Why Science is (Mostly) Powerless Against Young Earth Creationism: A Personal Narrative

Last updated on: November 21, 2017 at 3:54 pm By Ben Spackman

Young 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?

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.

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.

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Books, Homes, and Al-Jahiz

Last updated on: November 1, 2017 at 11:12 am By Ben Spackman

Living in New York for six years, I developed the habit of looking for new housing. New Yorkers are constantly on the hunt for a deal on a bigger place, a cheaper place, a better place. For comparison, we lived in a 700-ft² apartment in Brooklyn for $1500/month and considered ourselves lucky. Now when visiting Utah, my wife and I and her family sometimes do the Parade of Homes in Salt Lake City, or St. George. Now, “Utah” is not always a good proxy for “Mormons,” and the Parade of Homes even less so, but every time we go, I have the same gripe at virtually every house— “There are massive TVs in every room, but no bookshelves anywhere! They’ve got a Home Theater room, but no library. They’ve got built-ins, but no built-in bookshelves! Do these people not read?! Is there really a market for wealthy illiterates?!”

I thought of this recently while reading Darwin’s Ghost’s: The Secret History of Evolution. It details Al-Jahiz, a 9th-century Muslim scholar living in Basra, who had some ideas like Darwin, though less developed. But it was the world Jahiz lived in that struck me.

“Wealthy patrons built elaborate palaces, libraries, and gardens in Baghdad and lavishly endowed hospitals, but they displayed their wealth most ostentatiously in competing to commission translations as a demonstration of their sophistication and their pious dedication to the expansion of knowledge”

“compelled by the desire to rediscover and translate lost knowledge, [they] sent out emissaries to hunt for ancient Syriac and Greek manuscripts in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. Scholar-explorers knocked on the doors of monasteries and sent requests to patriarchs in Alexandria, Antioch, Edessa, and Gundeshapur in the hope of discovering more Greek manuscripts, many of which, like Aristotle’s, had been banished to basements or cellars or left to rot in derelict and crumbling libraries.”

So, wealthy people showed off their wealth with… books and translations of books, and a dedication to knowledge? Huh. This Muslim collection, preservation, and translation of ancient philosophy and science is what eventually kick-started the Renaissance, btw. What motivated Jahiz and these others? “It was the scientific curiosity of the world Jahiz lived in, a curiosity enjoined by the Qur’an…”

I’m not familiar with those Qur’an references, but I thought of various D&C passages.

seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith. (D&C 88:118; 109:7)t

study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people. (D&C 90:15)

grant, Holy Father, that all those who shall worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by study, and also by faith (D&C 109:14)

obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man (D&C 93:53)

American society in general is turning away from reading, for pleasure or otherwise. Do we Mormons take these injunctions seriously? Do we seek books, knowledge, learning, languages, history, etc.?

As for Jahiz, what was his fate? A noble and learned death.

“According to popular lore, he was crushed to death when a wall of books fell on him.”

Critical Scholarship and Faith at BYU, Brief Partial Summary and Thoughts

Last updated on: May 8, 2017 at 6:09 pm By Ben Spackman

Jacob wrestles with critical scholarship. Gustav Doré, public domain. — Jacob wrestles with critical scholarship.
Gustav Doré, public domain.

Several weeks ago, the Maxwell Institute’s Studies in the Bible and Antiquity journal sponsored a small non-public conference at BYU on the topic of “Critical Scholarship and Faith.” If you’re unsure why this is an issue for LDS, read Julie Smith’s post “the next generation’s faith crisis.” I largely agree with her, and was thus quite excited to see this conference happen.

“Critical scholarship,” of course, does not mean scholarship that finds fault or is nit-picky. Its use of “critical” is more along the lines of “critical thinking.” (See my post on critical thinking and BYU here.) The term is shorthand for a vague collection of modern issues, ideas, methods, and conclusions that can seem to (or actually do) undermine faith in scripture and/or God. They are largely things most LDS have never heard about, and that’s a problem. While scholars talk about “critical scholarship” as shorthand for a variety of issues and methods, it might be better to say, “modern biblical scholarship” which is a) often strongly persuasive, b)based on close readings of the texts themselves, and c) doesn’t always cohere well with some elements of either the broader Judeo-christian tradition or narrower LDS tradition. And we haven’t dealt with it very well yet, if at all, as Mormons.

