My book club is reading More Wives than One, by Kathryn Daynes. I am loving this book!
You may remember my earlier post outlining my perspective on Polygamy, as well as Bushman’s perspective. I must say that I was very uncomfortable with many of these aspects (and I still am.) Daynes outlines the much more public practice of polygamy from the Utah period. Since the Mormons practiced it more openly, perhaps that is the reason for less discomfort while reading this book. Some of these stories still leave me shaking my head in amazement.
Read more…
This is part 2 of my in-depth look into Solomon Spalding’s only known novel, “Manuscript Found.” I’ve previously discussed the Spalding Theory of Book of Mormon origins, and given an introduction to Spalding’s only known manuscript discovered by LL Rice in Hawaii. The original manuscript is located at Oberlin College in Ohio.
One of the most striking features to me concerning the document is the extremely poor spelling. I would hope that Spalding would be a “tolerable schollar” (his spelling on page 43.) At first, I started circling all the words that he misspelled, but I got tired of it after a while because there were so many. Here’s a sampling of some.
Read more…
From time to time, I get an email from George Potter. He has a website called the Nephi Project. I heard him speak a few years ago on research he has done in Yemen. His research is pretty well-respected, and it appears he has a very good candidate for Nephi’s Harbor, and he may have found the River Laman in Saudi Arabia that is mentioned by Lehi in the Book of Mormon. (I really need to write a review of his and another researcher’s work–they are really good.) Potter thinks that Lehi and his family followed the frankincense trail to Yemen before setting sail for the New World.
George has recently shifted his focus from the Old World to the New World. George is a proponent that the Book of Mormon lands are in Peru. His latest newsletter dated Oct 13, 2009, says,
Read more…
I was surprised at the recent burst of activity on my post back in April titled, Debunking the Spaulding Manuscript Theory. One of my commenters (Roger) seem to believe the Spaulding Theory still has merit. I even had Craig Criddle stop by. He is a leading proponent of the theory and published a peer-reviewed article at Oxford in support of this theory. (You need a subscription to read it, but the abstract can be found there.)
Roger took issue Brodie’s characterization that Spaulding’s manuscript was “devoid of religious material”, and made several references to religious writings in this comment. So, if Roger is right, it seems there should be quite a few religious similarities between this Spaulding manuscript, and the Book of Mormon, right?
Read more…
I finally got around to one of my requests! Tara and I have been discussing several topics, such as the Priesthood Ban, Polygamy, and Abraham, and the story of Balaam always seems to come up. She takes the position that Balaam is a fallen prophet, but I think he never was a prophet. Here’s my case. What do you think?
Balaam has to be one of the most intriguing characters in the Bible. He is one of only 7 gentile prophets mentioned in the Bible. The others are Beor (Balaam’s father), Job and his 4 friends. My favorite part of the story of Balaam is the talking donkey–it is the only place where an animal speaks (unless you count the serpent in the Garden of Eden.) Ascertaining Balaam’s character can be a bit of a challenge. On the one hand, the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24 says the he not only talked with God, but a destroying angel appears to prevent him from cursing Israel. On the other hand, he is referred to as “the wicked one” in Revelations. So which is he?
Let’s get some background and a brief synopsis of the story of Balaam.
Read more…
Recent Comments