Due to a scheduling conflict, Sunstone was forced to find a new venue for this year’s conference. Rather than stay at the Sheraton in Salt Lake City as they have for the past few years, the conference moved to Weber State University in Ogden. I was only able to attend the Saturday conference, but wanted to give a recap of some of the presentations I attended.
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…
With Passover beginning on April 19, I thought it might be nice to look at a new theory of the Exodus. If you want to see some of the previous theories, click here for my post on Questions about the Exodus. I just reviewed a video from the History Channel called Bible Battles. The film analyzes military strategy for many battles in the Bible. They make the surprising claim that the Israelites in Egypt were not slaves, but were a military unit. In some ways, another video seems to corroborate this view. Jim Hoffmeier discussed a mistranslation of the word “elith.” (The following quote comes from Science of the Exodus, by National Geographic.)
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”?
A few months ago, I picked up a book called Lost Books of the Bible by William Hone on the clearance rack at Barnes and Noble. It is one of the coolest books I have ever picked up. There are 26 ancient books included in the compilation, dating to the earliest centuries after Christ. These ancient writings include books such as The Gospel of Nicodemus, The Apostle’s Creed, the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, the Letters of Herod and Pilate, to name just a few.
The first 4 books deal with the childhood of Jesus. With the Christmas season approaching, I wanted to share some of these really cool stories about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I think you’ll enjoy learning some of the extra-biblical stories. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve read so much cool stuff about the life of Jesus. I want to start with the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, and discuss some of these other ancient writings in coming weeks. Some of these stories overlap, and I think it will be interesting to see the different, sometimes conflicting accounts over the coming weeks.
I just finished a book called Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom. Mitch is asked by his rabbi to deliver his eulogy, and the book details his efforts to get more acquainted with the rabbi. There is a wonderful message about gratitude and happiness that I wanted to share for Thanksgiving.
The rabbi was aging, and spent some time in the hospital. Pages 97-99 detail an interesting insight into one of these visits. Read more…
Mitch Albom wrote a book titled Have a Little Faith. Mitch grew up Jewish, but as he left for college and started a career in sports writing, he left many of his Jewish roots behind. Years later, his rabbi approached him with a special request. From page 1 of his book,
“Will you do my eulogy?”
I just finished the book Saint Peter: A Biography by Michael Grant. I think it is misnamed. I don’t feel like I know Peter any better, but it is a good book for learning about early Christianity. The author describes how tough it is to really understand Peter both at the beginning, as well as the end. From the Epilogue, pages 175-6,
Sorry there was no post last week. I had planned to put this one up, but this has turned out to be one of my longest posts since my Priesthood Ban post. This post is over 6000 words (14 pages), so be forewarned. I’ve combined three different videos, so that’s why it took so long. I’ll color code these quotes so you know which videos these quotes come from. The videos are Science of the Exodus, by National Geographic; Exodus Decoded, by Simcha Jacobovici; and Exodus Revealed, by Discovery Media Group.
What I found interesting was the fact that there were many similarities. The same experts and evidence often appeared in multiple videos, yet often different conclusions were provided. It reminds me of the debate concerning Book of Mormon evidence.
During Passover celebrations in 2001, Rabbi David Wolpe created international headlines in Israel by proclaiming to his Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, “the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”
For more than 1700 years, Christians have been looking for Mount Sinai, the place where Moses received the 10 Commandments. Constantine’s mother, Helena was probably the first Christian in search of Christian artifacts in the 4th century. Read more…
Today begins is an interesting week of Holy Days: Palm Sunday, Passover, and Easter. Today is Palm Sunday. Passover begins Monday night at sunset, and of course Easter is next Sunday. I thought I’d do a post which ties all of these related holidays (or stated better–Holy Days) together.
Palm Sunday
Dr. Carole Fontaine of the Andover Newton Theological School said, “Archeologists often find themselves hooted and hollered out of town, when they first suggest things like, ‘I’ve found Troy, or look, we’ve found Sodom and Gomorrah.’ But history has shown that in fact, the more you dig, the more you find. It’s amazing how accurate the Bible sometimes turns out to be.”
This quote comes from an episode of History’s Mysteries: Sodom and Gomorrah. It was originally aired in 2000 on the History Channel. Read more…
BiV over at Mormon Matters posted a link to the Mormon Song from the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Apparently, Senator Orrin Hatch wrote a Hannukah Song, which I found really catchy, and Conan tried to follow suit, even including his on Tapper-nacle Choir to help him out. This is my first video ever, so I’m hoping it works. (Update: Even though I upgraded to WordPress 2.9, which supposedly has built in video support, it isn’t working as advertised. It was supposed to embed videos, but I’ll have to just post the links here. For anyone out there who know how to embed videos into WordPress, please let me know.)
http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/a-song-for-the-mormons-121409/1185331/
Here’s some other cool videos:
For my birthday, my wife gave me Dan Brown’s newest novel, The Lost Symbol. I don’t typically read novels–I prefer sports, history, religion, or biographies–but I read The DaVinci Code and loved it. Angels & Demons was pretty good. I had heard rumors that Dan Brown’s book was going to deal with Masonry and Mormonism, so I was looking forward to see a good conspiracy novel. Well, it turns out the Masonry part was right, but the Mormon part was pretty benign. There were only 2 obvious–but benign references–to Mormonism. Some of the plot has some indirect parallels to Mormon thought, though the book focuses more on seeming pagan practices than Mormon ideas. Anyway, this was fun to read, and I thought I’d try to give a few nibbles from the book, without giving away too much plot. So, here’s a taste of how related it is to Mormonism (which isn’t much). I’m not going to give away too much that relates specifically to the main plot, but if you want to read it fresh, you should quit reading now.
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