The afternoon session consisted of three LDS scholars David Seely (BYU), J. Kirby (Phd Catholic University of America), and Phillip Barlow (PhD Harvard, now at Utah State).

The morning session, which I’m focusing on, consisted of three non-LDS scholars talking personally about their own religious traditions conflict and interaction with critical scholarship and faith. Peter Enns (PhD from Harvard, now at Eastern University) represented a Protestant view, Candida Moss (Notre Dame) Catholic, and James Kugel (Harvard) Jewish.

This collection of people and speakers was fantastic. Readers may know that I’ve greatly appreciated the work of Enns and Kugel, so it was fantastic to interact with them in person. I knew Moss’s name, but as she has not written as directly on topics pertaining to Biblical interpretation or related issues of interest to me, I hadn’t read any of her books. Since my wife and I are about to celebrate 17 surprisingly childless years, I have now added Moss’ Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness to my reading list.

Each talk (morning and afternoon sessions) will be published in the MI’s journal in the coming months, so I won’t rehash too much.

Kugel recounted some of the history found in his books, especially the excellent intro material in How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. He’s a little bit of a Jewish Richard Bushman, as I describe here. Someone asked him a question about his faith community (he’s an Orthodox Jew), and he replied that “I often feel that,with my views, my faith community consists solely of James Kugel.” 🙂

Moss talked about her experiences teaching at Notre Dame. This was eye-opening; many of my academic LDS friends have “Vatican II” holy envy, wherein the Vatican essentially gave a blessing to critical scholarship and approved translating the Bible into modern vernacular. Moss showed us that Catholicism has still not fully dealt with the ramifications of critical scholarship, Vatican II notwithstanding.

Enns recounted some of the American Protestant history of critical scholarship from the turn of the century, and referred to his own experiences as an Evangelical scholar who was “let go” from a prominent Seminary for publishing a book that was deemed not orthodox enough.

All of these, in some ways, evoked the BYU student and professor experience. In other ways, they differ sharply. One thing was clear. A full confrontation of critical scholarship yet awaits Mormonism. While we may have our own variations to confront, other faith traditions have walked this path before, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from the experiences of others in other faith traditions. Indeed, one of the reasons I’ve pushed Enns and Kugel is because they offer a model of faithful interaction with critical scholarship. Their answers are not necessarily ours, but they can certainly help. This conference felt like a great first step, and I look forward to further discussions.

If the names above aren’t familiar to you from reading me, let me rehash. These are good scholars to read on the Bible.

Phillip Barlow, Mormons and the Bible. Fantastic book about how Mormons have read the Bible, from Joseph Smith on down. Barlow has edited or contributed to a lot of other important work.
Peter Enns
- Enns was interviewed by Blair Hodges for the Maxwell Institute Podcast here.
- Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. This has been on my Top 5 Old Testament Books for Mormons list, since LDS share the 3 problems with the Old Testament that Evangelicals do. I reviewed it here.
- The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. I don’t know that Mormons can accept his conclusion, but he lays out the data very well.
- The Bible and the Believer: How to Read the Bible Critically and Religiously. From another conference with a Protestant scholar, a Catholic scholar, and a Jewish scholar. Excellent stuff.
- More recently, he’s tried to write in a more popular tone, with The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires our Trust More than Our “Correct” Beliefs and The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It.
- He also has a parent’s guide to teaching the Bible, and a similar book, Genesis for Normal People.
James Kugel
- How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now also appears on my shortlist. It gives an overview of why ancient readers understood scripture the way they did, and why modern scholars understand it the way they do. It begins with a historical overview and identifying ancient Jewish assumptions about scripture that drove their interpretation, and what changed in the ensuing centuries. Then he goes from Genesis to the end, as a quasi commentary.
- He has an earlier book that does some similar work on ancient understandings, a book on poetry in the Old Testament, and a book on how Israelites conceived of God.
- When Kugel got cancer, he wrote (as he thought) his last book, on the nature of religious belief.

