The standard guide to the Atonement is the Gospel of John. Four solid chapters, 14-17, are devoted to showing that the Atonement is literal; it is real. It is not surprising that John is the only New Testament character besides the Lord who is named in the Book of Mormon. The clergy have ever insisted that John is the most “spiritual” book in the Bible, instructing us in things that are true without being real. It is true that John is the most other-worldly of books, but it is also the most literal. John himself testifies to “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1 [John 1:1]). And it is John who reports what the Lord said on the subject: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness” (John 3:11 [John 2:2]). “And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony” (John 3:32 [John 3:3]). How can those who would make ghostly abstractions of such passages claim that they are receiving the witness? We need only compare the technical and legalistic and sectarian language of some of the epistles of the Apostles with the simple straightforward statements of John to see why the doctors of the schools refused to take him at face value. In their world no one could be that naive; John can’t possibly expect us to take literally what he says, no matter how strongly he seems to insist on it.
But in John there is no room left for ceremony or metaphysics; it is all real and it is all in the other world. “Jesus raised his eyes to the sky and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee; . . .
The Intercessory Prayer
The last words spoken in the upper room are addressed to the Father, not to the eleven: a prayer for himself, then for the men in front of him, then for everyone who would ever believe through what they said, “that they may be agreed as one, as we are.”
Note. The Joseph Smith Translation leaves this chapter entirely alone: Kent P. Jackson’s parallel-column edition of the JST prints no change in the whole prayer. What the Covenant Christian Edition does change is a single word, five times over: the disciples are not made “one” but “agreed as one.”
? How to read this edition
The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
1Jesus spoke these words, and lifted up his eyes to Heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you, 2as you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. 3And this is life eternal: that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you gave me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was.
6I have manifested your name unto the men whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now they have known that all things whatsoever you have given me are of you, 8for I have given unto them the words which you gave me and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from you; and they have believed that you did send me. 9I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10And all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be agreed as one as we are. 12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13And now come I to you. And these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17Sanctify them through your truth; your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
20Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word, 21that they all may be agreed as one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be agreed as one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be agreed as one even as we are one — 23I in them, and you in me — that they may be made perfect in agreement as one, and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them as you have loved me. 24Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. 26And I have declared unto them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
The Greek Shows It Should Be “Agreed”
The Glory Which Thou Gavest Me, to Make Them One
The Lectures on Faith were given to the elders’ school in Kirtland in the winter of 1834–35 and printed in 1835 as the first part of the Doctrine and Covenants, whose preface Joseph Smith signed with the rest of the committee that compiled it. The seventh lecture works through the last part of this prayer verse by verse (vv. 20–24). It reads the oneness Jesus asks for as the Son giving the disciples the glory the Father gave him, in order to make them one with the Father and the Son; and it reads the greater works of John 14:12 as done in eternity, where the disciples behold his glory. The fifth lecture’s catechism cites verses 20–21 for the same point, and its question closes the entry.
Lectures on Faith, Lecture Seventh, ¶¶11–15, and Lecture Fifth, question 16, in Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, 1835), pp. 67–70, 58 · canonized in the CCE as Teachings and Commandments 110 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Teachings and Commandments 110, Lecture 7:11–15; Lecture 5:22 (question 16); page 58 of the 1835 printing, where question 16 stands.
This clearly sets forth the propriety of the Savior’s saying, recorded in John’s testimony, 4:12: Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these, because I go unto the Father.— This taken in connection with some of the sayings in the Savior’s prayer, recorded in the 17th chapter, gives great clearness to his expressions: He says, in the 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24: Neither pray I for these alone; but for them also who shall believe on me through their words; that they all may be one, as thou, Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedest me before the foundation of the world.
All these sayings put together, give as clear an account of the state of the glorified saints as language could give—The works that Jesus done they were to do, and greater works than those which he done among them should they do, and that because he went to the Father. He does not say that they should do these works in time; but they should do greater works because he went to the Father. He says, in the 24th verse: Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory. These sayings, taken in connection, make it very plain, that the greater works, which those that believed on his name, were to do, were to be done in eternity, where he is going, and where they should behold his glory. He had said, in another part of his prayer, that he desired of his Father, that those who believed on him should be one in him, as he, and the Father were one in each other: Neither pray I for these (the apostles) alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their words; that they all may be one: that is, they who believe on him through the apostles’ words, as well as the apostles themselves: that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee: that they also may be one in us.
