FairMormon, Some Papers, and Books

My image.

My image.

My FairMormon presentation reiterated parts of two previous papers I have presented. That text should be online soon (as I understand.) Below I offer the very rough presentation text from the two previous papers.

The society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology paper, with lots of my raw material. LINK.

My MSH paper,”Science, Scripture, And Secularism: Rethinking some Inherited Assumptions.” LINK

Below are some books I would recommend. (These are, of course, not LDS, not approved by the Church, I have some disagreements, etc., but generally still good to read.)

In general, for presuppositions, see Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

The intellectual history of creationism, evolution, and the “modern synthesis”

Cosmology in the Hebrew Bible

On Genesis

See my post here.

For wrestling with the nature of scripture and the OT, I highly recommend 

For Bibles and Study Bibles, see

  • The “recommendations for personal study” section of my article here
  • My post here (Old Testament specific)
  • My post here (New Testament specific)

I was asked about a book in the Q&A, Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible, which I recommend along with his The Bible with Sources Revealed. In that connection, I mentioned David Bokovoy’s book, Authoring the Old Testament, from Kofford Press.

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1 Comment

  1. I just finished Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes and Walton’s book on Genesis 1. They were excellent; thank you for the recommendations. Walton’s book was particularly valuable to me in that it pretty much put to rest any concerns I had about how to read it. In retrospect, I find it hard not to think “Oh, this is so obvious, why didn’t I see this before”. It also makes crystal clear how fallacious all the common readings really are.

    I did find it intriguing that Dr. Walton still accepts the concept of creation ex nihilo, considering that he just demolished the readings that it’s based on. Are there other passages that creedal Christians rely on to support ex nihilo? Or is it simply a basic philosophical stance that comes about because of their worldview? Or is it that ex nihilo arose out of this reading and now it is a fundamental part of their worldview, bolstered by the philosophical arguments they’ve developed to defend it?