Stephen L. Richards on science, religion, questions, and General Authorities

Last updated on: March 9, 2018 at 1:18 pm By Ben Spackman

On May 31, 1925, Elder Stephen L. Richards gave the baccalaureate sermon to the graduating class of BYU, which was quite small at the time. This was in the lead-up to the Scopes trial (which is why I’m reading it), and Richards, a lawyer, had been an Apostle for 15 years at this point. His address was printed in the Improvement Era in September, after the Scopes trial had concluded. (On which, see this great book.)

That issue also eulogizes William Jennings Bryan (who had died suddenly right after the Scopes trial), and contains a First Presidency statement on evolution (largely excerpted from the 1909 statement), followed by an editorial on “Teaching Bible Stories.” This editorial takes issue with “a number of communications” on the topic of the “literary” nature of Bible stories. (more…)

Ten Intro Books For Getting a Handle on the Early Chapters of Genesis

Last updated on: March 9, 2018 at 1:18 pm By Ben Spackman

A friend recently asked for a list of books to read as an intro to the issues in Genesis 1-3 as well as the Moses and Abraham parallels. I focused on the former, because there’s not a whole lot dealing with the latter. I have a few chapters on it in my book, so I could write a separate post, if desired. When I taught my Institute class on Genesis a few years ago, I wrote a summary of each week. I treat Moses and Abraham briefly, here.

The books below are generally introductary volumes from different angles. If you read all of these, you’ll have a fairly good understanding of what Genesis 1-3 say, where they came from, how they have been interpreted in the past, and the major issues involved- evolution, age of the earth, “historical Adam,” etc.)

My first suggestion is, always always begin with a good translation and some basic minimal commentary to get situated and familiar with the text. For that, I’d recommend The Jewish Study Bible with the entire Old Testament annoted and essayed, or if you want something a little narrower, Robert Alter’s The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. Alter is primarily a literature scholar, but also Hebrew Bible; his notes are heavily informed by sensitivities to Hebrew and literary aspects of the text. For more background, see my Religious Educator article “Why Bible Translations Differ: A Guide for the Perplexed.” The latter half has suggestions about Bibles, commentaries, and how to use them profitably.

These other books are not in any particular order, but address different aspects of understanding the early chapters of Genesis within the Bible as a whole.

