Faith-Promoting Rumor
For fear of a looming thread-jack starting here, I opened this thread. (more…) Read more
For fear of a looming thread-jack starting here, I opened this thread. (more…) Read more
God [‘elohim] has taken his place in the divine council [‘adat ‘el]; in the midst of the gods [‘elohim] he holds judgement. Ps. 82.1 (NRSV) References to a divine council or heavenly assembly are found frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible [1]. Simply, the divine council is the heavenly royal court over which Yahweh, the God of Israel, presides as heavenly king. The members of this heavenly court or assembly are referred to in the Hebrew Bible by such terms as:... Read more
This is too useful to get lost in the sidebar. A new site is up that offers useful online functionality. It’s essentially a configurable Reader’s Edition, with color-coding morphology (“make all verbs red”) and glosses. These are very useful things for beginners, reviewing, or just not where your resources are. Check it out here. Hat tip: MGVH Read more
Thanks to Logos’ RefTagger, all past, present and future FPR posts now have pop-up Bible links 🙂 Currently it’s set for the KJV, but that may change in the future. Check out one of TYD’s scripture-heavy posts for the new functionality. http://www.faithpromotingrumor.com/2009/04/el-shaddai/ Clicking on the “more” button on a pop-up will take you to a full-text page of the Bible, which also lets you change to a variety of translation. Enjoy. Read more
In much of the modern Judeo-Christian tradition, including LDS Christianity, Satan is seen as the personification of evil, a being who purposely defies God and attempts to thwart his plans for the world.[1] Because Satan is such a prominent figure in especially the Christian tradition, it is quite shocking that the notion of this archenemy to God is not really found anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, and doesn’t clearly appear until the intertestamental period (i.e., the period between the writing... Read more
There is an interesting tradition found in many biblical texts that affirms that Yahweh, the God of Israel, genuinely consults with others and considers their voice despite the fact that he is eminently more powerful and knowledgeable than they. This is especially evident in those texts where Yahweh reasons or dialogues with a prophet and, at times, even changes his intended course of action after hearing their argument(s) and opinion(s). As one example, consider Exodus 32.7-14 (NRSV) which records a... Read more
Valerie Hudson Cassler’s recent defense of heterosexual-only marriage offers a heteronormative account of human relationships that pits (heterosexual) women against homosexuals, where “the possibility of human freedom and peace” hang in the balance.[1] However, Hudson’s article suffers from the typical problems of heteronormative feminism, which as been critiqued since the 1980’s in American feminist circles,[2] not only because it denies the label of “woman” to the lesbian, but also because it restricts the possibility of women’s freedom as lying exclusively... Read more
This important title, often found in connection with name ‘El, is found in several biblical passages in reference to Israel’s God (e.g., Gen.17.1; 28.3; 35.11;49.25; Ex. 6.3; Num. 24.4, 16; Ps. 68.15; Job 8.3,5, etc.). [1] ‘El-Shaddai is P’s favored title for God before the revelation of the divine name to Moses. But what is its meaning, and what is its historical derivation? Traditionally, following the LXX (i.e., the Septuagint, or ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), which uses... Read more
At the end of Good Friday, we’d like to commemorate Christ’s descent into hell. Christ’s descensus ad inferno has a long history in Christian tradition. In Mormon terms, this is related to Christ’s “visit” to Spirit Prison. This tradition, and particularly the Mormon version, have an important theological message about Christ’s nature. (more…) Read more
I just found this old post that I never published. Can’t remember why. For some reason, Mormons often cling to the old creeds of eternal, objective truth. Perhaps they are wary of the “boogey-men” of relativism. This makes no sense to me because Mormonism arose out of an intellectual environment that was questioning these very foundations of eternal truth. In the end, Mormonism becomes the ultimate example of a religion without any eternal, objective truths because the eternities are the... Read more
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