Leave it to a BYU student to invoke the name of the Lord in BYU’s win last weekend over the U. Austin Collie, who caught a 49-yard pass on 4th and 18 to keep the drive alive (which eventually put BYU ahead for good), had this to say in a post-game interview: “Obviously, when you’re doing what’s right on and off the field, I think the Lord steps in a plays a part.” His comment, of course, has generated quite bit... Read more
AHLDuke summarizes the SBL conference on his blog. I hear it was a good time. Across town from SBL, JP Moreland at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting accuses Evangelicals of bibliolatry, in his address entitled “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It.” As this summary post puts it, “to accuse evangelicals of over-commitment to the Bible at ETS would be like accusing environmentalists of talking too much about climate change at a Sierra... Read more
While some of my fellow bloggers here at FPR conclude their probably ecstatic SBL experience, I thought I’d make a post about a topic that I’ve been musing on for the past while. A realization that I’ve had recently is connected to just how legalistic we are with respect to the attaining of salvation, even exaltation. Just a quick perusal of our modernly revealed scriptures reinforced this idea to me: the LDS salvific model (as fluid a concept as that... Read more
Elder McConkie, I think, made large contributions to the Church. He systematized and provided the only real encyclopedic Gospel reference book in a time when computers filled rooms. I think he provided some things the Church needed at a particular time. That time appears to have passed. The following should be taken with a grain of salt. I have sources, but most of them are shadowy people I’ve met in dark parking garages. Mormon Doctrine, written by a member of... Read more
I first heard about Margaret Barker seven years ago and have watched from the sidelines as LDS scholars have fallen all over themselves after her ideas. However, I have never read her work. My avoidance of her work changed when a friend of mine sent me one of her lectures for comment (this is a great way to maintain a long-distance friendship, btw). It was worse than I imagined. I listened to the 35 minute lecture probably 10 times and... Read more
1) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 2) Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you. Or are they both more or less the same? Read more
Two quick notes: Non-LDS scholar Peter Flint gave a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls the other day at BYU. You can watch it or listen to the audio at Aquinas’ blog. (Hat tip to, uh, Aquinas.) And Logos is doing it to me again. They’ve got two new databases, wheat amongst the chaff on the prepublication list, which means a reduced price is available before Logos finishes building the databases. (This link explains how the prepublication process works.) The... Read more
This upcoming conference at Yale is the same weekend as the conference on Mormonism and Politics at Princeton. It looks like there are going to be some interesting papers, but it is unclear exactly if any of them are going to be more than historical recitations. If you are in the area, please go and let us know how it was! The only question is why this conference is being held at Yale. All but one of the presenters is... Read more
BYU is looking to hire a professor of ancient scripture in their department of Religious Education. For the entire posting go here. Here is an excerpt from the listing. Below it are some thoughts. (more…) Read more
If all is sacred, is nothing sacred? This is related to a previous discussion here at FPR. The categories of “sacred” and “profane” have a long history in the study of religion. And attempts to collapse the sacred and profane can be understood many different ways. I actually find it valuable to consider “All as Sacred”; but not in the sense that “the sacred” is simply a spatial category. IMO, the sacred is a relational category contingent on how we... Read more
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