Either Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science or The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Weird and Wonderful World of the Bible.
- Israelites conceived of the cosmos very differently than we do today; not as globes rotating around the sun, but as a flat earth with a solid dome above, and waters above and below that. I’ve only read excerpts of these, but as far as I can tell, each is written by someone who takes the Bible quite seriously and also has formal academic training. Anyone who insists that a “literal” reading of Genesis matches a scientific description of the modern cosmos, then, is imposing on and twisting the text, as well as making assumptions about its purpose. So-called “creation texts” in the ancient Near East are often about something other than creation, counter-intuititive though it may seem.Here’s a video showing Israelite cosmology (but none of the ancient Near Eastern parallels)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8duzqEOhw8
Barlow, Mormons and the Bible Updated ed, (Oxford Press, 2013).
- Based on his Harvard dissertation, Barlow demonstrates that LDS interpretation of the Bible at the highest levels has run the gamut from woodenly literal to extremely non-literal. It shows there has not been historical agreement on how to read the Bible, even among Apostles. That said, I’m not aware of any public statements from General Authorities current or past who show a real awareness of the contextual issues with e.g. dating Genesis 1 or strong similarities with Akkadian myths such as Enuma Elish (for Genesis 1) or Atrahasis/Gilgamesh (Genesis 6-9.)
Either Charles, Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation or Halton, Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Three Views
- Both of these have the same quasi-debate format. Multiple authors each present their own view, followed by short rebuttals by the other authors. The former has eight participants who are given more pages. (IIRC, Walton, Longman, Collins, and Averbeck all have some good things to say.) The latter volume is newer and has only three authors, including Kenton Sparks, who really nails it for me. Hoffmeier is particularly problematic, as reviewed by Peter Enns.
Barton/Wilkinson, Reading Genesis After Darwin (Oxford Press, 2009).
- A collection of 13 essays on a variety of issues relating to interpretation of Genesis 1-3, history of evolution, science, scripture, genre, what difference Darwin made to our understanding of Genesis (very little, actually), etc.
Peter Enns, both Inspiration and Incarnation:Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament and The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins.
- The former deals with three common assumptions about the Old Testament made by Evangelicals (and Mormons too!) While not focused entirely on Genesis 1-3, the assumptions Enns discusses relate directly to how we understand those chapters. (I reviewed it for The Interpreter.) In the latter book, he deals with Genesis 1-3, particularly the Eden story, and “the historical Adam question.”
Walton, both The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate and The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate.
- Now, I like Walton, I’ve read a lot of him, I recommend him, and just as I do with all of these books, I sometimes disagree (which is why I’m writing my own). The Genesis 2-3 volume is on my shelf, but I haven’t read it yet. My Dad liked it though. These are clear and easy to read. I reviewed Genesis One, with its temple-centric interpretation of creation for The Interpreter. Genesis 2-3 includes a section written by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, a plus.
Jon Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence
- Levenson, a Jewish scholar at Harvard, takes a different approach. He looks at different creation accounts in the Bible for what they tell us about the world and the nature of good, evil, and God. A fantastic book, but I recommend some of these others first if you’re not used to quasi-scholarly discourse or haven’t read anything about Genesis 1 before.
Mark Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Fortress Press, 2009)
- Smith is a brilliant and charismatic Catholic scholar at NYU. This volume is longer, more densely academic than the others, and excellent. As you might guess from the title, Smith focuses on the nature of Genesis 1 as written by Israelite priests in Babylon. A whole chapter is devoted, for example, to the question of “What is myth, and does Genesis 1 qualify?”
Most of these scholars accept some form of the idea that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 were originally separate creation stories, with different focuses, and not entirely consistent with each other. The classical version of this is known under various terms, like Documentary Hypothesis or Source Theory. While not the most up-to-date, Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible is the most accessible account of this idea, which goes back 1000 years to observations of inconsistancies in the Biblical text made by Jewish and Christian believers. Source criticism is one way to account for these inconsistancies.

Lastly, I’d check out Biologos, particularly those posts by Walton, Enns, Hyers, Wright, Sparks, and Giberson.

See also my older somewhat overlapping list of books on creation here.

Book Notes and Thoughts on Tradition and “Doctrine Creep”

Last updated on: January 24, 2017 at 1:11 am By Ben Spackman

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.

Me, the Blog, and Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson 1: Changes!

Last updated on: January 2, 2016 at 5:07 pm By Ben Spackman

In the coming year, I plan to put up a Gospel Doctrine post each week as I have in the past. Well, kind of. Out of necessity, they’re going to be shorter and more focused, perhaps with longer biography and links. The blog will also be broadening somewhat, beyond the Gospel Doctrine lessons, in the sense that posts I might have written elsewhere will be posted here.

I’ll be cutting my online time drastically to focus on reading, writing, and working on a PhD at Claremont in History of Religion and Christianity in America, with a side helping of Mormon Studies. I’m still working on the funding situation, but quite excited. While the field is completely different from my previous field, my area of focus within that new field will be a continuation of sorts. I’ll be applying my work on Genesis in the ancient world to understanding the conflict between scripture/religious authority and evolution/scientific authority, in the LDS Church from 1880 onwards. (I’ve already begun reading and writing generally on that topic, such as my article on Ben Carson, Seventh-day Adventists, and young earth creationism.) Though this may change or need further narrowing, I intend to write my dissertation on the history in the LDS Church of conflicting authority and epistemology, evolution vs. scripture (and interpretation), and publish it as a sequel of sorts to my Genesis book.

While I had aimed to complete a draft of my book by Christmas, I was unsuccessful. This is not necessarily bad. The draft has grown and matured in some ways as I work through it. My goal now is to finish up the draft by mid-summer. One of my first classes at Claremont will be Mesopotamian Religion, which pertains directly to my book, given the importance of Enuma Eliš (the so-called Babylonian Creation Epic) for interpreting Genesis 1. The other two classes will help refine and professionalize my writing.

