Many scholars believe multiple authors wrote the Book of Isaiah, and some claim it was after 600 BC when Nephi left Jerusalem. Is there an Isaiah problem for the Book of Mormon? Who wrote the Book of Isaiah? Dr Dan McClellan will discuss these issues. Check out our conversation…
Did God Have a Wife?
GT 01:03 If you have any connections, let me know. So the idea is, and you’ve kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, Asherah and El?
Dan 01:14 Yeah, and El.
GT 01:16 They were a couple, right?
Dan 01:18 Right. So El is the patriarchal high deity, and Asherah is the consort. So at Ugarit, you have the children of El are also referred to as the children of Asherah and Asherah and El are a pair. And so the 70 children of El are basically all the B’nai Elohim, the children of God and they are that…
GT 01:40 Seventy, that’s interesting, like a Quorum of Seventy. Is that where we get that from?
Dan 01:45 So it’s based on this–70, anciently was just a symbolic number for a lot. So today, we would say a million or a billion. You know, I played golf the other day. I shot a million. You didn’t really shoot a million. That’s just a symbolic number for a lot. And so 70 was a symbolic number.
…
GT 03:37 Because somebody told me that Baal and Adonai were brothers.
Dan 03:44 So if we take Deuteronomy 32:8-9 as an indication that Adonai was one of the B’nai Elohim, one of the children of God, then Baal would have been one of the other B’nai Elohim. So yeah, you could call them brothers. I don’t think there are any texts that say that. But, yeah, that would work that way.
GT 04:04 So, El is the Father God, Ba’al and Adonai are sons of God.
Dan 04:10 Yeah. So there are these second tier deities who have responsibility. Now, they’re competing for the same goal.
GT 04:16 Would Asherah have been a daughter of God in that?
Dan 04:18 No, Asherah would have been the wife.
GT 04:19 No, she would have been the wife of El, that’s right.
Dan 04:21 Right. And so this is what makes people wonder, “Well, why is Adonai have Asherah as a consort?” And that’s because, at one point, probably around 1000 BC, this article you mentioned, you suggested that the argument is going to be that Josiah is the one who merged Adonai and El.
GT 04:41 Right.
Dan 04:22 So I think that’s probably too late, because I think we have text inscriptions from before Josiah’s time period that identify Adonai and El and identify Adonai and Asherah as a pair. So the controladores rude inscription, the Cubetto comb inscription, talk about Adonai and His Asherah. And we even have drawings of a male deity, a very male deity, and a female deity with arms interlinked, and the inscription above their head says, “Blessings by Adonai and his Asherah.” So I would argue that it was probably somewhere around 1000 BCE, that El and Adonai were merged, probably…
GT 05:23 Oh, that early?
Dan 05:24 I think it was probably around that time period. But we don’t have a ton of data. But by the ninth century, we have in Israel and Judah, we have kings, who are independently attested, in some other inscriptions. So, the black obelisk of Shalmaneser, the third, the Tel Dan inscription. We have kings whose names have Yahwistic theophoric elements, which would suggest, to me, that the Kingdom has already put Adonai at the pinnacle of the Pantheon. And so I think it was probably somewhere around 1000 BCE. Because Adonai probably was a lower level deity until somebody acceded to the kingship, took the throne, who was a worshipper of Adonai and probably decided, if we’re going to have our people– if we’re going to have Adonai be more widely worshipped, we need to merge these two deities and make them one in the same. And that way I can consolidate power. I not only have my Adonai followers, but I have my El followers, as well. And so, that could have been Saul.
…
GT 07:47 Okay, so William Dever, is that his position that Asherah and El, I don’t know if I should say slash Adonai, were together?
Dan 08:10 Basically, if I recall, it’s been a while since I’ve read his book. It was published in 2005, originally. But yes, the idea was that the God of Israel had as his concert or his wife Asherah.
GT 08:23 I mean, in some ways, that’s really, what’s the word? Some LDS would embrace that, because we kind of have a heavenly mother. Is Asherah heavenly mother?
Dan 08:36 I mean, that’s up for other people to negotiate. There are complications with that, like the timing, and where this all comes from. It is a little difficult to reconcile with LDS concepts of heavenly mother.
GT 08:55 Because it is more polytheistic. Right?
