Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
At the opening of BYU’s 2019 Reconciling Evolution workshop—which focuses on biology pedagogy with religious students— Associate Academic Vice-President John Rosenberg represented the University in welcoming the dozens of participants to BYU. He spoke on the pursuit of knowledge, using medieval depictions of Mary, Gabriel, and the Annunciation. I have adapted my notes from his presentation for this post, by permission.
Let me open by saying that this is a wide-ranging and complex subject. I may well prove to be wrong on this or that point. I may be missing important nuances here or there, and it’s a bit scattered and repetitive. Let’s get those disclaimers out of the way and talk about this important subject. Continue reading
Since we’re about to start Paul’s letters, I thought I’d share this. It’s an expansion of a handout I’ve used sometimes about five common ways we misread Paul with modern, Western eyes. (Misreading with Western Eyes is one of the Top 5 I books recommend)
Yes, everyone’s favorite book is upon us. I’m not sure there’s any sarcasm there; I know lots of Latter-day Saints who love Isaiah. One of my uncles has actually memorized the entire book, in the KJV version. The next several weeks cover Isaiah, so I wanted to plug a few things. Continue reading
This paper and presentation introduces a couple kinds of context and how to get at it, in order to understand the Bible better. Update 05-05-2022, I have made my formal paper draft available here.
If you missed attending one of my firesides or the Sperry Symposium, this is for you. I recorded the audio/powerpoint from my final presentation last weekend, which benefitted from having done it three times. The length is about 1:10, and unfortunately I cut the audio before I closed with some testimony about the utility of the Old Testament, my appreciation for it, etc. The first slide is up for almost two minutes, they do change. And below are books/authors I quote or allude to in the slides. The actual paper has many more references, of course, and I’ll be posting it in chunks. And if you want to link, please link to this post, not direct to the youtube video.
Continue reading
As my wife and I were studying tonight, we hit upon a useful analogy for understanding scripture. It could be adapted for a class, depending on the students and the teacher.
We recently finished a year studying the D&C, and had a lot of tools for understanding it. Some of these were built in to our scriptures, like chapter headings. Then there were free Church-provided electronic and paper resources, like Gospel Topics essays, Revelations in Context, maps, etc.1To say nothing of the cottage industry of books written to support the Gospel Doctrine year of study. But I want you to imagine that you are a new convert in, say, Taiwan or Russia, reading D&C 49 for the first time, with none of that stuff. Continue reading
Today’s take-away is simple: Don’t use the Old Testament Institute manual for Genesis. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk…
Having messed up the audio recording of this fireside the first time, I repeated it over Zoom for some Seminary teachers.
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
I’ve been thinking a good bit, and collecting various notes and ideas, around something Betsy VanDenBerghe said to me on Facebook.
What comes out of our mouths, as Jesus said, reflects the state of our hearts and minds, what we’ve been reading and contemplating, and coming to conclusions about…. The quality of your talk, sermon, or lesson will not exceed the quality of what you’ve been reading and thinking about.
If our spiritual diet mostly consists of Twinkies, social media, and a few minutes of scripture before bed, well, that’s not good for the quality of our discussions with family, friends, neighbors, and students. Continue reading
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