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Fireside books and references

October 25, 2017 /

1myxx4These are books/authors I quote or allude to in the slides of my fireside/Sperry Symposium presentation. The actual paper has many more references, of course. I’ll be posting it in entirety, first in chunks as posts, and then as a complete pdf file. What is listed below will also overlap with my Recommended Resource for the Old Testament posts, coming in November.

Becoming “Competent Readers,” Learning the “Rules of the Game,” Reading with Ancient Eyes

The Bible is Weird

Study Bibles

  • Harper-Collins Study Bible– Based on the New Revised Standard Version, this is often assigned for New Testament 101, or Hebrew Bible 101 at colleges. The publisher is the Society of Biblical Literature, and translation and notes are done by a variety of scholars, so there’s little religious bias.
  • NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible–  Based on the conservative Evangelical translation New International Version, this translation is demonstrably quite biased; it cheats. However, the notes (at least, the OT notes I’ve checked) are great. As you might guess from the title, the notes and essays focus on the cultural backgrounds, those things ancient audiences (likely) knew which moderns don’t. Review here. It’s edited by John Walton, an Evangelical scholar I like, and my understanding is that the notes and essays are derived or shortened from this stand-alone series. EDIT: I just learned that you can get these notes with the New King James Version (NKJV) translation, instead of the NIV. I strongly recommend that over the NIV. The NKJV is basically an update to the English of the KJV, so it retains most of the archaicness and problems of the KJV text. But that’s preferable over the deceptiveness of the NIV’s modern (but strongly biased) translation.
  • Jewish Study Bible– This translation and notes/essays are all written by Jewish scholars, which means it only covers the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It’s a fantastic resource that will enlighten and challenge (since, for example, Jews are unlikely to interpret Isaiah as messianic prophecies of Jesus.) I enjoy contrasting its views with those of the NIV.
  • NET Bible-The advantage of this is it’s entirely free and online at http://Netbible.org, and in free App form, called Lumina. There are thousands and thousands of footnotes, often about translation or background.

Hebrew-focused translations with notes. 

On Bible translations, and using Free Greek and Hebrew tools, see

On genre, listen/read my podcast here.

Others Quoted/alluded to–

As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.

“Reading the Old Testament in Context” Fireside in San Antonio Tx, Nov 11

October 4, 2017 /

Screen Shot 2017-09-30 at 9.55.57 PMMy Oct. 8 fireside in Claremont will be repeated in San Antonio, Tx on Saturday November 11 at 6pm, in the chapel at 6240 UTSA Blvd, San Antonio, 78249.  It’s on “Reading the Old Testament in Context” and is a version of my Sperry Symposium presentation which will be in Provo, October 28. The firesides and presentation are an adapted form of the 25-page paper I submitted for Sperry, so the paper has some things the presentations won’t and vice-versa. I’ve decided to take that paper, and will just post it in sections here as blogposts, starting in mid-November.  Continue reading

Repeat of “Reading the Old Testament in Context” Fireside, in Rochester MN

September 30, 2017 /

Screen Shot 2017-09-30 at 9.55.57 PMMy Oct. 8 fireside in Claremont will be repeated in Rochester MN on October 22. (Flyer) It’s on “Reading the Old Testament in Context” and is a version of my Sperry Symposium presentation which will be in Provo, October 28. The firesides and presentation are an adapted form of the 25-page paper I submitted for Sperry, so the paper has some things the presentations won’t and vice-versa. So I’ve decided to take that paper, and will just post it in sections here as blogposts, starting in November.  Continue reading

Fireside Oct. 8 on Reading the Old Testament in Context

September 23, 2017 /

Screen Shot 2017-09-23 at 10.34.46 AMIf you live in the Los Angeles area, I’ll be giving a fireside on October 8, entitled “Reading the Old Testament in Context.” Flyer (PDF).

As you might guess, this presentation is oriented more towards understanding the Old Testament, reading it like an Israelite or a Hebrew scholar, than devotional or personal application readings of the Old Testament. Those aren’t entirely separate categories, but I assume most Mormons are experienced in the latter and not so much in the former.

