The process of coming to understand how sealing created kinship networks was complicated, however, and became intertwined with the development of plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of this, it is sometimes difficult to disentangle sealings (and their promised blessings) from plural marriage, even though monogamous marriages are the official standard in the Church today.
Category: Scriptures
Rational belief in Book of Mormon historicity II: A historicist reading and reconstruction of 1 Nephi-Enos
Approaching the Book of Mormon as a historical text helps make sense of aspects of the book that an exclusive focus on the text as a work of fiction or on its nineteenth-century context overlooks. Several of these aspects relate to the opening books, from 1 Nephi to Enos. One aim of these books is to explain how several objects symbolizing political and religious authority came to be the rightful possessions of the Nephite king, while another important goal is to explain how the Nephite people came to exist in their current form. As that form changed, so did the text.
On Overreliance on Specific Bible Translations
One aspect of Islam that I appreciate is their approach to translation of scriptures. You see, the Quran is considered a sacred text that was originally revealed in Arabic, and translations into other languages are often called “interpretations”. This is because Muslims believe that the Quran’s sacred character is unique to the Arabic language, and that translating it into another language changes its meaning. While I don’t know that the original language of a volume of scripture is sacred per se, any translation of that text can be viewed as an interpretation that changes its meaning to one degree or another and should be approached with a degree of caution as a result. The Renaissance has an excellent example of why this is important to keep in mind while reading scripture. In Western Europe, the Vulgate (a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible prepared by Jerome) was the main form of the Bible used throughout the middle ages. As humanism began to gain traction, however, there was an increased emphasis on going back to original sources. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Erasmus of Rotterdam) was a key figure in this movement’s impact on Christianity due to his work on scholarly Greek and Latin editions of the New Testament. During his work in comparing the Bible text with earlier Greek manuscripts, Erasmus discovered that some Catholic doctrines were problematic because they relied specifically on the Vulgate in ways that the Greek did not…
Book Review: To Stop a Slaughter: Just War and the Book of Mormon by Morgan Deane
Among “amateur” LDS scholars (however you want to define that), Morgan Deane is, in my estimation, unfairly overlooked. While his specialty – military history – is something of a niche (though it shouldn’t be), it readily works with the Book of Mormon, especially with the accounts of wars. Part of the issue, methinks, is that “war” and “violence” are not particularly palatable topics amongst academics, and so we get occasionally forced eisegesis like the kind in the book Proclaim Peace (which, I think, has a decent premise taken way too far; we really should eschew violence as often as possible and proclaim peace, but given that one of the authors of that book has backed away somewhat from his absolutist stance, perhaps more nuance will appear in the discussion soon). In To Stop a Slaughter: Just War and the Book of Mormon, Morgan Deane (who is probably our #1 expert on Ancient war and the Book of Mormon) explores the ideas of Just War theory (something Proclaim Peace bafflingly ignores) in both Western and Eastern (mostly Chinese) history and applies it to the Book of Mormon (with applicability to modern times as well, though the focus is mostly on the text of the Book of Mormon). He covers ideas like when self-defense is justified, and even argues for a limited justification of preemptive strikes in certain extreme instances. All in all, this is a very comprehensive investigation of historical and…
Historical Narratives and the Pharisees
Growing up in the Church, I repeatedly heard stories where missionaries encountered people who had been reading anti-Mormon literature and told them that “you wouldn’t decide on which car to buy by reading only the stuff put out by a company’s competitors – you would also read what the company that produced the car has to say to get a balanced view. The same should be true for religions.” When looking at historical sources, unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to do the same, because the religion’s own sources are no longer extant. Such was the case with the early Pharisees – a topic explored by Thomas Wayment in a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.
All Indians Today Descend From Lehi
As the children of Lehi and Sariah intermarried with first Ishamel’s offspring and then their children intermixed with the natives of the Americas, what has been the result genetically after 2,600 years? Are the American Indians encountered by the Europeans in 1492 and beyond also descendants of Lehi and Sariah?
Michael Austin on the Book of Mormon
A fascinating read that was recently published is Michael Austin’s The Testimony of Two Nations. I’ve already done a review of the book, but wanted to highlight a recent interview that Michael Austin did at the Latter-day history blog From the Desk that shared some interesting insights from the book. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.
You Might Be a Pharisee if…
The Pharisees get a bad reputation from their portrayal in the gospels, but it probably isn’t deserved. Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine recently discussed why that is likely to be the case that we are guilty of misunderstanding the Pharisees in a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to that interview. To start, Amy-Jill Levine shared some information about who the Pharisees were: In much of the Christian imagination, beginning with the Gospels, the Pharisees (with a few notable exceptions) represent hypocrisy, misogynism, elitism, xenophobia, the letter of the law rather than on the Spirit, and generally everything that Christians, and by extension, everyone, does not like. Conversely, Jews have, since the Middle Ages, recognized the Pharisees as the predecessors of Rabbinic Judaism: The Pharisees encouraged the Jewish people to increase the sanctity of their lives and fully to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Even within the New Testament, however, the picture is complicated: The Gospels show them in synagogues, as hosting Jesus at dinner, and as teaching the people. When Matthew states that the Pharisees “cross sea and land to make a single proselyte” (23:15), the impression is not one of separation but of active engagement with fellow Jews to help them better to follow Torah. Josephus also talks about the popularity of the Pharisees among the masses despite not being a fan. (Josephus…
Theology in Alma
Just in time for us to study Alma in “Come, Follow Me,” the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk published an interview with Kylie Nielson Turley about theology in Alma. Kylie Nielson Turley wrote the Maxwell Institute’s brief theological introduction to the first half of the Book of Alma and has a lot of insights to share from her time researching and studying about Alma. What follows here is a copost to the full interview (a shorter post with excerpts and some discussion).
Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations
I don’t think it’s a secret that I have an ongoing fascination with the Doctrine and Covenants. I am, after all, publishing a book about it this winter and (as my Mexican Mission Hymns project is coming to a close), I’m beginning work on an annotated edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. But that fascination extends beyond the Doctrine and Covenants to include other documents that are similar to those found within. Thus, I’m excited to note that BYU and Deseret Book recently published a new collection of Joseph Smith’s non-canonical revelations. And the authors recently shared some information about their work on Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full discussion.
Sherem the Native American
Despite keeping the name-title of the Nephite founder in their royal name, the outsized positive influence of that prophet-king and founder of the Nephites was clearly quickly missed. “The people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices,” Jacob lamented (Jacob 1:15). They began to be preoccupied with obtaining riches and indulging in immoralities. Realizing that the Jewish immigrants were just a fraction of the People of Nephi helps many more things make sense. After all, the multiple wives and girlfriends of the wicked Nephites were not just Jacob’s grandkids and nieces and nephews sinning with each other.
Nephite Succession Crisis
It was a coup (or divine providence) that Nephi and his brothers Jacob and Joseph were able to assert themselves as religious leaders in this new land, spiritually guiding thousands who were already in the Americas. Emerging as the political leaders of this large, mostly non-Jewish People of Nephi was trickier. Nephi’s inspired leadership, however, was a tour de force.