I’m going to direct your attention to an interesting post at the LDS Patheos site: The Future Faith of Our Seminary Students. The post is a response to the author’s reading of the new Old Testament manual for Seminary. In a nutshell, the post laments the fact that “the way we teach ancient scripture to youth remains so simplistic as to be misleading and even factually incorrect at times.” While we have upgraded the LDS pedagogical treatment of LDS history (see Gospel Topics Essays, the new Saints volume, the Revelations in Context booklet), the LDS treatment of the Bible and the scholarship, or lack thereof, reflected in LDS manuals is an apologetic time bomb. When the youth figure it out, it will be “I was lied to, Part 2.” I will let you read the well-documented post yourself and provide your own response and your own experience as a student or teacher in LDS classes. I’ll just briefly add my own much less informed (compared to The Scribe) experience with the topic.
I have often taught Gospel Doctrine, but after teaching Church History last year we hit the Old Testament this year. The manual is so bad and so dated as to be unusable. Not just unusable, but positively misleading or false in many of its presentations and applications of Old Testament books and verses. I’m not willing to teach misleading or false information to students. So I quit. That’s how bad LDS manuals are.
Likewise with LDS reference materials. I have a couple of shelves filled with bible translations, commentaries, and biblical reference books. Some are LDS, many are from non-LDS scholars. I learn almost nothing from the LDS reference books. I don’t know whether LDS scholars self-censor when addressing biblical topics, or whether they try to put in good information and it gets edited out by Correlation or Curriculum, or whether the scholars or volunteers writing LDS reference books and manuals just don’t know very much about the Bible. But it’s a problem.
I know there are some good LDS scholars who know better. God bless them and protect them from the blockheads among their colleagues and overseers. And may they figure out how to upgrade the LDS curriculum before the next generation of LDS youth grow up to discover they have been fed a bogus set of facts and go elsewhere for truth and enlightenment. LDS apologetics is doing a better job at this point fighting the last apologetic war (LDS history and scripture). Time to get ahead of the curve for the next apologetic war (the Bible and faith versus science).
Wheat & Tares 
I couldn’t agree more Dave B. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the church hired people like Ben Spackman and Michael Austin and let them write the lessons? I find myself ignoring the lesson in Gospel Doctrine and reading my New Oxford Annotated Bible summaries or the lesson someone prepared on By Common Consent. I used to hate studying the Old Testament and now I can’t get enough of it. Once you stop trying to make all of the Old Testament prophets Mormons, their lives and stories have so much more meaning. It is also fun to see their struggles to know God and we can learn from their stories as we try to know God and teach our kids about God.
I understand your concern.
Consider the degrees of these BYU professors of ancient scripture:
BW, a full professor of ancient scripture: Bachelor’s degree in elementary education from BYU, master’s degree in teaching and learning from BYU, Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a focus in literacy from the University of Wyoming.
HS, an assistant professor of ancient scripture: Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Dixie State University, MBA from Utah State University, and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Brigham Young University.
—, an associate teaching professor of ancient scripture: Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering and Masters and Doctorate degrees are both in Instructional Technology.
–, a full professor of ancient scripture: B.A. in Spanish and B.A. in French from Utah State University, M.S. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University, Ph.D. in Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.
—, an assistant professor of ancient scripture: B.A. in American Studies and Marriage, Family, and Human Development from Brigham Young University, M.A. in Women’s Studies from Brandeis, M.A. in English from Brigham Young University, Ph.D. in American Literature (with an emphasis in nineteenth-century women’s literature and narrative theory) from Brandeis University.
—, a full professor of ancient scripture: M.S. degree in family science and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, both from Brigham Young University.
My purpose is not to disparage anyone personally — these are all probably very good people who will make it to the celestial kingdom. This pattern is common, but not universal — there are professors of ancient scripture with some educational foundation in ancient scripture. But the fact that this pattern exists is perhaps part of the problem discussed in the original posting.
