SHEM AS MELCHIZEDEK

Joseph Smith was the first one I had seen that presented the idea that Melchizedek was indeed the elusive Shem that seemed to disappear from history after the flood. I first read that in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith before my mission and was intrigued by it. In doing research for a seminary class I am teaching, I ran across that information again in Wikipedia (CLICK LINK) and this source, (the Babylonian Talmud), seems to indicate the same thing.

Interesting stuff. I have run across other information on who Japheth was in conventional (Chinese) history.

Great stuff for another post. Can't wait until we can view world history one thousand years at a time.....

FAITH OF THE ANCIENTS

I am re-posting an experience that I find to be one of the sweetest ever given to a father on this earth. May it touch your heart as it has touched mine:

I called Samuela Vehikite to assist me by anointing the consecrated oil on Tisina's head and as I began to utter the prayer, I couldn't say a word. My mouth was locked. My mind was blank. No words would come. But in a few minutes the Spirit spoke to me in my mind that there were so many unbelievers in and out of the house that had no faith that Tisina would ever recover from her accident, that I should send the people home.

I immediately opened my eyes and asked the people if they wanted Tisina to come back to life to please leave my home now so we can pray for her. Oh my! Non-members were furious and started to spit at me. Some picked up rocks and started throwing them at the house as they were leaving, calling me names. I knew the American doctor might help Tisina walk again, but how about her brain? I knew that only God who created her, who gave her life, would be the only one who could help Tisina completely recover and bring her memory back to normal again.

I asked Salote to go ahead and fix supper for the family, but I would go and pray for Tisina. I prayed and prayed and thanked the Lord for all His blessings to us, for sending us on a mission, but how I wouldn't like to part with any of my children yet because we have no white material for her burial nor funeral cloth in Tongatapu, but in Vava'u we did. I reminded the Lord of how He saved the Israelites by parting the waters of the Red Sea, how Christ raised people from the dead, and of the simple faith of a missionary who just had his daughter run over by a car and had been killed, you can understand of my love for her. I reviewed how Lazarus was raised after being in the tomb for four days, through faith and the power of the priesthood. I prayed and thanked the Lord for those great prophets of old and their faith and special callings in the church from Adam down to the prophet Joseph Smith. I said, 'I don't want a funeral away from all my family, and if this little girl has a special mission on earth to do, please spare her life so she can fulfill that blessing and her mission.' I was on my knees over four hours that evening. Finally the Lord heard my prayer and said to me, 'Tisina won't be with you tonight, but tomorrow.' A humble and very sweet warm feeling came over my heart and a great worry and fear was lifted from my shoulders that evening. I thanked God for the answer that I received.

I opened my eyes slowly, filled with deep gratitude and tears of joy. I went over to Salote and said, 'Not tonight, but tomorrow.' Salote and the children didn't touch any food that evening. Everyone was shocked and felt so bad about Tisina.

Samuela Vehikite and I waited and waited all night long and about 3:00am, we felt the Spirit fill our souls and knew that this was finally the right time for us to give Tisina her priesthood blessing. Samuela Vehikite anointed her and I sealed the blessing, I thanked the Lord and expressed his love to me in answering my prayers and said, 'Tisina, by the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood which we hold, we ask Thee, our Heavenly Father, to bless Tisina from the top of her head all the way down to her toes, that every bone, muscle, nerve, blood vessel, skin, nails, hair or any part of her body that has been broken, lost or damaged, through the power of the priesthood which we hold, we command it to return to it's normal place and start to function and to do their work, that she will be able to stand and her body will be returned and renewed with all its parts and start to function as they were before. We promise you through the holy power of the priesthood that when the sun rises in the morning, you will be raised up together with the sun. And when other witnesses hear this testimony of Tisina, they will also testify that Jesus is the Christ and through Him the Lord healed Tisina. Not tonight, but tomorrow, Tisina will walk with the rest of the family as the Spirits whispers.'

After the blessing everyone knelt down before they went to bed and in a circle offered a prayer, then we retired. I came into the room where Tisina still had her face covered with the cloth. She was still dead. I picked her up and laid her little broken head on my arm and kept her body close to me. Hours seemed to pass. I finally dozed off and on for about two more hours and about 6:00 a.m. I felt someone playing around my face and touching my hair. I slowly opened my eyes and to my surprise saw Tisina standing up playing with my face and hair with a big smile on her face.

