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March Mormon Doctrine Madness: Round One, Day Two – Edited

The winners from yesterday were
1 – Joseph Smith 23
16 – Truman Madsen 2

12 – James Talmage 19
5 – B. H. Roberts 6

2 – Continuing Revelation 20
15 – “Faith without works is Dead” 6

11 – Restoration of the Priesthood 21
6 – Work for the Dead 3

3 – The Doctrine and Covenants 24
14 – The Spaulding Manuscript 1

7 – The 1st Official Declaration 25
10 – The 1909 Origin of Man Message 2

4 – Temple Building 21
13 – Sunday School 7

9 – The Young Women’s Program 19
8 – Home Teaching 8

Now for today’s games:
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March Mormon Doctrine Madness: Bracketology

Ever since I started the Historical Mormon Smackdown thing last year, I have had a dream. I have entitled it: March Mormon Doctrine Madness.

We have painstakingly come up with 64 influential forces in current Mormonism, have divided them into 4 categories, and have ranked them from one to sixteen. We now present them to the bloggernacle world to vote upon. The criterion: Which is the more influential force in Mormonism today?

Having said that, I think it will be a vote for #2. I am going to explicitly take Jesus Christ and the Atonement out of the voting because I think that they would win hands-down. I am leaving Joseph Smith because every bracket needs its Duke or UConn.

There is the possibility that some will be offended by this and see it as trivializing the gospel. While there is some truth to that, I also think being forced to make hard but nonsensical choices is a good way to get at what we (individually) really believe and why.

So, starting forming pools and start making predictions. For that matter, start talking about the obvious biases of the selection committee. We may even offer a prize to the most accurate amongst ye.

Click here to see the bracket

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Historical Mormon Smackdown: Auxiliary Edition [Corrected; Please vote again]

It appears that although we are meant to pay closer attention to the teachings of the current prophet, this does not extend to his wife. No matter; we plow ahead.

Historical Mormon Smackdown: Auxiliary Edition! [Corrected]
Who has more influence on your church experience: Bonnie D. Parkin or A. Roger Merrill?

Bonnie D. Parkin, General Relief Society President

A. Roger Merrill, General Sunday School President

Vote Below and Discuss:

This poll was corrected after Justin, whose research skills far outweigh my own, pointed out that GA’s are no longer in the Sunday School Presidency and that Elder Bateman (to be particular) was no longer the Sunday School President (which makes the whole darn thing work better to my mind anyway).
The poll is closed until I can figure out what is wrong with it.

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Secular Sam’s Guide to the OT: the Pseudepigrapha

The writings contained in what is known as the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (hereafter OTP) are legion. They date from about the middle of the 7th century BC to the 9th century AD and were written mostly by pre-Christian Jews, Christians, and other minor people groups. Some of the languages represented in the OTP are Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Slavonic, Coptic, Latin, and others.

What is the OTP?

The word “pseudepigrapha,” as one may see, comes from the Greek compound word which means “falsely superscribed,” or in other words, “false author(ship).” The reason for the name is not to cast the shadow of suspicion upon them, but because the books frequently take the names of noteworthy figures in Israel’s history (like Enoch, Abraham, Moses, etc.) whose authorship either can’t be proved for sure, or the text simply cannot have originated with the author intended, whether by linguistic, historical (anachronisms), or other means. The proper adjectival form of the noun “pseudepigrapha” is, per the SBL handbook of style (p. 162), “pseudepigraphic” (not “pseudepigraphal” or others).
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In Sorrow Shalt Thou Bring Forth Children

This little narrative describes opposition to the use of chloroform to ease the pain of delivery based on the divine decree that childbirth was to be painful. If it’s true, it’s one for the “stranger than fiction” file. I’ll try to run down more on it over the week. In the meantime, I see no author explicitly listed on the site I took it from, but the URL is here:

Continue reading “In Sorrow Shalt Thou Bring Forth Children”