Mormon Heretic

It’s time to get back to Terryl Givens book, By the Hand of Mormon.  While acknowledging archaeological data isn’t as strong as other aspects of the Book of Mormon, Givens seems to feel Mormon academics have made some impressive contributions.  Givens starts with Hugh Nibley on page 118:

Read more…

I came across this recent article at Christianity Today describing meetings between evangelicals and Mormons.  Here are some interesting excerpts from the article:

LDS president Thomas S. Monson and his two counselors permitted Standing Together, an alliance of 90 Utah evangelical churches, to use the historic Salt Lake City Tabernacle for a September 13 revival meeting. Throngs of evangelicals and Mormons enjoyed gospel songs and prayed together.

Read more…

A friend of mine let me know about this news item at Signature Books.  Apparently, one of their authors (David Wright) has a new book published by Oxford University Press.  For those of you who don’t know, Oxford is known as a pretty tough place to publish.  They have pretty high scholarly standards, so getting published there lends one some great credibility.  So, the original press release at Signature stated that the Ten Commandments were plagiarized from Hammurabi.  The old quote from the site is below.  However, David Wright brought to my attention a correction in the press release.  I will show both of them.

Read more…

I’ve been reading a book by Apostle Dallin Oaks called Carthage Conspiracy.  Oaks is a lawyer, former Utah Supreme Court judge, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, and president of BYU from 1971-1980 (updated 8/9/2009).  He wrote the book in 1975, and analyzes the trial of the assassins of Joseph Smith.  I plan to do a future post on the book, but let me say that when we look at Mayor(s) Daley and Gov. Blagojavich (sp?), it seems that crooked Illinois politics are alive and well, just as they were in the days of Joseph Smith.  The trial was a travesty, though I admit that Mormon unwillingness to assist the prosecutor in convicting these murderers did not help matters.  Apostle John Taylor, who was shot in the melee, went into hiding rather than testify.  Certainly this didn’t help the Illinois prosecutor in trying to convict the murderers.

I want to look at one specific incident in the book describing events in Missouri, and contrast LDS views with CoC views on the topic.  I want to review a specific statement from Prophet/President Veazey.  While Pres Veazey wasn’t addressing any particular events, I think the event I want to illustrate could have been something he might have been referring to.

Read more…

Ok, this is a post to tackle a few issues.  #1, Bishop Rick did request a post: “Personally, I would like to see a post that shows how evolution could fit inside the Genesis account of creation. I predict a lively discussion there.” I did do a post on Evolution, but he didn’t know me then (My blog was very new.)  However, it was quite lively over at Mormon Matters! This current post can also be considered a follow-up to my previous post on Science and Religion.

Also, the conversation veered off the road on my Malay post, going into the space-time continuum.  So, since I like to compartmentalize things, I thought I’d open up a new post where space-time continuum, advanced civilizations, etc can be talked about.  So, this is basically a science post where you can post anything to do with science vs religion.  I don’t care about threadjacking here, as long as it shows some reference to science.  I do want to pull a quote from Nachminides, as we start this discussion.  I posted this previously on my DNA post: Read more…

Thanks to FireTag for letting me know about a recent statement by the current prophet of the Community of Christ.  He talks about scriptural literalism.  The videos can be found on the CoC website, and this quote comes from Chapter 4.  Let me quote from Pres. Veazey directly: Read more…

I don’t know why, but I love to learn about archaeology, especially religious archaeology.  A few years ago, Simcha Jacobovici came out with a documentary and book called The Jesus Tomb.  In it, he makes a claim that the bones of Jesus may have been located in a tomb unearthed in Jerusalem.  Of course, the Da Vinci Code, while fiction, makes a claim that Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene were actually buried in France.  A few months ago, I watched a documentary called Bloodline, which actually goes further, and makes the case that yes, indeed, the bones of Christ and Mary are found in France.  (You can learn more at the official website.)  I just came across a third source, which claims that Christ’s bones are actually located in India.  See this website.

Read more…

I recently made the acquaintance of Morgan Deane, who runs a blog called Warfare and the Book of Mormon.  Morgan is a scholar in Military History, and has used some of his expertise in analyzing some passages in the Book of Mormon as related to warfare.  Here’s what he says about himself on his website.
Read more…

When LDS people think of Conference Weekend, it is usually 8 hours (10 if you go to the Priesthood session) over the first weekend in April and October.  Well, I spent 9 hours this weekend in Mormon-themed conferences, and I’ve got Stake Conference tomorrow (2 more hours.)  So, I’m definitely conferenced out.

Read more…

Sometimes I can be a little controversial, as in my previous post.  If you will notice my About page, you will see a painting of Galileo, my favorite heretic.  It seems the vatican is trying to show that faith and science aren’t always opposing.  Check it out here.

So is it possible to be a faithful scientist?  What happens when it seems threatening to your church?

There was a great post over at Mormon Matters on whether God can tempt us above that which we are able.  In short, I think that it is possible for us to be tempted more than we can bear,  Does it come from God?  I’m undecided.  But if you want to weigh in on that topic, click here.

I did engage in somewhat of a threadjack, and want to post some of the comments regarding the concept of perfection here.  What does perfection really mean?  Here are some of the comments there.  The formatting is a little goofy, but here is the essence.

Read more…

Many critics of the Book of Mormon claim there is no archeologyical evidence.  The Bible is assumed to be completely true.  MSNBC has a link about a PBS show about archeaology of Bible that recently appeared on Nova. 

William Dever, from the University of Arizona, is one of my favorite scholars.  Let me quote from the PBS Article: Read more…

Wow, this is a really long post, and I didn’t cover everything, but what I did cover is quite considerable. I hope to hear some comments. I decided to update this post on 9/16 with some of Greg Prince’s insights into this topic. These updates are highlighted in orange. UPDATE Mar 10, 2009. Black Pete and William McCary were erroneously referred to as the same people. I made revisions to correct this inaccuracy, and this is shown in purple.  I have also added some new information from Connell O’Donovan, who is one of the premier experts on this subject.

We have had an interesting discussion in a previous blog post on Joshua’s Unholy War. In this discussion, we have discussed the idea as to whether God commanded Joshua (and Moses) to commit genocide in wiping out the Canaanites in various cities, such as Jericho. I am claiming that the command to extinguish the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua was not inspired. As part of the discussion, we have explored two other topics: the priesthood ban, and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. I would like to focus this post on the priesthood ban, and will devote another post to the subject of Abraham.

Read more…