What language can be plainer than this? The Savior surely intended to be understood by his disciples: and he so spake that they might understand him; for he declares to his Father, in language not to be easily mistaken, that he wanted his disciples, even all of them, to be as himself and the Father: for as he and the Father were one, so they might be one with them. And what is said in the 22nd verse is calculated to more firmly establish this belief, if it needs any thing to establish it. He says, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. As much as to say, that unless they have the glory which the Father had given him, they could not be one with them: For he says he had given them the glory that the Father had given him, that they might be one; or in other words, to make them one.
This fills up the measure of information on this subject, and shows most clearly, that the Savior wished his disciples to understand, that they were to be partakers with him in all things: not even his glory excepted.
It is scarcely necessary here to observe what we have previously noticed: That the glory which the Father and the Son have, is because they are just and holy beings; and that if they were lacking in one attribute or perfection which they have, the glory which they have, never could be enjoyed by them; for it requires them to be precisely what they are in order to enjoy it: and if the Savior gives this glory to any others, he must do it in the very way set forth in his prayer to his Father: by making them one with him, as he and the Father are one.— In so doing he would give them the glory which the Father has given him; and when his disciples are made one with the Father and the Son, as the Father and the Son are one, who cannot see the propriety of the Savior’s saying, The works which I do, shall they do; and greater works than these shall they do, because I go to the Father?
Q. Does the believer in Christ Jesus, through the gift of the Spirit, become one with the Father and the Son, as the Father and the Son are one? A. They do. John 17:20, 21. Neither pray I for these (the apostles) alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Until He Shall Know God, Whom to Know Is Eternal Life
The seventh lecture closes on the words of verse 3. It is not expounding the prayer here: its subject is faith, and it argues that knowing God, which is more than believing in him, is obtained by faith, and that the one who has faith will come at last to “know God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has sent: whom to know is eternal life.” It is shown for that overlap with the verse. (The 1835 printing numbers these paragraphs 16 and 18 of a second run; the Covenant Christian Edition numbers them 7:18 and 7:20.)
Lectures on Faith, Lecture Seventh, ¶16 and ¶18 (second numbering), in Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, 1835), pp. 72–74 · canonized in the CCE as Teachings and Commandments 110 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Teachings and Commandments 110, Lecture 7:18; Lecture 7:20.
These sayings put together, show the Apostle’s views, most clearly, so as to admit of no mistake on the mind of any individual. He says that all things that pertain to life and godliness were given unto them through the knowledge of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And if the question is asked, how were they to obtain the knowledge of God? (for there is a great difference between believing in God and knowing him: knowledge implies more than faith. And notice, that all things that pertain to life and godliness, were given through knowledge of God;) the answer is given, through faith they were to obtain this knowledge; and having power by faith to obtain the knowledge of God, they could with it obtain all other things which pertain to life and godliness. …
… For where faith is, there will the knowledge of God be also, with all things which pertain thereto— revelations, visions, and dreams, as well as every other necessary thing in order that the possessors of faith may be perfected and obtain salvation; for God must change, otherwise faith will prevail with him. And he who possesses it will, through it, obtain all necessary knowledge and wisdom, until he shall know God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has sent: whom to know is eternal life: Amen.
Made One in Us as We Are One
A year before the Sermon in the Grove, preaching at the temple stand in June 1843, Joseph Smith used the same verses the same way. The teachers of the day, he said, make the Father, Son and Holy Ghost one body; but Jesus prays that the disciples be made one as he and the Father are one, and if that meant being stuffed into one person, it would make a great God. Switch to “Scribal accounts” for Wilford Woodruff’s and Willard Richards’s notes.
