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10 Changes If I Were In Charge of LDS Scripture…

1. I would change the layout of the LDS scriptures to create paragraphs and sections that look like modern study Bibles.

2. I would make prophetic oracles and poetry appear differently from prose on the page.  (I would strongly consider moving to a single column of text instead of two.)

3. I would adopt almost all of the appendices at the end of Hardy’s Reader’s Edition of the Book of Mormon as well as the notes for names for both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

4. I would get rid of the Topic Guide.

5. I would update the Bible Dictionary.

6. I would update the cover of the Book of Mormon missionary edition.  It is inexpensive, but it looks cheap and dated.

7. I would get rid of the artwork at the beginning of the text.

8.  I would update the biblical text to the NRSV and use notes at the bottom of the page to explain KJV overlap in the Book of Mormon, D&C, and others to clarify where our texts are citing the KJV.

9. I would get rid of the chapter headings and move to short introductory remarks at the beginning of each book or in significant transitions within books.

10. I would put a team of scholars with actual training in relevant fields in charge of this work and begin a 10-15 year cycle of revising and updating these texts.

 

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Conference Announcement: Faith and Knowledge

We are pleased to announce this upcoming conference:

THE FOURTH BIENNIAL FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE CONFERENCE

WESLEY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY WASHINGTON, D. C. FEBRUARY 22–23, 2013

The Faith and Knowledge Conference was established in 2006 to bring together Latter-day Saint graduate students in religious studies and related disciplines in order to explore the interactions between religious faith and scholarship. During the past three conferences, students have shared their experiences in the church and the academy and the new ideas that have emerged as a result. Papers and conversations provided thought-provoking historical, exegetical, and theoretical insights as well as compelling models of how to reconcile one’s discipleship with scholarly discipline.

In keeping with these past objectives, we invite graduate students in religious studies and related disciplines (e.g., women’s studies, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, literature, etc.) to join the conversation. We welcome proposals addressing historical, exegetical, and theoretical issues that arise from the intersection of LDS religious experience and academic scholarship.

Proposals should be no more than 250 words, and must include your name, university, the degree you are pursuing, and your status or progress toward that degree. Please submit proposals by October 15, 2012 to Josh Probert at jprobert@udel.edu. Notifications will be sent by Monday, November 12.

Final papers presented at the conference should be brief, pointed comments of ten to fifteen minutes. Travel and accommodation subsidies will be available to those whose paper proposals are accepted. Further information will be posted on the website faithandknowledge.org.

Committee:

Richard Lyman Bushman, Columbia University
Jason Combs, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
Carl and Susan Cranney, Catholic University of America
Josh Probert, University of Delaware

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Abraham in Egypt, in Persia

In a recent article by John Gee, “An Egyptian View of Abraham,” in Bountiful Harvest: Essays in Honor of S. Kent Brown, Andrew Skinner, et al., eds. (NAMI, Provo: BYU Press, 2012) 137-56, Gee provides a fresh edition of a pair of Sahidic Coptic manuscripts about Abraham.  The updated text and new translation are useful for scholars, though the offering is less than a critical edition because it is not clear from his presentation that he has consulted the original manuscripts.  In his conclusion, he alludes to the fact that this text offers some parallels to the LDS Book of Abraham and the fascimilies.  He points to two parallels in particular:

  • a king puts Abraham to death only to have him delivered by an angel
  • Abraham afterwards attempts to teach the king and his court about the true God through the use of astronomy

These points are indeed notable elements of the text, but also do not adequately summarize what the text is about.  As Gee notes, the text is a midrashic homily on Ps. 47:9, “gathered with the God of Abraham.”  The text explains that a certain Abraham mocked the idols of the people and as a result was thrown into the fire by King Sabor.  The “angel of the Lord” saved him from the fire. The king sent twelve men to learn about the God who saved Abraham, and Abraham teaches them that idolatry cannot adequately represent God.  As evidence of the failure of idols to represent God, this Abraham points to the constellations, the sun, moon, and clouds in the sky.  The people and their rulers then turn to worship God.  The text continues with prayers to David and the apostles and injunctions to the audience how to pray to them.

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“So-called”

Some so-called “defenders” of the gospel, who appear in sheeps’ clothing and taketh the truth to be hard, can go a little overboard on the transparently rhetorical posturing.

