December 19, 2017

December 19, 2017 By

Creation of the Sun, Sistine Chapel
Creation of the Sun, Sistine Chapel

You might have noticed an op-ed on Mormonism and evolution in the Salt Lake Tribune by me, responding to discussion of the place of evolution in Utah science standards. I’m a historian of religion/science with some scientific training, not a scientist, so I generally leave detailed argument and refinement to the actual scientists.

But history can tell us a lot here. I’m convinced that evolution and faith in God can coexist. The short version is, Mormonism has no official position on evolution, BYU unapologetically teaches human evolution, but no one has (yet) offered a good way of squaring this with scripture. Watch this space 😉

Below are some things that have been useful to me, that I hope are useful to you as we get into the first chapters of Genesis on the next few weeks. Also a reminder to check in on Wednesday, when I’ll have a post up in concert with my LDSPerspectives podcast on what’s going on in Genesis 1. If you’re looking for a shortcut, I’ve bolded a few resources. Just go for those.

First, the church has published two statements recently on both dinosaurs (“did dinosaurs live and die on this earth long before man came along? There have been no revelations on this question, and the scientific information says yes.”) and evolution (“The Church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Organic evolution, or changes to species’ inherited traits over time, is a matter for scientific study. Nothing has been revealed concerning evolution.”) This represents an improvement, in some ways, over the past, but is implementing the statement of the First Presidency in 1910, “That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy.”

Today, the timeline of the earth’s history, where God’s creations fit in it, and how they relate to each other (as well as our contextual understanding of Genesis) is far far more “demonstrated,” established, and understood than it was in 1910. It’s a complicated subject, however, and there is lots of misinformation out there, and intrudes into many other fields, rightly or wrongly. Indeed, what many religious “critics of evolution are responding to is as much the moral package that they (mistakenly) believe is intrinsic to evolutionary theory as the theory itself.” (From Peter Harrison’s essay in Evolution and the Fall, below.)

What’s the history of evolution in Mormonism, and how do Mormons make sense of the scientific data?

What about Genesis?

In my view, Genesis doesn’t mean (for evolution or human origins, anyway) what many have traditionally thought. “What it means” is an interpretive question, one that involves conscious and unconscious choices and assumptions. The most important, frequent, and flawed assumption is concordism; that is, that revelation in Genesis and science must be in concord. But this assumes that Genesis and revelation must inherently be of a scientific nature, even if in veiled or metaphorical language.

I can’t recommend much by way of LDS analysis of Genesis and origins, because they all make concordist assumptions, never evaluate or question that assumption.

Another claim I’ve seen is that divine scripture/revelation somehow doesn’t require human interpretation, that its meaning is clear and evident, whereas science is a human endeavor that *does* require human reasoning. The problem here is that you cannot simply “believe the word of God” without an implicit claim to an understanding of what it says, and that requires interpretation, which is a human process. Even Joseph Smith, after getting revelation, had to try to understand it… which is interpretation.

D&C 130:14-16 I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore alet this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.  I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face.

So rhetoric that overplays a contrast between the completely divine “inspired word of god” and completely human “philosophies of men” ignores how the “revealed word of God” must be interpreted and understood by humans, even inspired ones. I’ve often encountered people strongly opposed to evolution, who have read some science, but never even considered or read anything on the interpretive side by good scholars. So how should we approach Genesis and interpret it? I tackle this question in my FAIRMormon presentation linked above. And below are some excellent works looking at Genesis in this light.

Science and History

For some purely online, non-LDS resources, I highly recommend Biologos. Their writers tend to be academics with relevant PhDs, including some name from above like NTWright, John Walton, Peter Enns, and others. For example, I highly recommend this series by eminent Evangelical historian-of-religion Mark Noll.

And if you like listening, The Great Courses offers several excellent series. These are also available through Audible (where you can subscribe and get access to all of them or purchase individually), but there’s more data on each course at TheGreatCourses website, including a list of the lectures. They also come with a 200-page summary of the series.

Well, that’s a lot of material. The takeaway points:

  1. Belief in deity and acceptance of human biological evolution are compatible, though there are questions to be worked out.
  2. Mormonism and evolution are compatible, though little work has been done explaining why, in essence, if evolution is true, scripture and prophets haven’t always known that.  But that’s because we haven’t explored our assumptions about revelation, prophets, scripture, or developed a tradition of interpretation. Addressing this issue is one of my major thrusts, and I have lots on it. Again, watch this space for updates on my book on Genesis 1, my papers, presentations, etc.
  3. The early chapters of Genesis have much less to say about human origins than it appears to us, today, in English translation, a different culture and worldview, formed post-Enlightenment, post-Scientific Revolution, with very different theological questions and crises than the Israelites had.
  4. This stuff is fun. And interesting. I love it.

