Times & Seasons

In statistics, a popular approach is to think of the statistician as having a set of views (“priors” or “prior distributions”) that are based on past evidence and when new evidence comes in, one integrates that information in and forms a new set of beliefs (“update your priors”).  So, for example, if I think I am brilliant in math, a series of poor math test grades even after studying might convince me to reassess that belief.  Alternately, I could stick with my priors and treat the new evidence as flawed or not informative because I am mad or upset.  This is especially applicable on days when new, perhaps startling or emotional, information comes out and everyone, or at least a bunch of bloggers, jump in to say what they think is really going on.  In many cases I think they are largely working off their priors, rather than off the new information. In light of that, it is often best to avoid making strong claims about who did what and why when so little is known.  One should not presume motives are fully understood when there may have simply been a miscommunication or just standard human error.  One should be charitable when filling in the blanks.  Especially when most things are blanks.  

Read more →

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” According to popular tradition, this is the line that King Henry II blurted out after repeated disagreements with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. (There are several variations, such as “who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”) Four of Henry’s knights interpreted this as a royal command and set off for Canterbury, where they slew Becket while he prayed at the altar. How should we understand the knights’ actions? Should we view them as following orders, or as acting on their own initiative? There are multiple possible interpretations. For instance, if we take an approach that “whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same,” we might attribute the knights’ actions to Henry, whose actions set the events in motion. However, an official press release states that all decisions were made by local knights and not directed or coordinated by King Henry. And who are we to question an official press release? == EDIT: A few folks have asked for clarification. So, let’s clarify what I’m saying, and not saying, in this post. First, as hopefully an obvious point, I don’t think that church leaders are murderers. I’m making a historical comparison to elements of the history of Henry, but that doesn’t include the entire history. We can (and regularly do) compare people with historical figures without including all aspects of the figure in…

Read more →

Job 1: 20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.  22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Job 2: 11 ¶Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.  12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.  13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.   I do not have or expect answers. I acknowledge and feel the tragedy and sit in silence – for the grief is very great.

Read more →

It is very common in the Bloggernaccle to talk about an exodus of members from the Church. These members are usually described as a cohesive demographic. The two examples I’ve seen most frequently are (1) young Millennials who are disillusioned by the discrepancy between real history and CES whitewashing and (2) good women whose contributions and perspectives are devalued and rejected by the institution at large. I don’t have any insider or objective data on these concerns, and so I couldn’t say where they fall on the spectrum from urban legend to imminent crisis, but I suspect the problem is genuine based purely on my own experiences. The question becomes: what should we do about it? Cynthia L proffered a twist on the usual tale of the lost sheep at By Common Consent on Saturday. In her parable, sheep wander away because there are holes in the fence. Disagreement arises among the shepherds. One group insists that we ought to repair the holes to protect the sheep. The other insists that if God had wanted a fence without holes, He would have created a fence without holes. And, this callous bunch adds, who wants those stupid sheep that keep getting lost anyway? Let me start by saying that I think this parable succeeds at its stated purpose. The title of Cynthia’s post is “Why I speak up: our responsibilities as farm hands for the shepherd,” and in terms of explaining the…

Read more →

I love the Old Testament, both as an anthropologist and as a Mormon. None of our other Standard Works has as many wonderful stories as the OT, and none raises as many questions as this longest and most complex of all Scriptures. Now that we plough our way through it in Sunday School, we noticed how hard these stories are, and even harder are the parts we skip. That has everything to do with the purpose of these tales, what I call their ‘voices’. Jonathan Green correctly reminded us in his blog that the ‘Why told’ question is more interesting than ‘What happened’. Pursuing this angle, I think we as Mormons could have a privileged understanding of the Scriptures, also of the Old Testament. The simple reason is that we have been and still are witness to the genesis of scripture, as one of the few denominations in Christendom. Our last instance was in 1978, for most of us still in living memory, but the coming about of the D&C is well recorded. Take for instance the Word of Wisdom: we know what it says, but we also know the circumstances that led to this revelation, and we recognize the 19th century in some of its details. Plus we know how this gentle advice became a binding rule. If we apply this insight that a revelation speaks with several voices to other Scriptures, we gain a lot of understanding. So…

Read more →

When reading the Old Testament, the essential thing to keep in mind is not This is what happened but This is what someone thought was important for later readers to remember.

Read more →

The Gospel Doctrine class gives quite some attention to one of the strangest stories in the Old Testament, the one of the prophet Bileam, or Balaam; I just taught it in our ward in the Netherlands. The story is strange in many ways, and with a personage that is surrounded by miracles one easily assumes that he is fictive to start with. But he really existed and as an important prophet! When studying anthropology at Utrecht University, during the archeology course the professor told us about his visit to Deir ‘Alla, a site on the East Bank of the Jordan river. A team of Dutch archeologists from Leiden University led by Hoftijzer and van der Kooy had found there a bronze age shrine, and lo and behold, they found a text on the wall of that shrine, in itself a rare event. But there was more to that text, it even spoke of BLM BN BR, which the scholars recognized from the book of Numbers, Balaam Ben Beor, the prophet that blessed Israel. That was more than a surprise, it was a small earthquake. The very morning after the find, a scholar from Jerusalem University showed up at the site, as any text find is of supreme importance, let alone one mentioning a biblical name. When, eventually, the text fragments were integrated and translated, they related about the prophet Balaam, who received messages about oncoming doom from the Gods. The…

Read more →