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A Mormon Response to a Catholic View of the Bible
This is the third of five posts on reading the Bible [Post 1 | Post 2]. This post reviews how Catholics read the Bible, as discussed by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., in the second section of The Bible...
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A Mormon Response to a Protestant View of the Bible
This is the fourth and final post on reading the Bible critically and religiously [Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3]. This post reviews how Protestants read the Bible, as discussed by Peter Enns, who teaches...
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Miller Eccles Study Group – Texas Edition: Terryl & Fiona Givens and the Use...
This past weekend (Jan. 17-19), Terryl and Fiona Givens were the speakers for the Miller Eccles Study Group and the Genesis Group. I was privileged to attend the Saturday study group as well as the...
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Sex in Genesis: Is the Sodom Story Literal? (part 1)
Lots wife turns into a pillar of salt when she sees the destruction of Sodom When asked to substitute-teach a gospel doctrine lesson a few years ago, I discovered unexpected parallels between the Sodom...
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Sex in Genesis: Is the Sodom Story Literal? (part 2)
In a previous post, I proposed the Sodom and Gomorrah story was carefully constructed to parallel the story of the Lord telling Abraham and Sarah that despite their age, they would be able to conceive...
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Inaugural Bible Verses, and What They Tell Us About Our Presidents
Inauguration of President William McKinley, 1901 When new presidents are inaugurated, they traditionally lay their hand on the Bible for their swearing-in. Occasionally, as in the cases of Barack Obama...
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Sex in Genesis: Is the Sodom story literal? (part 3)
A husband finds his concubine dead on the doorstep after sending her out to be gang-raped instead of himself. The Benjamite rapists parallel the city of Sodom. [read part 2 here] Just as earlier...
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Review: ‘Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy’
Review of David Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014). As Darwin’s concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection has...
View ArticleMormon Studies Classics: The Angel and the Beehive by Armand L. Mauss
Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. 257 pages. The thesis of Armand Mauss’ The Angel and The Beehive is...
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My Visit to the Mormon Gilbert, Arizona Temple
“He expected the temple to be more beautiful on the inside than it was…” Just a few days prior to me and my wife taking our five daughters to the new Gilbert, Arizona temple, I sat for lunch with an...
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Adjusting the Narrative–Part 2c: Jacob’s Priestly Re-Examination of the...
Adjusting the Narrative is a series exploring close reading of scriptural texts traditionally related to and used as justification of LDS notions of curses on those with dark skin. In Part 2a, I...
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Denial and Deniability: The Church’s PR Strategy on Female Priesthood Denial
The Mormon feminist “Ordain Women” (OW) movement made headlines last year with its effort to secure female access to the males-only Priesthood session of the LDS Church’s General Conference. Ahead of...
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Inverting Jesus: Protecting the Ninety-Nine
In the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke Jesus relays a very simple, yet beautiful, parable: 4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in...
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Why More Missionaries ≠ More Converts
Another General Conference has come and gone, and another annual statistical report has been released. This year’s report is particularly interesting, because it reveals the impact—or rather, lack of...
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“All Is Well In Zion”: The Need for Tragic Optimism in Modern Mormonism
A few weeks ago, my Gospel Doctrine class was going over Old Testament Lesson #12: “Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction.” The lesson covers Joseph in Egypt after his imprisonment by Potiphar, his...
View ArticleFemale Ordination and the “Second Shift”
One of the commoner reasons I hear from conservative Mormon women for not wanting the priesthood is that they already have so much on their plates—so many responsibilities—that the priesthood would...
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120,000 LDS Children Are Malnourished
At a recent academic conference I heard a talk by Robert A. Rees, vice-president of the Liahona Children’s Foundation. Rees began his talk by taking issue with two Mormon “myths.” To paraphrase, “The...
View Article“I am Spartacus!:” The Brother of Gideon and the Corporate Nature of Danite...
At a Sunday meeting in Far West in early June, 1838, John D. Lee heard Joseph Smith order “the brother of Gideon” to put a man out, for his presumption in not uncovering his head in the house of...
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The Hope of Zion: From Qumran to Utah
Joseph Spencer’s forthcoming For Zion: A Mormon Theology of Hope is a book I am truly excited about, seeing that the concept of Zion plays a major role in my understanding of Mormonism and the...
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Gadianton Robbers and Spiritual Wives: John Whitmer on the Kirtland Church
The Joseph Smith Papers website recently posted an exciting addition to their collection: the John Whitmer history of the Church, which he kept from roughly 1831-1847.[1] Whitmer’s understanding of the...
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