed. In Genesis 20, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, right? Joseph does such a better job with it in Abraham. Because in Abraham it tells you that Abraham 4:20 it says, and the gods Plural. Let us prepare the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creatures. So it's not even the gods being like, I'm creating the animals in the ocean. It is gods. We will prepare the waters and the waters will bring forth the life that is on the earth. And so if you just read this linguistically, you're like, oh yeah, that's exactly what we believe. But do they have, I mean, do they have the language? When God's revealing this to Abraham, does he have the language to be able to say the olivine that was spewed from the right. No, he doesn't know these scientific terms. He has no idea how to say. So the best he can do is I saw this image of the earth being formed out of matter, and then like God prepared waters and then out of waters came light, life. This is, this is concordism, right? This is how we should be reading our scriptures, right? Science and religion are not at odds with each other. That's the same language, just from different perspectives, from different angles. And I love being able to highlight that. And while I would love to go through all of it because there's so much more there that, that I love, that is corroborated, but I don't think we have the time. So we get down into verse 26. This is where we get our first misunderstanding that, that gets everyone in trouble. Because in verse 26 it says, and the God said, let us make man in our image after the likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish, of the sea, of the cattle, the earth, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it says in Genesis 1:27, so God created man, male and female created he them. So this is so interesting because Adam and Eve aren't created yet. That doesn't have until verse two, chapter two. So what is God talking about? About? Well, and this is what I love. Now, there's different narrations happening, right? Genesis 1 is more of a zoomed out narration of, of this. And, and we have different theories here. But what I love to point out to everybody is this isn't the creation of Adam. This is the creation of Ha Adama. Now the Hebrew word for Ha Adama is the multiple Adams. And it's not referring just to one individual man. Clearly it says right here, male and female created he that them. And then we can corroborate this, right, by looking just a little bit farther because in Genesis 5, 2 it tells us, it reiterates this scripture, but it does it better linguistically. It emphasizes male and female created he them, and blessed Them and called their name Adam. So again, this title is actually for humanity. God has created humanity in Genesis 1:27, male and female. And. And then he gave them the name of man. Man. And. And so this isn't the individual Adam that we're talking about. So you're probably asking yourself, well, that doesn't make sense, because how are Adam and Eve the first parents of us? How are they the first if God created humanity in Genesis 1? Well, it tells us pretty clearly, because if we jump down now, we go into Genesis 2, we see Genesis 2. One tells us, here's the. Here's when the earth is finished and the hosts of them that are are on it. The seventh day end. God did all this. On the seventh day he rests, and the generations of heaven come. Verse five, every plan of the field and verse six, so, so cool here went up a mist. What is this mist? We should all be asking that question, but we don't have time to talk about it. And the Lord God then in verse seven, right now we're creating Adam and the Lord God formed man. This is now individual man, singular. Man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Life. And man became a living soul. Okay, so we need to break this down because here God forms man, singular. This is Adam now. And how does he form him? Well, he. He forms him of the dust of the ground, of course. So this is where, like I talk about having a linguistic spidey sense, because this is a conceptual language. So it's super bizarre to sit here as a conceptual language to say dust of the ground, where the Hebrew term for dust and the Hebrew term for ground are conceptually one in the same. So why would you reiterate that? Why would you say the earth of the earth or the dust of the dust or the ground of the ground? Doesn't make any sense. But when you look at the linguistics of this, you see it's actually telling you, and the Lord God formed Adam of the. And the word for ground here is. Or the word for dust here is ha Adam. Ah, what is ha adama? Well, in Genesis 1, it just told us it's humanity. And I formed Adam of the humanity of the earth. And so how did you do this? How did you form Adam of the. Of the humanity of the earth, says and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Well, first of all, and breathe. The word for breathe here is nismat. Nismat hayim is the term for the breath of life. Nismat is interesting because nismat is this feminine singular construct where air, it means, yes, to breathe, but it also is in the Hebrew conceptual terms is this because as you breathe through your nostrils, right, you take in air and you can feel it, it goes to your brain, it invigorates you, it gives you this, this energy, right? And so it's the, it's the term for, it's this term for invigoration, enlightenment, right? Because you feel that in your brain you. They connect this term, intelligence, so it is to imbue into his. And then the nostril part, right? The nostrils, which is the gateway to your soul, right? It is, it is. It's as we take that breath in, we take it through our nostrils and it goes straight to