If you don’t see something that appeals, or you have a question that hasn’t seemed

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October 8, 2016

October 8, 2016 By

genesis-hebrew2Elder Eyring told a story in this recent General Conference.

My father… was a seasoned and wise holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Once he was asked by an Apostle to write a short note about the scientific evidence for the age of the earth. He wrote it carefully, knowing that some who might read it had strong feelings that the earth was much younger than the scientific evidence suggested. I still remember my father handing me what he had written and saying to me, “Hal, you have the spiritual wisdom to know if I should send this to the apostles and prophets.” I can’t remember much of what the paper said, but I will carry with me forever the gratitude I felt for a great Melchizedek Priesthood holder who saw in me spiritual wisdom that I could not see.

A few of my friends thought this put a nail in the coffin of the anti-evolutionists, but it doesn’t really. See, we need to talk about the different kinds of creationism and define some terms, before we do the backstory to Elder Eyring’s comment.

We can break up different kinds of creationism based on two factors: the age of the earth and the degree of “special creation,” which refers to the creation of a species (animals or humans) in their current form, i.e. no evolution, no changes. Some creationists hold to the evolution of animals, but a special creation of Adam and Eve. Here’s a simplified generalized taxonomy.

  1. Natural Evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old, and humans and animals evolved.
  2. Theistic Evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old, and humans and animals evolved as part of God’s plan, under his control or influence. This, I believe, was Henry Eyring Sr.’s position, and is the most compatible with generally-established science.
  3. Old Earth Creationists (OEC) agree the earth is billions of years old but hold to special creation of humans (and sometimes animals) in the last few thousand years. This appears to be the unofficial position of the LDS Church and has some conflict with generally-established science. It’s the explicit position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Ben Carson (see my article here and follow-up here.)
  4. Young Earth Creationists (YEC) hold to special creation of humans and animals (usually), in the last few thousand years. This was Joseph Fielding Smith’s position and has the most conflict with generally-established science. (More on this below.) It’s based on the assumption that revelation consists of scientific facts, because that is what Truth is, and God cannot lie. Prophets are mere conduits, and their humanity in no way affects or influences the divine message. We should understand scriptural and prophetic statements, whether 50, 100, or 2000 years ago, as if they were all spoken  within the worldview and knowledge horizon of today. YEC views come from applying these assumptions to Genesis (with a little Paul or Nephi mixed in) and then reworking the science to fit.

I find those assumptions to be more the unconscious intellectual inheritance of the scientific revolution and Enlightenment than good scriptural theology, and largely indefensible on several grounds. I spend a good bit of time in my book talking about the nature of revelation, prophets, and scripture. Back to Elder Eyring and his father.

Henry Eyring Sr. was a brilliant chemist, teaching at his PhD alma mater Princeton from 1931-1946. To quote from Wikipedia,

Henry Eyring (February 20, 1901 – December 26, 1981) was a Mexican-born American theoretical chemist…. A prolific writer, he authored more than 600 scientific articles, ten scientific books, and a few books on the subject of science and religion. He received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1980 and the National Medal of Science in 1966 for developing the Absolute Rate Theory or Transition state theory of chemical reactions, one of the most important developments of 20th-century chemistry. Several other chemists later received the Nobel Prize for work based on it, and his failure to receive the Nobel was a matter of surprise to many.

I’ve written about him before here. Eyring wrote Faith of a Scientist explaining some of his views, and the more recent volume Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring is a quasi-biography that is well worth reading. The latter contains thoughts like this on the nature of science, religion, and assumptions or  “postulates.”

[In both science and religion,] you set up some basic postulates from your experience or your experiments and then from that you start making deductions, but everything that matters is based upon things you accept as true. When a man says he will believe in religion if you prove it, it is like asking you to prove there are electrons. Proof depends upon your premises….Every proof in science depends on the postulates one accepts. The same is true of religion. The certitude one has about the existence of God ultimately comes from personal experience, the experience of others, or logical deductions from the postulates one accepts. People sometimes get the idea that science and religion are different, but they are not different at all. There is nothing in science that does not hinge on some primitive constructs you take for granted. What is an electron? I can tell you some things about the electron we have learned from experiment, and if you accept these things, you will be able to make predictions. But ultimately you will always get back to postulates.I am certain in my own mind of the truthfulness of the gospel, but I can only communicate that assurance to you if you accept my postulates.

Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) did not attend university (his two years at the LDS College were equivalent to two years of high school), and was a Young Earth Creationist from early on in his life. His reading of scripture put him at odds with science and in serious conflict with other General Authorities like B.H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, John Widtsoe, David O. McKay, Reuben Clark, and others. He was not afraid to express his views.

I will state frankly and positively that I am opposed to the present biological theories and the doctrine that man has been on the earth for millions of years. I am opposed to the present teachings in relation to the age of the earth which declare that the earth is millions of years old. Some modern scientists even claim that it is a billion years old. Naturally, since I believe in modern revelation, I cannot accept these so-called scientific teachings, for I believe them to be in conflict with the simple and direct word of the Lord that has come to us by divine revelation.- Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:112, my italics.

At one point, he accused President Clark of “rejecting the scriptures,” because they disagreed over how to read creation. Talmage, a PhD in geology, challenged him on a geological basis. To fend off those arguments, Smith turned to self-taught Seventh-day Adventist “creation science” pioneer George McCready Price, exchanging several letters with him. In one, Smith wrote,”I am of the firm opinion, perhaps I could almost say conviction, that the dinosaurs lived here with man less than six thousand years ago.” (A recent New Era article disagrees.)

In 1954, Smith published Man, His Origin and Destiny, a broadside against evolution. Into this maelstrom came Henry Eyring, not as a General Authority, but a well-respected LDS scientist serving as Dean at the University of Utah.

A concerned David O. McKay asked Adam S. Bennion, an apostle and former superintendent of church schools, to solicit responses to Elder Smith’s book from qualified LDS scientists. Elder Bennion invited the opinions of Henry Eyring, geologist William Lee Stokes, and chemist Richard P. Smith. Eyring wrote to Bennion: “‘I can understand ‘Man—His Origin and Destiny’ as the work of a great man who is fallible. . . .It contains many serious scientific errors and much ill humor, which mar the many beautiful things in it. Since the gospel is only that which is true, this book cannot be more than the private opinion of one of our great men.‘” Then in a 1973 interview, Eyring, when asked about the age of the Earth controversy, cited his disagreement with Smith’s book, but added:

I would say that I sustained Brother Smith as my Church leader one hundred percent. I think he was a great man. He had a different background and training on this issue. Maybe he was right. I think he was right on most things and if you followed him, he would get you into the Celestial Kingdom—maybe the hard way, but he would get you there.

The Church, according to a letter from President McKay, has no position on organic evolution. Whatever the answer is to the question, the Lord has already finished that part of His work. The whole matter poses no problem to me. The Lord organized the world and I am sure He did it in the best way.

–Mike Ash, “The Myth of Evil Evolution” Dialogue.

This, I believe, is the story referred to in General Conference. It was not the only time Eyring was called upon to weigh in, but this post is long enough already.

For further reading, see

I have dozens of my own posts dealing with this topic and lots of book recommendations, so if you’re new to the site, let me know and I’ll point you to them. As for now, I’ve got Mircea Eliade to read for class.

As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.

September 22, 2016

September 22, 2016 By

genesis-hebrew2Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is, ironically, relatively young. I’ve written about its origins at Religion&Politics (start in paragraph 4), with a follow-up at Times&Seasons. A recent article in Scientific American highlights the arrival of Young Earth Creationism in Europe.

I take issue with one paragraph.

We have learned that confronting creationism is not a scientific matter but rather a political one. To engage creationism it does not suffice to line up all the evidence and arguments in support of evolutionary theory. Instead, scientists have to get out and operate on all platforms where creationists are active. This includes giving public lectures, writing op–eds and articles in popular magazines, weeklies and newspapers as well as discussing the issue in television and radio broadcasts, developing and maintaining Web sites on evolution, and via exhibitions.

I agree that we need scientists and educators to write more for the general public, to translate technical understandings for laypeople about specific issues, but also about the widely misunderstood nature of science, e.g. here (a BYUS article) and here. I also agree that “confronting creationism is not a scientific matter,” but the solution is not better or more science. You can’t convince a Young Earth Creationist of their incorrectness simply by throwing more science at them, because scientific arguments are not the cause of their Young Earth Creationism, but an effect of it. At its root, the scientific aspects of YEC are entirely secondary to and dependent on the interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis.

