Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is, ironically, relatively young. I’ve written about its origins at Religion&Politics (start in paragraph 4), with a follow-up at Times&Seasons. A recent article in Scientific American highlights the arrival of Young Earth Creationism in Europe.
I take issue with one paragraph. Continue reading
A real character study in making bad decisions.
I originally wrote this about 10 years ago, reposted it five years ago, and since I mentioned it in Church today, thought it merited a repost. Continue reading
My scripture bookshelf
Living in New York for six years, I developed the habit of looking for new housing. New Yorkers are constantly on the hunt for a deal on a bigger place, a cheaper place, a better place. For comparison, we lived in a 700-ft2 apartment in Brooklyn for $1500/month and considered ourselves lucky. Now when visiting Utah, my wife and I and her family sometimes do the Parade of Homes in Salt Lake City, or St. George. Now, “Utah” is not always a good proxy for “Mormons,” and the Parade of Homes even less so, but every time we go, I have the same gripe at virtually every house— “There are massive TVs in every room, but no bookshelves anywhere! They’ve got a Home Theater room, but no library. They’ve got built-ins, but no built-in bookshelves! Do these people not read?! Is there really a market for wealthy illiterates?!”
I thought of this recently while reading Darwin’s Ghost’s: The Secret History of Evolution. It details Al-Jahiz, a 9th-century Muslim scholar living in Basra, who had some ideas like Darwin, though less developed. But it was the world Jahiz lived in that struck me.
“Wealthy patrons built elaborate palaces, libraries, and gardens in Baghdad and lavishly endowed hospitals, but they displayed their wealth most ostentatiously in competing to commission translations as a demonstration of their sophistication and their pious dedication to the expansion of knowledge”
“compelled by the desire to rediscover and translate lost knowledge, [they] sent out emissaries to hunt for ancient Syriac and Greek manuscripts in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. Scholar-explorers knocked on the doors of monasteries and sent requests to patriarchs in Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and Gundeshapur in the hope of discovering more Greek manuscripts, many of which, like Aristotle’s, had been banished to basements or cellars or left to rot in derelict and crumbling libraries.”
So, wealthy people showed off their wealth with… books and translations of books, and a dedication to knowledge? Huh. This Muslim collection, preservation, and translation of ancient philosophy and science is what eventually kick-started the Renaissance, btw. What motivated Jahiz and these others? “It was the scientific curiosity of the world Jahiz lived in, a curiosity enjoined by the Qur’an…”
I’m not familiar with those Qur’an references, but I thought of various D&C passages.
seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith. (D&C 88:118; 109:7)t
study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people. (D&C 90:15)
grant, Holy Father, that all those who shall worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by study, and also by faith (D&C 109:14)
obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man (D&C 93:53)
American society in general is turning away from reading, for pleasure or otherwise. Do we Mormons take these injunctions seriously? Do we seek books, knowledge, learning, languages, history, etc.?
As for Jahiz, what was his fate? A noble and learned death.
“According to popular lore, he was crushed to death when a wall of books fell on him.”
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Jacob wrestles with critical scholarship.
Gustav Doré, public domain.
Several weeks ago, the Maxwell Institute’s Studies in the Bible and Antiquity journal sponsored a small non-public conference at BYU on the topic of “Critical Scholarship and Faith.” If you’re unsure why this is an issue for LDS, read Julie Smith’s post “the next generation’s faith crisis.” I largely agree with her, and was thus quite excited to see this conference happen.
“Critical scholarship,” of course, does not mean scholarship that finds fault or is nit-picky. Its use of “critical” is more along the lines of “critical thinking.” (See my post on critical thinking and BYU here.) The term is shorthand for a vague collection of modern issues, ideas, methods, and conclusions that can seem to (or actually do) undermine faith in scripture and/or God. They are largely things most LDS have never heard about, and that’s a problem. While scholars talk about “critical scholarship” as shorthand for a variety of issues and methods, it might be better to say, “modern biblical scholarship” which is a) often strongly persuasive, b)based on close readings of the texts themselves, and c) doesn’t always cohere well with some elements of either the broader Judeo-christian tradition or narrower LDS tradition. And we haven’t dealt with it very well yet, if at all, as Mormons.
