This year, like many years past, we had some great posts.  We tend to be pretty inconsistent week to week, with regular life taking over, but every time we think we are going out of business, something else sparks our interest.  Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. This year we also resolved to quit reading some of the more problematic Mormon blogs and “journals” (or at least to quit publicly commenting on them).  There were a handful of... Read more

Communities sometimes find themselves in deep division over really important issues.  There is no universal answer to how to respond to these divisions, but one example from the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians, has been deeply influential for me, and one with conflicting messages in our present circumstances. (more…) Read more

With the recent statement disavowing aspects of Mormonism’s tangled history with racism, attention has turned to Bro Brigham and his legacy of the priesthood ban. As is well known, Young believed in line with many of his contemporaries and modern LDS scripture that the mark of Cain mentioned in the Bible was black skin and that Cain’s descendants could be identified with people of African ancestry. As such, they were a lineage under God’s malediction and unworthy of the priesthood,... Read more

The rediscovery of the Late War by Gilbert Hunt recently as a possible source for understanding the language, style, and narrative content of the Book of Mormon has already elicited a considerable amount of discussion and debate. After Duane and Chris Johnson’s computer study of more than 100,000 books published before 1830 indicated that a number of texts had a high incidence of distinctive phrases matching the Book of Mormon (BoM) and that among these the most significant may be... Read more

Two LDS scholars have recently voiced their thoughts on the academic study of religion. One can be found here; the other can be found on pages 136-145 of the recent issue of the Religious Educator (14.3, 2013). I’ve brought these two pieces into dialogue for the readers of FPR. NOTE: I have taken things out of context, but I have not changed any of the words except as marked by parentheses. Enjoy! (more…) Read more

Paul claims to be an apostle by virtue of his vision/s of Jesus. He does not claim to be an apostle by virtue of Jesus ordaining him to any priesthood. He does not claim to be an apostle by virtue of Peter, another of the twelve, or anyone else ordaining him to any priesthood either, though he does want to point out that years after the fact James and Peter and John accepted him (Galatians 2:6-10). When he refers to... Read more

In a recent post TT made some interesting observations about Korihor and secularism in the context of the BoM narrative. He expressed skepticism that Korihor should be understood as an anachronistic representative of Enlightenment atheism and provocatively suggested that the narrative is actually arguing in favor of secularism if understood as the separation of ecclesiastical from political powers. I don’t find this reading of the narrative to be persuasive, however, even though many of TT’s questions are well-placed and aspects... Read more

When I opened up my new issue of the BYU magazine, I immediately encountered a short article entitled “Ask the Expert: Hebrew School” that attracted my interest. The article was a brief discussion of several Hebrew names/terms by Donald Parry, a professor of Hebrew, accompanied by a rather large photo of him holding some Hebrew scrolls. I was interested to see what Parry had to say, since he is a well-known Dead Sea Scrolls/Old Testament scholar who has published widely,... Read more