I slowly reached out to feel Tisina's head. It was normal. I started to feel her hands, legs, face, everything that had been promised had come true. Samela Vehikite remembered that in her priesthood blessing that when the sun rose up in the morning she would rise up together with the sun. So he opened the window shades and sure enough, the sun had just barely risen in the sky. How excited we were to have our little daughter back with us again. We sang a special hymn to thank God for her return and said a long prayer of thanksgiving by me. A few minutes later a knock came to our door. Our Aunt Marie and Uncle Maile Niu, brought Tisina's burial clothing and her burial box and asked where the dead child was. I said she was the one that answered the door. "

A JEWISH TAKE ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

I was very interested to read that (for the first time since I read Joseph Smith's writings), someone else made reference to Shem being Melchizedek, the high priest of Salem:

The Ten WHAT?!!: The Truth About the "Ten Commandments"

Gershon Winkler

The Ten Commandments comprise a sadly misunderstood and misinterpreted body
of ancient Jewish rules-to-live-by, twisted out of context by religious
cultures unfamiliar with the original Hebraic language and cosmology that
originally inspired it.

Ever since the Hebrew scriptures were translated from Hebrew to Greek to
Latin and finally into English, the ancient Decalogue of the Hebrews has
been a household word across the western cultural map. More recently, the
media have given The Ten Commandments further exposure when Cecil B.
DeMille titled his biblical epic "The Ten Commandments", and, when of late,
they aroused controversy surrounding the issue of separation of Church and
State in the case of a county judge who refused to remove them from the
front lawn of his court house. Ironically, the Ten Commandments remained
the stalwart of a European Christian culture that in all other respects was
founded upon an agenda of superceding the very scriptures that contained the
Ten Commandments: the Hebrew Scriptures, otherwise derogatorily known as the
"Old" Testament.

I would like to discuss here some of the original meaning and intent of
this popularly known but sorely misunderstood body of ancient Jewish laws.
For example, nowhere in the Decalogue does it state "Thou shalt not kill".
Rather, the Hebrew writ reads: "You will not murder" (Exodus 20:13). The
"thou shalt not", or "you may not", is an incorrect rendering of what more
accurately reads "you will not", implying that if one observes the
instructions of the first five "commandments" one will not be prone to
committing murder, sexual abuse, theft, slander, etc. After all, the Hebrew
ancestors did not need to be commanded not to murder or steal or slander as
if they were a nation of idiots oblivious to simple, basic morality. It
would otherwise be akin to an American law prohibiting the wanton slaughter
of fellow humans or the random trashing of parked vehicles. The laws in the
Ten Commandments were mostly duplicates of laws already in force and
articulated earlier in the Torah. They were laws long ago transmitted
to Abraham from his teacher Eber who received them from his father Shem
(a/k/a Malkitzedek) who in turn received them from his father Noah, the
famed hero of the Great Flood. They are repeated here in the new context
of relationship with the Creator as opposed to their original context of
mortal legal injunction. Thus, the first several "commandments" are about
the relationship between humans and God, while the last five are about
the relationship between humans and each other. The intention here is to
predicate one upon the other, rather than foster a sense of morality
shadowed by societal legislation alone.

"Noachian Law had been secured by the external safeguard of severe
punishment (Talmud, Baba Kama 38a), which nevertheless proved insufficient
(Talmud, Avot 3:5). Now these external safeguards were to be replaced by
the internal restraints provided by the chuqim of the Torah, laws which
make awareness of God a reality in human life [and a determinant factor in
wholesome human behavior]." - Philip Biberfeld: Universal Jewish History
[Feldheim, 1980], Vol. 4, p. 79

The first of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3) is another example of a
misreading. It does not read: "Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me
[or before Me]", as it is usually translated; rather it reads: "You shall
have no other gods upon My face", meaning we ought to appropriate onto God
neither definition nor image, presuming to know what God is all about. As
God is described as saying in the Hebraic scriptural book of Isaiah the
Prophet: "'My thoughts are not like your thoughts, and My ways are not like
your ways', declares Infinite One. 'For as high as heavens are from earth,
so high are My ways from your ways, and My thoughts from your thoughts"
(Isaiah 55:8-9). Even the word God is a mistranslation of the Hebrew term
used: elo'heem, which is a plural word meaning literally All Powers
(Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim 5:1), and is used also to describe humans
who wield powers such as mortal judges (Exodus 21:6) and persons of high
spiritual standing, or angels (Psalm 82:6).