- Chad Lawrence Nielsen on A Review: Latter-day Saint Theology among Christian Theologies: “Jonathan, it’s an important area to explore. There are some truly weird things that we believe, for sure, but often there is more context than we know about to those things.” Dec 27, 19:53
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: ““Zealot” has factual errors on nearly every page, is full of dubious assertions, and is not taken seriously by most scholars. Anyone recommending it as a useful, informative book needs to read a lot more widely in NT studies.” Dec 27, 17:20
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “Stephen C., you should read Reza Aslan’s “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”. He was likely born in Nazareth. Bethlehem was a contextualizing and symbolic, not literal story. The Romans didn’t have crazy censuses like that (they were much more efficient), and while there are records of censuses taking place, there are no records of a census at that time. He was likely illiterate. Nazareth wasn’t on most maps. It had one cistern, no raoads, no schools, no library, no synagogue, no Torah, and wasn’t on most maps. Only 300-1000 people lived there. A 1-3% literacy rate is a gracious over-estimate. Likely completely illiterate. He wasn’t a rich contractor (as my ward likes to say), a wealthy carpenter or a skilled Mason. No, he was a day laborer, a tekton. His peers would have sloughed stone or rubble used to build or rebuild conquered cities, tediously full in mosaics, or the like for Hellenistic McMansions of the Roman overlords, the nouveau riche Sadducees or Hellenistic Jews working as Pharisees. I’m not sure how the Davidic connection was documented or preserved over a thousand years with an illiterate, war-torn population w/ no genealogy records, no libraries, church records, etc. that’s like proving connection to William of Orange today, but without the above-mentioned records. It could be an oral tradition, or a cultural one, but certainly not a traceable one.” Dec 27, 16:34
- on A Review: Latter-day Saint Theology among Christian Theologies: “This is a topic I wish we spent more time on. Sometimes we have a subconscious sense that we believe some uniquely weird thing, while “real” Christians all believe something else – when the reality is that there’s a range of beliefs even within Protestantism, and LDS teachings fit comfortably in that spectrum. We certainly do have some unique beliefs, but we sometimes have a hard time picking them out.” Dec 27, 14:42
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “Those are all very interesting additional insights and data that I wasn’t aware of. Thank you!” Dec 27, 13:30
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “The Nephites–from Nephi to Mormon–used “the land of Jerusalem” to describe what we usually call “the land of Israel.” Even Jesus used that phrase when he was among them to describe the gathering place of the Jews. Given that Lehi was probably a descendant of refugees from the northern Kingdom of Israel living in the southern Kingdom of Judah, it is perhaps not surprising that they used a more neutral term. So when Alma said Jesus would be born “at Jerusalem,” I suspect he meant not the city of Jerusalem or even a “Jerusalem metropolitan area” that would include Bethlehem, but what we call the land of Israel. That said, it’s interesting that both the Nephites and the wise men apparently didn’t know about a prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1-6). Perhaps they both had scriptures derived from the northern kingdom rather than the south? I confess I’m not too committed to the splashier aspects of the nativity stories. The “slaughter of the innocents” in particular seems like it would have been recorded elsewhere. But the 3 BC conjunction of Venus and Jupiter near Regulus in the constellation Leo seems like a solid candidate for the star of Bethlehem. It was an extremely rare conjunction where the planets were so closely aligned that the naked eye could not distinguish between them. I recently went to a planetarium show where they replayed it, and it was darn impressive watching two stars apparently collide. Meanwhile, Babylonian astrology associated both Jupiter and Regulus with kings, and a lion was the symbol of Judah, so “new king in Judah” would have been the obvious interpretation. (That wouldn’t explain what the Nephites experienced, but that’s just weird. They don’t even mention a light source during the night with no darkness, only a new star later.) I agree that the preponderance of the evidence suggests Jesus was married, and Mary Magdalene is the obvious candidate to be his wife. That explains why she was the very first one he appeared to after his resurrection. Incidentally, where the KJV has Jesus saying “touch me not” in that encounter, the Greek verb can mean either “touch” or “hold,” and the imperative tense used can mean either “don’t do what you’re about to do” or “stop what you’re currently doing.” A long embrace followed by Jesus gently saying “Let go now–I still need to visit my Father” seems right to me.” Dec 27, 09:52
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “One evidence that Jesus was married is that he was allowed to teach in the synagogue. A man had to be at least 30 years old and married or he was not allowed to teach in the synagogue. Another is the women who came to dress him after his death. One woman at the tome was Mary Magdalene and only next of kin were allowed to do the last sacred anointing and dressing of the dead, so, unless Mary Magdalene was his sister, then she was his wife. I like these two bits of evidence because they come from the Biblical account, and not polygamous speculation.” Dec 26, 13:57
- on Was Jesus Married? Where Was He Born? The Restored Gospel and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: “I am satisfied to accept the story as it is given. As you say, it is an incredibly moving story. The “theologians” among the Latter-day Saints in Deseret had a great many ideas which I might charitably think of as “innovations,” essentially all of which were for the purpose of justifying polygamy. I think essentially all of those innovations were human thoughts with zero benefit from revelation, and I reject them all. I think the description in 2 Timothy 4:3 applies to essentially all of these Deseret theological innovations. These speculative theologians, as you style them, were good people. I hope many of them may yet qualify for a celestial reward, so I do not condemn them — I just choose not to accept their speculative innovations. I am satisfied to accept the story as given.” Dec 26, 07:30
- on Bah Humbug: Why We Don’t Do Santa: “I have a son on the autism spectrum and Santa was never an issue for him. But while we enjoyed the myth, we didn’t go overboard. We didn’t take the kids to sit on Santa’s lap (unless we happened to be at a party where that was occurring), we didn’t tell the kids that they had to be good or Santa wouldn’t bring them presents, we didn’t leave out milk and cookies, etc. At the point when each child started naturally questioning, we didn’t prolong things or try particularly hard to keep them believing. I usually put it back to them: “What do you think?” At point when I could tell my daughter knew he wasn’t real but desperately wanted to keep believing, I told her, “If you really want to know the whole real story, I will tell you. But you have to be sure you want to know.” She replied that she didn’t think she was ready. We had this conversation several times over a year’s time and finally she said yes, she really wanted to know the whole truth, and I told her. My view of this is very similar to what Carey F. shared. I also think that believing in mythical creatures is a very normal developmental thing for children, particularly young ones, and I’d even go as far as to say it’s a *good* thing. I also think it’s important for children to hear fairy tales and other such stories, which are actually deep stories that speak to them and teach truths on an inner level. I think they outgrow these stories when they are ready. I personally think that to deprive children of these rich and imaginative experiences is to their detriment. (I’m not saying that Santa in particular has to be specifically part of those experiences…) As far as organs, there are a number of LDS chapels that have pipe organs and even some that look somewhat like the one in the picture. What gives away the fakeness of the one pictured is that it has three keyboards.” Dec 25, 21:58