Ji – that’s very interesting. I wonder if there just aren’t any Mormons with background in ancient literature and biblical history? Or if there are, why they don’t/ can’t teach at BYU?
Daniel Peterson was on the correlation committee and complained how bad the manuals were. I transcribed part of Dan Wotherspoon’s interview back in 2011. There is no will to change. I wish there was. See https://mormonheretic.org/2011/11/26/daniel-peterson-talks-candidly-about-correlation/
Zach writes “I couldn’t agree more Dave B.”
I too cannot agree more with Dave B, or to be more precise, choose not to. I learned an appropriate amount about OT, NT, BofM and PGP in seminary classes. I also have a Strong’s Concordance. Since the OT is not crucial for Christians I can see why less emphasis rests upon it.
If you are studying ancient scripture for scholarly reasons, rather than religious reasons, then pick your scholar and school as you would for any profession or interest
Lehcarjt, there *are* BYU professors with the requisite skills. Here are two that I had as professors at the BYU Jerusalem Center:
Dana Pike – “Pike has taught at BYU since 1992. He received his B.S. in Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology from Brigham Young University (1978), and his Ph.D. in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Pennsylvania (1990).”
David Rolph Seely – “B.A. from BYU in Greek, 1981; M.A. from BYU in Classics, 1982; A.M. from University of Michigan in Ancient and Biblical Studies, 1985; Ph.D. from University of Michigan in Ancient and Biblical Studies, 1990; Hired at BYU in 1987.”
But I think the vast majority of religion professors are more like what ji indicated.
There is little/no will to change the manuals because the church prefers to prooftext the OT. To do otherwise poses significant problems for Mormon doctrine.
My amazing Old Testament professor at BYU, David Wright, was excommunicated in 1994 for writing articles asserting the Book of Mormon was a 19th-century creation of Joseph Smith. He now teaches Biblical studies at Brandeis University. He made the Old Testament fascinating, and I’m pretty sure he was right about the Book of Mormon.
I believe that a conscious decision was made to not change the manuals but to try and improve teaching skills, hence the forth Sunday lessons for teachers in all auxiliaries. The problem with that is that unless the teacher is willing to bring in outside materials (which we’re not supposed to do) and at the same time ignore the lessons, it will never work. I asked a councilor in our stake presidency who is a CES instructor about when something was going to be done about the SS manuals and he said the adults “aren’t ready for a change”. What ever the hell that means I have no clue.
I’m not the only adult in my Sunday school class who feels a change is way way overdue. And I get very, very tired with the patronising attitude displayed by the CES instructor comments in GBSmiths comment above. and such patronising attitudes are not only found within CES.
I’ve been in a conversation (or perhaps rather been addressed by a fellow class member), who expressed the opinion that whilst he or I might be happy to discuss things in depth, you couldn’t talk about such things in the class generally. Why not? If lesson manuals are vastly improved with current biblical scholarship, thus providing the information from the ‘approved source’… Would we rather folk discovered that material was deliberately withheld because others deemed them not to have the necessary whatevers to deal with it?
Troy Cline: in fairness, there’s a lot in the OT that’s problematic for Christian doctrine as a whole. Other churches are guilty of prooftexting too.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Bro. Jones, the way I see it there are Christian misreadings of the OT — which Mormons have by and large inherited. Then we pile our own Mormon misreadings on top of Christian misreadings. So it is just really hard for the average Mormon to get behind these inherited and constructed misreadings to really figure out what is going on in the Old Testament. It’s not even the Old Testament — it’s the Hebrew Bible and ought to at least be understood on its own terms before we (coming after) appropriate it for our own religious ends.
Dot, I love David Wright. He spoke truth.
