By jupiterschild
Many posts at FPR of late have had to do with Kent Jackson’s description of LDS scholarship. At issue is to what extent Latter-day Saints can (or should) engage in a dialogue with the greater world of academia, and to what extent we should let our faith claims dictate our research and conclusions.
This issue has been recently exemplified in a prominent, front-page Daily Universe (BYU’s student-run newspaper) article entitled “Mysteries of Ancient Egyptian Papyri Revealed” (Feb 15, 2007), complete with imposing but poorly produced graphic. The article first describes how BYU/Maxwell Institute uses multispectral imaging to read otherwise illegible texts written on papyri and other materials. It then goes on to describe some of the contents of these texts and notes that many students are participating in the work.
Imagine my horror when the article was emailed to a major ANE mailing list with the following paragraphs included:
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By Nitsav
I recently discovered that Elder McConkie was aware of Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. I’ll discuss his understanding of them and a tantalizing tidbit stemming therefrom in my next post.
In the meanwhile, that discovery helped me formulate a strategy for helping certain kinds of LDS readers to understand that it’s ok to read and study non-KJV editions of the Bible. The following handout (necessarily limited due to space and audience) is what I prepared for an Institute class to make this point. Read more »
By TT
The vast majority of LDS historical and theological thinking about the temple has attempted to find ancient parallels to Mormon temple rituals. In this view the Mormon temple is a restored completion of fragments and traces of an original, authentic temple ritual. However, this approach doesn’t explain how modern American Mormons understood such rituals. Other approaches have attempted to account for the temple in a strictly derivative relationship to Masonry. The Mormon temple ritual is thus a “borrowed” version of what the Masons were doing. But this doesn’t explain why such borrowings were successful and appealed to Mormons. I want to suggest that both frameworks are impoverished ways of making sense of the temple. Instead, I think that situating the temple rituals in larger American cultural frameworks makes better sense than these two approaches, while also explaining the appeal of the temple to 19th- and early-20th-century Mormons. This cultural framework is the flourishing of voluntary associations and fraternal organizations that dominated American society from the early 1800’s through the 1950’s, which were especially strong from 1850 to 1920. Some estimates have noted that over one third of American men were involved in one or more fraternal organization during this time.
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By TT
Dear Blog World,
I am very pleased to be a part of this merger and hope that all my wildest dreams for it will come true. Basically, FPR can now claim to be the biggest Bible and Religion wonkfest in the bloggernacle. I have always admired the intellectual energy of those who blog here and am grateful for the opportunity to work with them.
Love,
TT (The Blogger Formerly Known as TrailerTrash)
By John C.
We here at Faith-Promoting Rumor are pleased to announce a merger with the folks at Urban Mormonism. They have agreed to join forces with us here in an effort to get posts up here by people other than Mogget and Lxx. I, for one, am pleased as punch as I will finally have time for my magnum opus: The use of the Hebrew preposition b as a directional marker for the position of Kolob within the context of the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages. Coming soon to a “Know Your Religion” fireside near you!
The Urbanites will be introducing themselves shortly. Please welcome them.
By Nitsav
Hello. I’m a new semi-perma-blogger here at FPR. I’m a graduate student in a similar field to these other folks, though much more Old Testament than New. I’ve been a denizen of the bloggernacle for a long time, posting here, there, and everywhere.
My moniker comes from a favorite passage of Isaiah, 3:13. KJV “The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.” This really does NOT convey the force of the Hebrew.
The first verb is nitsav, meaning to stand up, but also stand up against, take or make one’s stand with more force than mere standing.
“To plead” also doesn’t quite carry the right force. Lariv means “to contend with.” More technically, it means to bring to court, to sue. It finds usage in what has been called the “prophetic lawsuit.” In other words, God is about to lay the smack down on the Israelites.
The second phrase, paralleling the first, is omed ladin, “he stands to judge.” This phrase was my first choice for pen name, and I quickly dismissed it for obvious reasons when I saw how it looked it English. I suppose I could have written it more like it’s pronounced, omayd ladeen, but I didn’t think about that when coming up with the name.
