Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Molly Worthen, UNC-Chapel Hill
(NB: You can watch all of the presentations by going here and clicking on the presenter’s name.)
UVU’s annual Mormon Studies Conference will be held (and streamed!) February 22-23, 2018. The topic is Heaven & Earth: Mormonism and the Challenges of Science, Revelation, and Faith Continue reading
Creation of the Sun, Sistine Chapel
So, here’s the background of my click-bait post. I address several of these in my podcast on Genesis 1, or previous posts.
Continue reading
Looking NE from St. Peter’s to the old city and Mt. of Olives
This post of recommendations focuses on the history and culture of the Old Testament. I’ve bolded my simple choices for those who don’t want lots of detailed options. Continue reading
LDS Perspectives interviewed me about my book on Genesis 1, which is still in progress.
The beginning of the Old Testament is challenging for a number of reasons. It’s foreign, it’s inconsistent (two creation stories?), it interfaces with history and science in uncomfortable and controversial ways (evolution, “giants”/”sons of god” marrying “daughters of men,” the flood, etc.)
And then for Mormons, add in the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the Temple, which parallel these chapters. Now if you open your Old Testament teacher’s manual, how much background, explanation, or guidance do you really get with any of this stuff? Continue reading
Creation of the Sun, Sistine Chapel
You might have noticed an op-ed on Mormonism and evolution in the Salt Lake Tribune by me, responding to discussion of the place of evolution in Utah science standards. I’m a historian of religion/science with some scientific training, not a scientist, so I generally leave detailed argument and refinement to the actual scientists.
But history can tell us a lot here. I’m convinced that evolution and faith in God can coexist. The short version is, Mormonism has no official position on evolution, BYU unapologetically teaches human evolution, but no one has (yet) offered a good way of squaring this with scripture. Watch this space 😉 Continue reading
I received a trio of books recently, so I’m providing some brief thoughts on what I’ve read so far.
First, 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
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. Continue reading
In a little less than a month, I’ll be speaking at the FAIRMormon Conference in Provo. Titled Truth, Scripture, and Interpretation: Some Precursors to Reading Genesis, my paper will be about the importance of recognizing the presuppositions we make when interpretating scripture. We can use various metaphors for this. Each of us (including inspired prophets and apostles) has a Black Box made up of worldview and presuppositions about revelation, prophets, and scripture. The contents of the box differ for every person, time, and culture. 
The scriptural text gets fed into our black box, and out comes “what scripture says.” But since the content of those black boxes differs, so too does the end product of “what (we think) scripture says.” Continue reading
I’ve not had a lot of time to write here recently. I have done a lot of driving and listened to some good lecture series about the history and philosophy of science, religion, and evolution, so this post is mostly about cataloguing and sharing.
I’ve been impressed again at just how unaware we are of our own modern worldview and assumptions, and the story of how we come to conceptualize the world as we do, post-Enlightenment, post-Scientific Revolution. Much of what we take for granted is neither universal nor obvious, and some things we think we know are wrong. Continue reading
Ben contemplates his words at Petra.
Here is a copy of my MHA presentation text, “Early LDS Attempts to Reconcile Scripture with Science: Pre-Mormon Pre-Adamites and Intellectual (In)Dependence.” What assumptions did early 20th century LDS have, and who were they reading, while debating evolution, death before the fall, pre-adamites, etc.? Continue reading
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