Dave B., great OP. However, I must say that the danger of changing the manuals, at least from an administrator’s standpoint, toward the ideas of more “liberal” thinking believing scholars, such as Ben Spackman and Michael Austin, as some have suggested, is that you run the risk of creating a manual that challenges the longstanding literalist ideas and sentiments of the LDS church leaders both past and present. The result could very well be a greater divide, or at least a reopening of a divide that has existed for some time, among members about the concept of scriptural truth. To create more “liberal” thinking Mormons is basically to create more inactives. The rank and file members who are willing to devote nearly everything to the LDS church and who are the most willing to serve in time-consuming leadership callings tend to be scriptural literalists who bristle at “liberal” ideas and like to push in the classes and discussions a literal truth over metaphorical truth. They will always have the upper hand since they can quote LDS authorities to back their positions. This type will always dominate local leadership positions. Why? Because they choose people like them to fill leadership callings and because they tend not to question authority and are more willing to make extreme sacrifices of time and comfort for the LDS church. A few “liberal” believers have the willpower to put up with the literalists and will remain active and participant in the LDS church. Many liberals are compelled to remain/appear faithful by the need to keep up with appearances among demanding family members and even sometimes by the need to maintain their own reputation (as is the case with liberal believers who blog and have made a small name online for themselves as believers). But for liberals those not encumbered by such strictures the temptation to decrease participation is all too pressing. Increasingly at church they will feel their ideas and attitudes unwelcome and not in sync with the predominant themes and narratives. I gather that the LDS leadership knows this. They much prefer to maintain a simple narrative that is mostly literalist and prefer that believers just hunker down and accept it and appeal to persecution narratives and “philosophies of men mingled with scripture” narratives to defend their positions. If they question, the leaders just them, “it doesn’t actual matter too much, all that matters is that you cling firmly to the LDS church.”
But academic conclusions are, of necessity, controversial and open to revision. It’s very difficult for me to see how that can be squared with teaching ‘The Gospel’ as is the task in Sunday meetings. And I find generally that the current situation does leave room for individual experience with living in the light of particular scripture to be shared, which an academic course might not.
I think I learn a lot from Sunday school, although mostly about myself. I do try to support the teacher, because it might be me next and I’m no academic, and also I notice I’m a contrarian so being agreeable is an interesting exercise which I frequently fail. All in all, it can be an educative experience for me,and I’m interested in people and challenged by living in community, so I keep going. And then go home and whine about it over lunch.
Most in my Gospel doctrine class are completely Bible illiterate so I try to bring in some scholarship to help as many struggle with the literality they feel pressured to accept but can’t. The flood, genocide, tower of babel, Jonah, talking animals, the Exodus, etc. My oldest took an AP Ancient Civilizations class and came home talking about origin stories and myths. It had a huge impact on her, as did learning about the ANE. She learned about oral traditions and literacy, archaeology and polytheism in the ANE. She wants more knowledge and truth, not more hide the ball. She just doesn’t believe the Bible in the same way and that is okay but I worry that she will get labeled and treated as less than faithful because she doesn’t believe in a literal no death garden of Eden, global flood, etc.
Can the author provide some examples or context at all? I would be curious to read
Having been a called and set-apart Gospel Doctrine Teacher 3 times, I can absolutely sympathize with your thoughts on the OT manual. Following the script leads to many embarrassing moments – trying to use OT scriptures to justify current practices. Many people are left wondering “:what did we just say?” when you follow that path. The best solution, as always: try and tie everything to the Savior and our worship of Him and our dependence on Him. That seemed to resonate greatly with most members. But that means essentially ignoring about 90% of the manuals suggestions. We had some pretty short lessons. We should do better. I am looking forward to new resources.
Dave B: Fully agreed. Was just making my comment because there are a lot of things that the Church curriculum folks just don’t choose to engage. It’s one thing to misread, another to entirely skip over things like those mentioned by OftenPerplexed. The stories of the conquest of Canaan and Jericho become a trite, convenient example of obedience if you skip things like 1) the subsequent genocide 2) internal inconsistencies within the text 3) squaring off against archaeological evidence that throws the entire account into question. We absolutely could have complex, nuanced lessons about the limits of obedience, understanding scripture as imperfect human record, and determining our own personal boundaries of faith versus literalism, but nope.
