The Seventy's Course in Theology (First Year). B. H. Roberts

Smith's New Testament History, with introduction, connecting the history of the Old Testament with the New, Harper Brothers, New York. This work stands in the same relationship to the New Testament History that the previously mentioned work does to the Old.

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      The Book of Abraham. Its Authenticity as a Divine and Ancient Record, (Elder George Reynolds).

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The Seventy's Course in Theology.

       Table of Contents

       FIRST YEAR.

PART I.

       Table of Contents

       Outline History of the Seventy.

LESSON I.

       Table of Contents

       THE SEVENTY IN THREE DISPENSATIONS.

ANALYSIS.	REFERENCES.
I. The Seventy in the Mosaic Dispensation.1. The Seventy Chosen. 2. Their Spiritual Powers. 3. Was the Sanhedrin a perpetuation of the Seventy.	Exodus xxiv:xi; Number xi:16, 25. Note 1.
II. The Seventy of the Christian Dispensation. 1. Organization of Quorums. 2. Commission and Spiritual Powers.	Luke x:1–24, Smith's Bible Dictionary[1] Art. "Seventy Disciples."[2] Edersheim's "Jesus the Messias," Vol. II, Chap. v. Eccl. Hist., Eusebius, Chap. xii. Students' Eccl. Hist. pp. 17, 18. Notes 2, 3.
III. The Seventy in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. 1. The Organization of the First Quorum. 2. First Report to the Prophet. 3. Blessed in Kirtland Temple. 4. They lead Zion's Camp to Missouri. 5. Increase in the number of Quorums in Nauvoo and the West, Present Status.	Notes 4, 5, 6, 7. Also History of the Church. Vol. II, 180–2 and notes; Ibid. Chap. xiii and notes. Ibid, p. 221, and note; Ibid, p. 346 (First Report of to the Prophet). Notes 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

      SPECIAL TEXT: "God could not organize His kingdom with twelve men to open the gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham. Now the Lord has got his Twelve and his Seventy, and there will be other quorums of Seventies called, who will make the sacrifice, and those who have not made their sacrifices and their offerings now, will make them hereafter."—JOSEPH SMITH.

NOTES.

       Table of Contents

      1. The Seventy of the Mosaic Dispensation: It is difficult to determine just what the relationship of the Seventy Elders of Exodus xxiv and 1, and Numb. xi: 16, 25, occupied in the Mosaic polity. Commenting on the passage in Exodus, a somewhat celebrated authority (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown's Commentary) says:

      "An order of Seventy was to be created, either by a selection from the existing staff of Elders, or by the appointment of new ones, empowered to assist him [Moses] by their collective wisdom and experience in the onerous cares of government. The Jewish writers say that this was the origin of the Sanhedrim, or supreme appellate court of their nation. But there is every reason to believe that it was only a temporary expedient, adopted to meet a trying exigency."

      Catholic commentators, however, positively assert that this appointment of the Seventy Elders "was the first institution of the Council or Senate, called the Sanhedrim, consisting of seventy or seventy-two Senators, or Counselors." (Douay Bible, foot-note, Numb. xi: 16–25.)

      But Dr. William Smith, in his Old Testament History, says:

      "The appointment of the Seventy Elders has often been regarded as the germ of the Sanhedrim. They seem rather to have been a Senate, whose office was confined to assisting Moses in the government, and ceased with the cessation of his leadership. No trace of the Sanhedrim is found till the return from the Babylonish captivity. It is more certain that the manner of their consecration prefigured the order of the Prophets." (Old Testament History, p. 185.)

      From all this it will be seen that much confusion exists among the learned with reference to the exact nature of the office of the Seventy. From the revelations of the Lord, however, to the Prophet Joseph Smith, we learn that the Priesthood existed in Israel in the days of Moses, but that "he took Moses out of their midst and the Holy Priesthood also," but that "the lesser Priesthood continued, which Priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel" only. With this as a key, that is, with the knowledge that the "Holy Priesthood," meaning by that the higher, or Melchisedek Priesthood, existed in Israel in the days of Moses, it is fairly safe to conclude that the Seventy Elders of the two passages in question were really a quorum of the Seventy as we know it, and that perhaps the princes at the head of the twelve tribes of Israel may have occupied a position somewhat analogous to, if not identical with, that of the Twelve Apostles in the later Church, though it must be admitted that the latter suggestion, especially is merely conjecture. The conclusion with reference to the Seventy, however, takes on increased probability when the spiritual powers exercised by the Seventy described in Numb. xi: 24, 29, is taken into account; powers that are so nearly akin to those of the Seventy in the Meridian and later dispensations of the gospel.

      2. The Seventy of the New Testament: The opinions of ecclesiastical writers with reference to the Seventy mentioned in Luke x, seem to be as hopelessly inconclusive as those held with reference to the Seventy in the Mosaic polity.. Some, for instance, hold that "no power or authority was formally conferred upon the Seventy, their mission being only temporary, and indeed for one divine purpose; its primary object was to prepare for the coming of the Master in the places to which they were sent; and their selection was from a wider circle of disciples, the number being now seventy instead of twelve." So says Edersheim (Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II, p. 136), from which it appears that he does not regard the Seventy as permanent officers in the Church, because, as he assumes, their mission was temporary.

      Whereas,