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A Note on a Footnote in Mt 28:20

Last Sunday as I was preparing to teach GD I noticed an odd footnote associated with the word “teaching” in Mt 28:20.  This verse is part of a larger passage, the Great Commission of the First Gospel.  The speaker is the resurrected Jesus and the occasion is his departure.  This is the text in the AV:

19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsover I have command you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

This is one of the most theologically dense passages in the entire Gospel so I was not surprised to find various footnotes.  But I was surprised to find this particular footnote, associated with the second occurrence of the word “teaching” in v. 20:

The Greek text suggest this would be post-baptismal teaching.

Weird, eh?  That’s definitely not an answer to any of the first ten or so questions that spring to mind when reading the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel!  So what gives?

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A tentative list of general LDS biases in approaches to the Bible

Scholars have a tendency to operate on shorthand and stereotype whenever they feel like they can get away with it. It is a somewhat ironic tendency, in that they general also insist on a more detailed and topic-specific discussion if it is something that they care about.  Of such are life’s paradoxes, no?  (That one’s for you, Frank) Continue reading “A tentative list of general LDS biases in approaches to the Bible”

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Mosaic Musings, Part One: The Spirit of God

The other day I had a friend reveal an insight she had received about a verse in the Book of Moses that really struck a chord with me. I’d like to share this idea with you in order to flesh out the validity of it. But, as I was trying to prepare for this post I stumbled across another fun thing that I’d like to throw out there for you all to laugh at. So, like the immortal Guns ‘n’ Roses, I’m going to release two halves of this album/post on the same day. Some of you fellow Bible dorks may hate this but I promise there will be a little light textual criticism to appease you. Let’s begin. Continue reading “Mosaic Musings, Part One: The Spirit of God”

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How to Understand the Temple

The vast majority of LDS historical and theological thinking about the temple has attempted to find ancient parallels to Mormon temple rituals. In this view the Mormon temple is a restored completion of fragments and traces of an original, authentic temple ritual. However, this approach doesn’t explain how modern American Mormons understood such rituals. Other approaches have attempted to account for the temple in a strictly derivative relationship to Masonry. The Mormon temple ritual is thus a “borrowed” version of what the Masons were doing. But this doesn’t explain why such borrowings were successful and appealed to Mormons. I want to suggest that both frameworks are impoverished ways of making sense of the temple. Instead, I think that situating the temple rituals in larger American cultural frameworks makes better sense than these two approaches, while also explaining the appeal of the temple to 19th- and early-20th-century Mormons. This cultural framework is the flourishing of voluntary associations and fraternal organizations that dominated American society from the early 1800’s through the 1950’s, which were especially strong from 1850 to 1920. Some estimates have noted that over one third of American men were involved in one or more fraternal organization during this time.
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Sacramental Musings

Since I’ve started taking New Testament Greek classes I’ve started paying more attention to small details in the text, about the only benefit of reading about 10 words a minute. The thing that’s been on my mind concerns the sacrament and it’s covenantal function. David J.’s wonderfully controversial post on baptism brought forward my opinion about the sacrament being the true covenant that people attribute to baptism. I’m not going to go there with this post, but it also helped me to articulate the question I’m about to pose. Sooo, why do we take the sacrament so often?

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A Bigger House

In case you’ve just stopped by, I’ve been blogging on an article by Professor Kent P. Jackson of the BYU Religious Education Faculty. The title is “Sacred Study” and it’s found in the 6 Jan 07 edition of the Church News. In this article Professor Jackson defines LDS Biblical scholarship and LDS Biblical scholars solely by their uncompromising use of secondary sources derived from modern revelation.

As I have pointed out in my two previous posts there are some issues with his proposal, at least as they are presented in this particular article. Despite these matters, I do think that we should go ahead with Professor Jackson’s plan. As you will see, the interesting thing about the Bible is its ability to “push back” against attempts to domesticate it. We might build a one-room schoolhouse for it, but it will not remain so confined indefinitely.

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Inside the House

Professor Kent P. Jackson’s 6 Jan 07 Church News article, “Sacred Study” proposes a uniquely LDS form of Biblical scholarship and defines LDS Biblical scholars as those who practice this discipline. According to Professor Jackson, this methodology “embraces revealed sources and uses them at every stage in the process of understanding and interpreting the words of scripture.” Clearly, this method can only be practiced at BYU. And if I have understood him correctly, it is the only exegetical methodology to be used at BYU. So let’s take a look at the inside of this one-room schoolhouse which will be training future general authorities and auxiliary leaders in how to approach scripture.

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A House Divided

The January 6, 2007 edition of the Church News contained an article entitled “Sacred Study” by Professor Kent P. Jackson of the Brigham Young University Religious Education Department. In his article, Professor Jackson attempts to define the requirements of LDS Bible scholarship. In this process, he fails to adequately distinguish between a much-sought but not yet achieved tradition of LDS Biblical scholarship and the wider practice of Biblical studies by LDS exegetes and others in related disciplines. Should it be institutionalized, this deficiency may have some significant repercussions.

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