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I\u2019m one of the two Gospel Doctrine teachers in my ward, and today it was my privilege to teach Lesson 35, which treats the \u201cminor\u201d prophets Amos and Joel. \u00a0It gave me a chance to dust off a column that Bill Hamblin and I wrote for the Deseret News<\/em> back in January 2013:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOld Testament divine council called a \u2018sod'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n (The Hebrew word sod<\/em> is pronounced somewhere between the English words sod<\/em> and sewed<\/em>.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For many years, the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, sponsored a book display and booth at the massive annual joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. \u00a0We displayed our publications there and, often, answered scholars\u2019 questions about the Restored Church.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Four or five times, though, people talking with us would note that our work was almost entirely about peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures and subjects, and would ask whether we had no interest in the Bible.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t like that part of the impression that we appeared to be giving. \u00a0We seemed, in that minor way at least, to be confirming the suspicion of some that we\u2019re not really Christian.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But most of us (if not, indeed, all of us) are\u00a0deeply<\/em> interested in the Bible.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To use myself as an example: \u00a0I majored in Greek and dabbled in Hebrew as an undergraduate partly because of my biblical interests. \u00a0My interest in the Bible was a major reason for my spending nearly six months studying in Jerusalem just after graduation. \u00a0And the fact that I\u2019ve led at least one tour to Israel annually for the past decade is intimately connected with my passion for learning and teaching about the Bible and biblical history. \u00a0(I certainly don\u2019t do it for the money; I make<\/em> none from accompanying such tours, beyond having my travel, food, and lodging covered, along with my wife\u2019s expenses.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The fact is, though, that Latter-day Saints have long tended to \u201coutsource\u201d our biblical scholarship. \u00a0(For years, we scarcely had<\/em> any scholarship; we were mostly a relatively rural or small town community in the remote American West.) \u00a0We\u2019ve focused on our own unique scriptures for the simple fact that nobody else was doing so. \u00a0Not, at least, from a faithful perspective. \u00a0And biblical studies is a major academic field, providing us with no shortage of commentaries and other studies on which we could draw.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say, though, that Latter-day Saints haven\u2019t contributed some interesting perspectives on biblical topics. \u00a0There is, for example, Jack Welch\u2019s\u00a0The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple<\/span><\/em><\/a>, which grew out of his earlier Mormon-oriented\u00a0<\/span>Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and Sermon on the Mount<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0And there is his analysis of the parable of the Good Samaritan<\/a>. \u00a0And there\u2019s Bill Hamblin\u2019s and Dave Seely\u2019s book on\u00a0Solomon\u2019s Temple: Myth and History<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em>The very first volume of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture<\/em> published Bill Hamblin\u2019s <\/span>\u201c\u2018I Have Revealed Your Name\u2019: The Hidden Temple in John 17\u201d<\/a>, and that\u2019s very far from the last article that we\u2019ve published on biblical subjects. \u00a0Heck, I might even mention my own \u201c<\/span>Ye Are Gods:\u00a0Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind\u201d \u2014 which can still be found under my name on the website of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship<\/a>, although, curiously, the link to it seems to be malfunctioning somewhat. \u00a0(Look under \u201cAuthors.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n