Benjamin Urrutia (born January 24, 1950) is an author and scholar. With

Guy Davenport Guy Mattison Davenport (November 23, 1927 – January 4, 2005) was an American writer, translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher. Life Guy Davenport was born in Anderson, South Carolina, in the foothills of Appalachia on Novem ...

, Urrutia edited '' The Logia of Yeshua'', which collected what Urrutia and Davenport consider to be

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

' authentic sayings from a variety of canonical and non-canonical sources. Urrutia interprets Jesus' mission as a leadership role in the "

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance, or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, construct ...

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

oppression".

Biography

Urrutia was born in

Guayaquil Guayaquil (), officially Santiago de Guayaquil, is the largest city in Ecuador and also the nation's economic capital and main port. The city is the capital (political), capital of Guayas Province and the seat of Guayaquil Canton. The city is ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

. He lived in Ecuador until 1968, and has since been a resident of the United States of America, except for the period from May 1974 to July 1977, when he lived in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. At

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

, he studied under

Hugh Nibley Hugh Winder Nibley (March 27, 1910 – February 24, 2005) was an American scholar and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who was a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) for nearly 50 years. He was a prolif ...

. Learning from Nibley that the Book of Mormon names Shiblon and Shiblom may be derived from the Arabic root ''shibl'', "lion cub," Urrutia connected this to the "Jaguar Cub" imagery of the

Olmec The Olmecs () or Olmec were an early known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 Before the Common Era, BCE during Mesoamerica's Mesoamerican chronolog ...

people.Benjamin Urrutia
"The Name Connection"
'' New Era'', June 1983, 39 Urrutia has also elaborated on Nibley's argument that the word Makhshava, usually translated as "thought," is more correctly translated as "plan." Urrutia has made some contributions to the study of Egyptian Names in the Book of Mormon. Over the years, Urrutia has written and published a number of articles, letters, poems and reviews on matters related to the work of

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

. Benjamin Urrutia contributed stories to every volume of the ''LDSF'' series – anthologies of Science Fiction with LDS themes. He edited the second and third volumes of the series. Urrutia has been a book reviewer since 1970 and a film critic since 1981. As of 2017, he is a book reviewer and the principal film critic for ''The Peaceable Table''. He is a strong advocate of

Christian vegetarianism Christian vegetarianism is the practice of keeping to a Vegetarianism, vegetarian lifestyle for reasons connected to or derived from the Christianity, Christian faith. The three primary reasons are Christian spirituality, spiritual, Nutrition, n ...

Ideas

New Testament and Talmud

Urrutia contends that Rabbi Yeshua Bar Abba was the historical Jesus of Nazareth and was the leader of the successful nonviolent Jewish resistance to

Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; ) was the Roman administration of Judaea (AD 6–135), fifth governor of the Judaea (Roman province), Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official wh ...

's attempt to place Roman eagles—symbols of the worship of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

—on

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, who relates this episode, does not say who the leader of this resistance was, but shortly afterwards states that Pilate had Jesus crucified. (Many scholars believe this passage of Josephus may have been slightly but significantly altered by later editors.) The

Gospel of the Hebrews The Gospel of the Hebrews (), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, is a lost Jewish–Christian gospel. The text of the gospel is lost, with only fragments of it surviving as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writi ...

says that the suggestion to be baptized by John came from the mother and brothers of Jesus, and Jesus himself agreed only reluctantly. Contrary to the common opinion, Urrutia insists that this version must be the authentic one because 1) it is strongly supported by the Criterion of Embarrassment (Jesus changes his mind and agrees to somebody else's idea) and 2) the gospel was produced by the community that included the family of Jesus and therefore is the most likely to include authentic family traditions. A Talmudic legend describes a rabbi who encounters the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

at the gates of Rome, where the Messiah is tending to the wounds of homeless individuals. When asked about the timing of his arrival, the Messiah responds, "Today!" This statement can be interpreted to imply that the expectation of a future arrival of the Messiah may not be necessary, suggesting instead that he is present in the current moment, particularly among those who are homeless, wounded, hungry, and oppressed. In chapter 8 of the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...

, "the Jews who believed in Jesus" state that as children of Abraham, they have never been slaves. However, Jews observing mainstream

Second Temple Judaism Second Temple Judaism is the Judaism, Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE), destruction of Jerusalem in ...

and later

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

recited prayers at

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday and one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt, Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, God in ...

, every

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...

, and throughout the year, evoking the memory of their ancestors having been slaves in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

as told in the biblical

Book of Exodus The Book of Exodus (from ; ''Šəmōṯ'', 'Names'; ) is the second book of the Bible. It is the first part of the narrative of the Exodus, the origin myth of the Israelites, in which they leave slavery in Biblical Egypt through the strength of ...

