Nephi’s testimony about Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon refers to this coming event. Jesus has been anointed after His cruxifiction, when He and His apostles met in Galilea after His resurection. Nephi had a whole lot to say about these latter days.

I don’t like the implication either of the rise of President Obama and his appeal to the multitude. The abominations of the Priesthood of the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem are similar to our corporate and political leaders, today. GREED and IMMORALITY. They have set aside our Constitution and given us a new doctrine to live by. In the Book of Mormon it is called the order of Nehor. That doctrine ultimately destroyed not only the Law of Mosiah, but the people. Obama and his multitude are not only proceding to further destroy our Constitution, but they are introducing totally new abominations as acceptable.

I am uplifted by the testimony of Nephi, because he has not prophesied such a dire ending for us. However, it is a time of wars and rumors of wars and persecutions.

With 130 temples and 5 more on the way, I believe that Jesus Christ has staked out His involvement in our suffering. It is now the time that we, as children of God must become His arm.

While many say, “Spirit>intellect, therefore, we don’t need intellect”, that flies in the face of what the Church teaches about self-reliance, studying, etc.

I just found one of these websites (from here, timesandseasons.org!) for YSA that will be probably be helpful for our ward.

So do some others.

The posts by some here on the BoM (am I taking the book lightly if I use “BoM”?)–especially the Sunday School lessons–are really deep and interesting. Actually, fascinating.

I loved (and still do) going to the FARMS site and reading about more discoveries in the BoM, even though lately, there has been a lot of trash talk by some that taints it all.

Most BoM sites are about everything but the intellectual side of it. I believe they are valuable… also.

Much better than my RM BoM class at BYU, from which I think I learned two or three things the entire semester, taught by a non-intellectual BoM teacher. Attending a UVSC institute class, I was surprised when a student asked a simple intellectual question and the many-years teacher didn’t have a clue. Still, that same thing happened in a Humanities Western Civilization class… So, sometimes there’s so much, you (or a religion professor) can’t know it all. And when there is only so much time, I agree that it’s more important to stress testimony, etc.

Still…

Can’t really understand it without the intellectual. There are some incredible things in the BoM most of us will never find in this life. It’s a very “ontologically-deep” book (from a BYU English professor, though maybe not in reference to the BoM).

I am often in the top 10 in Google search for basic phrases and keywords.

Very few visitors.

Very, very few.

Sure, it could be…

Or it could be, no one is searching, because no one really cares.

I know there is hazard in “intellectual” things, be it apostasy or arguing. For example, my high priest previous-bishop believes in the Adam-God theory, teaches it to his family, and tried convincing my dad of it. Um, anti-scriptural…

Which is interesting–sometimes the more intellectual “it” is tried to be made out as, the more problems there are.

There are also levels to intellectualism that are difficult. The first level tells one thing, one level up teaches more of something, but the the level beyond that teaches something very different, that makes the previous level obsolete.

Come on… Most people have a hard time with the second level, and now you want them to leave that behind and go to the third level??

Intellectualism changes. “Truth” doesn’t. Therefore, t>i. Period. Right?

A few of my articles have caused extreme emotional reactions in people who were past the first level, but unwilling to get past the second. Most of it goes back to psychology–”I’ve learned something, and now it’s all wrong? And all those comments I made in SS?? and in my posts?? and my favorite general authority?? and the prophet is wrong??!!”

So, I think intellectual studies about the BoM are often not only seen as unnecessary or better yet, “getting in the way of” the real meaning and purpose of the BoM, they are often seen as divisive instead of uniting, and the command to “be one” is a higher command…

Huh?

I’m trying to figure out what you mean by this, and I don’t really like the implications of any of my guesses. What do you mean?

Christians claim that the Old Testament is the literal word of God, but I find the OT a very political book with its attention on the 10 Commandments and leading to the founding of the nation Israel as a political force. It is a struggle between God’s prophets, His priesthood and their kings leading to political failure, but through whose eyes do we see it, Isaiah and Malachi. They prophesied the failure of this effort to bring about the reality of our Messiah Jesus as a political person. As a matter of fact, Malachi was asked by Jehovah’s faithful, why does God not love us?

In the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth, the night of His arrest, said that, tonight I will offend all men. His disciple Peter disputed His Words and betrayed Him 3 times before the cock crowed in the morning. The Messiah Jesus, by telling us about the parable of the king announcing the wedding of his son, which no one of the VIP’s would attend. The king then ordered his servants to go on the street corners and invite everyone they encountered to the wedding. Today I see this as the fulfillment of that invitation to the multitude with the election of President Barack Obama.

The Book of Mormon is unlike any of the Testaments of Old; it is the wedding invitation of Father in heaven to a new nation, which is to rule the world without a king. Reading it fulfills the spiritual void that is absent from the OT and NT. Keep your ears to the First Presidency and the Twelve they knows His Ways better than I do.

Well, I think the concern is that we (saints of all ages) have a tendency to fall into this pattern. But remember, at the end of my comment(#16) I suggeted that one of the conditions of the Millennium will be that all things will be spoken from the rooftops. I was being a little abstract there and perhaps wasn’t very clear. What I meant to convey was a subtext suggesting that we’ve got to figure this out–just how we’re going to bring these two worlds together without taking our eye off of the living oracles.

And to be clear, BYU does not have a “Department of Religion” that serves anything like the function of a typical college religion department. It has a school of Religious Education whose mandate is to (from their website) build up “faith and commitment to the Lord and his kingdom” and foster a “knowledge of the gospel and an individual testimony.” In other words, its mandate is gospel education, not religious education as typically practiced. Purely academic courses fall outside their remit, but even so, and though severely understaffed, they support an entire academic degree program. Let’s give them some due credit.