our brain, it goes straight to our essence of who we are. So it was the gateway to your soul. But more so it was the great way to your mind. You could literally feel it as you breathed in. And so he imbued into his nostrils or his brain a breath of, of life, right? Now this is the interesting part. The nesmat hayim, that breath of light, the word for here, for life and, and breath, which is associated in every single instance of that term in, in the Hebrew Bible and reiterated through Joseph's writings of, or translations of the, of the Hebraic text, is that your life is connected to this term of life, light or enlightenment, right? We know this is Latter Saints is like you. You all first existed, right? You were never created. You have always existed first as intelligence or light. This concept of light and intelligence being unified is the key in this because when he talks about the, the breath, this, this ness mat. It's this imbuement of light or intelligence. So if we were to reread this, understanding these, these notions, it would be. And the Lord God formed sanity of the earth and imbued into his mind or his soul or his essence, a imbuement or breath of light. And man became an enlightened soul. So what is it telling us? Adam is not the first human in the sense that he is the very first person on the earth? No, he is the first individual on earth to be enlightened or to be under covenant by God, to be. To be given knowledge of this something more that exists. So he is the first enlightened. And this isn't the only indication, right? If you're like, well, Jared, geez, you're throwing a lot on these few terms that you've defined. There's so much more. All throughout the Genesis Text. It talks about the others. It talks about Adam. You must guard and keep. The word for keep there is to guard or maintain away from someone who's this someone he's guarding the garden from. Right. Or, or where you have Cain. Right. And the curse of Cain, it says they're going to banish him and he's going to leave. And he runs over to another victim village and he marries a woman there and they create a family. So it's so funny. You're like, well, who are these other people? I thought you were like the only family on the earth. Who's this woman that he goes and marries and who's. So that all of these others exist at the time, Joseph was very aware of this. I mean, he, he incorporates into his temple context all the time. Right. He talks about a money system that exists at the time. Right. He talks about, oh, there's a whole bunch of people who are accepting the doctrine of the devil, except for these two. Right. All of this is indicated in the temple. And Joseph, Joseph is very aware of that. He talks about it often, actually. But anyway, so as we proceed, we see how perfectly this aligns with our own understanding. Yes, there's people prior to Adam. Yes, the evolutionary process existed. We see how they come from the waters and they form into everything. And then what's so nice about this is seeing how that aligns with even the deeper understanding that we're gaining now scientifically. And I love pointing out to everybody, everybody, just how cool it is that just in 2023 we had these seven different. Because. Because we have this problem in science where you can trace the evolutionary pattern of, of humanity from a single cell organism all the way up to Homo erectus.
- [39:11]
Larkin Swain
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Jared Lambert
And then at Homo erectus, it stops. And it's because there's this jump between Homo erectus and Homo sapien. And Homo sapien is us. We have these big brains. Homo Homo erectus was like a smaller brained, hairier version of, of humans. They were still smart. They had money systems, they had housing, they had, they had cool families and cool traditions. They just weren't as smart as us or as enlightened as us. And what's so interesting is that the latest scientific articles tell us that while evolution cannot account for the jump from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, because we found their bones within like 100 years of each other, which means evolution can't account for that. Takes thousands of years to evolve. So this is that missing link that everybody kind of points out. That's like, that's impossible, like God created Adam. What I love is that Neil DeGrasse Tyson, along with these seven other scholars, have emphasized that there was a, a solar wind, a, A solar flare, if you will, that, that broke through our atmosphere. And this, this photon hit directly into our Homo erectus ancestors and this beam of light mutated their DNA to the point where they, their children grew much larger brains and they were less hairy and they looked just like us. So I love taking this from this concordance perspective where you take it from all these different angles, where you go, okay, I see it from a very religious perspective that God is enlightening them with the gospel. But I also see it from a scientific perspective where we see that it was a beam of light that broke through our atmosphere that then mutated the cells of Homo erectus that then made Homo homo sapiens. And so what is Abraham seeing? Is he seeing the polysemic message of the scientific. Is he seeing the, the, the gospel version? What is it? Or is he seeing all of it? And he's trying to express everything I love from that cordis perspective to think, oh, yeah, no, he's smart enough, he's seen it all. He's trying to do it scientifically, he's trying to do it through the gospel, he's trying to convey it all.
- [41:13]
Larkin Swain
You called it a solar wind.
- [41:15]
Jared Lambert
Yeah, I like that.
- [41:16]
Larkin Swain
The spirit is also likened to the wind. The wind.