This is why the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate was absolutely pointless. They weren’t actually debating the same topic, really. Bill Nye’s science is powerless against YEC; not because he’s wrong (although he certainly has been, at one time making “the entire US philosophy community collectively choke on its morning espresso” and here), but because he can only talk science. And that’s not convincing YECs, who already know that YEC views of science aren’t mainstream.

What, then, changes YEC minds?

Don't bother.
Don’t bother.

I’ll tell you what, and use myself as an example. I read a lot of books on my mission (my stories here and here.) I mistakenly traded a good Nibley volume for something called Using the Book of Mormon to Counter Falsehoods in Organic Evolution. It poked a few scientific holes in evolution and then drew heavily on Joseph Fielding Smith and others to make an argument from authority. In spite of being a doctor’s kid and a science nerd in high school, I wasn’t terribly well versed in philosophy of science or biology. I didn’t embrace YEC, but I did become quite skeptical of evolution. Fast forward two years.

My fiancé was a major in Molecular Biology with a Chemistry emphasis, and the only thing we had an argument about was evolution. Her science didn’t really change my mind, but I could tell that I’d been a little misled. She still couldn’t explain what Genesis meant, couldn’t replace the simplistic power of a context-free reading nor explain Joseph Fielding Smith. (No one seemed to know about President McKay.)

We got married anyway. Happy day.

patheos

As I finished my ancient Near Eastern Studies undergrad, and went on to graduate studies in Semitics, I realized that I had been reading Genesis through modern, western eyes. Misreading, actually. Now, having done more science, lots of modern and ancient Near Eastern history, and reading Genesis in context, I understand why Joseph Fielding Smith interpreted Genesis as he did, why he was wrong, and also why being wrong here doesn’t really undermine his apostolic authority for me.

That’s my story, but it plays out the same way with others. Here are two Evangelicals with advanced degrees who used to be YEC preachers but changed their story.

“At the same time that I was beginning to have scientific questions about the legitimacy of the young earth position, I was also beginning to delve seriously into the language and setting of the Genesis account itself, and that was the most eye-opening of all. I realized that all my life I had been reading Genesis from the perspective of a modern person. I had read it through the lens of a historically sophisticated, scientifically influenced individual. I assumed that Genesis was written to answer the questions of origins that people are asking today.
But I had never asked the most vital question of all: What did Moses mean when he wrote this text? After all, “my Bible” was Moses’ “Bible” first. Was Moses acquainted with Charles Darwin? Or Henry Morris? Or Hugh Ross? Was he writing to discredit any modern theory of evolution? Were his readers troubled by calculations of the speed of light and the distance of the galaxies from earth? Were they puzzling over the significance of DNA? Were they debating a young earth versus an old earth? Would they have had any inkling about a modern scientific worldview? If you agree that the answer to these questions is obviously no, then the logical question is, what was on their minds? How would they have understood Genesis 1? I have read a great deal of literature debating the meaning of Genesis 1, but rarely do the authors even ask, much less start with, the question that is the most important question of all: What did Genesis mean to the original author and original readers?”- Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the Beginning … We Misunderstood: Interpreting Genesis 1 in Its Original Context, 21. My emphasis.

Science didn’t convince them YEC was wrong; it was having an open mind, asking questions, and especially getting at the ancient Near Eastern setting of Genesis. Heck, they’re still really conservative Evangelicals, believing that Moses wrote Genesis, under the influence of Egyptian cosmology. (I disagree, but still found their book worth reading.)

The point is, a demonstration that the modern YEC interpretation doesn’t make sense of the text and its cosmology nearly as well as an ancient interpretation, which most people don’t even know (see here to learn), has far more convincing power than more scientific explanations. For a similar example in an LDS context, see this post by Julie on the Flood. (My quick take on the flood here.)

Biologos has some great essays, and now they have a book collecting stories of when and how Christians became convinced that scripture wasn’t against evolution. How I Changed my Mind About Evolution: Evangelicals Reflect on Faith and Science includes essays by NT Wright, Francis Collins (MD/PhD, director of the National Institute of Health and head of the Human Genome Project), and others less well-known to LDS. I haven’t read it yet, but I imagine their stories follow the pattern above.

Confronting creationism, then, is not a scientific matter (although it’s important) nor a political one (although education can help), but an interpretive matter. One’s understanding of Scripture in the abstract, and Genesis in particular, is the tail that wags the scientific dog for YECs.

As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.

January 31, 2016

January 31, 2016 By

Two of my most-read posts have dealt with the flood in Genesis 6-9. This one looks at the Flood in terms of genre, and tries to steer Mormons away from the false interpretive dichotomoy of “literal/figurative” into a more productive and accurate way of looking at scripture, while also giving some ancient Near Eastern background. The second one responds to an older Ensign article on the flood by a BYU professor.