Also, the rancor that is often imagined to exist between religion faculty of different academic backgrounds and teaching styles is simply a myth. The most gifted academics there receive tremendous support, both departmentally and personally from their colleagues. Your characterization of RE as a “battlefield,” with the scholars losing, is simply wrong.

But I think you make some very valid points about obstacles to the academic study of the BoM, and of course they could be multiplied out further. And I think there are very different sets of issues depending upon the community of readers, i.e., non-Mormon academic, Mormon academic, or lay Mormon. Historicity and origins, certainly, is problematic on all sides, but the concerns are highly asymmetrical. So virtually everything is written to one audience, to the general dissatisfaction or apathy of the others. As others note, there are literary approaches that can sideline the historicity issue, as Givens does, but virtually no one else has written work so capable of satisfying all readerships. And alas, you can’t bottle Givens’ success. It’s less a model than an example.

But with enough successful examples, you eventually arrive at models, which can be emulated. Then scholarship really starts to flow, since most scholarship is principally mimetic. So again, with Jonathan, anyone who really wants to change things needs to show how it’s done. There is a dedicated journal for Book of Mormon studies. It’s always soliciting hard for submissions, because while everyone is talking about scholarship on the BoM, very few people are doing it.

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/

Dave – Yes, our default position seems to be outright mistrust until we “see where it leads;” and even then, when it appears to be helpful rather than harmful, there’s an institutional temptation to control (e.g., FARMS). I may disagree with you, however, about “those who matter” being on board. Aside from my optimism about changing or the potential for change amongst our hierarchy, I think the people who matter is the church membership at large; and on this front I’m quite optimistic. Our membership continues to increase its general level of education, and I think we’ll see an increasing demand for scholarship on the content of the BofM, especially if we have scholars who are either willing to take a faithful position or bracket matters of faith as they analyze the text (specifically, I think we ought to bracket the issue of historicity in order to elucidate the content). I think the general membership will increasingly embrace such scholarship, if we work to bridge rather than foster the “intellectual” vs. “rank-and-file” divide. You’re right that Thomas – despite his effort to do exactly what I’m calling for – is likely to put-off many members; but I think we’re capable of getting over that, and seeing instead the merit of what he is doing. There’s no reason to either accept or reject him wholesale; there’s no reason not to take him as an insightful contribution rather than his ambitiously stated goal of becoming a “foundation for a new tradition in Book of Mormon studies.”

Is there any reason to interpret the BofM editors’ preference for “plainness” as applying to anything other than doctrinal discourse?

Kirk – you’ll note that both “intellectual” and “fluff” are used as epithets against BYU religion professors. We’ve certainly got more than one approach, even if there is a clearly dominant strain. And I should be clear that I’m not at all against devotional approaches to the scriptures, which have been invaluable in my own life. Furthermore, I think that one of the most important parts of cultivating a more intellectually hospitable culture will be our positive intellectual evaluation of devotional approaches. There’s a reason why devotional approaches to scripture have dominated in history and continue to dominate today, despite a brilliant culture of scriptural criticism. However, I likewise think critical approaches not only legitimate but enriching, and as stated, don’t think we’ll clear ourselves of intellectual condemnation until we take such approaches much more seriously.

Royal – I confess I’m not sure how I ought to interpret you – sincere or cynically sarcastic?

Queuno – agreed. There’s an intellectual fad that equates sophistication with demythologization and skepticism, and in my opinion generally manifests a lack of sophistication. As mentioned repeatedly, there’s no reason not to bracket issues of faith; and if one can simply have the integrity and forbearance to do so, I think one will find a receptive, mainstream Mormon audience, whatever one’s personally feelings. But the temptation to proselytize is no light one.

John C. & Jettboy – it’s true that for much of the BofM we have no uncontroversial historical checks, no greater Mesopotamian cultural comparison available. But this certainly doesn’t keep us from exploring the complexity of the narrative and the various genres, literary tropes, or the theological, political, cultural, and existential variants manifest in the text itself. As Jonathan Greenwood states, a great deal of 20th century scholarship has been done on texts without reference to a concrete historical backdrop. And while clearly fallible, there’s no end to interesting comparisons to be made if one posits a given region in the Americas as a plausible location, and then uses the historical and cultural knowledge we have of that region as a backdrop (where we usually fail in this is when we use it as a means for apologetics).

Jonathan – the post does call for follow-up, doesn’t it? I certainly appreciate your attempts to do just that here at Times and Seasons and look forward to your continued efforts.

Jack – I’m really at a loss for why intellectual rigor in our exploration of the BofM would lead us to place our loyalty in scribes above prophets. As to pitting opinions, when they remain opinions, I’m at a loss as to why such pitting is significant? If I think that most of I Nephi constitutes a political treatise, justifying Nephi’s reign over that of his brothers, and GA Jack thinks that politics – intentionally or pragmatically – has nothing to do with the book, why would this disagreement be significant, even if I managed to convince a large number of Mormons? If a GA disagrees with Royal Skousen’s “sense lines” and would break the text up differently, why is this a significant issue? It appears that you’re building in an assumption that scholar will disagree with prophets on substantive theological issues and try to persuade others.

Raymond – I think you’re getting at what I mean by the need for our scholars not to be arrogantly condescending, for us to elevate as opposed to denigrate the devotional, and also the fact that we don’t need every member an intellectual. However, I certainly don’t think anyone will be exalted without intellectual curiosity and even intellectual voraciousness. This doesn’t mean that our members here and now need to focus their intellectual appetites on critical studies, but certainly that we need a culture conducive to it. I can’t help but suspect that your experience of passively appreciative audiences in Sunday School has much more to do with the sort of Sunday School participants we cultivate than anything else. We all have our too-strong opinions on how we ought to change SS, though, and I’ll not go into that now.