Mormon Heretic

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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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.

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The 8th Article of Faith for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints states:

8 We believe the ^aBible to be the ^bword of God as far as it is translated ^ccorrectly;

This has to be one of the most oft-quoted articles of faith by members of the LDS church.  In one of my previous posts on Scripture Literalism, the comments referred to Biblical inerrancy and literalism.  Some evangelicals believe that the Bible is both inerrant and literal, and take great issue with the Mormon stance on the Bible.  They don’t believe there are any mistranslations, and that every word in the Bible was spoken by God.  Many of these people discount any contradictions in the Bible.

The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory that seems to identify at least four different authors/editors of the first five books in the Bible (also called the Torah in Judaism, or the Pentateuch.)  I think many Mormons would find great agreement with the Documentary Hypothesis, though they might not agree with every part of the theory.

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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.

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So, I came across an interview of Richard Bushman at the Pew Research Forum, about both early and modern Mormon politics.  I’ve also been reading a book called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power by D Michael Quinn on the early leadership of the church.  I want to combine the 2 sources, and talk about Joseph Smith’s presidential plans of 1844.  First, let me quote Bushman.
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So, I’ve been checking my blog stats, and with Easter upon us, it seems my post from last year about why Mormon’s don’t celebrate Easter is getting the most hits.  While last year’s post was a little negative-that I think Mormon celebrations of Easter are lacking compared to other Christians’ Easter celebrations, I hope to talk more about some scholarly insights into Jesus this year as we discuss Easter.

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It’s not often that my 2 loves (religion and sport) combine in a way for me to write about both.  Here in Utah, the death of Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, is big news.  Outside this area, it’s not a big story.

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Here in Utah, during the week of the Utah-BYU football game, also known as the “Holy War”, fans on each side and get downright fanatical.  Being the church school, many mormons pretty much bear testimony that BYU is “the Lord’s school”, and that God wants BYU to win.  Fans of Utah get quite upset about this, and complain about BYU fan’s haughty attitude.

It’s always refreshing to me when I discover similar attitudes in other religions.  This article on MSNBC:  Does God care who wins the Super Bowl? even references the Holy War…  Here are some quotes from the article I found particularly interesting.

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After Lehi’s family left Jerusalem, they traveled in the Arabian Peninsula on their way to the “promised land.”  In 1994, an archeaological discovery in Yemen has the same name as mentioned in 1 Ne. 16: 34, “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom.

Critics of the LDS church have often chortled at the fact that there is no archaeological evidence in support of the Book of Mormon.  Well, that is now changing, and I would like to discuss what we know about an archeaological site called “Nahom.”

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I just finished a book called “DNA & Tradition”, by Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman.  The book discusses evidence of Hebrew DNA, and talks about the science and religion of Judaism.  As part of the discussion, I learned these interesting facts.

The oldest diaspora communities are in Assyria, later conquered by Babylonia (now modern-day Iraq) and Persia (now modern day Iran). They have been there for 2000-2500 years.

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Ok, I will confess that I love learning about the Middle East.  I love learning more about Jews, Muslims, Arabs, etc.  I have so much to learn.

I’m a grad student working on some genetic studies (one of my many jobs).  As part of the genetic study we are doing, we have our study participants tell us their race.  In medical studies, different treatments can affect different races quite dramatically.

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I have about 5 part-time jobs.  For one of them, I work as a freelancer for a television network.  As part of my job, my company flies me all over the country to cover sporting events.

During this past presidential campaign, I remember reading several articles first published in the Boston Globe, and reprinted in the Deseret News, regarding Mitt Romney’s upbringing.  I was surprised to learn that Mitt’s father, George, kept alcohol in their house to entertain non-LDS friends.  The article was sure to state that all of the Romneys obeyed the Word of Wisdom, and never partook of the alcohol.  I found this particular stance unusual.

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This is an unbelievable example of Christlike love.  See this Deseret News story.  A young child was horribly injured in a fireworks accident, but instead of putting the person responsible in jail, they are fighting to keep him out of jail.