A new book out (Let Us Reason Together: Essays in Honor of Robert L. Millet) in honor of BYU’s Robert L. Millet, edited by Spencer Fluhman, includes important research by Paul Hoskisson (recently retired from BYU) and Steven Smoot (recent BYU grad), “Was Noah’s Flood the Baptism of the Earth?” (The full table of contents is given at the Maxwell Institute page, Amazon link here.) They trace the LDS evolution of an inherited tradition about the flood into a quasi-doctrine about the baptism of the earth. This quasi-doctrine was then used to argue that there must have been a world-wide flood, which is a circular argument.

As it turns out, doctrinal inheritance leading to strong tradition is not uncommon in the LDS Church.

A close study of the Latter-day Saint beliefs early in the history of the Church uncovers a doctrinal migration from beliefs held by other denominations in the early nineteenth century. Combine the integration of people from different religious backgrounds with a lack of a professional clergy and no established creed; the result is a slow acclimation to new doctrine. There were no seminaries or missionary training centers to train and indoctrinate those that would fill the leadership positions in the Church. Beliefs and practices from previous religious backgrounds continued with the convert after baptism until they were addressed and corrected.- Link

What other traditions did we inherit? This is certainly not an exhaustive list.

  • The curse of Cain being black skin and/or slavery is a long tradition, per the LDS Gospel Topics essay and whole lot of scholarship like this and this and this.
  • Some of our religious vocabulary and structure was inherited from Protestantism. See this article by Fluhman, and this one by Kevin Barney for some examples.
  • The idea that the Roman Catholic church is the “great and abominable church” of both Revelation and 1 Nephi 13-14.  This was common Protestant polemic going back to Luther, and it was repeated by e.g. Orson Pratt, and Bruce R. McConkie in the first edition of Mormon Doctrine, who called it “the church of the devil.” (On the latter, see p.50-53 and 122 in the McKay biography.)

Our church is now coming of age where it is mature enough, stable enough, and has the historical tools to begin interrogating some of these traditions inherited from outside.

I think the the baptism of the earth, for example, constitutes a case of  “mission creep,” “feature creep,” or “scope creep.”  In essence, this describes an original plan, mission, or feature that at inception had defined and  limited scope, but is then expanded far beyond its original scope or purpose as time goes on. It takes on more than it was originally intended for, is put to uses that weren’t in the original design. With “doctrine creep,” a passage is pressed into use it wasn’t designed for, then that interpretation is expanded and solidified.

We might want to emphasize a particular thing, and so we look for a verse to emphasize it. Again, let’s consider the baptism of the earth. In a heavily Protestant context which downplays ritual and ordinances, early LDS wanted to make clear the absolute necessity of baptism. What was at hand? The Flood! Even the earth was fully immersed! It was baptized too! …. which then leads to the concept of the earth as a living being, the flood as a formal ordinance, and therefore not only a historical but a worldwide and literal flood with all the problems that entails. (Again, see my two posts linked above.)

Another example is chastity-related. We really want to emphasize (and rightly so) with our youth the seriousness of sex and steer them away from sexual activity outside of marriage. Alma 39 has been pressed into use to emphasize this, with the line “second only unto murder” even though the original passage is not so narrow.

Although not addressing any of the topics above, Elder McConkie once said to educators, “Certain things which are commonly said and commonly taught in the Church either are not true, or, are in the realm of pure speculation.”- Bruce R. McConkie: Highlights from His Life and Teachings, somewhere between 326-35. (The author sent me this in an email, and I have not seen the original nor confirmed the quotation, which is from an unpublished transcript.)

A new book is out from the Maxwell Institute and Deseret Book, Planted: Belief and Longing in an Age of Doubt by Patrick Mason, the Howard Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont. This book is one of the MI’s Living Faith series, and addresses, among other things, how to live with faith and doubt, how to reconcile and make sense of things. It’s not an answer book, though, as much as a guide to thinking and approaches. The table of contents as well as links to reviews and interviews is here. The reviews are uniformly full of praise and lengthy useful quotations. Highly recommended.

The third book isn’t LDS, but Islamic. The Quran is at the center of many discussions and polemics about Islam, but few Americans have read it and even fewer understood it. The newly published Study Quran (HarperOne) aims to change that. Following the model of Study Bibles, with their interpretive notes and essays, the Study Quran provides background, context, and an interpretive guide. It’s been getting positive reviews from Muslims, scholars, Muslim scholars, non-Muslim scholars, and LDS as well. See Michael Austin’s review here.

