Skip to content
Feast

Library / New Testament

The Gospels, the Church, and the Letters

The New Testament

The Greek text at close range: John's prologue, the second birth, the Sermon on the Mount beside its Bountiful counterpart, the garden and the cross, and the long argument about grace and works that the New Testament never quite resolves — and did not mean to.

6 lessons written4 hr 45 min of reading24 Doctrinal Mastery passages

  1. 01

    The Word Made Flesh

    John 1:1–18 in Greek, and D&C 93 as commentary

    Eighteen verses that set the terms for every later argument about who Jesus is. The Greek repays close reading, the Joseph Smith Translation reads them differently than any other tradition, and D&C 93 supplies what looks like an independent version of the same hymn.

    John 1:1–18; D&C 93:1–20; JST John 145 min4 sections

  2. 02

    Born of Water and of the Spirit

    Nicodemus, at night

    A member of the Sanhedrin comes after dark with a compliment and is answered with a demand. The Greek word at the centre of the conversation means two things at once, and the ambiguity is the teaching.

    John 3; Mosiah 27; Alma 540 min4 sections

  3. 03

    The Sermon, Twice

    Matthew 5–7 beside 3 Nephi 12–14

    The same sermon delivered in two hemispheres, and the differences between the two versions are small, deliberate, and doctrinally loaded. Read side by side, the Book of Mormon functions as a commentary on the Gospel.

    Matthew 5–7; 3 Nephi 12–1455 min4 sections

  4. 04

    Why He Spoke in Parables

    Matthew 13, and a teaching method that sorts its own audience

    A parable is not a simple story for simple people. It is a device that gives everyone the same words and lets them take away different amounts — and Matthew 13 has Christ say so, in a passage the King James makes sound considerably harsher than the Joseph Smith Translation does.

    Matthew 13; Mark 4:1–34; JST Matthew 13:10–11; Isaiah 6:9–1045 min4 sections

  5. 05

    The Oil Press

    Gethsemane, the cross, and what the Greek records

    Three Gospel accounts, one of which contains a detail the earliest manuscripts dispute — and two Restoration texts that supply it independently. The most closely examined half-hour in scripture.

    Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:39–46; D&C 19:15–2450 min4 sections

  6. 06

    Grace, Works, and a Preposition

    Paul, James, and 2 Nephi 25:23

    The oldest argument in Christianity, and the one Latter-day Saints are most often accused of getting wrong. The Greek is more interesting than either side of the usual debate, and one small English word in the Book of Mormon has caused a great deal of unnecessary anguish.

    Romans 3–5; Ephesians 2; James 2; 2 Nephi 25; Moroni 1050 min4 sections

Doctrinal Mastery

drill these →