If you don’t like the way Sunday School is being taught, then don’t go. If you are a teacher and you don’t like the manuals, then don’t use them. Use whatever source material you feel is necessary to do justice to the topic. Most bishops are too overworked to care about things like that anyway; it’s a hard calling to fill and they are just happy someone is willing to do it. One of my ward’s Gospel Doctrine teachers regularly quotes at length from BRMs Mormon Doctrine, and even has the volume sitting conspicuously on the lectern as she teaches. She’s done this for years and nobody, including the bishop, has done anything about it. If they won’t hold her accountable for teaching false doctrine from a largely discredited book, then they probably won’t bat an eye when another teacher decides to go off-manual and present more honest interpretations of scripture.
I had a Gospel Doctrine teacher speculate the flood waters from Noah’s flood were about 30 thousand feet high in order to make sure Mt Everest was properly immersed. I wondered what type of oxygen masks Noah’s family and animals wore. No one challenged the instructor’s statement, but I think mainly because at that point, no one really though it was worth it to do so. I believe that was the last time I attended that particular instructors class.
This is about the way Seminary will be taught. I agree that Sunday School for adults can be modified , steered, endured or avoided. My experience with seminary was that teachers were required to stick to the manuals; they were observed and trained. This seminary manual is just poorly researched and written. It hasn’t kept up with scholarship and has the potential to cause more faith issues.
Bro. Jones: You’re probably right. Most, if not all, Christian churches place the OT in a very different context than it was intended for. However, the difference is that Mormonism attempts to use the OT to demonstrate that it, to the exclusion of all other faiths, sects, and denominations is the one true faith (Amos 3:7 and Isaiah prophesying of Joseph Smith come to mind). Other Christian faiths probably prooftext but they don’t attempt to set themselves up at the top of the tower of truth.
I love the Old Testament, but I honestly find it hard to find the Jesus of the New Testament in it (or at least the way I picture him – thank you very little to Reza Aslan 😉 ). Yes, the Psalms are lovely, but it’s hard to square a god who is seemingly always busy destroying whole peoples, commanding his chosen people to commit genocide, or using foreign armies to kill and destroy his chosen people for not being righteous. I also feel the same about much of 3rd Nephi, you know, right before Jesus shows up and blesses everyone who managed to survive?
Also a plug for the podcast History in the Bible. It’s an easy way to step into biblical history (and a little archaeology) without having to read tons of footnotes. Also a plug for “Did God Have a Wife?” by William Dever (ok, I just watched his presentation preserved on Youtube, but it was great too).
Another thought — in our Sunday School curriculum, we will only get one Sunday for Noah, one Sunday for all of the Psalms, and so forth. That’s very little time to do anything well.
“Yes, the Psalms are lovely, but it’s hard to square a god who is seemingly always busy destroying whole peoples, commanding his chosen people to commit genocide, or using foreign armies to kill and destroy his chosen people for not being righteous.”
Not a Cougar, it’s easy to reconcile the two once you realize that God didn’t command the Israelites to do those things; rather, they did them on their own and then absolved themselves post facto by saying that God told them to do it. This doesn’t mean that the Israelites were lying or being deceptive. No, this was simply part of their tribal culture, one that existed in a polytheistic world where everything—and I do mean everything—good or bad that happened was attributed to divine intervention. We lost a battle today? Then, by golly, the Canaanites god was better than ours or else ours abandoned us because of our unrighteousness. Read Peter Enns’ excellent introductory work, “The Bible Tells Me So” and I guarantee that you’ll come to appreciate the Old Testament and the rest of the Bible a whole lot more and see our manuals for what they are: “horse hockey,” Colonel Potter would say.