I fully expect to see this become a required book in Islam 101 courses across the country. It has its own homepage, complete with sample from Surah 1.

I’m a long-time user of Logos, an electronic library and Bible study program available for PC and MAC. The engine itself is FREE, as are the mobile apps (ios and Android), though you can buy packages with more advanced search capabilities and other tools.  It’s far more powerful than something like a Kindle ebook or scanned PDF, which is why I’ve invested a lot in Logos over the last 13 years, most of it at steep discount from sales and deals like these.

There’s a free book and associated discounted book each month. For January, it’s Nahum Sarna’s Exodus volume in the JPS Torah Commentary series for free (free!) and the Jonah volume for $1.99, here. These are fantastic volumes from a scholarly Jewish perspective, 278 and 96 pages respectively, and typically about $60 each in print. Highly recommended. UPDATE: A friend pointed out that although it’s not February yet, they’ve changed the books already on that landing page. However, if you navigate to the individual book pages, they’re still free and $1.99, so here are the links to Sarna on Exodus and the Jonah volume. The current $1.99 volume is the technical version of a monograph by John Walton on Genesis 1. I reviewed the popular version, called The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, for the Interpreter here. It’s a good read on Genesis, creation, and the temple. I do recommend the technical version (again, $1.99 at Logos throughout February), but it might make more sense if you read the less technical one first.

Also, through Sunday night, most Anchor Bible commentary volumes are $20 instead of their normal $50-$80. (The exceptions are brand-new volumes.) Again, this is a great series, very scholarly, and I have never seen them on sale at all in electronic format.

Also, through Sunday night, the Library of New Testament Studies volumes are all $9.99 instead of 2-4x that amount. These seem fairly technical, but someone might be interested.

These are all disappearing on February 1, so take advantage while you can.

January 16, 2016

January 16, 2016 By

First, although this lesson terminates in chapter 15, next week’s Lesson 4 doubles back to cover 1Ne 13-14. That’s a bit of an artificial division, breaking up a natural unit, since Nephi’s vision begins in chapter 11. I’ve been a bit slow getting this post up, due to a surprise funeral, followed by a surprise cross-country drive. What writing I did do was all about chapters 13-14, until I discovered and pointed out the lesson backtracking online. Two other teachers said “oops, time to revise this week’s lesson.” So don’t prep your lesson this week on chapters 13-14!

I think there are some really useful things here about the nature of revelation, an important topic I’ve addressed before in different settings (video here, rough text here), and will also spend lengthy time on in my book (I’ve updated that page a bit). We sometimes talk about “Direct Revelation,” as if God speaking directly to someone can sidestep human limitations of understanding, culture, or bias, and therefore represents Ultimate Eternal Truth. However,  Nephi’s and Lehi’s visions are about as direct a revelation as you can get, a good case study. How does it work there?

The process of revelation to Nephi involved questions and thought. He has to think and work things out. As Peter Enns has said, “the Spirit leads [us] to truth- he does not simply drop us down in the middle of it.” (p.49 of this volume.) Brant Gardner somewhere points out the following. (It’s in my notes, but I can’t find it in his commentary.)

It is interesting that the didactive method of both of Nephi’s spirit guides was that of asking questions. In at least this one way, the revelation to Nephi required his active participation and working out of understanding. Nephi is also required to participate in the process rather than having the information “poured” into his head. Nephi, even in glorious vision, retains his agency which must be used to form understanding from what he is being shown.”

Elder Holland, along these lines, said in a BYU devotional, that

Usually we think of revelation as information. Just open the books to us, Lord, like: What was the political significance of the Louisiana Purchase or the essence of the second law of thermodynamics?

But revelation is rarely a a divine data dump, a page out of God’s Perfect and Eternal Encyclopedia of Everything, .

Similar to Nephi’s vision , Joseph Smith’s process of revelation with the JST- “The translation was not a simple, mechanical recording of divine dictum, but rather a study-and-thought process accompanied and prompted by revelation from the Lord.”- Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation” Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible: A History and Commentary, 39. Link (Note that the details of this classic and groundbreaking work have been superseded by newer work on the JST.)  See also this article on the JST and passages translated twice.