Discourse, 11 June 1843, Nauvoo · History, 1838–1856, vol. D-1, pp. 1574–1575 (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 311–312); reported by Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards · Joseph Smith Papers ↗There is much said about God and the Godhead. The Scriptures say there are Gods many, and Lords many but to us there is but one living and true God, and the heaven of heavens could not contain him, for he took the liberty to go into other heavens the teachers of the day say that the father is God, the son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and they are all in one body and one God. Jesus prays that those that the father had given him out of the World might be made one in us as we are one, but if they were to be stuffed into one person, it would make a great big God. If I were to testify that the Christian World were wrong on this point my testimony would be true Peter and Stephen testify that they saw the son of man standing on the right hand of God, any person that has seen the heavens opened, knows that there are three personages in the heavens who hold the keys of power and one presides over all
If any man attempts to refute what I am about to say, after I have made it plain, let him be accursed. As the Father hath power in himself, so hath the son power in himself, to lay down his life and take it again, so he has a body of his own, the Son doeth what he hath seen the Father do, then the father hath some day laid down his life and taken it again, so he has a body of his own, each one will be in his own body and yet the Sectarian world believe the body of the son, is stuffed into his Father’s.
Eternal Life Is to Know the Only True God
At the funeral of Judge Elias Higbee in August 1843, Joseph Smith spoke of the sealing of families, and closed his word to the mourners with the third verse of this prayer: to know God is eternal life, and he tied the knowing to being sealed. Only Martha Jane Coray’s report carries the verse; switch to “Scribal accounts” to compare what the other three reporters kept of the same passage on sealing.
Discourse, 13 August 1843, Nauvoo (funeral of Elias Higbee) · Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, Notebook (Words of Joseph Smith, “13 August 1843 (1)”) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗A measure of this sealing is to confirm upon their head in common with Elijah the doctrine of Election or the covenant with Abraham— which which when a Father & Mother of a family have entered into their children who have not transgressed are secured by the seal wherewith the Parents have been sealed— And this is the Oath of God unto our Father Abraham and this doctrine shall stand forever— Mourners: I exhort you to do as your Father and husband would direct— be sealed by the by the servants of God— Eternal life is to know the only true God and his son Jesus without which there is no salvation
This Is Eternal Life: To Be Sealed Up
In March 1844, preaching on the spirits of Elias, Elijah and Messiah, Joseph Smith read the third verse of this prayer as a promise to be obtained: to know God and his Son is to be sealed up unto eternal life. James Burgess alone records the verse; switch to “Scribal accounts” for how Wilford Woodruff and Franklin D. Richards set down the same teaching on making one’s calling and election sure.
Discourse, 10 March 1844, Nauvoo · James Burgess Notebook (Words of Joseph Smith, 10 March 1844) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Make your calling and election sure go on from grace to grace untill you obtain a promise from God for yourselves that you shall have eternal life, this is eternal life to know God and his son Jesus Christ, it is to be sealed up unto eternal life and obtain a promise for our posterity. Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, this is the power of Elijah to seal or bind or turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, sealed against all sin but the sin of sheding innocent blood and the sin against the holy ghost.
This Prayer Is the Proof: The Sermon in the Grove
On the last Sunday morning he ever preached doctrine (eleven days before Carthage, with the Nauvoo Expositor’s charge of “a plurality of Gods” hanging over him), Joseph took his opponents’ own proof text and read it back to them. If the Father and the Son are one being, he said, then this prayer would cram the whole church into that same being. Read the Greek: the word is agreed. Three reporters took the sermon down; all three have him saying it.
Discourse, 16 June 1844 (Sunday morning), Grove east of the Temple, Nauvoo, Illinois · History, 1838–1856, vol. F-1, p. 103 (History of the Church 6:473–479; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 369–376); reported by Thomas Bullock, William P. McIntire and George Laub · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Many men say there is one God— the Father, the Son, and the Holy ghost, are only one God! I say, that is a strange God any how— three in one, and one in three! it is a curious organization. ‘Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me.’ ‘Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.’ All are to be crammed into one God according to sectarianism; it would make the biggest God in all the world; he would be a wonderful big God; he would be a giant or a monster.