The afternoon session consisted of three LDS scholars David Seely (BYU), J. Kirby (Phd Catholic University of America), and Phillip Barlow (PhD Harvard, now at Utah State).
The morning session, which I’m focusing on, consisted of three non-LDS scholars talking personally about their own religious traditions conflict and interaction with critical scholarship and faith. Peter Enns (PhD from Harvard, now at Eastern University) represented a Protestant view, Candida Moss (Notre Dame) Catholic, and James Kugel (Harvard) Jewish.
This collection of people and speakers was fantastic. Readers may know that I’ve greatly appreciated the work of Enns and Kugel, so it was fantastic to interact with them in person. I knew Moss’s name, but as she has not written as directly on topics pertaining to Biblical interpretation or related issues of interest to me, I hadn’t read any of her books. Since my wife and I are about to celebrate 17 surprisingly childless years, I have now added Moss’ Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness to my reading list.
Each talk (morning and afternoon sessions) will be published in the MI’s journal in the coming months, so I won’t rehash too much.
Kugel recounted some of the history found in his books, especially the excellent intro material in How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. He’s a little bit of a Jewish Richard Bushman, as I describe here. Someone asked him a question about his faith community (he’s an Orthodox Jew), and he replied that “I often feel that,with my views, my faith community consists solely of James Kugel.” 🙂
Moss talked about her experiences teaching at Notre Dame. This was eye-opening; many of my academic LDS friends have “Vatican II” holy envy, wherein the Vatican essentially gave a blessing to critical scholarship and approved translating the Bible into modern vernacular. Moss showed us that Catholicism has still not fully dealt with the ramifications of critical scholarship, Vatican II notwithstanding.
Enns recounted some of the American Protestant history of critical scholarship from the turn of the century, and referred to his own experiences as an Evangelical scholar who was “let go” from a prominent Seminary for publishing a book that was deemed not orthodox enough.
All of these, in some ways, evoked the BYU student and professor experience. In other ways, they differ sharply. One thing was clear. A full confrontation of critical scholarship yet awaits Mormonism. While we may have our own variations to confront, other faith traditions have walked this path before, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from the experiences of others in other faith traditions. Indeed, one of the reasons I’ve pushed Enns and Kugel is because they offer a model of faithful interaction with critical scholarship. Their answers are not necessarily ours, but they can certainly help. This conference felt like a great first step, and I look forward to further discussions.
If the names above aren’t familiar to you from reading me, let me rehash. These are good scholars to read on the Bible.
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.
In a previous post, I detailed President McKay’s explicit, published, written approval of a very pro-evolution LDS magazine article. This served as evidence that President McKay did not understand Genesis 1 to prohibit an old earth, evolution, etc.
Shortly after the 1954 publication of Joseph Fielding Smith’s Man, His Origin and Destiny, BYU History professor Richard D. Poll and his wife were invited to discuss the book with the author. Knowing that President McKay disagreed strongly with the book, they managed to arrange a meeting with him on the same day. According to the Polls’ combined notes, made immediately afterwards, President McKay, “striking the desk for emphasis… repeated that [Man, His Origin and Destiny] is not the authoritative position of the Church.” He went on to recommend two books on “the problem of man, nature, and God” which considered “two of the outstanding books of the century”: A. Cressy Morrison’s Man Does Not Stand Alone and Pierre Lecomte du Noüy, Human Destiny. Continue reading
I didn’t grow up in Utah, and never heard of Pioneer Day until I was on my mission in France/Belgium. There, a PR event was organized for the Sesquicentennial that included a large parade with handcarts, historical garb, dancing, etc. It wasn’t actually held on Pioneer Day, but a few weeks later in August. It had some Church News coverage, and a local member filmed and edited over an hour of video, all in French.
