Back in April, Rick Reilly of ESPN.com discussed Jimmer Fredette. Reilly said “If his last college game is what he’s bringing to the NBA, then I’d say, in five years, he’s got a really good chance to be your Provo area Isuzu dealer.” In another article, he said, “I’ll donate $5,000 if he starts a game, any game, his first year in the league. I’m serious.”
Well, Reilly made out the check this week when Jimmer started a pre-season game for the Sacramento Kings. Quoting from Reilly, “In the check’s memo line, I wrote: Crow.” Read more…
There are 13 memorials similar to this one dedicated to Utah Highway Patrol Troopers killed in the line of duty. The Atheist Association Inc of New Jersey, sued to have the crosses removed because they claimed the crosses violated the separation of church and state. A federal court ruled for the Atheists. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the case, meaning that the crosses likely will need to be removed
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Categories: Christian, CoC/RLDS, Culture, Early Christian History, Mormon Culture Tags: Atheism, Christianity, Cross, Mark Shurtliff, Mormons, Politics, religion, Supreme Court, Utah
Life has been unusually busy of late. Sorry I haven’t posted very often–I’ll try to get back on track. A lot of my posts take some time to research, but Jarrod gave me a softball. Rather than leave his comments on my “About page, I thought I could churn out a quick post (requiring no research). It’s obvious that Jarrod wanted to debate some of the same ole, same ole. Jarrod doesn’t raise any new issues–these have been debated ad nauseum before, but since he just happened along my blog, I thought we could discuss them again here, especially since the issue got raised this week in the Mitt Romney campaign. On my About page, I wrote:
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Tom Brokaw during a rehearsal, courtesy http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-tabernacle-choir-tom-brokaw-remember-9-11
The past few days have brought a series of news stories remembering the terrible tragedy that happened 10 years ago. I was curious to see if there would be any differences in our church services. On the one hand, Music and the Spoken Word invited NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to narrate a special tribute to the tragedy called Rising Above. I watched the re-run of it Sunday night (since my church meetings were scheduled at the same time.) I also note that President Monson wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post sharing thoughts about the tragedy.
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Back in 2008, Jeff Spector introduced me to the concept of proof-texting. I think we’re all familiar with the idea of taking a scripture out of context to support a certain religious belief. However, I didn’t realize that this practice goes back thousands of years. Charles Harrell and Greg Kofford Books has recently published a new book This is My Doctrine: the Development of Mormon Theology. They noted that New Testament writers were guilty of proof-texting as well.
On page 8, Harrell describes what a proof-text is.
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Many people refer to “the Apocrypha” as if it is a clearly defined set of books. The work “apocrypha” means literally “things hidden away.” In modern usage, an apocryphal book is any book not part of the Bible. In that sense, the Book of Mormon could be called an apocryphal book; there is a new book called American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon. It is a collection of essays by scholars specifically addressing the Book of Mormon.
We often think that the Bible has a set number of books. However, this is not true. Read more…
Categories: Apocryphal Stories, Book of Mormon, Canon, Catholic, Christian, Early Christian History, History, Judaism, Movie/Book Reviews, Multi-Faith, Old Testament, Scripture, Women Tags:
When it comes to religion, there are 2 main camps: fundamentalists and modernists. Perhaps you would prefer the term “conservative” and “liberal”; to some degree, these terms make sense. Casey Paul Griffiths came out with an article in BYU studies back in January called “The Chicago Experiment” and said “the Church had inserted itself directly into the modernist-fundamentalist controversy”.3
Griffiths describes the battle on page 92. Theological liberals are Read more…
As Easter approaches every year, it seems that many people type “do mormons celebrate easter” into Google. If you do that right now, you will see that my post from 2008 is the #1 result on Google: Why Don’t Mormons Celebrate Easter? Frankly it’s shocking to me that my post is ranked so high on Google. As of today, it is my 4th most popular post I’ve ever written on my blog, and I am constantly amazed at the continued popularity of that post. It also happens to be one of my shortest posts ever—just 2 paragraphs. Even yesterday, Fern commented on this old post asking “Are these comments from Mormons for real?????”
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It’s not often that I get to talk about sports on my blog. I came across this interesting article about Erik and Danny Ainge. Erik is a backup quarterback for the New York Jets, and former starting quarterback for the University of Tennessee. I was surprised to learn that his uncle Danny is currently serving as bishop in Wellesley, Massachusetts, while working as President of the Boston Celtics. I had no idea Danny was a bishop.
Erik admitted to using all sorts of drugs since the age of 11. He is currently in drug rehab in the Boston area, and Danny has opened his home. While it is sad that Erik has screwed up his life so bad, I am impressed that Danny has taken Erik into his home and assisted with his rehab. I don’t think I would be so open with a relative with such a serious problem. I’m greatly impressed with Danny’s service to Erik.
There are many Christian stories not contained in the Bible. For example, I have reviewed the First Infancy Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, and the Gospel of Judas (to name a few). These writings are referred to as apocryphal writings. Some Christians have referred to the Book of Mormon as the “American Apocrypha.” Often, we refer to “the Apocrypha” as a specific set of books. So how did we get “the Apocrypha”?
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No writings have ever been attributed to Jesus in the Bible. However, there is an ancient manuscript that claims to be letters written between Abgarus, King of Edessa, and Jesus. It’s a very short “book”, so I will quote it entirely. But first, here’s a bit of background. The official name of the document is The Epistles of Jesus Christ and Abrarus King of Edessa. Lost Books of the Bible gives some background on this document.
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Ever wondered what kind of a child Jesus was? Well, The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ tells us that Jesus was part healer, part genius, part brat. It starts out with some interesting stories about happened to the holy family in Egypt (following Herod’s edict to kill all boys age 2 and under), and then goes on to tell that Jesus often miraculously killed adults and children that ticked him off. This gospel has some interesting stories, and some really weird stories—definitely not the sort of Jesus most Christians would expect to see.
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The biblical account of the interactions between Joseph and Mary is very small. To me, it almost makes Joseph and Mary appear 2-dimensional, and I never feel like I know them very well. When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant before their wedding, we know that he considered cancelling the betrothal. An angel intervened, and Joseph decided to continue with the wedding. Many of us have imagined that this must have been very tough to deal with, but the details in the Bible of the interactions between Mary and Joseph have been quite sparse.
The Protevangelion fills in many of these details. Read more…
Categories: Apocryphal Stories, Canon, Catholic, Christian, Early Christian History, History, Mormon, Movie/Book Reviews, Scripture, Theology, Women Tags:
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