Dan 08:57 But I do think that we’ve got to negotiate with this if we’re going to make it fit a contemporary worldview anyway. And so if folks want to think of it that way, I’m certainly not going to stop them. But I will point out that there are complications with that. But there are complications with pretty much all attempts to honor both the scholarship and devotional approaches to God.
Author(s) of Isaiah
GT 09:25 Right, right. So let’s see, where do we want to go next? We’ve been talking a little bit about Isaiah and deutero-Isaiah. I’ve heard, actually up to four possible authors of Isaiah.
Dan 09:43 Okay.
GT 09:44 Have you heard that?
Dan 09:45 I think the standard these days is three.
GT 09:48 Three, ok.
Dan 09:48 Yeah. So we have one through 39, 40 through 55 and 56 through 66.
GT 09:56 Why do people believe that there are multiple authors of Isaiah?
Dan 09:59 Well, if you read through the book of Isaiah paying careful attention to the language, what they’re talking about how they’re framing things, tight at chapter 40, there’s a marked shift. We’re now not talking about a pre-exilic Israel looking forward to this judgment from God. We’re now talking about all of this stuff as if it’s in the past, and not in a prophetic way. The point of view has shifted. The author is now looking back at the exile from a later time period. Suddenly, Isaiah’s named vanishes, from Second Isaiah 40 to 55, the author nowhere claims to be Isaiah, nowhere claims to be doing prophecy. It’s all looking back at what’s going on and talking about what has happened and Israel’s relationship to the nations around them. So that shift in and of itself, is reason to wonder what’s going on here? The text is has changed significantly. And then you have another shift when you get into third Isaiah or trito-Isaiah, as some scholars call it. Now, we’re looking back at the Persian Empire. We’re looking back at Cyrus having conquered Babylon and allowing Israel to go back to their homeland.
Book of Mormon’s Isaiah Problem
GT: Okay, so this brings up another question. In the Book of Mormon, I do remember. There are there are some critics who say that the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon come from either second or third Isaiah, maybe a combination I can’t remember.
Dan 16:02 Yeah, it’s scattered around. But there are some passages quoted there.
GT 16:07 So that would be problematic because they’re after Lehi left. Right?
Dan 16:13 Right.
GT 16:14 Do you have a comment on that?
Dan 16:16 It’s just as problematic as the fact that Paul seems to be quoted, even in the King James Version translation of the New Testament so that that kind of stuff is scattered all over the Book of Mormon. But yeah, that’s an issue that I don’t think has been adequately engaged by Latter-day Saints trying to defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
GT 16:37 Well, it does seem like most and so the funny thing was, because I remember I talked to Sandra Tanner about this issue. And it was one of my favorite questions. I said, “So you would agree that there was only one Isaiah. You would agree with the BYU scholars that there was only one Isaiah?” And she said, yes. I was kind of surprised. Maybe, I shouldn’t be because she’s more of an evangelical conservative. And I guess that would be the conservative position.
Dan 17:01 That would be the party line. Yeah. It’s leaving cards on a table, though for her.
Birth of the Devil
GT 00:34 Let’s switch gears just a little bit. You told me that you were teaching a class on the birth of the devil. Is that right?
Dan 00:41 Satan in the Bible.
GT 00:42 Satan in the Bible. There’s a woman. I want to say her name is Kara Cooney. Does that sound right at UCLA?
Dan 00:46 That is an Egyptologist.
GT 00:52 Yes. Because I’m pretty sure I even watched it one time, but I haven’t watched [again.] I need to watch these things multiple times to maintain [my memory of] them. She’s written a book or thing called the Birth of the Devil.
Dan 01:07 Okay.
GT 01:08 Basically what she has said is, (and hopefully I’m not miss characterizing her.) Kara, I would love to have you on. I’m going to come to LA and come talk to you. But basically, there was no real devil, especially in the Old Testament, and that the birth of the devil came about as a reaction to well, although Zeus and Moloch and Ba’al and everybody else, we’re going to consolidate them into a single devil. And that became Satan essentially. What do you think of that argument?
Dan 01:50 I think that is not entirely off base. But [it’s off] a little. I don’t think that all of those figures are being consolidated. But I would agree entirely, that there is no entity whose name was Satan, who was the leader of the evil spirits…
GT 02:08 Lucifer.
Dan 02:09 …in the Hebrew Bible. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is nowhere identified as Satan in the Hebrew Bible. Lucifer is just a caricature of a human king. It has nothing to do with Satan. And it’s not until Greco-Roman period Judaism…
GT 02:27 A human king?