To pull another quotation from a different kind of authority, Eugene England, an LDS educator and writer, talked about revelation like this, in his wonderful essay “Why the Church is as true as the Gospel.” (Link )

“I know that those who use the cliche about the gospel being more “true” than the Church want the term gospel to mean a perfect system of revealed commandments based in principles that infallibly express the natural laws of the universe. But even revelation is, in fact, merely the best understanding the Lord can give us of those things. And, as God himself has clearly insisted, that understanding is far from perfect. He reminds us, in the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, “Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known” (D&C1:24-25). This is a remarkably complete and sobering inventory of the problems involved in putting God’s knowledge of the universe into human language and then having it understood. It should make us careful about claiming too much for “the gospel,” which is not the perfect principles or natural laws themselves—or God’s perfect knowledge of those things—but is merely the closest approximation that inspired but limited mortals can receive.

Even after a revelation is received and expressed by a prophet, it has to be understood, taught, translated into other languages, and expressed in programs, manuals, sermons, and essays—in a word, interpreted. And that means that at least one more set of limitations of language and world-view enters in. I always find it perplexing when someone asks a teacher or speaker if what she is saying is the pure gospel or merely her own interpretation. Everything anyone says is essentially an interpretation. Even simply reading the scriptures to others involves interpretation, in choosing both what to read in a particular circumstance and how to read it (tone and emphasis). Beyond that point, anything we do becomes less and less “authoritative” as we move into explication and application of the scriptures, that is, as we teach “the gospel.”
Yes, I know that the Holy Ghost can give strokes of pure intelligence to the speaker and bear witness of truth to the hearer. I have experienced both of these lovely, reassuring gifts. But such gifts, which guarantee the overall guidance of the Church in the way the Lord intends and provide guidance, often of a remarkably clear nature, to individuals, still do not override individuality and agency. They are not exempt from the limitations of human language and moral perception that the Lord describes in the passage quoted above, and thus they cannot impose universal acceptance and understanding.”

Second, let’s ask some rhetorical questions. Can we misunderstand even direct revelation? Or miss parts? Is revelation always perfectly clear? Nephi says “the water which my father saw was filthiness; and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water.”  (1Ne 15:27) So, the leading prophet missed parts of the vision? That is apparently possible. Even in revelation, our minds can be “swallowed up” by other details. David O. McKay tells a true story illustrating this.

Gospel Ideals: Selections from the Discourses of David O. McKay, p. 525

  One day in Salt Lake City a son kissed his mother good morning, took his dinner bucket, and went to City Creek Canyon where he worked. He was a switchman on the train that was carrying logs out of the canyon. Before noon his body was brought back lifeless. The mother was inconsolable. She could not be reconciled to that tragedy—her boy just in his early twenties so suddenly taken away. The funeral was held, and words of consolation were spoken, but she was not consoled. She couldn’t understand it.
One forenoon, so she says, after her husband had gone to his office to attend to his duties as a member of the Presiding Bishopric, she lay in a relaxed state on the bed, still yearning and praying for some consolation. She said that her son appeared and said, “Mother, you needn’t worry. That was merely an accident. I gave the signal to the engineer to move on, and as the train started, I jumped for the handle of the freight car, and my foot got caught in a sagebrush, and I fell under the wheel. I went to Father soon after that, but he was so busy in the office I couldn’t influence him—I couldn’t make any impression upon him, and I tried again. Today I come to you to give you that comfort and tell you that I am happy.”
Well, you may not believe it. You may think she imagined it, but you can’t make her think so, and you can’t make that boy’s father think it. I cite it today as an instance of the reality of the existence of intelligence and environment to which you and I are “dead,” so to speak, as was this boy’s father.

This story was repeated as a First Presidency Message in The Ensign, April 1988–

A son of Bishop and Sister Wells was killed in a railroad accident on October 15, 1915. He was run over by a freight car. Sister Wells could not be consoled. She received no comfort during the funeral and continued her mourning after her son was laid to rest. Bishop Wells feared for her health, as she was in a state of deep anguish.

One day, soon after the funeral, Sister Wells was lying on her bed in a state of mourning. The son appeared to her and said, “Mother, do not mourn, do not cry. I am all right.” He then related to her how the accident took place. Apparently there had been some question—even suspicion—about the accident because the young man was an experienced railroad man. But he told his mother that it was clearly an accident.

[President Benson adds-] Now note this: He also told her that as soon as he realized that he was in another sphere, he had tried to reach his father but could not. His father was so busy with the details of his office and work that he could not respond to the promptings.

Here, a member of the Presiding Bishopric was unable to perceive a heavenly messenger whom he knew personally, because of his Church work. Like Lehi, his mind was “swallowed up” in other things, even good things!

