I want to break this post into a few distinct parts, and other parts I will offload to links instead of reprinting massive amounts of text. There’s a lot to explore here, and a lot to talk about. Continue reading
Category: Old Testament
Reading and Teaching the Old Testament: Suggestions and Resources for Seminary Teachers and Parents (and Everybody else)
Soon we start the Old Testament. It’s a challenging book to read, study, and teach, but it’s also my favorite. I have a few suggestions this year, which I’ve simplified.
The 1980 Old Testament Institute Manual: Why You Should Ignore it for Teaching Genesis
Today’s take-away is simple: Don’t use the Old Testament Institute manual for Genesis. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk…
Two notes on Cleon Skousen’s Thousand Years series
Cleon Skousen, via Wikipedia
Cleon Skousen‘s opening book in his Old Testament series came off the Bookcraft press in 1953, The First 2000 Years. Skousen had worked on the series for 15 years, to “try and bring together in one volume everything the Church has received thus far concerning the first 2000 years of human history— from Adam to Abraham.”1Preface
Reading and Teaching the Bible as Latter-day Saints- Video
This is video from a Stake class I was teaching… Continue reading
Reading the Scriptures Jesus Read: An Old Testament Intro for HS Students who didn’t Get It
Having messed up the audio recording of this fireside the first time, I repeated it over Zoom for some Seminary teachers.
Video Interview on Genesis and Interpreting Scripture Literally
A new interview, me talking with Cwic Media for 80 minutes on, well, the usual topics 🙂 Continue reading
Literal Interpretation of the Scriptures: Why We Need MORE
Melvin Cook, famous chemist and ardent LDS young-earth creationist, thought scripture should be interpreted literally.
My analysis is intended to be strictly literalistic; in my view, intellectual honesty requires literalism in the interpretation of the scriptures.
President Joseph Fielding Smith also made repeated statements about the necessity of reading scripture literally.
I agree with them. But I’ll go one better and do something they never did: I’m going to define the term “literal.” Continue reading
Translation and Context: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, Isaiah and Job at Ugarit
Communication involves not just words, but the context, culture, and worldview in which they are embedded. Simple translation of words alone, reading words alone, however “clear,” will fail to communicate the entire message, because this kind of information is tacit and unstated. Sometimes we can tell we’re missing an intangible something, but most often we can’t even tell that, illustrated extensively in Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.
Here are some modern examples. Continue reading
Science and History as Myth and Fiction: Exploring Some Common Labels
(Originally published in 2010 elsewhere) Most people know the genre of “parable” because they’re in the Gospels, but “myth” is poorly understood and the term carries a lot of negative baggage. Like “literal” you have to be very careful throwing around the term without defining it. One simple definition of myth is that myth is worldview in narrative form. That is, it’s a way of explaining one’s conception of how the world works in everyday language or story form. Continue reading
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