Reading for this lesson.

Gospel Topics essay on Book of Mormon Translation.
Gospel Topics essay on DNA and the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith’s Seerstone and the translation process- See here for my post, pictures, and some useful links about the role of the seerstone, why it has been less well known, and my experience teaching it at BYU. Also here for a post about how culture affects the channels of revelation we believe in, and how our day is different from Joseph Smith’s as well as that of Genesis. Relevant section is down at the bottom, starting with “Beyond the story itself”
Mormon Women Project Lesson 1
- Highlights women who were witnesses to the translation and coming forth.
BYU Studies helps, aids, and articles for Lesson 1
Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited, with good articles by Richard Bushman and others about the coming-forth of the Book of Mormon, the various theories trying to account for it, etc.
Kevin Barney highlights some things he learned here, from one of the books on my suggested reading list.

I’ll repeat and expand on my comment to Kevin’s post, which you should read.

Martin Harris literally bet the farm ($3000) on the publication of the Book of Mormon, and technically lost. I’ve sometimes led up to this story in class with several stories about Martin testing Joseph.

the seerstone-testing story, (here in The Ensign, for one). Martin switched rocks on Joseph when he wasn’t looking.
the Charles Anthon story. Again, Martin tests Joseph.
116 pages story, also involving Martin Harris.

Martin Harris tested Joseph Smith, and he passed every time, which is why Martin was literally willing to bet the farm. Even though he lost it, and was disaffected from Joseph Smith and the LDS Church for roughly 50 years, he testified consistently and constantly of the Book of Mormon, to his death.

Some Things about the Book of Mormon You Might Not Know

Below are some points of interest, potential to talk about in lesson 1 or thoughts for later on.

Nephi’s “goodly” parents comment probably indicates socio-economic standing, not moral goodness.
- This is a long-standing argument among a few bloggers, including me. In the first few verses, Nephi explains that, because his parents were “goodly,” he was taught not just to read (very unusual in the ancient world) but to write (even more unusual), and moreover, to write in two scripts or languages (depending on how we understand the “Egypt” reference). That degree of learning is much more dependent upon Lehi’s financial status than his goodness. Context thus favors the interpretation of “well-off.” The (weaker, in my view) counter-argument comes from dictionaries, which don’t list something like “well-off” as a meaning, so it would be fairly idiomatic usage there in 1Ne 1:1.
Nephi wrote the small plates 30 years after the events they depict, largely with religious/political purposes in mind. I’ll be expanding on this greatly in Lesson 2.
The small plates (1 Nephi-Omni) were translated last. Maybe.
- This is a useful summary.
The Book of Mormon doesn’t depict a capitalist democratic society.
- See (loosely) Richard Bushman, here.
The Book of Mormon doesn’t depict a church structured like ours today.
Joseph Smith never preached a sermon based on a Book of Mormon text.
- Or at least, we have no records of Joseph Smith preaching a sermon based on the Book of Mormon. Most early saints took it as a sign of Joseph Smith’s prophethood, that the heavens were open, and as confirmation of the Bible, not as something that needed independent study and reading. This is probably what leads to D&C passages like this, telling the early Saints to start paying more attention to it.
The first two chapters of Mosiah are missing.
- Mosiah 1-2 (original numbering) disappeared as part of the 116 pages JS gave to Martin Harris. We know this because in the Printer’s Manuscript (the hand copy made to give to EB Grandin to print from), our current Mosiah chapter 1 is labeled Mosiah chapter 3. See Uncovering the Original Text of the Book of Mormon, 20-21, or the critical-text work of Royal Skousen.
It’s not much of a prophesy for Lehi to speak of the Babylonian captivity. (1 Nephi 1:13 and 10:3)
- I’m not suggesting that Lehi wasn’t a prophet, just that this one was no-brainer. The Babylonians had been in control of Jerusalem since 605. There were several episodes between 605 and 587/88 of hauling Jews off to Babylon. While politically and religiously “incorrect” to say that Babylon was going destroy the city (remember Laman and Lemuel’s disbelief on this point, shared with many Israelites), it was not much of a leap to see that was the way the wind was blowing. Lots of this covered in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Amazon link. Maxwell Institute link.)
Jesus appeared to the Nephites almost a year after the three days of darkness, not immediately.
- The two primary texts are 3 Nephi 8:5 (which states that the destruction took place in year 34, month 1 day 1) and 3 Nephi 10:18 (which states that in the *end* of the 34th year, Jesus showed himself to them.) See Kent Brown and John A. Tvedtnes. “When did Christ appear to the Nephites?” (FARMS paper, don’t know if it’s still available) and Kent Brown, “When did Jesus Visit the Americas?” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla, 146-156.
Book of Mormon prophets probably drank wine and didn’t know about three degrees of glory and similar doctrines many today consider central to Mormonism.
- Many critics from a different religious worldview are surprised not to find much “mormonism” in the Book of Mormon, and it’s true. You don’t go to the Book of Mormon to find explicit teachings of not drinking alcohol or coffee (that’s D&C), the premortal existence (that’s mostly Abraham, though implied in Alma 13), eternal marriage (D&C again), or becoming like God (that’s actually the Bible, ironically enough (see here and here), AND D&C. Although, see 3 Nephi 28:10). This is from reading the text, and the principles of line-upon-line; the implication of line-upon-line is that what is known today wasn’t necessarily known or practiced in the past.

