Category: Uncategorized

About a year ago we put up a post discussing the search for a professor of Ancient Scripture in BYU’s School of Religious Education. This year they are again looking for a professor of Ancient Scripture. This search, however, is somewhat different than the previous one. I’d like to point out some of the differences between the two and raise an issue about the LDS notion of ‘education’. Continue reading “BYU Hiring Ancient Scrip Prof Rd 2”

For the last 6 hours, I’ve been hopping amongst websites and blogs, tracking, reading, thinking, questioning, arguing, posting.

It’s divisive.

I’d say this election season is potentially the most divisive among LDS I’ve ever seen, and I see that as a wholly negative thing. Emotions are charged, deep-seated opinions and positions are expressed against those whom we once considered allies and fellow-citizens in the Gospel.

And so, as the discussions rage, I will step away. Log off. Take some time to do something else. Go for a walk. Pray. Make some pancakes. Get some exercise. count my blessings. Anything other than what I’ve been doing.

And I hope that when I return, “normalcy” will be slightly better then it has been.

I am Mogget the Exegete and, as I have already exercised due diligence in the Quadrennial Varmint Detection and Selection Exercise, it’s time to prepare for the Day.

First, I’d like to introduce the newest member of my household:

Is she pretty, or what?  That’s the SA 1911 EMP.  My CC should be coming in soon, too.  It’ll make an unusual, if not unique, fashion statement in RS, or it would if anyone were to see it.  But we gotta be mindful of what the first “C” is for, eh!

And notice the JHP there on the left.  Who would have thought that the single greatest need in my storage might be another 200 rounds of Hydrashock, just in case the 2nd Amendment becomes a casualty of the messianic woes, so to speak?

So anyway, to the point of this post.  Have you noticed that gun shops are doing a booming business these days, even as the rest of the economy appears to be shrinking a bit?  It’s probably the right time for one of those EBRs before they’re all bought up.  What are your suggestions?  Should my purchase be adjusted for the results of the Varmit Detection and Selection Exercise?  Can you think of an EBR that might really, really, be irritating to any duly selected Varmit?  Or hey!  How about a suppressor?  Heheh.  Always wanted one of those…

 

Though I understand about market forces and entertainment, the realities of the academic marketplace never fail to induce a groan and eye-roll.

And if you’ve never seen it before, PhD Comics is great, even though it’s science-oriented and I’m in humanities.

Because it is the right thing to do.

3 Nephi Chapter 6:

  4 And they began again to prosper and to wax great; and the twenty and sixth and seventh years passed away, and there was great order in the land; and they had formed their laws according to equity and justice.

  5 And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression.

  7 And it came to pass that there were many cities built anew, and there were many old cities repaired.

  8 And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place.

  9 And thus passed away the twenty and eighth year, and the people had continual peace.

Sounds much like the United States since World War II.

Continue reading “Why the Redistribution of Wealth?”

Substantial effort is expended to harmonize conflicting texts, such as the Harmony of the Gospels in our Bible Dictionary, Creation account harmonizations, investigations of whether Matthew or Luke got the ordering of the temptations “correct,” and so on. But what if the writers of scripture deliberately put in ambiguities? We have some evidence for this; Joseph Smith, in his revisions, seems to have left differing versions (e.g., Luke 3 versus Isaiah 40, creation accounts in Moses versus Abraham, incomplete harmonization of all events in the Gospels, and so on). Maybe some of these were just that he didn’t have time to finish, but there are passages that he seemed to be comfortable with explicit differing accounts.

It seems possible that these apparent contradictions and ambiguities might actually be there on purpose, and in fact may not even be meant to be resolved. If so, what might the message of such ambiguities be? 

Perhaps one message is that life is ambiguous, that in many cases there is not one definite answer, no one-size-fits-all explanation or even historically accurate account. But I’m not reveling in or embracing ambiguity per se; I’m not arguing directly for a Rashomon effect; but rather that the differences might be suggestions to us that we should be looking beyond the superficial. Certainly the differing Creation accounts each have rich symbolic interpretations that I benefit from and would not want to do without. Might Mormon culture, with its firm sense of certainty, be missing a key point of the scriptures?

I’m being serious here, and trying not to be cynical. We hear so much about “Correlation” in the ‘nacle, but I honestly have no idea who these people are, how they’re chosen, and how the group functions. My hunch is that most of us are in the same boat. Perhaps my/our ignorance works well from our perspective because it’s easier to be critical of an organization/committee that is impersonal, and has an ambiguous relationship within the structure of authority of the Church. Perhaps this ignorance also works well from the perspective of the Committee because they can do what they do in a “granite tower” of sorts without having to deal with the larger body of saints.

In all seriousness though, does anyone have any insight into this committee? Who is on it? How does one come to be a part of it? What is the structure of the committee? How do they decide what material is fit and what material is unfit for the Church? 

Perhaps there have been posts on this in the past that would be helpful?

One of the better bible blogs is Alan Lenzi’s Bible and Ancient Near East. He is also the featured interviewee at biblioblogs this month. I encourage you to read the whole thing.
Continue reading “Ledges on the Slippery Slope”

This is a guest post from The Monk, of Mormon Monastery, a repository of sorts for temple-related bibliography and a LDS Temple FAQ/essays.

I have a favorite passage from Ugaritic literature. (Nitsav has written briefly on Ugaritic before. See that post if you need a primer.) I’m just geeky enough that I’d like a nice alphabetic cuneiform scroll* of it framed on my wall. Though everyone has heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, few know the Ugaritic texts which are ironically far more important for understanding the Old Testament.

Below is my translation and brief commentary regarding this passage, which comes from the Ba’lu** epic, one of the lengthier texts from Ugarit. It consists of a message from Ba’lu, in highly repetitive poetic parallelism. I tried to arrange it to bring this out, but the formatting keeps disappearing.

Continue reading “Guest post- Ugaritic and the LDS temple”

The main distinguishing feature of Stage 4, Individuative-Reflective faith, is the capacity and need for critical reflection. The critical reflection is directed both at the self and at a faith tradition. Religious symbols are no longer taken to be ontological realities, but are transformed into conceptual meanings. It is a stage of demythologizing. Finally it is a stage of tension between one’s subjective feelings and the pursuit of objectivity.
Continue reading “Where we fail: Mormon pedagogy and Fowler’s Stages of Faith, Part Three”