The NRSV captures it better than the KJV, though of course, you should just all learn Hebrew. “The LORD rises to argue his case; he stands to judge the peoples.”
I’m glad to be at FPR, hoping to post once a week or so.
Tomorrow I’ll have a post about Elder McConkie, Targumim, and Bible translations.
By lxxluthor
In today’s Daily Unifarce, I mean… Universe, buried in the back (on p.11) was an interesting article about how LDS college age students don’t buy, and therefore must not read, Gospel-topic literature from places like Deseret Book. It also includes in a side bar the top 10 suggestions for which books are the most influential among Mormons and which are considered required reading in religious circles. Yeah, this is going to be good. Read more »
By lxxluthor
I’ve been pondering (much akin to Pinky and the Brain) about the place of the Church in the categorization of orthodoxy and orthopraxy of late. I figured that we’d run out our last theme fairly thoroughly. Anyways, I don’t know exactly what it was that spurred the pondering in me but (must have been something in church) but today I listened to a lecture by Dan Peterson which went over this topic as a part of a broader comparison of Semitic world view tendencies versus Greek world view tendencies and their reflections in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and I have been inspired to write. Read more »
By TT
Recent discussions here and elsewhere have focused on the role of contemporary critical biblical studies and their relationship to Mormon biblical studies. Many have questioned not only the methods of a “scholarly” Mormon biblical studies, but also its possibility. In some circles, the dominant model for appropriation of contemporary scholarship is denominational, and the Catholic experience is taken as emblematic. I have been critical of such a model here. As a result, I hope to suggest an alternative model for what Mormon biblical studies might look like.
Modern academic biblical scholarship focuses on exegesis. Such an approach has transcended denomination boundaries by attempting an “objective” accounting of the text’s own theological position. Such a view is grounded in the idea that the text says something on its own that the careful reader can discern. This view often implicitly assumes that there is a single correct reading of the text that corresponds to the “author’s intent.”
African American and feminist biblical scholarship has critiqued this view, primarily on the grounds of hermeneutics. The idea of there being a single meaning to a text, not only at the time that it was written, but through its history of interpretation, has been abandoned long ago in the philosophy of interpretation, yet the guild of biblical studies often continues to cling to such a view. There is no objective lens and the supposedly objective methods of biblical scholarship have their own history. Further, the quest for the “original” meaning is rooted in a kind of impluse for truth that makes the fundamentalist Christians and professional biblical exegetes look a lot alike. The hermeneutical framework is largely the same; the only difference are the details.
As an alternative, African American and feminist biblical studies have made “ethics” into a central interpretive lens. Questions of liberation, justice, and power have become the framework for interpretation. Such an approach looks at how different communities have interpreted the text and considers these legitimate, even though, for examlple, African American slave hermeneutics were largely developed by illiterate people who only heard the text, but never read it. This approach further recognizes that all interpretations are selective, choosing to highlight some aspects of the text while ignoring others. As such, these hermeneutical approaches are not concerned with the mythical “author’s intent”, but with the possibilities that are produced by the text.
I propose that Mormon biblical studies follow a similar model. As far as I am aware, such an approach does not yet exist within Mormonism. For Mormon biblical studies, the task is to read Mormons who have written on the Bible and the derive a set of hermeneutical principles that are at work in their interpretations. This is somewhat of a task suited for anthropology. However, for scholarly Mormon biblical studies, the goal would then be to situate these principle as they speak to the “Mormon experience.” This is not a universal reading, but a historically situated reading of Mormons. The goal is not to point out that the text doesn’t “really” say what they think it says, but to demonstrate the principles on which it is based and to cull from it larger reflections about ethics and Mormon experiences.
As I have argued previously, the only important divisions in the feild of biblical studies are hermeneutical, not doctrinal or denominational. While these approaches I think are dying or irrelevant, feminist and African American hermeneutics have become centrally important, often taught even in introductory level courses. We have to give up on the idea that the text is going to resolve doctrinal or denominational disputes. Instead, the hermeneutical divisions rest on whether there is a single meaningful meaning to the text. The opposition I think rightly questions the possibility of such an “objective” understanding of the text, its utility, or both.