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New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson 43: 1-2 Peter, Jude

Last updated on: March 9, 2018 at 1:18 pm By Ben Spackman

These three epistles are usually grouped with James and the three epistles of John, together called the Catholic Epistles. Greek katholikos means “universal”, and so they are sometimes called the General Epistles, since they’re written universally, to everyone, in general. Once again, there’s not really an overarching theme, so we’re going to play thematic wack-a-mole. Find something significant you like and expand on it.

1 Peter

The author of 1Pe is writing “through” Silvanus (i.e. Silas), according to 1Pe 5:12. Is Silvanus scribe, amanuensis, or more? As with some other letters, characteristics of these three letters have led many scholars to the conclusion that they were not written by the putative author. But again, for sake of ease, I’ll call the author Peter.

1Pe 1:16 Here Peter quotes from Lev 19:2. Funny how much the Old Testament was important to these New Testament authors, and how little attention we pay it.

1Pe 2:4-5 “holy priesthood” and offering spiritual sacrifices Peter again draws on the Old Testament, adapting it to Christian life. cf. 1Pe 2:9-10, which quotes Exo 19:5-6, a familiar passage. Notably, “peculiar” means something very different than “weird,” which is why the NRSV translates it as “treasured possession.”

1Pe 2:11 as aliens (“foreigners”) and strangers in the world, cf. John 17:6. This is not where we belong, and we are here temporarily. Consequently, don’t partake of the worldly stuff. Cf. Wordsworth, “the world is too much with us.” Elder Maxwell, “Let us once and for all establish our residence in Zion and give up the summer cottage in Babylon” (“A Wonderful Flood of Light”, BYU Devotional, March 26, 1989)

1Pe 2:18-22 I could have included this passage in my post about the challenge of slavery in the New Testament, spelled out in Philemon. Here Peter tells slaves to submit to their masters, even the harsh unjust ones. He goes on to tell them that in doing so, they emulate Jesus, who also was an example of unjust and unmerited suffering.

1Pe 3:15 This is a classic passage. The Greek for defense eventually gives us our English word “apology”, but in the classic sense, like Plato’s Apology. That is not where Socrates says “I’m sorry,” but rather is his defense of himself. An apology in that sense is “the answer back.” Christians are expected to be able to give a reason, make a defense for their faith when asked. This gives rise to the field known as apologetics, which has gotten an unjustly bad name in LDS circles recently.

1Pe 3:18-19 and 1Pe 4:6 Classic passage among LDS about work for the dead. While indeed there is a very old tradition about Jesus descending into hell, that tradition isn’t exactly identical to LDS dogma. Some of the historical creeds include the statement “he descended into hell (Gr. hades)” (see here)

2 Peter and Jude

There is a connection between these two letters in terms of vocabulary and theme, so much that scholars think one author used or knew the other. This is particularly evident in chapters 2 and 3, which seem to use Jude.