I want to read the text to you myself. ‘I am agreed with the Father, and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one’. The Greek shews that it should be agreed. ‘Father, I pray for them which thou hast given me out of the world, and not for these alone; but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be agreed; as thou, Father, art agreed with me, and I with thee, that they also may be agreed with us’, and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God, and he as his Father.
To Know the Only True God
Two months earlier, at the funeral of King Follett, Joseph had made the third verse of this prayer the whole of his subject: that eternal life is not a place but an acquaintance, and that the knowing begins the moment a man learns how to approach.
Discourse, 7 April 1844, Grove east of the Temple, Nauvoo, Illinois (the King Follett discourse) · “Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 15 August 1844, p. 615 (History of the Church 6:302–317; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342–362); reported by Thomas Bullock, William Clayton and Willard Richards · Joseph Smith Papers ↗When we begin to learn in this way, we begin to learn the only true God, and what kind of a being we have got to worship. When we know how to come to him, he begins to unfold the heavens to us and tell us all about it. When we are ready to come to him, he is ready to come to us.
Here Then Is the Sense in Which We Are One
Nibley read John 17 as the most literal chapter in the most literal gospel: no ceremony, no metaphysics, all of it real and all of it in the other world. Working from the Greek he found that the eleventh verse has no direct object at all, and that the verb Jesus uses is the one for testing by trial; which put the whole prayer, for him, inside the temple on the Day of Atonement.
Was the world then to be converted? No, says John, but they have to be given a chance: “Who of you can charge me with being wrong (hamartias)? If I am speaking the truth, why won’t you believe me? You cannot hear my teaching because you are from your father, the devil, and you want to engage in his lustful practices. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth” (John 8:44 [John 6:15], 46). That goes back to the drama in the premortal existence: “If God was your Father you would love me. For I come from the Father and I am going back”
(John 8:42 [John 6:15]). This constant reference to place and motion in John has ever been a perplexity to theologians, who maintain that God must be everywhere, but John will not allow that: “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. . . . Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice [they are sorrowing because they do not understand it], because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. . . . Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:25 [John 9:9], 28, 30). How are we to avoid seeing the whole atonement in the other world when we read, “Father, concerning what thou hast given me, what I want is that wherever I am they too might be with me that they might behold my glory which thou gavest me, because thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24 [John 9:21]). They are going back to that premortal glory. “And I have made known to them thy name, and I shall make known that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them as I also in them” (John 17:26 [John 9:21]).
There are more than a dozen enlightening discourses on the Atonement in the Book of Mormon.100 None is more remarkable than the impressive epitome contained in a single verse, the conclusion of Enos’s movingly personal story: “I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest. And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality; and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father. Amen” (Enos 1:27 [Enos 1:7]).
The Prayer Was Prayed in the Holy of Holies
Barker sets John 17 in the temple, where she says it belongs: this is the high priest’s prayer on the Day of Atonement, spoken by one about to re-enter the holy of holies. And she reads its unity the same way Joseph did: not a merging of substance, but the covenant bond of love that made the disciples, together, the presence of the Lord on earth.
The Deuteronomists also denied the ancient belief that the LORD was seen in human form, what the Christians would later call incarnation. Isaiah saw the LORD enthroned as the King, the LORD of hosts (Isa.6.5 [Isa. 2:2]) and John said this had been a vision of the One who was incarnate as Jesus (John 12.41 [John 8:4]). Ezekiel saw ‘the likeness of a human form’ enthroned in radiant glory (Ezek.1.26-28 [Ezek. 1:6-7]).
Daniel saw a man clothed in linen and girded with a golden sash, which was the dress of a high priest (Dan.10.5 [Dan. 10:2] c.f. Rev.1.13 [Rev. 1:5]). When Hippolytus wrote his commentary on Daniel, about 200 CE, he said that the man in linen was the LORD ‘not yet indeed as perfect man, but with appearance and form of man...’ The Deuteronomists, however, said that no divine form was seen, even when Moses received the ten commandments: ‘The LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice’ (Deut.4.12 [Deut. 2:3]). The older account of Sinai was very different: ‘They saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness’ (Exod.24.10). The people who transmitted the texts that became the Hebrew Scriptures tried to suppress the older belief that the LORD appeared in human form, despite the testimony of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and yet Christian commentators such as John and Hippolytus knew the significance of the visions of a human form.
Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 had this temple setting. He and his disciples knew of the glory of the holy of holies and what it represented, they knew of the conflicting beliefs about the angels in the holy of holies, and they knew that the LORD had appeared in human form as the king. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us... we have beheld his glory...’ (John 1.14 [John 1:2]). Jesus’ prayer assumed the older beliefs: he and his Father were One, he and his disciples would be One, and those whom the disciples brought into the community would also become One (John 17.20 [John 9:21]). Jesus had almost completed his time as the human presence of the LORD: ‘I have glorified thee on earth’; ‘I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world’ (John 17.4 [John 9:19], 6) and he was preparing to return to the state whence he had come: Day One. ‘The Father and I are one [thing]’
Both meanings of the Shema’, or perhaps we should say the full meaning of the Shema‘, underlies Jesus’ teaching about the great commandment in response to a question from the scribes. After reciting the Shema‘, he interpreted it to mean loving the LORD, and loving your neighbour (Mark 12.28-31 [Mark 5:44]). The unity of the one LORD was a bond of love that united a person to the LORD, and people to each other, in other words, it was the older covenant based on loving kindness. This understanding of the Shema’ also underlies Jesus’ high priestly prayer: Jesus and the Father were One - the claim of the ancient kings in Jerusalem; and the unity of the angels in heaven was the unity of the disciples in earth, who were collectively, the presence of the LORD. ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matt.18.20 [Matt. 9:14]) shows that the Christians shared this belief. Gathering in the name of the LORD meant gathering as his presence, being his angels on earth. The unity of the disciples on earth would be proof that Jesus had been sent from heaven: ‘I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me. . (John 17.23 [John 9:21]). The bond was love, the sign that they were already living life within the ancient covenant, the life of the holy of holies (John 13.34-35 [John 9:5]; 1 John 3.13-14 [John 2:2]): This declaration is repeated: the first concerns the shared glory of the holy of holies, and the second concerns the shared love.22 hina that they may all be one; kathōs even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, hina that they may also be in us, hina so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.- The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them. (John 17.21-22 [John 9:21]a)
Thou hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. (John 17.22 [John 9:21]b-23).
Participation in the divine was sharing in the divine love and receiving the divine glory; and so Jesus prayed: ‘May [they] be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given to me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world’ (John 17.24 [John 9:21]). : The disciples would become perfectly one. The Greek verb here is teleioō eis hen, complete/make perfect into one. The Hebrew equivalent would have been is tāmam, make complete into one. The words of Jesus here are very similar to the Community Rule at Qumran (1QS), which describes the covenant of ḥesedh that bound the members together ‘to be joined as one by/ in the wise counsel of God, ’el, and to conduct themselves in/as his presence tāmîm’, a word that has no single equivalent in English. It implies perfection and unity, completeness. There is an ambiguity, maybe intentional, in the word translated ‘before his presence’ since it can also mean ‘as his presence’. The community were to live in a unity of perfection, and they had to love all the sons of light, those who enjoyed divine illumination and so shared the light of the holy of holies. They were the divine presence.
Those who walked tāmîm would see the face/presence of the LORD in the holy of holies, just as Jesus prayed that his disciples would see him in glory (John 17.24 [John 9:21]; c.f. Rev.22.4 [Rev. 8:14]). The Community Rule expands the high priestly blessing: ‘May the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make his face/presence shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the LORD lift up his face/presence upon you and give you peace (Num.6.24-26 [Num. 4:7]): For the community/unity of tāmîm, the divine presence would enlighten their heart/mind with the wisdom of that gave life, and would graciously bestow the knowledge of eternity (1QS II). Those who walked tāmîm were part of the covenant of eternal unity (1QS III); they would learn the knowledge of the Most High and the wisdom of the sons of heaven.
God had chosen them for/as the everlasting covenant, and all the glory of Adam would be theirs (1QSIV).
Ellipses mark omissions within Barker’s own sentences.