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The Legacy of FARMS

Bill Hamblin is right.  The old-FARMS is dead.  Gerald Bradford didn’t kill it.  John Dehlin certainly didn’t kill it.   The ouster of Daniel Peterson is not when FARMS died.  It died a long time ago, while Peterson was still there.  It was absorbed into the Maxwell Institute, which we now know was the beginning of its end, at least in the form in which it appeared in the 1990’s.  For various reasons, the FARMS of the 2000’s failed to capture the imagination, attract significant apologetic work, and ultimately find a relevant voice in the new landscape of Mormon Studies. It remains to be seen whether it will find that relevant voice going forward.  Through an unfortunate series of mismanagement, much of which is not public information, and much of which has nothing to do with its current director, FARMS gradually fell apart.  It is done.  There is little hope in reviving the corpse.  Instead, I’d like to reflect a bit on its legacy.

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Five Questions for Ralph Hancock

Ralph, you’ve gotten into a bad spot with fellow LDS intellectuals from a lot of different fronts.  My concern with your recent editorializing is that while you claim to appeal to “reason” and to contradict the “fundamental assumptions” of “liberal Mormons,” I don’t see anything substantive in your arguments that amounts to anything more than 1) appeal to prophetic and “majority” authority and 2) vague assertions about what a fictionalized anthropologist might say about the value of normative sex roles.  With respect to #2, suffice it to say that your assertion reflects a misunderstanding of how anthropologists deal with gender norms (anthropologists are more likely the “relativists” you condemn than offering a defense of the kinds of assertions you’re making).  With respect to #1, certainly appeals to authority are important for certain kinds of claims, but they should not be confused with the appeals to “reason” that you assert you are making.  One could certainly argue that Mormons should accept the authority of a particular, even dominant strain of Mormonism, but if such an argument is to arise beyond an appeal to the “authority” of that strain, arguments from reason should be given.  Perhaps you really have real arguments about the problems of equal status for women and non-heterosexual individuals, but so far you have been coy.  Overall, I find your assertions about feminism to be, lets say, shallow in the extreme, but perhaps there is more than what appears to be only a passing familiarity with stereotypes about feminist criticism.  In an effort to draw out your arguments from “reason” in favor of differential treatment, I would like to see you answer a few questions:

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Turning Wine into Water

In a rather strange opening miracle, the author of the Gospel of John depicts Jesus as working a familiar Dionysian miracle of turning water into wine.  Mormons have undone this entirely, turning wine into water.  The modern sacrament prayers go so far as to change the wording of the revealed prayers, substituting “water” for “wine.”  This wasn’t always so.

In the early days of the Church, LDS followers drank wine from a common cup.  The founding church order given in April 1830, revised in 1833 and again in 1835 declares that wine should be used (D&C 20).  Around the end of 1832 and beginning of 1833, wine is again referenced as the drink that is used in the sacrament.

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Baptizing Vicariously and the Problems of Universalism

I haven’t posted for a while, so I was checking through some of my drafts this evening.  This was fully written, but I can’t remember why I didn’t post it at the time I wrote it.  It is a bit past the prime time on this issue, but might still be relevant.

 

The reemergence of the controversy about baptism for the dead, spearheaded by the issue of posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims is frustrating for Mormons. Not only do Mormons feel misunderstood and suspicious of the motives of those who mischaracterize Mormon ritual and belief, but also frustrated that the Church has not adequately put in the safeguards to prevent these kinds of issues from happening (banned since the 1990’s), and embarrassing us all over again. At the same time, the practice of baptism for the dead and the controversy surrounding it reveal a deep philosophical issue about the place of difference in universalist understandings of salvation.

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“Have You Been Saved?”

To oversimplify things a bit, Mormon notions of salvation are more consistent with Paul, while Evangelical notions of salvation are more consistent with deutero-Pauline ideas.  In essence, Mormons, like Paul, believe that salvation is a future event; while Evangelicals, like deutero-Pauline authors, believe that salvation is a present event.

The deutero-Pauline letter Ephesians claims, “by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:5, NRSV).  The deutero-Pauline text Colossians agrees, and goes even further, explaining that you have died and have been raised already (Col 3:1-3).  Saved in the past tense?  Already raised?  Yes, these texts consider that it is at baptism or some other event that has already brought about salvation.

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