2Pe 1:20-1 These verses about the nature of prophecy, scripture, and interpretation, even in context and in Greek, are difficult to understand. What seems clear is that Peter is somehow addressing his opponents, though we cannot reconstruct exactly what their argument is.

2Pe 3:5-6 What’s interesting about this passage is that it explicitly builds on Old Testament creation theology, that the world was created out of water, the Deep/tehom of Genesis 1:1-3, which exists already “in the beginning.” See my old post here.

2Pe 3:8 This passage is well-known, and comes into play when talking about creation and evolution, and the age of the earth. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2Pe 3:8 KJV).” What is the context of this statement in Peter? Recall that Paul had preached (and Matthew 24 implied) the return of Jesus quite soon, within the lives of the hearers. As time goes on, this expectation wanes, and becomes, perhaps, a point of derision.

Instead of refuting the false teachers directly, who have apparently been sneering at the notion of a second coming (2Pe 3:3–7), Peter now turns to his Christian readers (note the “dear friends”) who, influenced perhaps by the skepticism of their opponents, are at least troubled by the delay.- Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 1058.

What is not well-known is that this statement in 2Pe 3:8 about time is an interpretation of Psa 90:4. Note that there in Psalms, it seems to be largely metaphorical and poetic, not a hard-and-fast scientific/doctrinal statement about the nature of time.

This formula [of 1 day= 1000 years] seems to have been a standard exegetical rule, derived from Ps 90:4… but existing as a relatively independent formulation. The usual procedure is to quote a text in which the word “day” occurs; then the exegetical rule, “A day of the Lord is a thousand years,” is cited, often with a further literal quotation of Ps 90:4 to support it; the conclusion is therefore that where the text says “day” it means, in human terms, a thousand years.

The exegetical rule was sometimes applied to the Genesis creation narrative, to yield the idea that the history of the world is to last six thousand years, six “days” of a thousand years each, followed by a millennial Sabbath (Barn. 15:4; Irenaeus, Adv Haer. 5.28.3; cf. b. Sanh. 97a): this calculation lies behind the widespread Christian millenarianism of the second century. Similarly the rule could be applied to texts which were thought to mention the “day” or “days” of the Messiah (Ps 90:15; Isa 62:5; 65:22), yielding one, two or seven thousand years of messianic rule (Justin, Dial. 81; b. Sanh. 99a: Midr. Ps. 90:17; Pesiq. R. 1:7).- Bauckham, 2 Peter, Jude, Word Biblical Commentary ( 306–307).

Indeed, this passage was key to several things.

Early Judaism (much of it later than 2 Peter) and early Christianity appealed to Ps. 90:4 “(1) to define the length of one of the days of creation, (2) to explain why Adam lived one thousand years after his sin, (3) to calculate the length of the Messiah’s day, and (4) to explain the length of the world” –Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 1059.

Notably, this passage also played into early LDS thought and scripture several times. So, for example, D&C 77 talks about the seven seals in Revelation 5 each being one thousand years. Did this mean the world could only be 7000 years old? W.W. Phelps, in the Times and Seasons interpreted it to mean that the universe had been around for 2,555,000 years, and was quoted on occasion by Elder McConkie. Whence this number? 7,000 years x 265 days x 1000 years, since one “day” = 1000 “years.” See here, for example.

Jude–

As with James, names are a bit odd here. First, Jude and Judas are identical in Greek, but to avoid the mere possibility of Judas the betrayer writing Jude, translators changed the name in English to distinguish them. Second, both are versions of “Judah” and there are 8 men bearing this name in the New Testament.

What’s most interesting in Jude is how it cites as familiar and authoritative several documents which did not make it into the Bible. For example, Jud 1:9 quotes the Assumption of Moses (aka the Testament of Moses.) For more on this in general, see this volume online.

Jude also cites Sodom and Gomorrah, and in light of recent discussion, I would point people back to my post about Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19.