By smallaxe
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 of controversy.
My gut reaction is to dismiss the statement as youthful frivolity; but is there any way in which it could be true?
Oh, and for those unfamiliar with the “Immaculate Reception” see here.
By Nitsav
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 Club meeting. But Moreland, who has gained some prominence as a philosopher and apologist, wasn’t pulling any punches.” No kidding.
Another blogger answers the question, is Christian academic an oxymoron? Though his (and most of the comments’ as well) perspective is conservative Evangelical and thus has some different concerns and assumptions, the conversation in the comments sounds familiar, as it dances around some issues that LDS scholars face as well.
By lxxluthor
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 is) has a very strong legalistic flavor to it.
Most of you probably are already tuned into the idea I’m trying to describe. In a nutshell, the attainment of salvation (and exaltation) is often described or explained in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants in legalistic terms, in terms of the fulfilling of a law set forth by God. Read more »
By Nitsav
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 the 70 in 1957, has outlived its usefulness. High church leadership intended The Encyclopedia of Mormonism to replace it (which has unfortunately not come to pass), and Deseret Book will not republish it after the current printing sells out.
The introduction to the Book of Mormon, penned at least in part by Elder McConkie, has recently been modified. (See discussion and links here and here.)*
New Institute manuals are being written, and for at least one volume, the writers have been instructed not to use Elder McConkie (among others) as a source.
The man’s testimony still stands, but his intellectual contributions have been surpassed.
*Frankly, I don’t see this as a tempest in a teapot, and it changes very little. The intro as written (“primary” “principal ancestors”) still allows for the presence of peoples other than those in the Book of Mormon, something Elder McConkie believed. As changed, it still allows Book of Mormon genes and descent to Native Americans whether in North or South America. It’s not doctrinal revisionism, nor is it messing with any canonized text. I don’t see much of a difference, except that it diffuses absolutist misreadings.
By TT
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 just got more frustrated every time. I am slightly embarrassed by this episode of LDS intellectual history. It represents a step backwards in dealing with the contemporary critical evaluation of biblical texts and ANE religion.
Read more »
By smallaxe
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?
By Nitsav
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 first database is a morphologically-tagged text of the Biblical Dead Sea Scroll texts. The sectarian texts have been around for a while in multiple electronic formats, but not the Biblical texts, which are useful for textual criticism, among other things.
The second database consists of the 16 volume Writings of the Ancient World series by the Society of Biblical Literature, whose conference rapidly approaches. (BYU has given money to some promising undergrads to attend this year.) This is a very good series of books, with different genres (legal texts, epistolary texts, ritual texts, etc.) and different groups (Ugaritic, Hittite, Mesopotamian, etc.) represented. I’ve used a few for classwork and research.
While they’re in prepublication status, the DSS go for $79, and the SBL volumes for $306. Clearly, I need more funding 
By TT
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 BYU faculty (Richard Lambert is a US attorney in Utah who runs the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation). Further, there is only a small LDS population in New Haven. Why fly out 8 people to speak to 8 other people?
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