“The Bible Tells Me So” is phenomenal! I wish we could read it in our course of study.
Only a single sunday for the Creation. Another single Sunday for the Fall of Man. And yet Hosea gets an entire lesson. Someone posted earlier that in the 1990s curriculum, every lesson–regardless of the actual base text–was geared to encourage members to be active in the Church. (Follow the prophet, attend your meetings, pay a full tithe.) Unfortunately, checking the boxes for active in the church has very little affect on being active in the Gospel. Evidently, testimony is more closely corrolated with personal religious observance, and the new curriculum is geared towards that. Like others here, I’d settle for actually getting into the scriptures, rather than prooftexting. I suppose that’s why I read the bloggernacle.
I have been a GD teacher four times, most recently concluding a six-year stint a couple of years ago. I have always crafted my own lessons, which most people love, and presumably is the reason I keep getting the calling. But there is always a minority that hates my lessons because they are not grounded in the lesson manuals. It doesn’t really bother me either way. When bishops call me they know what they are getting and that kind of substance is what they want. When they release me, sometimes it is just time for a change, but other times they want someone who will follow the manual. I never begrudge them when this happens ; if that is what they decide they want I am clearly the wrong choice and they should release me. But if someone were to do an attendance study, I suspect a lot more bodies showed up for my classes than the straight from the manual versions.
Eric, I have no problem with the idea that the Old Testament is largely a result of the work of a small group of elite post-exile Jews who were primarily interested in promoting an exclusively Jewish monotheistic worship of Yahweh (that did not match the reality of polytheistic Israelites who looked, acted, spoke a worshiped a heck of a lot like their Canaanite neighbors exactly because they were all closely related) and that they assembled, modified, and expanded preexisting stories (and in some cases wrote new stories) into a not-quite-entirely consistent narrative history of Israel we now know as the Hebrew Bible.
My point is that, regardless of whether you believe the narrative(s) in the Old Testament to be accurate or find the polytheistic Israel supported by current archaeology to be more convincing, Jesus as currently understood and taught by Mormonism and Christianity at large doesn’t fit well and requires a whole lot of retconning (i.e., prooftexting) to make it work. Either that or Joseph Smith was right and the Bible is a hot mess and the archaeologists are simply wrong in their conclusions about the origins of ancient Israel.
I have taught gospel doctrine through the Old Testament 3 times. I pretty much agree that official sources were useless and I seldom paid any attention to them. I am not a Bible scholar by any stretch. I can read. The first time I taught, I had a Jewish friend with a PhD in Old Testament studies (or whatever they call it). I asked him for suggestions and he introduced me to a few sources that really helped me learn and actually teach new and interesting information and interpretations. But those days are gone and I have been on the no teaching list now for over a decade.
I have a son in his 20’s in a singles ward. He is not a Bible scholar but he can use the internet. He is quite brilliant, triple 800’s on the SAT and graduated from a 5 year program in physics and math at a top 5 STEM institution in 3 years. He is a grad student they let teach upper level courses because of his ability to explain complex concepts clearly. He has published ground breaking articles in top science journals. He was recently called to teach gospel doctrine. He sent me an outline of his lesson on Ecclesiastics, relating to the modern faith crisis. I think it might be the best Sunday school lesson ever (parental bias maybe). I have never seen this difficult book made so crystal clear in a few page outline. The disturbing conclusion is that nothing resolves a faith crisis. Simple submission to God is the recommended response.
All those obfuscating BYU types are going to be easily replaced by intelligent men and women in the next generation who know how to actually use the Internet. The information is literally in the palm of your hand and it will get easier to access for more and more people. Up until the 1500’s, a few literate priests and monks could keep the illiterate peasants in line- until many people started reading. The Reformation was the result. It is about to happen again. Who will be the next generation of Luther/Calvin/Zwingli/Knox? Perhaps nobody. Will there be another Inquisition? Good luck with that.