-Related reading: Eric Eliason, “The Cultural Dynamics of Historical Self-Fashioning: LDS Pioneer Nostalgia, American Culture, and the International Church” Journal of Mormon History 28:2 (2002)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA2X0XrdJXI&sns=em
BYUI historian Andrea RM offers some great tips on Pioneer Day talks here, and briefly mentions the famous Sweetwater River Rescue. I heard this retold recently in a missionary farewell, so it was on my mind. Sweetwater plays a role in my book where I discuss the influence of tradition upon knowledge and scriptural interpretation (see my post here as well). In essence, the story as often told is, well, inaccurate for the main reasons we tell it. The traditional information comes from one late source, and looking at contemporary sources undermines it.
The evidence indicates that more than three rescuers braved the icy water that day. Of those positively identified as being involved in the Sweetwater crossing, none were exactly eighteen. Although these rescuers helped a great many of the handcart pioneers across the river, they carried only a portion of the company across. While some of these rescuers complained of health problems that resulted from the experience, most lived long and active lives that terminated in deaths that cannot be de nitively attributed to their exposure to the icy water that day.
Consequently, Brigham Young never eulogized three youths (since there were more) who died (because they didn’t), promising them the celestial kingdom for that act alone.
How do we know? Chad Orton published an article in BYU Studies examining it. A fantastic follow-up article in BYU’s Religious Educator summarizes Orton’s conclusions and looks at the problem of teaching the actual history to LDS students when the traditional version has been told in General Conference by such as Presidents Hinckley and Monson.
I asked my students something like, “What’s right and what’s wrong with that account?” The first hands went up on the back row, where three or four male students sat (all returned missionaries). Soon after the first student started talking, I felt heat rising on the back of my neck. He said that “he only ‘felt the Spirit’ when reading the traditional account.” Then a nearby student weighed in: “I don’t see what’s so wrong with that version anyway,” he said, questioning the value of revisiting the story. And one of them raised another issue: Why would President Hinckley use this story if there’s something wrong with it? In retrospect, these seem like predictable concerns, but they caught me by surprise that day…
The author goes to on to talk about framing the history, lowering emotional barriers to learning, and other bits. Perhaps most importantly, he concludes by pointing out that Sweetwater was told again in General Conference by Elder Cook in 2008… who cites the BYU Studies article in footnote 5.
The takeaway? Be careful about uncritically repeating traditional stories, even if you heard them in General Conference.
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One of the things I’ve written about before is the problem of common, broad terminology, that allows us to speak, without expressing what we mean (if we even know ourselves). For example, what does “true” mean in an LDS context, e.g. “the church is true” or “the scriptures are true”? It can be a problem. See my old post here, for example.
I’ve encountered two professors in the last year who make students think by requiring them to avoid certain words. In one non-BYU course on comparative religion, the students were barred for the first month from saying “religion”; in another (at BYU), students were barred from saying “atonement.” This means the students have to slow down and think about what they actually mean, since they can’t use those words. (Imagine if we struck the words “nourish and strengthen” from food blessings.)
If I were a Bishop (and I thank the heavens I am not), I might try having a sacrament meeting wherein all testimonies had to be expressed without using the words “atonement,” “true,” “church,” “gospel,” “testimony,” or “know.” I think it would be really interesting and edifying. And yes, it’s a bit like the game Taboo, but the purpose here would be to induce more thought, sincerity, and clarity into our Fast and Testimony Offering Personal Witness Meeting.
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.
Jerusalem Church. My photo.
As part of the New Testament Commentary Seminar, a conference will be held at BYU Friday July 29. A formal announcement, more information, and audio/video from previous conferences are available here at the Commentary homepage. Click here for a nice PDF.
