- RL on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament was a nice bridge type book for me that may have filled this niche written by a BYU professor about 15 years ago. I truly feel bad for some LDS studies folks because they seem really hedged in career wise with a small niche audience and topics. I do like BYUs pivot to devotional type complementary books and will read those every once in a while, though I’d be less likely to read their OT/NT stuff than Book of Mormon and D and C type stuff. Personally I’d rather read a general study Bible or an Oxford/Yale type book on the NT or OT if I was wanting to see a broader academic perspective.” Oct 25, 21:46
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “Kendall, I think your first possibility is unavoidable. His exit contradicts his own claim that he is presenting a useful way for church members to read the New Testament. There may be valuable insights in current NT scholarship for church members, but he’s the wrong messenger. Your second possibility – the suspicion that his dissociation is clouding his perspective – would require me to read the book first to comment on, but we know enough about human nature that I’m unlikely to invest the time to find out for sure.” Oct 25, 18:23
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “Chad, I appreciate the overview and recommendation.” Oct 25, 17:12
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “In other words, on Kevin Barney’s expanded scale of Barlow’s category of faith/scholarship approaches (“Reflections on the Documentary hypothesis”), I suspect he would rank a 1-1.5.” Oct 25, 16:44
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “I appreciate the transparency. However, in my view, his exit from the Church as a result of his scholarship (see his OT book) and embrace of Unitarianism suggests a deep personal conviction on his part that there is no way to reconcile scholarship with belief. That can’t help but affect how he presents the material, and I’d prefer to see LDS read either introductions that aren’t aimed at LDS at all OR read those that actively try to provide a framework in which belief is compatible with critical scholarship.” Oct 25, 16:42
- on The Framework of My Historical Argument about Polygamy: “Opposed, the point of my research is to try to understand what Smith was practicing. Seems like a responsible thing for a historian to do. And yes, the policy changed to polygyny in 1843. The Republic was one of the first documents to declare female equality. In the history of feminism, early modern feminists tended to be Platonists. I’m not here to advocate for implementing the Republic, but there’s clearly a big difference between shared marriage and polygyny.” Oct 25, 12:22
- on The Framework of My Historical Argument about Polygamy: “I think both Plato’s Republic view of women and polygamy are terribly misogynistic and wrong. Both are treating women one step away from goods. And the implementation of polygamy after Joseph’s death wasn’t shared marriage or polyamory but much more like fundamentalist polygamy that is still practiced by Mormon offshoots. Why try to justify and piece together some pseudo doctrines to explain something that is morally wrong? It isn’t good in the republic and it wasn’t good in Mormon history. I am happy that the church finally walked away from this practice.” Oct 25, 11:51
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “Jonathan, is your thought that removing himself from the Church undermines his claim in the eyes of his audience that New Testament scholarship is compatible with LDS worship? Or does his dissociation cloud his ability to actually understand LDS teachings?” Oct 25, 10:26
- on Reading the New Testament on Its Own Terms: A Review of Alex Douglas’s The New Testament for Latter-day Saints: “Thanks for the review. Unfortunately, the author’s disassociation from the Church so badly undermines the authorial position that I do not think this book can accomplish its objective. The number of authors who want to write for the LDS market while unencumbered by membership in the Church or obligations to the community of church members is actually getting to be somewhat of a problem.” Oct 25, 08:24
- on The Framework of My Historical Argument about Polygamy: “Roger, the bottom line is that many women had more than one husband in Nauvoo. No, there were no wife-swapping parties. Many women had more than one spouse, just like many men had more than one spouse. RLD, again, those arranged marriages were not part of the system that Smith was seeking to implement. The Republic is a very large book and no doubt it’s not hard find things that Smith DID NOT implement, just like it’s quite easy to go through the Old Testament to find things we do not practice. Again, the principle was much simpler: the phrase repeated over and over that marriages were in common among the guardians. In terms of children, yes, they were to be raised in common in the Republic. Smith’s shared marriage system never got that elaborate. Nor are we aware of Smith producing children with any of his wives. We don’t have evidence for JS having NO sex with his previously married wives, but it likely wasn’t frequent and there were ways to try to avoid pregnancy. Then there’s the claim from Josephine Lyons that her mother Sylvia Sessions told Josephine that Josephine was JS’s daughter. My understanding is that DNA testing has shown this to be incorrect, but that fact that Sylvia THOUGHT JS was the father of Josephine but was not strongly suggests that Sylvia thought so because she had a consummated relationship with JS as well as her other husband. Yes this could be problematic and, no, JS didn’t set up a system of raising children in common. This was all very secretive and preliminary. There were all different kinds of relationships between JS and the wives he shared with many (but not all) husbands being aware of the shared relationship. I’d assume that for the husbands that were aware, they would have been aware of the possibility of their wives having JS’s children as part of the shared relationship. Again, sharing was the goal of the utopian community with the ideal not being to “destroy the family,” but to unite as a larger family, similar to the Benjamin Johnson quote I cited. I think of Mormon’s statement in Moroni 8:17: “I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation.” My guess is that the goal was to love “all the children” with that kind of love. Not a “mine” v. “not mine,” but a communal love. One way or another, these shared marriages did happen and I do not see an OT explanation for them, but more of an adaptation of things Plato talked about. And as I note in the OP, Mormonism has a whole lot of Platonic stuff. And, yes, there’s the question of JS’s shared marriages being reciprocated, or the question of Emma having other husbands. We do have claims of such arrangements being discussed (probably not consummated) and I argue that DC 132:51 revokes such arrangements. My argument is that’s why Emma found DC 132 so upsetting. Not because she was super eager for more husbands, but that shared marriage was a least much more fair than polygyny. William Clayton records JS telling him that Emma may seek revenge in a marital kind of way and to watch himself. Anyway, I do think that was Emma’s attitude, and if so, she was clearly right that polygyny was unfair.” Oct 24, 06:17
