Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
Many people are aware that Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s book Mormon Doctrine was not universally received among Church leadership as a positive thing. That story has been told in a number of places, from a number of perspectives. This, however, was new to me, summarizing from this article and expanding from the McKay diaries, around Jan 14, 1960. Continue reading
In 1984, Neal A. Maxwell was interviewed privately. At that point, he had served as Apostle for three years, as Seventy for five, Commissioner of Church Education, etc.
In response to my recent post on the temple, “How Long Adam and Eve were in the Garden,” someone asked why I don’t just jettison the Adam and Eve story entirely. The short and dramatic answer is… Continue reading
See here and here for parts 1 and 2
Some Latter-day Saints, including some General Authorities like Joseph Fielding Smith, have tried to resolve apparent discrepancies between scripture and science on the age of the earth by asserting that “we don’t know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden.” The implication is that the while the earth went on existing, potentially for millions or billions of years, Adam and Eve remained effectively in stasis in the garden planted eastward in Eden.
I see three arguments against this view.
Red brick store in Nauvoo, where the first endowments were done on May 4, 1842.
Edit: I’ve added this syllabus to the main menu at left, and simplified the url for easy access, to http://BenSpackman.com/syllabus
May 4th holds significance in LDS history: it’s the day Joseph Smith introduced temple ordinances in the upper room of the red brick store in 1842. The temple ties together a number of questions, like: Continue reading
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
Something insidious infects our children from the moment they’re born. It’s unstoppable. It surrounds us, burrows in deep, far below our conscious minds, and like a computer virus, writes subtle programming that dictates our worldview, our attitudes, and assumptions, shaping our very reflexes… Ahem. Shifting away from threatening apocalyptic movie-trailer voice, I’m speaking, of course, about culture and tradition, terms I’ll use interchangeably here. Continue reading
I’ve taught a class just on the book of Genesis a few times, in a few places. We spend a lot of time on the first 10 chapters or so. The second time (from whence these notes), few students had a science background, and only 1-2 had previous experience with me. Most of the points below I have developed further in the course. Continue reading
I’m happy to report my proposal for the American Academy of Religion (AAR) national conference has been accepted. AAR traditionally meets with the Society of Biblical Literature in a massive multi-day conference attended by thousands. This year it’s in Boston, mid/late November. I pray by then we’ll be back to some kind of normalcy. (NB: I withdrew due to covid, and never presented the paper.) Continue reading
In late 2014, I heard the story of a friend of a friend who had lost faith and left the Church. I wished there was something semi-authoritative I could have pointed to which would have shifted this person’s paradigm in healthier and more robust directions. Yes, there’s lots of material like that… but not directly published by the Church. Frustrated I couldn’t find something, I decided to write it myself, for catharsis. I did a little research, wrote up an article in Ensign style, and passed it around to some academic and Church-employed friends, who encouraged me to submit it. To my surprise, the article received enthusiastic acceptance, was given a contract number, and set to run some time in 2016…
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