Dan 02:28 A human king, so this is the king of Babylon.
GT 02:31 Lucifer.
Dan 02:31 Yeah, so he’s been rhetorically kind of, “Oh, look at you. You tried to exalt yourself up above the stars of heaven and a throne of God and now you fallen to earth. In Hebrew It’s “hail el Ben Shahar,” which would be shining one, son of the dawn, or the planet Venus, the morning star. And Lucifer was just the Latin name for that deity. But it was a reference to the Babylonian king just saying, “Oh, look at you, little Lucifer. Look what happened to you.” But Lucifer is not the devil or any leader of evil spirits.
Dan 03:09 Then in the Greco-Roman period, you have the Book of Enoch, which renegotiates Genesis 6 and the B’nai Elohim, the children of God, having children with the daughters of humanity. It reframes those deities as fallen angels, and you start to see references to the good angels and the bad angels and their offices and their leadership. And so you see this idea developing of a leader of the evil spirits, and they’re called Shmi Huzzah. They’re called Melky Rasha. They’re called mas de ma. They have about a dozen different names. And it’s really around the turn of the era into the first century CE that Satan bubbles to the surface as the official name for this leader of evil spirits.
Dan 04:07 You do have Ba’al in the Hebrew Bible. They’re referred to sarcastically as Beelzebub. That’s how we kind of traditionally pronounce it. But that is a caricature of their name. Because the title would have been Ba’al Zaful, which is something we find in the Ugaritic literature’s Zaful Ba’al, which means Prince Ba’al or Prince Lord. Beelzebub means Lord of flies. So it’s just an editorialization on the name.
GT 04:36 Oh, wow.
Dan 04:37 And then in the New Testament, it’s actually written correctly in the Greek. It’s Ba’al Zaful in the Greek. But most translations just render Beelzebub because that’s how we know that figure.
Dan 04:50 Jesus talks about Beelzebub are Ba’al Zaful, as the leader of evil spirits and as Satan. So Ba’al who was Adonai’s competition in the earliest periods, gets literally demonized and becomes the leader of evil spirits by the time of the New Testament. So you do have, as this leader bubbles to the surface, a lot of the figures who are identified as prominent representatives of the evil spirits get consolidated within that figure. So, you get Satan. You get the devil. You get Beelzebub and a handful of other references that turn into this entity named Satan by the time of the New Testament. So, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. And I don’t know how much of the way you explained it is accurate.
Wise Men Came from Iran?
GT 09:46 I just love how these conversations bring up stuff that I had not anticipated. Since we’re on tangents here’s another tangent. Have you heard that the wise men that visited Jesus were from the Zoroastrian religion?
Dan 10:03 Yeah. So, the word that refers to them is Magos or Magi.
GT 10:09 Right.
Dan 10:09 That most likely refers to astronomers or astrologers, people who were wise because they could read the signs in the heavens. They were educated in that. And from the east, the Iranian associated wise people would be the most likely candidates.
GT 10:32 Most likely?
Dan 10:33 I think so. A friend of mine named Eric Vananichael just published a book on the Magi, which is, like literally four or five months ago. It is a great book that talks about the tradition and how it developed and how it likely originated. But I think that the author of the text, probably intended for their audience to evoke that image of these wise, probably Zoroastrian, or some other eastern astrologers who are so tapped into the natural world and what’s going on that even they can see the signs are just written all over the place that Jesus is coming. It’s also a way to denigrate Herod by having people from the East who are not even Jewish, and Herod supposed to be Jewish coming and saying, “We saw the signs in the heavens. We know that the Savior is going to be born. Where is he going to be born?”
Dan 11:36 And they go, “Uhhh. Go check and find out when and where.” Because he doesn’t know. And so they go look it up and say, “Oh, it says it’s going to be Bethlehem.” So they take off and so the foreigners know more about what’s going on than even Herod, the King who’s supposed to be Jewish knows about what’s going on. So, it’s also a way to thumb the nose at Herod.
Rich Man/Eye of Needle
GT 13:18 But you did one [video.] I actually had seen a video that talked about the rich man in the eye of a needle. And I posted about it on my Gospel Tangents Facebook page, and I got a little pushback from some people that were like, “No, that’s completely wrong.” And then you did a Tik Tok on it. And so can you talk about that parable of the rich man and the eye of a needle?
