Geoff posted a nice piece on The parable of the sower. While I'd written about this previously, he took it in a different direction comparing the three failing kinds of seeds to three classifications of sin: Greed, Popularity, and Appetites. Having read his post, I think that Lehi's vision and the parable of the sower parallel Satan's temptation of the Savior in Matt. 4:3-10 to some degree.
In verse 3, the Savior is asked to turn stones into bread -- appealing to His physical appetite. Compare to Matt 13:4,9 or 1 Ne 8:31
In verse 7, the savior is asked to leap from a building so that the angels might bear him up -- appealing to His desire for popularity (His vanity). Compare to Matt13:5-6,20-21 or 1 Ne 8:23
In verses 8 and 9, the savior is asked to worship Satan in return for worldly wealth -- appealing to his greed. Compare to Matt 13:7,22 or 1 Ne 8:26-28
I think that the first and third parallels are fairly clear. The second is a stretch for Lehi's vision to match up to, although the angel explained to Nephi that ". . .the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost" (not a bad description of vanity and its fruits), so maybe it's not too far off.
(I've tried to follow Geoff's Greed-Popularity-Appetites-Appetites-Popularity-Greed chiasm ...)
2/16/2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Nice post pate and thanks for the plug. As it turns out we are more on the same wavelength than you knew. The post you read was Part 2 of my "Devil's GPA" theory -- the original post was actually based on the temptations of Christ you mention here. (I love your tree of life post – maybe I’ll make that part three. It fits the genre very well.)
You are right about the (P) section being more of a stretch in pinnacle temptation. I work around this by having (P) represent “Popularity, Prominence, Praise of Men, Pride, Power (at least the influence part)”. So with the pinnacle temptation the Lord is tempted to show off his power which would give him most of these P’s in this world.
Since we came to this conclusion independently it must be true! (Plus the fact that President McKay taught this doctrine doesn’t hurt…)
PS -- Nibley liked to add Power as a 4th primary temptation but based on the scriptures I think keeping it as 3 and spreading power between (G) and (P) works better.
Post a Comment