The visions of Moses and Abraham is found in the Pearl of Great Price radically reframe

how Latter-day Saints understand and think about creation.

As Terrell Givens writes about Moses chapter 1, in the Pearl of Greatest Price, here we see the

first concrete foundation of what is becoming a full-blown

cosmic narrative emerging from Joseph Smith's theological innovations. The creation story that

follows, a retelling of Genesis 1, is hereby radically recontextualized. Not as a primal

act of the universe's creation X Nilo, but is one particular instance of a timeless, ever-continuing creation

of world upon world, and a dynamic, still emerging cosmos inhabited by embodied spirits,

consequent to a divine purpose that envisions the apotheosis of the human family.

My name is Joseph Stewart. I'm the Public Communication Specialist with the Neely-A-Maxwell Institute

of Brilogh Scholarship of Brigham Young University. Christian Heel is a research associate at the Maxwell Institute,

and each week we'll be discussing the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints, come follow me curriculum, we aren't here to present a lesson,

or rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the

restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. So I really like what

Given says about how Moses 1 helps us to reframe the creation narrative. But what is going on

in general in Moses chapter one,

Christian? Moses chapter one is this prelude to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter zero,

if you will. And it gives us, it sets up what for everyone else is this third-person narrative describing externally creation of the world

and turns it into a personal revelation, an encounter with God, an encounter on an exceedingly

high mountain that results in this vision of all. And so we not only get the story of creation

is this product of a direct encounter between Moses and God, but we see something happening

...