I will talk about becoming a “competent reader” (a quasi-technical term) and introduce four kinds of context, moving from the simplest to the most complex. For each of these, I have numerous examples from the Bible, modern parallels to help drive the point home, and study suggestions/questions.

  • Textual Context– By this I mean we need to read what comes before and what comes after a line or verse, especially across verse and chapter boundaries. Those divisions are largely medieval impositions on the ancient text and sometimes break up stories or sections. If you start a book or movie in the middle of one section, and then end randomly in the middle of another, you’re not really getting the whole story as it is meant to be communicated.
  • Historical Context– This includes elements of the historical setting which are relevant. Because the Old Testament authors spoke to their contemporaries who shared this knowledge, they did not provide explanations about or identify people, places, customs, laws, or events. These things went without being said, but modern readers need them to be made explicit in order to understand
  • Linguistic Context– What should we know about language of the Old Testament to better understand it? This includes aspects of both Bible translation from Hebrew/Aramaic into English and usage characteristics of Hebrew. I single out three: poetry, paranomasia/wordplay, and allusion.
  •  Literary Context– This is the most complex section, where I introduce the idea of genre. We experience this natively today, with books, movies, restaurants, which all come in different kinds, each with its own conventions and expectations; You know what kind of clothes to wear and what kind of food to expect if I say “burger joint,” you know the conventions and truth-claims of the Romantic Comedy genre. But we rarely understand that this kind of thing applies to scripture as well.  I talk about the Bible as a library of different kinds of writings, a collected edition or anthology of different genres, set off by genre markers. I drill down into the historical genre, arguing that modern expectations of historical writing are largely journalistic ideals (i.e. verbatim quotes, neutral reporting, a priority on historical accuracy), but ancient history-writers did not remotely follow these conventions. What were the conventions of ancient history-writing? I cover much of the same ground as in my LDSPerspectives podcast and elsewhere on the blog, but more formally and organized, with citations and examples.

I’ll make the text of this available one way or another in late October or early November, as part of my gearing up for Old Testament in January. I have several things in mind for the blog, so check back. In the meantime, listen to the podcast and watch my screencast about the rediscovery of the world of the Old Testament.

As always, you can help me pay my tuition here. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.

Evolution and the Fall

August 28, 2017 /

I received a trio of books recently, so I’m providing some brief thoughts on what I’ve read so far.

fallFirst, Evolution and the Fall is an anthology of essays edited by William Cavanaugh and James Smith. The latter was featured on the MI Podcast talking about secularism and his book How Not to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Of course, I had just submitted the final version of an article on the nature and translation of Adam in Genesis 2-3 from the 2013 Mormon Theology Seminar on Genesis 2-3. And of course, that meant there was great material in this book I wish I had seen earlier. The problem, as the evangelical editors state, is this. Continue reading

On Elder Hamula

August 13, 2017 /

You have likely heard that a member of the 70 was recently released and excommunicated. Elder Hamula was the mission president of a member of the bishopric who spoke in the ward I visited today. He reminded me of two things.

First, I have sometimes wryly remarked that perhaps Mormons would be less inclined to put Church leaders on high pedestals if they fell from them more often, since the last Apostle excommunicated was Elder Richard R. Lyman in 1943. In all honesty, I’m quite surprised this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. George Q. Cannon saw a silver lining in such excommunications.

Do not… put your trust in man though he be a Bishop, an Apostle or a President; if you do, they will fail you at some time or place; they will do wrong or seem to, and your support be gone; but if we lean on God, He never will fail us. When men and women depend on God alone and trust in Him alone, their faith will not be shaken if the highest in the Church should step aside. … Perhaps it is His own design that faults and weaknesses should appear in high places in order that His Saints may learn to trust in Him and not in any man or woman

– Elder George Q. Cannon, as quoted and elaborated on here by a LDS historian. My underline.

So, let’s not speculate, but refocus our faith where it ought to be.