- [41:20]
Jared Lambert
Yes. I know, it's so great. So there's so many parallels now. And I get it. We have this, you know, there's this term that's apophenia, and our brain loves to make a million different connections that aren't really there. And so, yes, this could be this apophenic connection, but I think the coincidences are just too much. I think there's just too much there. And I agree that's not as concrete as we want it to be. So it could just be this apophenic, you know, tendency that I have to be able to see these parallels. But I truthfully believe there's something there. I think when we die, God's going to be like, you have no idea. Let me show you. You know, it'll be impressive. So now we get down into this narrative of Eve, right? We're now into Genesis 2:18. And what I love to point out to people is we have this problem with our, our modern interpretation of this text. We like to believe Adam and Eve were commanded both not to partake the fruit. Eve is the dumb woman who's like, oh, I'm gonna do it anyway. And Lucifer tricks her and she makes the mistake. Thus woman is cursed to be the worst for the rest of eternity. And this is the traditional narrative to be taught. But is that what is said linguistically? No, not at all. So. So what I've done as a linguist is I've found a. I've written a paper that's being published at the Journal of Hebraic Studies, and it. It was nominated for a lingua PACs laureate. And what it is is it's a linguistic pattern in the Bible that nobody's found before. And I have labeled it the epiphanic art mark. And what it is, is I use maseratic incantation indicators, which are all throughout our text. This is one of them right here. You know, it looks like this paragraph symbol, but that's actually these indicators for us to know this in. In the Sing Songi way back when this was an oral tradition, they would kind of sing these narratives. And that is the stopping point, right? And we don't need to go into all the different linguistic details of it, but it's a very important marker here because what it's telling us is when you would go old church, right? So here I am. I'm su. Back in the ancient Hebrew nation. I go. It's an oral tradition. There's no written scripture, right? There is this zadok who is like my pastor, right? He's. He's like a stake president to us today. But he would memorize all the scriptures, right? And we would show up on Saturday and he would sing song this narrative to us, and he would build it up in such a way where he goes, adam's introduced to the garden, and he's supposed to partake all of this fruit, and he's supposed to find joy in procreation. And he's supposed to be able to do all these things that God commanded him, and yet he cannot because he does not have the authority to partake of the fruit. God has commanded that he cannot do that. And then it ends right there. That's what that diacritic marker right there means, right? It means that it stops at that point. You would go home that whole week and be like, what is he supposed to do? Like, Adam's stuck. He's in stasis. He is in so much trouble. Like, he's doomed. This is awful. And then when you come back, back the next week, he starts with a solution to that problem. The cliffhangers over. Now, let me tell you how it ends. And that what's the very next verse. And the Lord God said, it is not good. The word for good here is better understood as sufficient. So it is not sufficient that man is as should be alone. I will make for him a help meet for him. I hate this. I hate that term so much. Help me. It's such a bad translation because you here, you did. You translated all. First of all, the English translation of the Bible is just the worst, truly horrible. But here it is you. You've done a good job mostly at translating this text in what we call in linguistics, a. A dynamic equivalence, right? You're trying to convey what each word really means. Okay? So you're picking this perfect word that conveys it all. And then all of a sudden, you get to this. The. The introduction of Eve, but not her name. Eve. She's never introduced as Eve. She's introduced as Azer. And you chose the most debased, like, simplified version of what that means. And I guarantee it was pure sexism. I guarantee it. Because that's not what azerk means. Yes, azer means help. That is true. But azer, there. There are a hundred different words you could use for help. You chose. You chose to translate this as just plain old simple help. Azer is only used 21 times in the Hebrew. Hebrew Bible. That's it. There are other words for help that are used thousands of times. Aer is the root of the word Ebenezer. Here I raise my Ebenezer. And it means salvation, means the stone of help. It means Eve is introduced as Adam's savior first and foremost. Aer. Sorry, Eve is Adam's salvation to this problem. And I love that. Oh, it's so sweet. Sorry, I'm choking up. As she is introduced as first and foremost Adam's savior. Next is this word meet, which is super weird because it's actually the word kendu, which means to stand face to face. Okay? This is important and I need people to follow this. Okay? At the very least, we should be able to read kendu and say, oh, it means face to face. Well, that describes equality. That describes, like, facing each other. And it does mean that. It means, like, here's this force that's. That's unstoppable and immutable. And here is this opposing force that can match it. And that's what meat means. That's what this can endu means. Something that can match it. Right? But here's where it