Dan 13:43 Yeah. Well, it’s where Jesus says that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And there are a couple of different ways to understand this. But one thing that has become pretty popular these days is to suggest that the eye of the needle was the name of a gate in Jerusalem that was really small and for a camel to go through, it had to be stripped of all its gear, and then shuffled through on its knees, which is just ludicrous. [The idea] that people would be like, “Oh, yeah, let’s use the gate where we have to take everything off of our camels and they’re going to shimmy through on their knees because camels are happy to do that. That’s [not] helpful. That’s so ludicrous. There’s never been any such gate identified. [We’ve never] found anything like that. That is a tradition that comes from many, many centuries later.
GT 13:57 But isn’t it there LDS manuals? Or at least it has been. Maybe they’re changing them.
Dan 14:43 There have been a lot of things in LDS manuals, but yeah. It’s really just hyperbole. It’s really just Jesus saying, “Yeah, not happening.”
GT 14:54 Rich men are not really going to heaven.
Dan 14:55 Because of how corrupt and corrupting wealth is. However, at the very end, the disciples say, “Well, who then can be saved?”
Dan 15:05 And Jesus says, “With God, nothing is impossible,” which kind of leaves the door open a crack saying, “Look, it’s impossible. But nothing’s impossible.” Wink.
Dan 15:14 And so another argument is people say, Well, the word for camel and Aramaic is really close to the word for rope. So it’s really saying for rope to go through the eye of a needle, which I think is just trying to soften the rhetoric a little bit. But these readings are attempts for people who like money to try to make it sound like Jesus wasn’t being as condemnatory toward the wealthy as the author really has him being. But yeah, those are some of the ways that people renegotiate the scriptures to try to make the ideas fit better with what they would like them to be saying.
Clearly these are not the sorts of things we discuss in Sunday School. What are your thoughts about Dan’s scholarship? Have you heard it before? What to you agree/disagree with?
Wheat & Tares 
LDS apologists are aware of the following links:
1. View of the Hebrews and BOM
2. KJV and BOM
3. The Late War and BOM
4. JST and Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary
5. Temple ceremonies and Masonry
6. Swedenborg’s three kingdoms and the three LDS kingdoms
The most intellectually defensible argument I’ve heard for these links is that part of Joseph Smith’s revelatory process was to be able to incorporate external sources with his inspiration. External sources + inspiration = revelation. I know it’s a stretch and I don’t buy it but it’s a way of explaining how the BOM could contain parts of Isiah not available 600 BC.
Josh. I do hope you are aware that Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is a much better match with the Book of Mormon than The Late War.
Otherwise an Elephant going through the eye of a needle was the other metaphor that was common at the time.
It was interesting to read sources that both the camel and the elephant were common metaphors.
Emphasizes that the message was a clear as “who then can be saved” is a clear restatement of prosperity gospel thinking “if the rich can’t be saved, then who can be?”
Enjoyed the interview.
Josh, #2 is the only item in your list that makes any sense. Why add the rest? Especially since you said, “I know it’s a stretch and I don’t buy it…” #2 is not a stretch at all. The rest of the list are completely irrelevant to the Isaiah problem.
I actually raised the hypothetical connection between Asherah and Heavenly Mother in a one-off class I was teaching about the Godhead some years ago (all the students were female and had been active members their whole lives so far as I know) after listening to one of Bill Dever’s lectures. I have to say that the class REALLY took to the idea that people (Israelites) they saw as their spiritual ancestors had a relationship with the divine feminine. Of course, I acknowledge Dan’s point that “is a little difficult to reconcile [Asherah] with LDS concepts of heavenly mother,” but, as many, many others have pointed out on this blog and elsewhere, there is a real desire to connect with the divine feminine, even from very orthodox members of the church.
Rick B: I didn’t mean to get us off subject. But once you understand (as I know you do) that Joseph Smith used a number of external sources to craft the BOM / JST / temple ceremonies, the Isiah problem is no big deal…it’s par for the course.
“There are complications with pretty much all attempts to honor both the scholarship and devotional approaches to God.”
Hoo boy. That’s a weighty statement put delicately. How does one resolve these complications? Reject the scholarship? Reject devotion? Compartmentalize? Live with the ambiguity and embrace paradox? I feel like that statement sums up the entire problem of religion in a post-enlightenment age.
