- Cjd on CFM 1/5-1/11: Poetry for “This Is My Work and My Glory”: “Awesome” Dec 30, 13:08
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 12/28: “Our EQ lesson was on Elder Peter M. Johnson’s talk “The Power of Ministering to the One,” and we spent most of the time discussing Jesus’s one-on-one interactions. It was a wonderful discussion–there is so much to be learned from Jesus’s example. He didn’t just teach us to love, he showed us how, in all sorts of different situations that called for different responses.” Dec 30, 13:05
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, December 2025: “I know Nate Oman’s been working on this book for a while. Glad to see it’s finally out.” Dec 30, 09:21
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, December 2025: “Thanks for staying on top of these articles, Stephen. It’s exciting to see what’s going on.” Dec 30, 08:53
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “The critiques of Zealot show that Aslan’s book is contested, not disqualified. Scholars such as McGrath object to overstatement and emphasis, not to Aslan’s engagement with Second Temple Judaism or Roman politics. These are normal disputes in historical Jesus scholarship, especially when a book intended for general readers, not just scholars presents contested positions confidently. And let’s not skate past the fact that Aslan really disrupts long preconceived notions of Jesus which are disturbing to many faithful. Treating critiques of Aslan as proof that Zealot is ignorant or outside mainstream scholarship misrepresents both the critics and the field itself. Ironically, your claim about the scarcity of women in antiquity risks the same kind of overgeneralization critics fault in Aslan. While demographic pressures certainly existed, they varied widely by region, class, and circumstance. They cannot be confidently reconstructed for small Jewish communities such as Galilee. Maternal mortality, in particular, would have affected MARRIED women rather than the availability of women for marriage in the first place. Like literacy and marriage norms, this remains a debated issue where caution and probabilistic language are warranted. Doesn’t it sound a little like the excuses for 19thc polygamy? The old claims that there were more LDS women than men and therefore polygamy was necessary, but when we actually looked at the data, this claim didn’t hold water? And here we try to prove Jesus single and celebate, our preconceived notions about him, with this unprovable claim of a pressing gap in the sexes. If we only had the data. Circling back to the idea of literacy, it’s true that Aslan argues that working class Jews at the time of Jesus were largely illiterate, especially in rural areas. He defines literacy along modern-day competence and context lines, and using that ruler, most Galilean Jews were likely “illiterate” and his claims not hyperbole. That does not man unintelligent nor does it mean ignorant. But scholars refute Aslan because Jewish culture paid high deference to the Torah and incorporated a massive oral, sung, and memorized tradition that would have helped Jesus be knowledgeable of and conversant in scripture, demonstrating a type of subject matter “literacy”. Aslan acknowledged this oral tradition and the incorporation of massive memorization (the likes of which we have little comparison to today) in that culture. But there’s a difference between that and being able to actually read (not just a few pre-memorized scriptires) but actually study the write. This sliding scale of literacy was acknowledged by Aslan and other scholars and simply put- Aslan has a stricter definition of literacy that includes reading, writing, comprehension and utilization. He’s disrupting the public’s preconceived notions of paintings of Jesus as a twelve year old in the temple pointing to scrolls of scripture before him as he confounds the elders. Or, like my kitsch painted Deseret Book Christmas tree ornament depicts- Mary teaching a little child Jesus to read the scriptires from a scroll before them, much like a modern day mom reads reads Clifford the Big Red Dog. I think reading Aslan is a lot like orthodox Mormons reading about translating the BOM and being disrupted by the fact that their lifetime was spent hearing or seeing Joseph “translate” by pointing line by line, and then learning about the hat. Then wanting to excommunicate the scholars and debunk them. Scholars cherry pick their arguments against Aslan with little quotes while dismissing his scholarly caveats. In the case of the “illiteracy” conversation, he acknowledges the sliding scale of literacy and agrees that Jesus knew scripture, but that he would not have been literate enough to serve as a scribe or in a professional requiring writing and reading, or be literate in Greek or have access to the decrees regarding levies or politics that might result in the confiscation of land or other adverse financial consequences impacting his people. Not that it mattered. I think a little of Fiddler in the Roof and Tevia, Yiddish Tevia, being handed Russian edict papers from the Tsarist Constable. He may be able to read a little, but not enough to understand, and certainly not enough to advocate, to debate, to implore, to negotiate, etc. (I’m just drawing a parallel, don’t go all bezerk on me about the differences between 2nd temple era Judaism and Slavic 19th c cultures.) We need to wrap this up. At this point, I think the disagreement is really about weighting and framing rather than evidence, and that’s probably as far as an online exchange can go productively. I appreciate the discussion.” Dec 30, 07:11
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, December 2025: “Oh geez, another parallelomaniacally cranky Murphy article. The man has at long last found a way to whinge about peace.” Dec 30, 05:41
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 12/28: “A young woman spoke at church on Sunday. She was departing on a mission to France. She spoke about how shy she was as a child, barely able to say hello to anyone. And now here she is, moving ahead with faith in the Lord’s work, and in a foreign tongue. It reminded me of my mission and how terrified I was to teach my first lesson in the field. I now consider teaching, in all its capacities, one of the most joyful, fulfilling opportunities to serve. We can change. We can change.” Dec 29, 22:42
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 12/28: “No church meetings here due to a blizzard. All my children are still in town for the holidays. Life is good.” Dec 29, 21:56
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “I for one am very ignorant of the things you’ve discussed and appreciate the fact you’re prodding us to do some solid thinking and analyzing for ourselves. In today’s world in which people seem both ignorant and incapable of analytical thinking beyond a few lines on line (ignorance of basic geography and energy economics come to mind) its good to be challenged to think and analyze and educate ourselves some” Dec 29, 21:37
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 12/28: “A young man of priest age played a viola with his younger sister on the piano, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Very beautiful, very uplifting. Then the conducting bishop’s counselor delivered his talk on many blessings and serving the Lord, and mentioned the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — it was wholly unnecessary and sort of ruined the meeting for me. Some would say that is my fault because I should see the good regardless, but somehow I really wished he didn’t bring politics into our sacrament meeting. But it reminds me of the statement from a general conference back in the 1960s that we need better music in our sacrament meetings, and more of it, and we also need better speaking in our sacrament meetings, but less of it. Based on where I live in VERY pro-Trump America, I have to agree.” Dec 29, 14:16