gets even better. Can endu is actually this term, this idiomatic phrase that is used every time in scripture to Induce, indicate priesthood, idiomatic means. It's just a, it's a way anytime. Like here's an example. Moses goes and talks to God and he uses the phrase before he becomes the prophet, he uses the phrase, and I spoke with God face to face, right? God calls the Levites to go preach for him. And what does he do? You must come and speak to me face to face before you go, right? All throughout. This is just two of probably 50 different examples of this where you, where God is in the indicating standing face to face is indicative of priesthood. I mean, first we need to define priesthood. What is priesthood? We see it as like power, right? And it is, it is power. But we have a better definition in the LDS faith, which is it is the authority of God to do something that someone else is not authorized to do. And look at what is being described in this text. Adam, you cannot partake of the fruit. But now I will make for you, you, Eve, your savior, who will stand face to face and is your equal in priesthood, power and authority. She can do this. This is what the linguistics are telling you. So what does Eve do? She comes down. What we see in this narrative is that Lucifer enters the scene, right? And. And there's this issue with Lucifer entering the scene because one, there is no concept, concept of when this is written down of Lucifer, he doesn't exist in the Hebrew nation. Like, they don't know a Lucifer. That's not a concept. They actually get this word satanas, right, From a he, from a Persian influence. It's a Persian word actually that they use to describe ill will. So you can be Satan or you can have someone do Satan to you, but it is not an embodiment of evil that they understand as Lucifer, this person who is a bad guy. So when they talk about the influence of Lucifer in the garden, it doesn't mean what we think it means. Now this gets hairy and it gets kind of tangled up because Latter Day Saints have a problem. I've noticed Latter Day Saints have a real issue with this because Joseph revealed to us, right, that this is the role of Lucifer. Lucifer was there, this happened. And I don't mean to push back on that in any way. What I want people to understand is that when Lucifer is introduced into the text, he's introduced more as a concept than actual Lucifer because it says that he comes in the form of a snake. And it says the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God Said, ye shall not eat of the tree of every. Every garden. So when it says he comes in the form of a snake, what is the snake? What is. What does that mean to them? Why did you do that? Like, why did you put him in the form of the snake, you old Hebrews? What. What is the purpose of that? Well, the snake in Hebraic culture was the symbol of their Messiah. We see this all throughout the text, right? Moses goes and talks to God. God says, go talk to the Pharaoh. He says, well, how is the Pharaoh going to know I came from you? Give me your staff. What does he turn it into? A snake? A serpent? Yeah. Now you know you're coming from me.
- [50:24]
Larkin Swain
Oh, okay.
- [50:25]
Jared Lambert
Moses is in the desert, right? Everybody's getting sick. What should I do, God? Oh, I know. Put the symbol of a snake on a cross. Lift it up. Anyone who looks at that will live. This is the role of Jesus Christ. This is because they saw the serpent as a. The most humblest of all. The Midrash teaches us the. The serpent is the most humble of all creatures. And that's actually the better interpretation. It's not the serpent was most subtle. It's that the serpent was most humble. They would say, the serpent has no legs to stand on. It's the humblest of all creatures. It slithers on its bellies. It's the lowliest of them all. But at the same time, here you are in this Near Eastern culture where you're surrounded by deserts and a single snake bite will kill you. It is a powerful creature. So their interpretation is it is the most humble creature, but it is also the most powerful creature. So this is the symbol of our Messiah. And so this is where this symbol comes from. So when it talks about Lucifer coming in the form of a snake, it's not saying. Like, we don't show him in the temple film as, like, a snake slithering on stage, right? No, no, no. We're saying he comes in the form of the Savior. This is why he comes in our temple film out in robes, right? There used to be this line in the older versions where he would say. They would say, what is. What are these robes that you wear? Right? And he'd say, oh, this is the form of my priesthood. He's missing, mimicking the Savior. He's trying to dupe Eve, right? And so what I think is so, so funny about all of this is that we have this issue of Eve being tricked, Eve being deceived, and thus causing all these problems. But what I like to point out to Members of the church is that our. Our text says something different. You have your Book of Mormon doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of great price. All three of them tell you Eve made this choice in wisdom. It was a wise choice of Eve. So I also ask, how can you be tricked and be wise at the same time? It's impossible. Both cannot be true. It is either she is wise or she is tricked. So then you have to be like, okay, Jared, so if that's tricky true, why does Eve admitted herself in Genesis 3? She says, I partook of the. Or the serpent beguiled me. So I partook. And so what I love to point out is, hey, if something feels