The entire concept of what constitutes a scholar will change, from someone who knows a lot about a field to someone who knows how to find out a lot about any topic in any field efficiently. The apologetic, bogus-spreading block heads will be exposed and dismissed quickly from intelligent discourse by school boys and girls. Future apologists will attempt to pretend current ones didn’t exist.
Dave C writes “I wondered what type of oxygen masks Noah’s family and animals wore.”
None would be needed. Sea level pressure would still be sea level pressure since the atmosphere would necessarily rise along with the sea.
The surface area of the Earth would be slightly greater and thus atmosphere slightly dispersed by a value calculated approximately by (4/3 pi [3959]^3) / (4/3 pi [3965]^3) or 99.54 percent of the same sea level pressure as now exists.
The volume of water needed would be enormous. But with God anything is possible including that we are not having this conversation 🙂
Mike asks “Will there be another Inquisition?”
Of course. Right now the Inquisition is identified by “MeToo” with Judge Kavenaugh on trial. The new religion is Social Justice and its acolytes are SJW’s. Conform, submit, or pay the penalty.
Mike observes “The disturbing conclusion is that nothing resolves a faith crisis. Simple submission to God is the recommended response.”
Concur. Mere belief is like your mother’s antibodies against disease. Sooner or later you build your own antibodies or you die. So it is with religion. Sooner or later you form your own religion (belief about things). It might have a name, it might not; its name might even be atheism but it is still an “ism”.
A faith crisis is just like a toddler’s illness when mother’s antibodies are wearing off and he’s starting to form his own. Each antibody exists because of exposure to a disease. But you don’t expose a child to ALL diseases suddenly at the same time!
So it is that a parent probably ought not to dump the entire repertoire of anti-Mormon claims on a child all at once; the result may not be merely a new generation of anti-Mormon but suicide; or worse, strengthened testimony by a child that now has his own antibodies, one of them against the man that tried to destroy his belief and remove the foundation of his life.
There’s plenty to wrestle with and it is in the wrestling that mere belief is turned into wisdom; “thou shalt not kill” is challenged by instances of doing just that by, apparently, commandment of God. Life is not simple and neither are its rules, but for a child they must start with simple rules and simple arithmetic. Later come the nuances of rules and arithmetic is replaced by mathematics.
For me, all words are mere words. The internet makes words cheap, good words, bad words — cheap!
Mike writes “…next generation who know how to actually use the Internet. The information is literally in the palm of your hand “
And worth every penny, which is to say, not particularly reliable. Fantasy and fiction are much easier to post on the internet; doing research and posting the results is also possible but cannot keep up with invented history.
Oops, wrong formula. I used volume of sphere and would apply to calculating how much water would be needed to cover the earth including Mount everest. The surface area increases as the square of the increase in radius (the 4 pi part cancels and can be ignored).
Michale 2,
Yeah, those damn #MeToo people. Asking us to conform and submit to the idea that we shouldn’t sexually assault women. Unconscionable isn’t it? Way to rip a comment about religious conformity and access to information out of context so you can soap box. Sheesh.
Brian writes “Asking us to conform and submit to the idea that we shouldn’t sexually assault women.”
Strange that so little interest is paid to what WAS illegal 30 years ago (and still): Intoxicated teenagers. I look forward to what, in 30 years, will be retroactively offensive about today’s accepted behaviors.
“Unconscionable isn’t it?”
I wish it were so. Its just politics. If Kavanaugh was a Democrat we would be ridiculing him for being too drunk to do what was on his mind and he would be arguing what the definition of “is” is. There is clearly a double (or triple or quadruple) standard.
“Way to rip a comment about religious conformity and access to information out of context so you can soap box.”
Choose your books, your church, your sources of authority and take your chances.