4th Annual BYU New Testament Commentary Conference:
New Mormon Ideas about Mark and Hebrews
Friday, July 29
9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Hinckley Center Assembly Hall, Brigham Young University
Public welcome, Admission free
The Epistle to the Hebrews
9:00 Welcome, Invocation, and Introductions
9:10 Michael Rhodes, “Thoughts on the Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews”
9:45 Joshua M. Matson, “‘Whoso Readeth It, Let Him Understand’: The Use of Extra-Canonical Jewish Traditions in Hebrews”
10:05 Q&A on the Authorship of Hebrews
10:15 Richard Draper, “‘Now Since the Children Share Flesh and Blood, [Christ] also, in Just the Same Way, Shared Their Humanity’: The Low Christology of the Lord as Viewed in Hebrews 1–2”
10:50 Avram R. Shannon, “‘I Have Sworn’: Ancient Exegesis and the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood”
11:10 Ben Spackman, “Joseph Smith, JST Hebrews 9:15-20, and Covenant Curses”
11:30 Nathaniel Pribil and Chris Brockman, “The Many Uses of Hebrews by LDS Leaders”
11:50 Q&A on Main Themes of Hebrews
12:00 Lunch Break
The Gospel of Mark
1:00 Reconvene
1:10 Julie M. Smith, “The Purpose of Parables: A Closer Look at Mark 4:10-13”
1:45 Andrea Brunken, “Messianic Secret in the Book of Mark”
2:05 Philip Abbott, “The Markan Sandwich of Mark 5: A Reflection of Christ”
2:25 Andy Mickelson, “‘[He] Fled from Them Naked’: Uncovering the Significance of Mark 14:51-52”
2:45 Q&A on LDS Interests and Perplexities in Mark
2:55 Closing and Benediction
I’ve had an interest in my topic for years, and am glad for the opportunity to have to actually do the work. In essence, Hebrews 9:15-20 uses Gr. diatheke as a leitwort, but does it mean “last will, testament” per Classical Greek, or “covenant” per Septuagint Greek? Is it playing on both meanings? (You can see some of the problems explained here.) Regardless of how the Greek should be understood, Joseph Smith made some interesting changes to the JST.
15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new
testamentcovenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the firsttestamentcovenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.16 For where a
testamentcovenant is, there must also of necessity be the death of thetestatorvictim.17 For a
testamentcovenant is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while thetestatorvictim liveth.18 Whereupon neither the first
testamentcovenant was dedicated without blood.19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
20 Saying, This is the blood of the
testamentcovenant which God hath enjoined unto you.
These changes both pick a side in the will/covenant argument but also tie it more closely back to Exodus 24 (quoted in v.20 above), wherein the covenant of the Torah is put into force. Moses declares the covenantal requirements of Torah, the people verbally bind themselves to it, there’s some strange ritual, and lo, the covenant is in force.
3 ¶Moses… told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.”
4 And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar at the bottom of the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
5 And he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord.
6 And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
7 And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.
8 And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.
Part of that ritual involves collecting the blood from a ritual sacrifice (which likely means the animals had their throats cut, in order to collect it) and sprinkling it on the altar and on the people to ratify the covenant and also symbolize, as a simile curse, the fate of the people if they reject or violate the covenant. (That sprinkled blood is called “the blood of the covenant” and it is this phrase that Jesus uses when transforming the wine of the last supper into the Christian sacrament. “This is my blood of the new covenant.”) Regardless of what the Greek means, the JST shows that Joseph Smith knew… something about covenantal structures and curses when he did this part of the JST in 1830(?).
That’s my topic.
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.
One part of my book on Genesis 1 addresses the question “Why can’t we just believe what our Church leaders have said about Genesis 1?” Well, that presumes two things; first, that a unified interpretation of how to read Genesis has existed among them, and second, that such a unified interpretation (if it existed) had come about via revelation.
I examine three Church presidents to demonstrate the variety of views. On one extreme is Brigham Young, and on the other sits Joseph Fielding Smith. In the middle is David O. McKay. His position was that Genesis was ind
eed revealed scripture but, contra Joseph Fielding Smith, that status did not mean it was historical/scientific in nature. Genesis was therefore not an obstacle to belief in evolution. Continue reading
I’m spending a lot of my time writing about the idea of “context” right now, both for my book and also for a BYU paper, tentatively accepted for the 2017 Sperry Symposium. Below are a few fun things I’ve turned up recently. Continue reading
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