wrong, if something feels off, if you read that and you're like, ew, I don't like that. It's typically because the spirit's trying to tell you, like, this isn't right, this isn't correct. That's a bad notion. So that always was the case for me when I hear this admission from Eve. I always hated that. I was like, what is on going. Going on here? Like, my religion teaches me she's wise. So why here in this text is she saying she was duped? Geez, that bothers me. So then I got a bunch of linguistic degrees and here we are. And I think I figured out the answer. When it says the serpent beguiled me, it uses this term. It's a very archaic term to use there. You could have said a lot of different terms in Hebrew and proto Hebrew to indicate trickery, to indicate like, fooled, but you chose this one term, and this term is an accounting term that means when you're doing your accounting, you're balancing a checkbook. It's like it's, you know, at tax season in the Hebrew nation. What you're doing is you're all the income and all the outcome, and you're deciding that final. The finality of that where it lands. And what's so funny is traditional interpretations of this text said, well, clearly this. This isn't the accounting term version of this word. It must mean beguile, because that makes so much more sense. Lucifer is tricking them. And then they alter the text accordingly, right? Both forward and backwards. They. They alter it so that she really is duped in the text. What I think is so funny is it wasn't a mistake. It indicates in the text that Eve says the. The serpent beguiled me, thus I partook. Well, the word for serpent there is the term nahas. The word nahas is a super strange word to use. Because, yes, it does mean serpent, but it is completely unaltered. It is the based form of the word serpent, which you don't do. There are over 1000 different words for snake. It's kind of like Eskimos with snow. There's so much snow, they now have like a thousand words for the word snow. Well, in the Middle east, there's so many snake. Snakes. They have a word for every type of snake. Like, here's the word for the snake with the diamond on its back. Here's the one with the. You know, and they go through all the different variations. So all throughout the Bible, they use these different terms for snakes. Very specifically, it is not a coincidence that they decided to write the base root word nahas. And it's because the term there. Noon. Hatelchesin. Right. That. Sorry, I just. I just threw some Persian out there.
- [55:22]
Larkin Swain
Because I'm a Persian.
- [55:23]
Jared Lambert
I know that is because the root of that indicates the foreshadowed. It is. It is what the root of the Messiah is. So what she's saying is it's not that the serpent beguiled me. It's that she says, I foresaw the Savior and I weighed it. I balanced it. This is what she said. Now, that is wisdom. That is wisdom. She weighed the consequence of partaking that fruit. Right. And. And I love it because President Oaks loves to emphasize to us in his talk that he gave once, and I can't remember right now, but he gave it. We can look it up. He loves to emphasize that Eve was not committing a sin, but rather a transgression. Now, it's very lawyerly of him to be able to define the two here, which good for him, though, because he's spot on linguistically, because Eve was not commanded not to partake fruit, just Adam was. But there's still consequence right there. There's still a. If you partake of this fruit, whatever the fruit may be, which I think people very incorrectly attribute this to, like motherhood. Right. It's not the case. It is indicating priesthood. It is indicating different aspects of the feminine nature. But whatever that may be, and I don't think we have time to dive into that today. She. She is, yes, transgressing something. And a consequence is coming. And that consequence is this life, this telestial state, this rough world where you're going to. And it. It makes it clear in Genesis 3, it tells you she understands that there's going to be pain, there's going to be suffering. You're going to work by the sweat of your brow, and only thorns, thistles, briars, and noxious weeds will grow. It's going to be horrible. But it is the wisdom them. It's the wisdom of Eve that she weighed, that she saw the Savior as this text indicates, and she knew this is the way. This is how we leave stasis. This is the pattern that we need to follow to become better. This is how growth works. And that's the beauty of this narrative now, where you ask, where does it line up? Where does. Where does all of the this align? How literal or how figurative is the text being in this? Honestly, it doesn't matter, because if you look at it conceptually, the concept is clear. You can only have prog. It's the plan of salvation. Like, it's the plan of salvation in this. In this notion. You can do everything you write in this life, right? And. And we talk about how the experience of the temple mimics our life. And it is. It's supposed to mimic it. We. We are supposed to see ourselves as it. Adam, men, women, as Eve, and we're supposed to put ourselves in the shoes, right? In the original version of Joseph, you would literally play the role of Adam and Eve. You would walk up on stage and you would use the lines, right, as if you were them. You are supposed to apply this to your life in a conceptual way. So what is that concept? Well, the concept is. I mean, honestly, it's. It's the prodigal son. You can try to be the son that stays at home. You can try to be the