By handle
It’s official: Philip Barlow will fill the new Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University (see Salt Lake Tribune story here). This will likely disappoint some prospective students of Claremont Graduate University. However, it’s great news for USU students. Barlow is an excellent scholar by all standards. So what are your initial thoughts on the appointment?
By TT
Sacrament Meeting can be one of the most spiritually fulfilling meetings in church. The talks can be fresh, exciting, and deeply moving. They can set the tone for your spiritual outlook for the rest of the week at least. Sometimes a talk is so good that you actually remember it for years later.
It can also be one of the most painful meetings at church. Talks can be rote, predictable, and profoundly boring. My least favorite are the talks that simply quote general authorities. One of my very first posts on this blog was what I thought was a crisis of rhetoric in the church.
So, what if you (the reader) were in charge of programing for your sacrament meetings? What practical advice do you have? Would you instruct the speakers on how to speak? How would you do that? What kinds of topics would you like? Are there some topics that are necessarily interesting, no matter how bad the speaker might screw it up? I want to compile a guide here for great sacrament meeting tips and topics.
One more thing: Would the topics you would suggest change if this were a singles ward with college students and nannies? The guide that I am trying to put together here doesn’t require that this be the framework, but I am especially interested in thoughts about this situation.
By lxxluthor
Much has been said in these here parts, both in times distantly past and in recent posts, about the level, quality, and state of LDS Biblical scholarship. In my mind, it is an important discussion that is vital to the advancing of our scholarship and respect in the academic community. To some degree, BYU lies at the heart of this discussion because until recently most LDS Biblical scholars were to be found at BYU. And the ones who got heard and were influential certainly were here. This seems to be about to change with all of the LDS grad students out there and this has the potential to change the dynamic of the way LDS Biblical scholarship is carried out, defined and viewed by LDS and non-LDS people alike.
BYU’s Biblical scholars and Biblical Scholarship has been under the microscope for a little while now and I fell like this is a mostly healthy exercise. Hey, real scholarship requires that we critically examine everything put forward to the group, be it academia or the LDS community in general, and that we evaluate each others work. It’s the only way to get better and it must be done honestly. However, most of the people who seem to be commenting on the issues of the level of LDS (and more specifically BYU) Biblical scholarship are in the position of not knowing all of the facts: many of them have not attended BYU (or at least not recently or not as a student). I feel it is important to say that you all need to know that if you are in this boat that you are in a position of considerable ignorance. Read more »
By TT
I know that it seems weird to identify “trends” on a document that has been out less than a year, so this post may seem a bit premature. At the same time, the fact is that two major schools have already developed regarding the Gospel of Judas. The first, following the initial release of the text, argued that Judas was the chosen disciple over all the others. The obvious shock-value of this revelation has propelled the popularity and interest in the text. The second, newer interpretation offered by Painchaud, DeConick, Emmel and Turner aims to out-shock the first in a set of new claims about what the “Gospel of Judas REALLY says.”
This new interpretation argues that Judas does not “surpass” the other apostles in greatness, but in wickedness! Basing itself on a different translation of this key Coptic phrase, these scholars argue that the initial readings of Gospel of Judas played too much into the hype. Judas is not a saint in this text, but the worst sinner of all of the disciples.
The problem is that this second reading makes no sense at all. For the record, the Coptic phrase in question can technically be translated both ways. However, if we follow the second interpretation, then the text becomes an extended vision of special cosmological knowledge given to Judas, only to find out that he understands even less than the other wicked apostles. In this reading, there are no heroes. No one is saved. One reads the text only to find out that no one can be trusted. No one. This reading strikes me as absurd for two reasons. First, this is afterall the Gospel of Judas, the title given to the text by the text. There is not a single parallel example of a “gospel” being attributed to the person who turns out to be the worst sinner in its story. For post-canonical Gospels, the disciple to whom the text is attributed is often the hero of the text. Second, it makes no sense that there are no heroes at all in the text. Why would anyone read this text? It has no solution for anyone to be saved since the rest of the disciples besides Judas are unambiguously ignorant.
