Insight into Isaiah - You don't need to pull your hair out!

As is common with our Sunday school study we will be hitting the book of Isaiah shortly since we are studying the old testament this year.  The Book and writings of Isaiah are to most very hard to follow and understand.

Could it be that since he wrote it in such a older style; cryptic to a point his writings have stood the test of time.  Many other writings throughout the old and new testaments have obviously been modified down through the ages.  We can clearly see differences in translation and for that matter content depending on the writer and/or source.

Thus what can we do to help us understand the writing and prophecies of Isaiah?


Here is a list of a few good articles that can help.  Beyond that I'll dive into some additional ideas and helps provided over the years by the modern prophets, seers and revelators.

• How Can I Understand Isaiah?
• Technicolor Isaiah 
• Ten Keys to Understanding Isaiah 
• Understanding Isaiah 

Isaiah is truly hard because his writings do not contain stories, they don't follow a common narrative.  They clearly more like a compilation of prophecies.  Thus it is hard to really follow.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when dealing with Isaiah.

1.  You may know more then you think.  Much of what Isaiah covers is the basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You may be familiar with many of the basic.  Also many of his prophecies have been fulfilled.  This makes things a bit easier to understand....


2.  Know the main topics.  You have to know the main areas that are covered by Isaiah.  One suggestion is to mark various verses with different colors by topic.  You might use Yellow for Jesus, Blue for the Holy Ghost, or Purple for Gospel restoration, etc.  The topics could be limitless since the topical guide in the scriptures cover everything and anything.  Simplify things down and cover more broad topics.  You can get more detailed as you begin to understand things better.  You may also find that a given verse could have several colors running though it.  Many topics can be covered in just one verse.... keep this in mind.

3. Get help from Modern Prophets and Teachings.   There is a lot of material out there in regard to Isaiah.  There are the manuals and helps given to the teachers and students of say seminary or Sunday School.   Many leaders have also made references to  Isaiah in conference talks and other settings.  These references depending on the source may have explanations given especially if it comes from an Apostle.  Nephi also gives a run down of the verses he had included in the Book of Mormon.




4. Learn about the life and times of Isaiah.   What do I mean by this.  If you want to understand for example why Hitler promoted what he promoted and did what he did you need to learn about what was happening in Germany around the time he came to power.   Quickly you find Germany had lost World War I.  They were broke, in the dumps, rebuilding and wanted someone to blame for all their problems.  He played on those needs and the fears and the anger to his advantage.   You need to do the same with Isaiah.  You need to find out who was in power (Locally and globally), what were some of the traditions of his people at the time.  Why were they doing what they do?  Once you begin to understand the people and culture you can begin to understand his style of writing.  Just as Shakespeare wrote about historical and current events of his day, his plays use a language no longer in daily use.  I'm not saying Isaiah used slang but, reference to certain places, things or habits would make sense to readers of his day but, not necessarily to us.

5. Study by the Spirit.   The writing of Isaiah contain many prophecies.  What better way to study them then in the attitude or prayer and fasting.  As you ask for the spirit in your study you will be enlightened.   It definitely will be easier to understand the writings of Isaiah when you have a spirit filled environment.  Kind of hard to to get tuned in while listening to loud, hard pounding music with other distractions present.


6. Apply his teachings in your life.   Take the time and see how you can apply the teachings of Isaiah in your life.  It might not be as easy as say some of the teachings of Christ.  However, you can clearly look for prophecies that have occurred or appear to be occurring.  Then you can say - How does this apply to my life.  You might be surprised what you find out.  Think of prophecies that apply to the restoration of the Gospel, or the Second Coming of Christ.  Look to the blessing of the fulfilled prophecies.  You be happy as you see your on the right path.  Not feeling your on the right path?  Then do something about it.


Isaiah does not have to be extremely difficult or pie in the sky material you can't understand.  There are so many helps available that you need not feel left out of the blessings of reading Isaiah and understanding his many teachings.  Don't get left out of the Banquet!  Come to the feast and really get filled up.....  you can can do better then to just pick at a few thing here and there.




Buaidh - NO -  Bas

The Conspiracy - Holocaust and World War II

I've been fascinated for some time on how it was that the Nazis were able to pull off what they did during World War II.
How Hitler rose to power and all the things generally associated with the war.

So I found a movie at the library called Conspiracy that details what went on at the Wannsee conference in 1942.  This was a secret meeting held near Berlin to as it is called "come up with a final solution to the Jewish Question.  Or resolve the Jewish Question."
Very Stale movie in reality.  To much Heil Hitler in the beginning and clearly racist throughout.