one that does everything perfect. There's no growth in that. You are just there. You're stuck in stasis, or you leave, oh, it's going to suck you. You're going to live riotously. You're going to do stupid things. You're going to make mistakes. Oh, and you will suffer. You will suffer life, and life will hit you up hard. But only through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and only through that experience of pain, suffering, and agony will you have growth. It is the only way. This is the plan of salvation summed up right in our temple text. And so I love that. I love this notion of the true role of Eve as shown in our own scriptures, shown in our own text, as the Savior of not just Adam, not just their situation, but the Savior of all mankind. And what I love so, so much, because I tell everybody this, the traditional text, the problem with that and that narrative is it oversimplifies everything. If you would not oversimplify it, but instead lay out the text linguistically, as it says it, is so much more beautiful, so much more poignant, especially in the role of Eve. Because when Eve is introduced, she is not introduced as Eve, as I showed you. She is introduced as Aer Kanenda, as she's introduced as a Zerak and Indu. She is never referred to as Eve, not once in the text until she fulfills her job. Because we have a concept of new names in our religion. It's very unique to us. And you think, wow, these Mormons, they're so weird. Like you're just pulling anything out of the hat. What you don't understand is I study anomastic studies, which means I study the. The root. Roots of. Of proper names, right? Proper nouns in the Hebrew Bible and, well, just in the Bible in general, because you can go through the. The. The New Testament as well. And if you notice there's a pattern in the Bible, nobody ever has their real name. Everyone is given a new name in the Bible. Paul becomes, you know, Saul becomes Paul. Simon is Peter, right? Azerkannendu becomes Eve. Joseph tells us that Adam receives a new name after he leaves the garden, a new name that he then receives after the fulfillment of the garden. And at each point, at each juncture of these narratives, every narrative where you receive this new name, it tells the same story. You are known by this. And then when you hit this pivotal moment where either you fulfill your role or you think you fail in your role, God. God at that point meets you and gives you a new name. In this narrative, Eve is introduced aer Kendu. She is brought before Adam. And there is this kind of sexist notion where they go and Adam names Eve. And I love it. I love that our temple text has been updated to emphasize this. Adam does not name Eve. Adam. In this beautiful expression where she is only referred to as the salvation with a priesthood equal unto his own. After she partakes of the fruit, God shows, shows up and says, eve hava life. And only then does he emphasize her real name. Then he turns to Adam and says, adam. And the problem with this narrative is it says, what will you name her? That's not what is being indicated linguistically, right? This is a rhetorical question. Question. God is saying, adam, do you know the name of this person next to you now that you have partaken the fruit? At that point, Adam turns and says, I do. This is Hava. This is Eve. Why? What does this word hava mean? Well, it is the word for life. It is the root word of your heavenly. Only Mother life. At this point, Eve is then given. She's not punished. She didn't make a mistake. As the traditional narrative, there's no punishment whatsoever. God does not issue one decree of punishment or, or malice or negative connotation towards Eve. He only says to Eve, hava, you are life. I, I love. In the temple now, it says, says. That is right, Adam. She is called Hava. She is called Eve, for thus is the name of the first of all women. Who is the first of all women? Mother Eve. Mother. Eve, Our Mother, Our Heavenly Mother. She is given the name, the title of our Heavenly Mother. I love it so much.
- [64:15]
Larkin Swain
Can I ask just a question? Do you. Do you think that Adam is. Is Eve transforming and becoming something new, and therefore her name is Eve, or because they took the fruit, is Adam able to see her more clearly for who she already was? Does that make sense? Which is.
- [64:34]
Jared Lambert
I know that's tough. That's so tough to answer. Because I want to say yes to both. Yeah, because you're actually pulling from two perspectives there. Right? Is Eve, from Eve's perspective, becoming what she should be? Yes. Free agency is always there. She had the choice 100% to do whatever she wanted. God's not going to mess with that. Right? But she did what's right, and she. She took that bitter cup. Again, mimicking linguistically, paralleling the role of the. Gosh, sorry. Paralleling the role of the Savior, thus giving her the title of that Azer, that Ebenezer. But then from perspective of Adam, he's so unaware of it. The text indicates that. Yeah, he's unaware of this. He sees it as bad. He's like, eve, what are you doing?
- [65:17]
Larkin Swain
Right?
- [65:18]
Jared Lambert
You're not supposed to do that. He doesn't quite get it. And it's God who requires Adam to go, hey, Adam, do you get it now? Do you understand? And I. I feel bad because people have pointed out to me again and again, hey, Jared, you're kind of a. You're a bad feminists in the sense that, like, in olden days, the feminists was a negative term because it was like anti man.
- [65:40]
Larkin Swain
Right, right, right.
