- Stephen Fleming on OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”: “My apologies for the repetition, Jonathan. You’d mentioned some theological implications of some such historical claims, and my bigger point in this series is to suggest some flexibility around these issues as one possibility. I understand that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.” Jan 3, 16:02
- on OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”: “Stephen, yes, I understood all that the first time. I’m just unpersuaded by it. The basic issue is that the OT itself is the primary historical document describing the times and places we’re interested in, with very little outside of it, and once you dismiss the OT, there is – unsurprisingly – very little left. If you want to treat the historical value of the OT with considerable caution, that seems warranted. If you want to dismiss its theological value – no, I can’t follow you there.” Jan 3, 15:04
- on OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”: “I’ll do my best, food allergy. Thanks, mannjj, wrestling with the evidence and scholarship is what I’m trying to do. Again, I’m against the “all-or-nothing” we often set up about these issues of scriptural history and think we can propose additional ways to think about these issues.” Jan 3, 13:37
- on OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”: “Thank you for these posts. I find your ideas and description of the scholarship interesting and, after reading so many of the comments in the other posts, recognize why so many sentences must begin with “again”! I appreciate that you are talking about how LDS and Christian believers can be faithful in the face of historical evidence against the historicity of so many documents and traditions. For me and my faith, this is far more useful than the traditional apologetics we have seen which tend to make arguments that I don’t see as reasonable in order to explain away scientific and historical discoveries and other obvious contradictions in the scriptures.” Jan 3, 09:52
- on OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”: “I appreciate your posts and find your ideas interesting. My only suggestion would be to reduce the number of sentences that begin with “again.”” Jan 3, 06:10
- on Wrestling with the Restoration: a Review: “Great example of fact versus interpretation. Thanks for sharing.” Jan 2, 20:20
- on It is Okay for the Church to Defend Itself: “I agree with your point that it was a once in a generation event with people being surprised by the CES letter, but that is exactly the reason I don’t think a better funded FARMS would have made a difference both because the trust was broken and the FARMS model would not have reached them anyway. I think one the points missed is that the success of the CES letter forced a change in the way apologetics was being done. Would FARMS have made those changes independent of the letter’s success? I have my doubts.” Jan 2, 16:01
- on It is Okay for the Church to Defend Itself: “I feel like the church should be doing official fact checking/PR on pieces which come from legitimate news sources. I can see why the church wouldn’t want to give publicity to something not coming from major news sources. I really liked dice1899’s rebuttals of the different letters on reddit.com/r/lds. I don’t think that it’s a form that really would work as a PR statement from the church.” Jan 2, 13:42
- on It is Okay for the Church to Defend Itself: “I’ve only read some of what was publicly said at the time, but it takes time to find new funding sources, start up a new organization, figure out who’s on board, and get a new journal/website going. Stephen C: I agree, the book should be written, but you’d want a 20th century historian to do it, and you’d want to go back to the source documents instead of primarily synthesizing prior research.” Jan 2, 12:08
- on Wrestling with the Restoration: a Review: “Thanks, this is a very timely review. I think it’s good that the Church is supporting work like this (via CES and Deseret Book).” Jan 2, 11:53
