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The Interpreter Foundation is trying to be of use for students and teachers of this year’s Gospel Doctrine curriculum in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is some material:
Incidentally, I’ve just learned from an anonymous poster on a predominantly atheistic ex-Mormon message board that the Interpreter Foundation is dying, or in a crisis, or something. Should I panic? From another, I’ve discovered that we’ve mounted a coup against the leaders of the Church. I learn so many wonderful things online!
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On his astonishingly prolific blog, the Irish Latter-day Saint writer Robert Boylan offers an interesting passage (regarding a passage that we discussed today in my Gospel Doctrine class) from the British Methodist theologian and biblical scholar Adam Clarke (ca. 1760-1832), whose biblical commentary apparently influenced the Prophet Joseph Smith:
In his commentary on John 1:18, Adam Clarke noted that the passage does not mean no one has ever seen God (the Father), but instead, no one has fully grasped/perceived Him:
No man hath seen God at any time – Moses and others heard his voice, and saw the cloud and the fire, which were the symbols of his presence; but such a manifestation of God as had now taken place, in the person of Jesus Christ, had never before been exhibited to the world. It is likely that the word seen, here, is put for known, as in John 3:32; 1 John 3:2, 1 John 3:6, and 3 John 1:11; and this sense the latter clause of the verse seems to require: – No man, how highly soever favored, hath fully known God, at any time, in any nation or age; the only begotten Son, (see on John 1:14; (note)), who is in the bosom of the Father, who was intimately acquainted with all the counsels of the Most High, he hath declared him, εξηγησατο, hath announced the Divine oracles unto men; for in this sense the word is used by the best Greek writers.
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Here’s an article from the very first issue of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, back in 2012:
““I Have Revealed Your Name”: The Hidden Temple in John 17”
Abstract: John 17 contains a richly symbolic Last Discourse by Jesus, in which the disciples are assured a place in the Father’s celestial house or temple. To fulfill this promise Christ reveals both the Father’s name and his glory to his disciples. Jesus’s discourse concludes with the promise of sanctification of the disciples, and their unification—or deification—with Christ and the Father. This paper explores how each of these ideas reflects the temple theology of the Bible and contemporary first-century Judaism.
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