Second, I just feel bad for the guy. The only thing worse than making serious mistakes is having it publicly known that You Really Screwed Up. Whatever you yourself do, in person, on the internet, etc. take thought. How would you feel if your words or actions were known publicly? I can’t find it at the moment, but on my mission, I found a teaching from Joseph F. smith to the extent of “never do anything in private that you would be ashamed of in public.”

There but for the grace of God go you and I.

Announcement: MI Seminar Conference on Thursday

August 2, 2017 /

Screen Shot 2017-08-01 at 11.23.59 PMThe Maxwell Institute Seminar draws to an end with a public conference this Thursday. I’ll be speaking at 9:40 on Mormonism as Rough Stone Rolling: Towards a Theology of Encountering the World.

The full schedule is below.

 

“Mormonism Engages the World”

Thursday, August 3
9:30 AM to 4:30 PM MST

Brigham Young University
Joseph F. Smith Building
Education in Zion Theater

Co-sponsored by the Mormon Scholars Foundation and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

MORNING SESSION

9:30 AM
Welcome and Invocation

9:40 AM
Ben Spackman
“Mormonism as a Rough Stone Rolling: Towards a Theology of Encountering the World”

10:10 AM
Amber Taylor
“A Patriotism of Peace: Suffrage, Americanization, and the Peace Movement among Early Twentieth-Century Mormon Women”

10:40 AM
Jessica Nelson
“World War II and Making Modern Mormonism”

11:10 AM
Richelle Wilson
“The Disenchantment of Callings: From Consecration to Delegation”

11:40 AM
Aubrie Mema
“The Suffering Christ: Finding the Tragic in Mormon Art”

12:10–1:25
LUNCH BREAK

AFTERNOON SESSION

1:30 PM
Randy Powell
“Savin’ for a Rainy Day: Mormon Food Storage and the Survivalist Movement”

2:00 PM
Adam Brasich
“‘An Everlasting Order’: Fundamentalist Mormonism’s Response to the Great Depression”

2:30 PM
Gavin Feller
“Modest with a Little Mystery: Television, Swimsuits, and Mormonism in 1950s America”

3:00 PM
Liz Brocious
“Invitation to a ‘Mix and Mingle’: Bringing a Mormon Theology of Agency in Conversation with a Secular Theory of Self”

3:30 PM
Ty Mansfield
“‘Eternal Companions’: Orders of Priesthood, Victorian Romanticism, and Shifting Narratives in Mormon Discourse on Marriage and Family”

4:00 PM
Norma Calabrese
“Mormonism: (The Challenge to Become) a Glocal Church in a Globalized World”

“Glocal” btw, is a combination of global and local.

As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.

Public domain, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8577&picture=old-books

Kenton Sparks on Genre

July 30, 2017 /
Public domain, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8577&picture=old-books

Public domain, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8577&picture=old-books

In the LDS Perspectives podcast, I alluded to this passage from Kenton Sparks’ section in Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?: Three Views on the Bible’s Earliest Chapters. (This post contains Amazon Affiliate links)

I think he captures very concisely and clearly the nature of genre; A genre is a pattern, established by identifying the characteristics it has in common with other similar things. This is why it’s so important to study ancient Near Eastern literature outside the Bible. By putting the Bible in conversation with texts from roughly the same time and place, we gain more examples and are  better able to identify shared characteristics. (Sparks does this here in a more academic handbook style.) Notably, many of these texts were undiscovered or unable to be read and understood until the last century. (See my screencast on the rediscovery of the ancient Near East.) Continue reading

Ben contemplates his words, at Petra.

My LDS Perspectives Podcast on Genre

July 19, 2017 /
Ben contemplates his words, at Petra.

Ben contemplates his words, at Petra.

I was interviewed last year for the LDS Perspectives podcast, which I recommend. Therein, I allude to a lot of different books and papers, linked below. I also cited John Widtsoe on genre, from his 1930 book In Search of Truth available online here.  Widtsoe said,

“As in all good books every literary device is used in the Bible that will drive the lesson home. It contains history, poetry and allegory. These are not always distinguishable, now that the centuries have passed away since the original writing.”

Continue reading