Thoughts about Dan’s scholarship: three cheers for Dan and all the work it took for him to get there. It would be great if this kind of material and this approach found its way into the LDS curriculum. Not full strength, but enough to up the LDS game when it comes to scriptural context and interpretation. I know, cold day in hell, etc., but too much of the time GA commentary and LDS curriculum material sound like the blind leading the blind. When it comes to commenting on the scriptures, scholars have a lot more credibility than GAs (which explains why GAs are so allergic to good scholarship).
@Rick, another great interview.
McClellan is refreshing. FAIR, Interpreter Foundation, and Maxwell Institute, pander to problematic LDS dogma, whereas, McClellan is dedicated to intellectual integrity. Being intellectually honest is far a greater expression of faith, than is the frightened, insecure path, which renders dogma as truth.
Isaiah’s triple authorship is less problematic than the authorship of Daniel…
@travis I agree with your assessment. This was a great interview. Are you (or anyone else who is reading) aware of a decent, even-handled, accessible discussion (either podcast or article) about the Isaiah triple authorship problem? In his book, Grant Hardy seems to take the same approach that Dan takes–i.e. that we need to rethink what it means for the BOM to be an inspired translation. Also, care to say more about the problems with the authorship of Daniel?
Yes I would like to know more about the Daniel authorship problem too. I’m not aware of that.
Here’s fascinating approach (IMO) to the problem of multiple authors:
https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/their-imperfect-best-isaianic-authorship-from-an-lds-perspective/
@Rick,
I don’t see the triple authorship of Isaiah as a problem—in fact, it is useful, because it identifies that factions may have been involved in the compilation of biblical books. We often bring too many assumptions to the text we are reading, and these assumptions color how we interpret the text. McClellan emphasizes that we need to approach text as a negotiation. He is being polite. The meaning of text isn’t in the text itself, but in the cultural milieu which informs the purpose of writing the text in the first place—and this is where we end up interpolating our own culture into the text. Derrida exhausts this linguistic problem as a function of philosophy. McClellan’s use of cognitive linguistics as a model (in some of his papers) is a super-useful tool in teasing this stuff out.
The Book of Daniel reads almost like a compromise of multiple mythologies—as if the text was used more to consolidate groups of people under a common myth, than as a genuine prophetic admonition. The apocalyptic nature of the Daniel narrative suggests turmoil and change (think of the historical context John’s The Revelation was written). There is the idea that the name “Daniel” was used to add authority to the text (Daniel was likely a real figure, a well-known prophet—maybe in the same way John the Baptist was). Posting the name Daniel to the text might have been a strategy of the compilation—the consolidation of competing mythologies. John J. Collins (Yale Divinity) is the expert and McClellan can treat the topic far better than I can.
@Jack, be careful with Interpreter Foundation. A lot of that stuff is recycled, semi-plagerized, and altogether not very useful (with the exception of non-LDS contributors like Margaret Barker, Joshua Berman, Samuel Zinner, etc.).
Friends,
Here is a short (15 min.) conversation between Joel Baden (author of “Composition of the Pentateuch,” a landmark book—highly recommended) and John J. Collins. On the YouTube page there is also a link to resources and materials as a Yale course. @Rick, John J. Collins has been active on YouTube, and his scholarship on Daniel is his legacy. Maybe a Gospel Tangents episode…?
Travis,
I respectfully disagree. I’ve been following Interpreter pretty-much since its beginnings–and after at least a decade of reading its journal I have to say that it’s a veritable treasure trove of Latter-day Saint scholarship. And so, as it relates to this particular question, if we want to know what *Latter-day Saint* scholars have to say on the subject then I highly recommend Interpreter.