This debate will continue to be played out, and will hopefully be dealt with in the upcoming Elaine Pagels and Karen King commentary (though how much time that had to respond to this new trend before their publication deadlines remains to be seen since it was really in October in Paris and November at the SBL that people started advocating this position). The easy path will be taken by those who choose to see Judas subversively for their own theological goals, and those who prefer to see Judas as the most wicked disciple for their own theological goals. No doubt the debate will continue to give scholars something to argue about, but to this reader, the second argument doesn’t have much interpretive weight.
By handle
The health risks of American football have been getting a lot of attention in the press lately, no doubt in anticipation of the Super Bowl. Both the New York Times and the Boston Globe ran articles on the frequency of head injuries in professional football. The articles highlighted former Patriots linebacker, Ted Johnson, who received several concussions during his career. Johnson’s head injuries resulted in severe depression and drug addiction.
Like many other professional and amateur football players, Johnson felt trapped by expectations that he should play through the pain. American football inspires a culture of toughness. Encouraged by fans, coaches and other players, many continue playing even after sustaining major injuries. One study, conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina, found that N.F.L. players faced a 37% higher risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Yet the kind of press that portrays the dangers of football is not commensurate with the overwhelmingly positive depiction of star athletes. The Super Bowl regularly draws audiences of between 75 and 95 million television viewers. Professional athletes are idolized.
Even successful coaches receive vast amounts of attention (and wealth). It is telling that at least 23 college football coaches are paid salaries in excess of $1 million. In several cases these coaches’ salaries far outweigh the university presidents’ annual income, let alone the professors’ and administrators’ pay. Clearly the United States has a fascination with what can at times be a very violent sport.
Are there inherit problems with this country’s massive consumption of professional football? This is an important question for Mormons. We have several members on N.F.L. teams who sometimes function as unofficial spokesmen for the church, including Ty Detmer (and his little brother Koy), Chad Lewis, and, of course, Steve Young. The LDS church has tacitly endorsed football. For example, Elder Wirthlin, who never made it into the professional leagues, was nevertheless awarded for being a “lifelong supporter” of college football.
There may be arguments both for and against the idealization of football stars (be they LDS or not). On the one hand, football is a dangerous sport. By idealizing the athletes of aggressive sports like football, don’t we become party to the inevitable injuries players sustain? On the other hand, audiences of football tend to also play football; and participation in any sport – even dangerous ones – seems preferable to inactivity. Obesity, after all, will kill a lot more people than concussions from flag football.
By lxxluthor
Since I’ve started taking New Testament Greek classes I’ve started paying more attention to small details in the text, about the only benefit of reading about 10 words a minute. The thing that’s been on my mind concerns the sacrament and it’s covenantal function. David J.’s wonderfully controversial post on baptism brought forward my opinion about the sacrament being the true covenant that people attribute to baptism. I’m not going to go there with this post, but it also helped me to articulate the question I’m about to pose. Sooo, why do we take the sacrament so often?
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By smallaxe
I recently learned that a person I know put her baby up for adoption. As I don’t know all the details of this story, I won’t go into to specifics; but I am familiar with a couple of other people who, aftering getting pregnant while rather young (usually in their teens) gave up their children at the encouragment of the church.
I’m wondering about the reasoning behind this encouragement (both culturally and institutionally).
One couple I met, got pregnant while in highschool and gave their baby up for adoption. When this couple turned 18 they were married, and I met them in our ward when they were in their young 20’s. Not a Sunday would go past without them talking about thier baby. Wondering what he was doing, if he had been treated well. I couldn’t help but wonder if adoption was the right thing for them to do.
I know this is one case, and maybe even in this circumstance adoption was right, but what I would like to question is the rationale for encouraging adoption. What I usually hear is that adoption is right when it gives the child the best home possible. It seems that what is implied by “best home possible” is two loving parents, who are active members of the church and are financially stable.
Is there more than this that comes into play?
