Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
At an amazing S&I address a few years ago, Elder Ballard described past curriculum as well-meaning, but inadequate.
It was only a generation ago that our young people’s access to information about our history, doctrine, and practices was basically limited to materials printed by the Church. Few students came in contact with alternative interpretations. Mostly, our young people lived a sheltered life. Our curriculum at that time, though well-meaning, did not prepare students for today
A friend asked me for some references on how Evangelicals think about scripture, so I naturally turned it into a blogpost. Let me introduce this with a few basic points about definitions and history. Continue reading
Remnants of the Jerusalem temple
BYU has published a short piece by Judge Thomas Griffiths, called “Imagination and the Temple.” Continue reading
My 2019 FAIRMormon Conference presentation is up now, here. There’s a lot in the footnotes as well.
The takeaway is this: Many LDS have unsustainably fundamentalist assumptions about the nature of revelation, prophets, and scripture. The conflict these cause sometimes leads to a loss of faith, instead of recognizing and reexamining the assumptions. Continue reading
Red brick store in Nauvoo, where the first endowments were done on May 4, 1842.
However the divine inspiration or divine origin of the Torah might have worked, it apparently did not involve starting with an absolutely clean slate.– James Kugel
The red brick store in Nauvoo, where the first endowments were done on May 4, 1842.
If you follow me, you know I talk a lot about the importance of recognizing genre in scripture: podcast here, Sperry symposium here, posts here, here, etc.
Evolution is also a topic I address with some frequency, such as here (a BYU guest lecture) and here (in context of “what prophets know”).
I also talk a lot about Genesis, how and why it’s historically been misread (e.g. my presentation here and accompanying post here), as well as the parallels in Moses and Abraham (see here for my FAIR talk transcript, and here for a fireside video.)
And I’m writing a book on Genesis 1 where I tie a lot of this stuff together… but I’ve left a lot of hardest writing for last, including my chapter on the temple. So, let’s talk. Continue reading
If you’ve followed me at all, you know I’m a huge booster of reading the Bible in a modern translation along with the KJV. I’m going to highlight one friend’s experience below, but if you’ve discovered the joys of other translations like he has, you might wonder why I say along with the KJV.
There are a few good reasons. Continue reading
2 Corinthians constitutes the first preserved “sequel” in Paul’s letters. In fact, Paul wrote three or possibly four letters to Corinth. Some scholars speculate 2 Corinthians is actually an edited copy of two letters smushed together, based on differing tone and structure. (There’s a break in 2:14 that picks back up in 7:5). In fact, the whole thing is a bit confused. This is one of those letters that emphasizes the fact that we get only one side of the conversation, and have have to muddle through in trying to piece it together. We know Paul’s travel plans to revisit Corinth had changed, that something or things significant had happened since the last time he had written. Let’s look at a few things about the entirety of the letter, then some specifics. Continue reading
Beginning September 12, I’ll be teaching a class called “Old Testament for Pre-missionaries” in a Phoenix Stake Center, Thursdays at 7pm. The class is open to anyone, including high-school seniors. It is neither an official Seminary nor Institute class, and thus will receive no credit for either.
As this is a one-semester class, we’ll read selectively through parts of the Old Testament in connection with the New. The texts and themes of the class have been selected to meet several needs particular to those preparing to serve missions; I’m assuming minimal familiarity. The selected texts/discussions will provide key information for understanding/teaching: Continue reading
The scriptures contain a number of food metaphors. I’ve been working for a few years on an article talking about them: “milk before solid food,” “feast upon the words of Christ,” etc. But there are also some good ones in recent LDS tradition. Notably, Elder Holland gave a great talk called “A Teacher Come from God.”
The summary takeaway is that
We must revitalize and reenthrone superior teaching in the Church—at home, from the pulpit, in our administrative meetings, and surely in the classroom.
Where do we get superior teaching of the scriptures from? Well, let’s talk about food metaphors. Continue reading
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