Author: Jim F.
Jim Faulconer blogged at Times and Seasons from 2004 to 2007. He currently blogs at Feast Upon the Word and cross-posts lesson material to T&S. Jim is a professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University, where he holds the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding. He is the husband of Janice Allen, the father of four and grandfather of eleven. His academic specialty is 20th-century European philosophy, particulary the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and some of his French acolytes. Jim's hobbies are playing with grandchildren, cooking (and, therefore, also eating), travel, and New Testament studies, and for none of them is there sufficient time.
JEF Sunday School Lesson #1 (More Background)
JEF Sunday School Lesson #1
Moses 1 For a variety of reasons, including having been heavily involved in BYU’s London Study Abroad program, I’ve been without the time to generate study questions for the Sunday School Lessons.
JEF Sunday School Lesson #1 (Background)
Some Reasons Why Reading the Old Testament Can Be Difficult
Meanness
Though this horse is not dead yet, it still needs a good flogging.
Jim F: My Conversion
Thanksgiving seems a good time to think about my membership in the Church and my gratitude for the Gospel. In other words, it seems to be a particularly good time for me to reflect on my conversion.
Theology and Idolatry
Let me present a sketch–though only a sketch and a very broad one at that–of how one might think about theology, both about a problem with it and one of the possible responses to that problem.
Sunday School Lessons
Those who may have been using my notes for Sunday School lessons deserve an explanation, though a late explanation, to be sure.
Thinking about the Trinity
It is hardly news to this crowd that Mormons don’t accept the traditional understanding of the Godhead, the Trinity.
Jerusalem
Last week Janice and I spent several days in Cornwall, Great Britain, with the BYU students doing London Study Abroad.
Sunday School Lesson 38
Lesson 38: Doctrine and Covenants 38:30; 42:30-31, 42; 44:6; 52:40; 56:16-17; 58:26-28; 88:123-125; 104:13-18 I owe an apology to those who have been receiving these by e-mail.
Sunday School Lesson 37
Lesson 37: Doctrine and Covenants 1:38; 20:21-26; 21:1, 4-6; 43:2; 68:3-4; 101:43-54; 107:22, 91-92
Sunday School Lesson 36
Lesson 36: Doctrine and Covenants 58:2-4; 64:33-34; 82:10; 93:1; and 130:19-21
Crystal Palace Ward
Janice and I went to a new ward Sunday.
Tithing the Mint?
I have a small herb garden: a couple of varieties of thyme, some tarragon, chives, basil, dill, oregano, rose geranium, parsley, lavender, sage, rosemary, and two kinds of mint, regular and chocolate, though the chocolate is gradually disappearing, replaced by the spearmint.
Sunday School Lesson 35
Lesson 35: Doctrine & Covenants 4:3-7, 18:10-16, 52:40, 81:5-6, 138:58
Sunday School Lesson 34
Lesson 34: Doctrine and Covenants 136
Sunday School Lesson 33
Lesson 33: Doctrine and Covenants 107:22-24
Sunday School Lesson 32
Lesson 32: Doctrine and Covenants 135
Sunday School Lesson 31
Lesson 31: Doctrine and Covenants 131 & 132:4-33
Sunday School Lesson 30
Lesson 30: Doctrine and Covenants 2, 124:25-55, 127, 128, Joseph Smith — History 1:36-39
Sunday School Lesson 29
Lesson 29: Doctrine and Covenants 124: 1-21, 87-90, 97-110; Doctrine and Covenants 126
Sunday School Lesson 28
Lesson 28: Doctrine and Covenants 121:1-33; 122 Sections 121, 122, and 123 are each part of a letter written by Joseph Smith from Liberty Jail to the church leaders in Quincey, Illinois. Read about that experience in a good Church history.
Metaphysics and Mormonism: Transcendence
Very roughly and tentatively, but good enough perhaps for the purposes of a blog discussion or an introduction to philosophy, one could say that there are two basic metaphysical positions, with a third that is a variation of one of those two.
Sunday School Lesson 27
Lesson 27: Doctrine and Covenants 101, 103, and 105 For more understanding of these sections, read about Zion’s Camp in a church history.
Sunday School Lesson 26
This is an odd post, to be sure, but so that no one wonders: since there are no scriptures associated with this lesson, I’ve not prepared any study questions for it.
An Experiment in Blog Discussion
One thing usually missing from discussion on this blog and, from what I have seen, all others, is extended, thoughtful discussion.
Sunday School Lesson 25
Lesson 25: Doctrine and Covenants 84:33-44, 121:34-36
Sunday School Lesson 24
Lesson 24: Doctrine and Covenants 26, 28, 43:1-7, 50, 52:14-19
Sunday School Lesson 23
Lesson 23: Doctrine and Covenants 88 Notice that section 87, on war, was given only a few days before this section, “an olive leaf [. . .] plucked from the Tree of Paradise, the Lord’s message of peace.” How is the message of section 88 one of peace to the Saints?