Michael 2, Interesting that you don’t want to address the point about assault and instead bring up drinking. Red Herring. “I look forward . . . ” suggests you think sexual assault in the past was okay. To that to your own judgement. “Choose your books . . ” I have no idea what you are saying. Everyone does this. You think you know something about my books? Arrogant. Assumption. Your thinking sometimes (like, say, about the flood) is interesting and intelligent. In this case, it’s neitherl. Also, if you think #MeToo is just politics, I have nothing further to say to you.
Since I stand accused of taking Mike’s commentary out of context, which appears to be a whine, I will revisit:
Mike writes “All those obfuscating BYU types are going to be easily replaced by intelligent men and women in the next generation”
Well yes, old ones retire and die and are replaced by a new generation of obfuscating BYU types neither more nor less intelligent and hired by the same cultural forces that chose the current obfuscating BYU types. If you don’t like it, avoid BYU.
“who know how to actually use the Internet.”
That’s unlikely. *I* know how to use the internet which is a loosely confederated collection of OSI Layer 3 packet switched networks. Its information is confined to BGP routing tables.
“The information is literally in the palm of your hand”
Well, something surely is. As Darth Vader said, don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. It is easy, and entertaining, to create fake news (The Onion comes to mind: [https]://www.theonion.com/)
“and it will get easier to access for more and more people. “
And easier to alter; producing the predicted Ministry of Truth (look it up in your palm-of-hand Source of All Knowledge).
“The entire concept of what constitutes a scholar will change”
What a surprise. The entire concept of just about anything changes: Marriage, for instance. It is likely you consider “the internet” to be Google and the websites it indexes. But there is no THE internet, it is *an* internet (inter-networked carriers). As it happens, IF you use certain root DNS, and certain carriers, you can reach certain destinations (Google). But you can also use different root DNS and same or different carriers and have an entirely different “internet” (heard of “dark web”?) .
The ministry of truth need only control the root servers. Millions of people will then use their little hand truth-tellers and go where they are told.
And here you are worrying about obfuscating BYU types. God help us all.
Example of internet based information:
BERKELEY, CA—In what may pose a major paradigm shift in the rudimentary understanding of the small creatures, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley discovered evidence Wednesday that suggests children may, in fact, be closely related to humans.
https://www.theonion.com/newly-discovered-dna-evidence-suggests-children-could-b-1829493131
Major news sources sometimes quote from “the onion” which is even funnier:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fooled-by-the-onion-9-most-embarrassing-fails
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Well, almost everyone.
Somehow the comment thread started discussing current political events. There are plenty of places to talk about that. The comment thread to this post is not one of them. So I delisted those 7 or 8 comments. Michael 2, I left a couple of your comments up. In general, comments come across as friendlier when they are phrased as a contribution to the overall discussion instead of a pointed response to another person’s comment.
Sorry. I still don’t quite “get it” obviously.
20 downvotes on a suggestion that if you want detailed or scholarly treatment of ancient scripture that one ought to go to a source of such things rather than expect it at Gospel Doctrine class which necessarily must aim at the Lowest Common Denominator; namely, the person that never reads scripture.
As to political writing, there’s a sense that leaving claims unchallenged is implicit agreement and I do not wish to be seen as agreeing to something that in fact I do not agree to or with. I would be happy to not feel like occasionally balancing the scale that has a thumb resting on it.
I will admit to, and apologize for, the snarky tone of my first comment. I am triggered by dog piles (everyone piling on to complain about someone else who isn’t here to defend himself or herself) so I suppose I vicariously insert myself as the victim and make reply.
Last week in the post on his Sunstone talk, Greg Prince quoted Denise Hopkins, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Wesley theological seminary on BOM as a midrash. In a March 2018 Mormon Stories interview, he told of giving Denise our OT manual for a few weeks. When she returned it, she was reluctant to share her true feelings out of fear of offending him. He pressed her for a response which was “it is the worst I have ever seen”.
GES65, Was that the Sunday School OT manual or the Seminary OT manual that was the “worst”?