. This portion of John is likely the fictional creation of an editor unaware of Jewish culture and religion. (Note: John 8:33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone;…” does not belong to the phrase/category of Jesus' comments to the Jews who believed. (30 As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. 31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”) Rather, "They answered him" should be read as the ongoing oppositional faction of Jewish leadership (The Jews who believed, in John 8:31, rightly follows the previous verse, whereas verse 33 continues the context of Jesus' conflict with the unbelieving Jews… (the edit of John 8 by some uninformed redaction is extremely unlikely and the effort to reconcile this is simple, parse verses 31-32 with 29, then continue 33 with the rest of the narrative of Jesus' conversation/conflict with… John 8:3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman… a simpler reading and not requiring later assumptions of redaction.)

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

Urrutia applied the Structuralist theories of

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

to the first chapter of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Forbidden fruit In Abrahamic religions, forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden that God commands mankind Taboo#In religion and mythology, not to eat. In the biblical story, Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the know ...

is a symbolic reference to animal flesh, Uritia offered an additional argument in favor of his exegesis: "Whether the serpent ... is the 'most subtle' of beasts or not, he certainly is a most carnivorous one. If Mr. Serpent taught our ancestors to eat forbidden food, he taught it by example. And nothing he eats is vegan or

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, ), from the Ashke ...

." Urrutia found connections between the Israelite hero

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

and the Greek hero

Theseus Theseus (, ; ) was a divine hero in Greek mythology, famous for slaying the Minotaur. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages. Theseus is sometimes desc ...

. These include carnivorous cattle and the number seven. Urrutia found and pointed out similarities between

Nimrod Nimrod is a Hebrew Bible, biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush (Bible), Cush and therefore the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Sh ...

and pharaoh

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...

(known as ''Nimmuria'' in the Amarna Letters). Urrutia examined Kabbalistic and other sources and found evidence

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

was anciently considered the son of El. Urrutia pointed out parallels between the Nuer's relationship to the Dinka and that of the Israelites to the Canaanites and suggested a glottochronological approach. Urrutia wrote a brief article on the Egyptian religious ritual of the Opening of the Mouth. In it, he traces common themes between the Opening of the Mouth and Psalm 51, such as opening the mouth (or of the lips, in Psalm 51), healing broken bones, and washing the inner organs with special cleansing spices. Urrutia pointed out that there are hints in the Bible that the authors may have known that not all the sons of

Zedekiah Zedekiah ( ; born Mattaniah; 618 BC – after 586 BC) was the twentieth and final King of Judah before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. After the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II deposed king Jec ...

perished in the

Chaldea Chaldea () refers to a region probably located in the marshy land of southern Mesopotamia. It is mentioned, with varying meaning, in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, the Hebrew Bible, and in classical Greek texts. The Hebrew Bible uses the term (''Ka� ...

n invasion.

Ancient languages

The name ''Mormon'' is explained by Urrutia as derived from the Egyptian words ''Mor'' ("love") and ''Mon'' ("firmly established"). In 1984, Urrutia produced the first translation of the "Spangler Nodule," an iron nodule allegedly found in Ohio in 1800 with an inscription carved on it. According to Urrutia, the text says YHWWY (which, Urrutia suggests, may be a variant of the

Tetragrammaton The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...

Contemporary issues

Urrutia was influenced by the Structuralism of

but took exception to the French anthropologist's too-easy acceptance of anti-Mormon slanders. In a review of a book that presents cases of children who have made substantial and even complete recoveries from autism spectrum disorder with a dairy-free diet, Urrutia avers that considering 1) that most humans cannot digest cow's milk and 2) that "an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure," "all parents should cease and desist from feeding cow's milk to their infants and children before they develop autism (not to mention childhood-onset diabetes)."

Reception

A reviewer in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' wrote: "In general, Davenport and scholar Benjamin Urrutia translate as plainly as possible, often giving familiar phrases a contemporary lilt: 'No one can work for two bosses...' Throughout, ''The Logia of Yeshua'' freshens familiar New Testament injunctions, encouraging us to think anew about their meanings." Robert Jonas wrote in the '' Shambhala Sun'': "Davenport and Urrutia must be applauded for their desire to awaken the reader by offering these new, bare translations of Jesus' sayings." Professor Raphael Patai responded to Urrutia's ideas, and the two scholars had a lively dialogue for two issues of ''

American Anthropologist ''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an American organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 m ...

''. See ''American Anthropologist'', December 1972 and August 1973, articles by Raphael Patai.

Publications

* '' The Logia of Yeshua: The Sayings of Jesus''. Translated and edited in collaboration with Guy Davenport (1996).

References

External links

The Peaceable Table
including a number of articles, cartoons, poems, reviews and stories by Benjamin Urrutia, plus this classic interview:

*According to the websit

, there are eight people in the USA named Benjamin Urrutia. This one and seven others.
Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought
website

at Mormon SF Bibliography: Poetry
The Lewis Legacy
Kathryn Lindskoog, The C. S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing June 1, 1997 {{DEFAULTSORT:Urrutia, Benjamin 1950 births People from Guayaquil Living people Ecuadorian film critics American film critics Ecuadorian Latter Day Saints Brigham Young University alumni Ecuadorian people of Basque descent Ecuadorian emigrants to the United States South American biblical scholars