- [65:40]
Jared Lambert
And they're like, your narrative of this is like, anti Adam. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. It's not. It is not. It is not anti Adam. The fact of the matter is, is the linguistic text emphasizes this. This point, which is Adam didn't see it yet. He did not have the eyes to see it. When God points that out to him, Adam then sees. Ah, yes, I see who this is this is Eve the mother of all living. It's so beautiful. Now, that shouldn't be seen as a negative atom. He has so many incredible traits. His name himself indicates that he is the earth. He is the. He is the standard. He is the. The. The stationary thing by which all begins, right? There's so many positives to his name. So I don't see it as this anti Adam narrative. I think I emphasize the feminine because it's the feminine that has been pushed down for all of these years. So it's not trying to be anti the masculine in this narrative. It's just, I think we've. We've harped on the masculine enough and lifted that up that I think it's time that we lift up the women where it's supposed to be, where it was originally indicated to be. So, yeah, so that's it. That's Genesis 1 through 3 that I. That I take you through. There's so much more in there. I love. You know, we always have this issue. Issue of the creation of Eve as well, where she's made from Adam's rib. And I. And I want to so badly be able to show how that's completely misinterpreted, and I know it is. I think we all do as linguists know that it's wrong. The problem is we can't show how. We don't know. It's such a strange idiom to be pulled from his rib. It's not the word rib, it's side. And there's so many different. Like, you know, here we go, this apophenic, you know, realization again and again. Your mind can grab a million different things and be like, right, it's because he's. She's eating equal, she's being made just like him. And. And the one thing that I can show everybody is that in Genesis, in Genesis 3, or, sorry, Genesis 2:20, it tells us, and Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the foul of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And we read then it's such a strange location for them that to be. Because you're indicating you were searching for a woman again for all. Everybody thinks they're the first people on the earth. Like they're looking for other Eves. Like, why would you look if there's only Adam? So you're looking for this woman for Adam, and you can't find anyone for him. So what a bizarre sentence to put in there right before the Creation of Eve. Right. But what I love. And, and again, again, this would be such a gold mine to mind to be able to find linguistically if this text was wrong, like, if it could just say like, and for Adam there was found Eve, it would, it would bury so much sexism because people have used this notion that, like, Eve was made from Adam, thus Eve is subjugate to Adam, right? And she is lesser than Adam. She's made from him, so he is her master. And it's, it's caused so much strife for women, this one new notion. But what I love is, once again, Joseph didn't fail us. Because when you look at the Abrahamic version that Joseph brought in, how does the narrative of Abraham garden narrative end? The very last verse should be the most groundbreaking discovery of all time because it says so clearly. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the foul of the air, to every beast of the field. And for Adam, there was found a help meet. For him, Joseph changed one word, one word in that entire chapter. There's only one thing that he modifies in his rendition of it. Adam. What? Or Eve was found for Adam. She was not made for Adam or from Adam or under Adam or subjugate to Adam. She was found for Adam. She exists completely separate, created in the same way as Adam. And I love that so, so much. We should be hard. Like, we need to be preaching this in our. Where are our missionaries? We need to have our missionaries, like, read Abraham 5 instead of the Genesis 2 version. So, yes, if we would just read our scriptures from a more linguistically dynamic perspective instead of relying on the traditional interpretation that we've placed on the text. Ah, it's so much more, more beautiful. It connects things in such a better way and there's just so much more there. I wish we had the time to dive into, but maybe another time.
- [70:20]
Larkin Swain
That was amazing. Thank you so much. I, I, yeah. So many thoughts, so many questions. I hope we can hear more from you because there's, there's a lot here just, just to close out. You shared, you know, you mentioned the power of studying the scriptures from a linguistical perspective and how that can open up understanding and accepting. I feel like there's a lot of people in our community who are wrestling with this creation story and with just wanting to understand the temple experience more. What have you, what have you learned about how to prepare yourself to better understand what's being given here in the story, in the temple experience?
- [71:05]
Jared Lambert
Yeah, you know, I, it's tough. It is really, really tough because if you're unprepared and you just go straight to the temple. You're like, what is this? Yeah, I'm so confused. Like, this is strange. This is a weird experience. And there. So there's a couple things at play. And I think it's really important that we a, understand the history of our modern temple evolution. Like, why. Why did Joseph use what he did? You know, I tell, I tell everybody this because I love this so much as a linguist. It's so great. Joseph would often start his, his discourses, his lectures with a prayer of his own. He'd let whoever say a prayer and he'd be like, I'd like to offer another prayer. And then he would say, oh, Lord God, please free us of the prison. That is our language. And let the spirit convey the message that I have prepared for them. And I love that because, yes, English is a prison we are stuck in. Joseph's biggest issue with the. The temple was he had no idea how to express what he experienced in his revelation into words.