@Jack,
I have also followed the Interpreter Foundation since its inception and I own every single text published. In particular, the Matthew Brown Symposium publications are rewarding. However, the main problem with LDS apologetics is that the scholarship is largely geared to reinforce dogmatism based on loyalty to the institution. It is as if LDS scholars are motivated by trying to impress General Authorities, instead of feeding and providing sustenance to the congregation. The congregation is famished as a result. The fact that the Interpreter Foundation was created largely as a reaction to DP’s removal from the Maxwell Institute suggests that ideological schisms had already ruptured the institution’s academics. In addition, those of us who do read the scholarship would recognize that a certain degree of intellectual dishonesty fuels some of the work—in the sense that LDS apologists count on membership’s ignorance of the topics and literature around the scholarship available. When educated LDS apologists withhold from presenting evidence that might contradict a thesis, it’s dishonest in my mind. It does harm. It also represents a weak position. Loyalty to the institution is not the same as loyalty to God and fellow man. I would encourage LDS to read and support the Interpreter Foundation as a better alternative than FAIR or Maxwell Institute, with the caveat: have a tablespoon of salt nearby, and take it by the individual grain.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, Travis. I see Latter-day Saint apologetics doing the work of defending the Kingdom knowing full well what the arguments are–for and against. And so, what they typically do is make sure that the arguments “for” have their day in court (so to speak) and are not lost among the many trees of an ever growing forest of debate. They will also, as needed, openly refute the more egregious faulty claims of less scrupulous critiques against the church. And so what we get is a wide range of scholarship with a wide range of purpose–and the vast majority of it produced at the highest level of quality.
More could be said, but that’s how I see it–in a nutshell. And, remember, even though we may disagree on some things I still enjoy reading your comments.
@Jack,
If LDS scholars were able to effectively expound doctrine, there wouldn’t be much need to “defend” the Church. So much time and energy is wasted by LDS apologists on kookie defenses. The Gospel Topics Essays are a prime example: they have contributed to more saints leaving the Church than the critics and haters who point fingers from the large and spacious building. The irony is telling. Put another way, the congregation asks for bread and apologists offer rocks. When apologetics fails, LDS scholars are quick to drum up excuses—usually to blame the saints themselves. It’s like a farmer who blames the weather for a bad crop, when his failure really amounts to having planted seeds in the wrong season.
Here’s a happy thought for the topic on-hand: the secular scholarship that teaches us that the Bible text isn’t quite what we had supposed (whether Isaiah or Daniel), provides a corollary framework, which can be used to defend the texts established by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Well said Travis.
The LDS leadership has done more to discredit the restoration prophets than an enemy. And now we have been told we can and should ignore the old prophets, given that anything important, new or better will be provided by the current prophet.
The current LDS church has whittled discipleship down to obedience to the current leadership and church program. It is a drab, mundane and unrewarding path. This is not because service to the church and participation in church programs is bad. It is because by making church service a duty and church policies a dogma, the leaders have stripped from members their agency. There is no reward for choosing to serve, because that is what we are supposed to do. And choosing to serve with a spirit of independent thought invites frustration because we are obliged to follow the program and sustain the “narrative”.
Forty years ago the church culture was much different. Scholars and academics were respected – Hugh Nibley the most iconic. An expansive, progressive view of the Restoration was supported – the idea being that what made the period of time special was God pouring forth knowledge and inspiration. The details of what church leaders did was not as important as the paradigm they supported, which was the building of Zion.
Can the church get back to this philosophy? Does the leadership want to empower the members? Or is the preference to run a top-down centralized church program?
@Disciple,
If a church leader makes a goofy statement to disregard past prophets in order to worship the current prophet, I can brush it aside as his way of signaling to other General Authorities that he seeks promotion. In other words, he is speaking to the institution and not to the congregation—which underlies what I tend to bring up too often—that the culture of the institution is at war with the culture of the congregation. It’s a culture problem. What is most tragic is that the culture of the institution seems to mimic the culture of worldly institutions, instead of being a shining Zion-exception in the face of clear unrighteous dominion. The era of Hugh Nibley wasn’t much different: off-the-record, Nibley was rebuked by leadership for speaking too much truth—as if his knowledge threatened some of the leadership, who sought to keep and possess his knowledge for themselves as a leveraging power over the congregation. Particularly concerning the temple.
I see a great Milgram experiment before us, where the institution’s culture has placed the congregation into a binding chair and continues to shock and harm us. The institution feels justified by power and authority more than by love and the Spirit. I attribute this to the culture of Utah-style Mormonism, not the culture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The culture of W&T is better than most other LDS blogs, but consider how the mechanism of “thumbs down” is used right here to attempt to control speech—totally unnecessary. A single “thumbs up” option would accomplish a sustaining vote. Instead, we punish speech, dialogue, anything that doesn’t fit our W&T culture. So we aren’t much better than the institution. I can’t disagree with my friend @Jack, without a mob attacking him. I refrain from using the “thumbs down” button for this reason.