18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of wheat

New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:  Pre-print of “Jacob’s Temple Journey to Haran and Back,” The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Matthew L. Bowen

Abstract: In this chapter, we argue that the general trajectory of departure and return along the covenant pathway is mirrored both spiritually and geographically in the story of Jacob. Taking leave of his family in Beersheba (Hebrew “well of the oath”—figuratively, the source of the covenant), Jacob travels north and east by way of Beth-el (Hebrew “House of God”—a place of instruction about the covenant) to Haran (Akkadian ḫarranu[m] = “road,” “way,”). The journey to and from Haran is a “road,” “way,” or “path” of testing for Jacob (see Genesis 28:10, 20; 29:4). Leaving Haran, Jacob at last returns to Beth-el, where God’s previous promises are made sure. Each major step of the way along Jacob’s personal covenant path (his vision of the “ladder” at his first visit to Beth-el, his testing in Haran, his wrestle/embrace of the angel, his new name, and God’s confirming promises on his final stop at Beth-el), his experiences are remarkably infused with temple themes. While we will focus on selected stops along Jacob’s itinerary as the foreground of the sacred scenes we witness in scripture, we must keep in mind that the constant backdrop that illuminates the entire sequence is the repeated quest in Israel’s history to transform every corner of the promised land into a holy place, the home of a Zion people through which Canaan will eventually be filled with God’s presence.

From The Babylon Bee:  “Several Injured In Brawl When Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses Arrive On Porch At Same Time”

We had our quarterly meeting of the Interpreter board of directors today.  It lasted roughly three and a half hours, and there were at least two smaller supplemental meetings afterwards.  I’m really excited about some of the developments that are coming down the pike.  I’m so grateful for the volunteers — and the donors — who make this effort work.

• “Who Is the Holy Ghost?—His Identity and Roles”
• “Who is the Holy Ghost?–His Identity and Roles, Pt. 2”

Written by Richard D. Gardner, who is a professor of biology at Southern Virginia University, they draw upon the work that he has put into his 2024 book Who is the Holy Ghost?  which is described by its publisher as “Three Essays Exploring the Identity and Roles of the Holy Ghost Especially in Sanctification and Sealing, His Place in the Godhead, Spirit, Spiritual Augmentation via “Spiritual DNA,” and Related Topics.”

Doctrine about the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit was late to develop within ancient Christianity, and our understanding of the subject even in the Restoration is relatively limited and vague.  Dr. Gardner admits that his work is speculative, but his is informed and faithful speculation.  I look forward to reading the book.

In connection with its 2021 theatrical film, Witnesses, the Interpreter Foundation released a docudrama entitled Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.  We never expected Undaunted to reach as large an audience as Witnesses did — for one thing, it was never shown in theaters — and, as a matter of fact, it hasn’t.  But it’s an important movie in its own right, and we want its message to get out there.  (It’s actually the film that we originally set out to make, before ever the idea of a dramatic theatrical movie was suggested to us.)

So we’ve launched a free online series of film shorts that have been drawn from Undaunted.  Here, I call your attention to a brief comment about David Whitmer that we’ve extracted from an interview with Richard Lyman Bushman, the eminent historian of early America and the Restoration who is now the Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, in New York City.  It runs only about a minute, so it’s not at all painful.

I invite you to watch the short video, to subscribe to the series, to share these brief messages with friends and family, and, where you can, to share them on social media.  If you do this, and if the people with whom you share them go on to share them yet further, they will begin to reach the audience that we seek for them.  It will be like the “miracle of compound interest.”  If we do really well, it will recall a famous legend — first related in AD 1256 by the great Muslim biographer and historian Ibn Khallikan — that is sometimes told about the invention of the game of chess:

When the game’s creator showed it to the emperor of India, the emperor was so captivated by it that he said to the man, “Name your reward!  Anything!”

To which the man replied, “Oh my lord, my wishes are simple. I only desire this: Give me one grain of wheat for the first square of the chessboard, two grains for the next square, four for the next, eight for the next, and so on, for all 64 squares, with each square having double the number of grains as the square before.”

The emperor agreed, amazed that the man had asked for so small a reward and, frankly, thinking him rather a fool (and himself rather lucky to get off so cheaply after his rash promise). After a week, though, his treasurer came to him with the urgent message that, if he continued with the promised payment, the reward would add up to an astronomical sum, far greater than all the wheat that could conceivably be produced in many, many centuries.

Do the math!  With sixty-four squares on a chessboard, if the number of grains doubles on each successive square, the sum of grains on all sixty-four squares will be 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + … and so forth for the 64 squares. The total number of grains can be shown to be 2⁶⁴−1 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (or, to put it in words: eighteen quintillion, four hundred forty-six quadrillion, seven hundred forty-four trillion, seventy-three billion, seven hundred nine million, five hundred fifty-one thousand, six hundred and fifteen, which is over 1.4 trillion metric tons, which (I’m told) is more than two thousand times the annual world production of wheat.

Or, to put it in scriptural terms:

Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.  (Doctrine and Covenants 64:33)