- [72:09]
Larkin Swain
Yeah.
- [72:10]
Jared Lambert
What a horrible feat. He is not. It's not like God's just whispering the endowment so that he can be like, let me write this down word for word has got. That's not what's happening. This is this polysemic revelation. How do you take this visual, this emotional, this spiritual interpretation and put it into the confines of words?
- [72:31]
Larkin Swain
Yeah.
- [72:31]
Jared Lambert
Poor Joseph. Poor sucker. And that's why I love it. I love that he's like, hey, guys, I need you all to get this revelation. Like, this is the point. And I love that we've maintained that in our temple experience, because that's the problem. If you're going to walk into the temple without any history behind it, it's going to feel weird. If you walk into the temple without understanding the real linguistics of the Bible, it's going to feel. Feel patriarchal. It's going to feel. I mean, I feel bad for all women because it doesn't look great. What I love is notice. I mean, if, again, notice the changes that are happening in the temple. Notice. It's all about women and it's all about restoring this message that women are equal in every way. So I love that. Now, caveat. If you're going to the temple first time, do not try to learn lessons that aren't there. Okay? The temple's trying to teach very specific lessons and it is not a replacement of scripture. It's not trying to do that. It's not trying to say like, this is the true narrative. So anything you read in Genesis or anything you read in Abraham is not true. This is, that's not what it's trying to do. So that's the beauty of our temple experience. We're not trying to say, hey, this is the lesson you have to take from it. We have you come. There is no instructor. You don't have the words of the prophet up there saying, this is what the temple means. No one is going to say that to you. Why? Because it is for you and the Holy Spirit to then say, oh my goodness, I just learned this. I just. This aspect is so beautiful. This is what I learned. Right? This is the, this is the concept of the temple. This is what you're supposed to take from it. But for all those first time goers, please study before you go. Like, that's all I have to say is like, yeah, study a little bit. Bit. At least, at least understand, at the very least, understand this is a symbolic interpretation of what God is trying to express to you in a very conceptual way. Not literal. It is not literal. Please don't take it literally.
- [74:32]
Larkin Swain
Right. Well, I like what you said earlier about how it just wasn't tasting right, or there was something about the Eve narrative that just was not sitting right for you. And I feel like those moments are an invitation when, when we're pushing up against something and it tastes bitter, it's not tasting like the fruits of the spirit, then maybe that's, that's where you begin. And that's invitation to start digging into it so that you can understand it better.
- [74:58]
Jared Lambert
Absolutely. You know, a great example of how we flatten things is this word shema in Hebrew, which we have translated as a word for call. Like God calls you, but we flattened it. Our rigid, our rigid language has made it just singular is call. But in reality that conceptual term is. And they understood it this way and it showed linguistically through over and over again. It's used many times in the scriptures. This call, this beckoning from God, what it actually indicates is God is calling you. You have heard the call, understood the call, and are, are, are now coming towards that call, responding to that call. All of that is contained in the word Shema. And the reason that's important, you might find be like, well, that's. That is the concept of being called and responding. So this is stupid. No, it's not. Because what's missing in our flattened version is this notion that God is only calling those that can perceive, understand, know what the call is, and then respond to it. If you feel like something is off, that is not The Shema, that is not the call. And you have honed into that. You have heard that, right? You're perceiving that. Now you just have to figure out. Figure out what is the call? Like, what is the meaning? What is the notion that I. That I need to figure out for this. And so that's what I. I love about that. The. The proto Hebrew, that conceptual understanding of the text, because it's so much more deep, so much more layered in and. And has the different aspects to it. But I love that.
- [76:33]
Larkin Swain
And I think what I found is when we truly perceive the call, it's delightful, delicious. It really.
- [76:39]
Jared Lambert
Oh, and perfect. And. And, yeah, and so perfect that it will not leave any of those crumbs on the side where you go, oh, I don't know that that bothers me. No, no. The gospel is pure. The gospel is true. The Word is true, imperfect, if you have the eyes to see it.
- [77:01]
Larkin Swain
Thank you, Jared. That was beautiful. Beautiful. I really appreciate everything you shared. Thank you for coming. I'm excited to now go dig in and do my historical linguistic studies and hopefully come to a class. Yeah, I would love that. Cool. Thank you.
- [77:15]
Jared Lambert
Yeah. Thank you.
- [77:17]
Aubrey Chavez
All right, thanks so much for listening. We really hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Jared Lambert and Larkin Swain. You can hear more conversations like this on the Sanctuary podcast, wherever you like to listen.