To sum up- Revelation is real. But revelation, even Direct Revelation™ is also more complicated and fuzzy than many of us realize, because divine revelation comes to and through fallen humans, in our language, in our cultural patterns, as God adapts it to us.

Tidbits

1Ne 10:3 the Babylonian captivity. Again, check out Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem for some good writing on this. (Maxwell Institute link, Amazon link.)

1Ne 10:18  God is the same yesterday today and forever, a quotation or allusion to Heb 13:8 but also Psa 102:27. This does not mean that God never changes his mind, nor that aspects of the gospel never change. Rather, it indicates God’s reliability in his promises. D&C 58:31-33. Num. 23:19.

1Ne 11:1 Mountain as place of revelation.
High mountain is  Temple symbolism, Isa. 2:2. Place of revelation, meeting place of heaven and earth. (There’s a whole video on that, with some big non-LDS scholars, and it’s on Youtube as well, complete with trashy comments and anti-mormon “related” links.)  Moses at Sinai; Brother of Jared at Mt. Shelem (Eth 3:1); Jesus. Peter, James, & John at Mt. of Transfiguration where the Father appears ( Mat 17:1 a “high mountaint). Moses in MSS 1:1 (“exceedingly high”). Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden, according to Ezekiel 28:13-14.

1Ne 11:8 Nephi sees a tree. Then sees Mary, bearing Jesus.  “Now do you understand what the tree means?”  asks the angel. There is likely some cultural background here. See Daniel Peterson, “Nephi and His Asherah.” There is a longer version of this, and a shorter version, as well as a youtube lecture which I believe covers the same ground. (I haven’t watched it.)

1 Nephi 11:10 Both God and Satan will ask you, What do you want? And they will give it to us. (Alma 29:4) We become what we choose.

1 Nephi 11:18, 21, 32 and 13:40 Joseph Smith made a few changes between the 1830 and 1837 publications, apparently disambiguating some things about the Godhead that modern readers might misunderstand. Namely, he inserted “son of” in several places it appeared to designate Jesus as God or Father, e.g. 1 Ne 11:18

1830-  “is the mother                    of God”

1837-  “is the mother of the son of God”

Some have suggested this indicates a changing view of the Godhead by Joseph Smith, and that the earliest view was something called “modalism” (i.e. “one divine personage who manifests himself three different ways”, see below). I have little doubt Joseph Smith’s views were changing as he had more experience and revelation, but the evidence for early LDS or Book of Mormon modalism is pretty thin.  He spoke pretty strongly against modalism, which seems to have been how the Trinity was explained to him by others.

If we read Isaiah 9:6 through Christian tradition, then Jesus there is called both son and father. Ancient Israelites, then later Jews and Christians had some problems working out what divinity was, how many gods there were, and how Jesus and the Father were related, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see a variety of views in ancient scripture. This fun cartoon uses St. Patrick in Ireland to explain both classical trinitarianism (as they worked it out post-New Testament) and how common Christian metaphors for it are actually expressing hereies, like modalism. Bottom line: this is complicated, and most Mormons don’t really understand what classical Trinitarianism actually is.

For further reading, see David Paulsen’s article about early Mormon modalism,  See also my post here, scroll down to the John 10 section. If you really want to dig in, you need to read Blake Ostler‘s works, volumes 1 and 3.

1 Nephi 11:22– Tree is “the love of God.” That of is ambiguous, and corresponds to what’s called “the genitive case” in Greek and Latin. Does “love of God” mean “Godly love” (an adjectival genitive), love for God (objective genitive), or God’s love (subjective genitive)?

1 Nephi 12:9 is there a difference between the 12 apostles and the 12 disciples? What’s an apostle?
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August 28, 2015

August 28, 2015 By

This week, we’re all in one place, 1 Corinthians, which is a smorgasbord of interesting topics, conflict, and controversy. There is a lot to say, and as long as this is, I’ve left out plenty.

First, I’ve uploaded a copy of the rough text (link now fixed) from my presentation at the BYU Conference on the New Testament a few weeks ago, “Christian Accommodation at Corinth.” It’s adapted from one of the groundwork chapters in my Genesis book.

Second, some background from Jim Faulconer’s New Testament Made Harder– (more…)

May 16, 2015

May 16, 2015 By

Today we’re covering less territory. In fact, we can focus entirely on one chapter. What’s the setting? A stereotypical collection of tax collectors and sinners on one side, scribes and pharisees on the other.  The second group criticizes Jesus for associating with the first group. Jesus responds to them with three parables. (more…)

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