 
A full version of the movie all 1 1/2 hours.
What I find interesting is how it is detailed in the movie that everyone in a general sense was worried about having some legal claim as they "evacuated" the Jews.  You see they wanted to have some legal claim to stand on.  That all the relocating, sterilization, and eventual gassing was  OK per some legal definition.
The other things that becomes clear is that by that point they had already begun to experiment with ways of "evacuating" the Jews on a mass scale.  Originally, it seemed that this was the conference that defined the policy of the Holocaust.  Reality, is it was simply a meeting of mid level military personnel and ministry heads to convey the message that you need to do everything you can to help the Reich to "evacuate" the Jews.  They were receiving the policy not making the policy.
You see things can be deceptive.  If you think of this as the first time they come up with a policy to kill Jews in mass then you will truly believe that in 3 short years - 6 million dead is just amazing. Reality indicates they were not so efficient.  Detractors have clearly presented in some videos what they believe is the lies of the holocaust.  They'll even tell you how they should have done it if they were to have killed the numbers professed.   They basically prove through their critics that the Holocaust did happen.  That there was a concentrated effort by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews, in mass.  And had they been given more time may have succeeded. If you give them only the 3 years from the 1942 Wannsee meeting you'd have on average 5000 persons killed per day.  Even spreading this among 3-4 death camps that number is huge. So I concur with the skeptics the numbers do not totally match up.  They never will since only portions of the death are documented. However, per things I got from the movie they'd been killing off people in various forms for some time before the Conference.  They mention use of gas trucks, and the Ghettos in places like Poland were already in full force.  So how many people died each year from the beginning of the war? Did it ramp up drastically after this conference?  NO doubt about it.  But, many had already died.

Locations of Death and concentration camps World War II Europe

What I always believe is if they had started earlier, and been even more organized then they were you really might have had a complete extermination of the Jews in some places.  As it stands the majority of the deaths of Jews comes from Poland and they were nearly cleared out.
Had they had another year or two what could have happened?

Holocaust death totals by country

The estimated total number of people executed in the Nazi camps in the table below is over three million:

Camp	Estimated deaths	Operational	Current country of location	Primary means for mass killings
Auschwitz–Birkenau	1,100,000[30]	May 1940 – January 1945	Poland	Zyklon B gas chambers
Bełżec	600,000[31]	17 March 1942 – end of June 1943	Poland	Carbon monoxide gas chambers
Chełmno	320,000[32]	8 December 1941 – March 1943, June 1944 – 18 January 1945	Poland	Carbon monoxide vans
Majdanek	80,000[33]	October 1, 1941 — July 22, 1944	Poland	Zyklon B gas chambers
Maly Trostinets	200,000[34]	Summer of 1941 to 28 June 1944	Belarus	Mass shootings, Carbon monoxide van
Sajmište	23,000– 47,000	28 October 1941–July 1944	Serbia	Carbon monoxide van
Sobibor	250,000[35]	16 May 1942 – 17 October 1943	Poland	Carbon monoxide gas chambers
Treblinka	800,000[36]	22 July 1942 – 19 October 1943	Poland	Carbon monoxide gas chambers
Total	3,115,000– 3,215,000

a table listing estimates of deaths at concentration camps from wikipedia.org
Some will try and pass off the holocaust as something run by a few 'wack jobs' that did not represent the whole of German society.  There are film clips available that show local resident near some of the camps being forced to take a tour shortly after liberation.  Many wanted to be sick.....  but you have to wonder how it is they never smelled anything coming from the direction of the camps.
This is well shown how the local family of the camp director just ignored the things going on so close to them in basically their back yard in - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
The general consensus within the population was that they wanted the Jews Gone.  They then turned a blind eye to how it happened.


Something of a parting thought.   Could this type of thing happen in our day and age?
With our 24 hours news cycle, Internet connectivity, and global interconnectedness is is really possible this type of mass extermination could occur.

Some would say that it has.  Look to Africa  being the forgotten continent.  The place that war seems a constant and people in power regularly are 'rubbing out' the opposition that in many cases of a different ethnic tribe.

Our challenge is to get beyond the hatred, bigotry and become more loving and friendly to those around us.  To be more open to new ideas, religions and peoples....  not to the point of losing our own identify but, more along the lines of co-existing for the greater good.

For every culture, race or religion has it's good points and it's less then savory sides.
You can find what your looking for if you search hard enough.


Buaidh - NO - Bas