Nevo

I think there is a place in the Church for doubters and skeptics as long as you wear a mask and socially distance Actually, I've found the Church to be a big tent. As long as you're not trying to burn down the tent, there is room for you. If you are willing to sacrifice and serve and keep your covenants, a variety of levels of belief or unbelief can be accommodated. I read something the other night from Robert Millet that caught my eye. I think patience, faith, and humility are all key if you are going to go forward in the Church with a "nuanced belief."

Jackson has an MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, where his supervisor was the renowned biblical scholar David Noel Freedman. His dissertation, The Ammonite Language of the Iron Age, was published in the Harvard Semitic Monographs Series, edited by Frank Moore Cross. With Scott Faulring and Robert Matthews, he was a co-editor of Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (2004) and is one of the foremost living experts on the JST. Whatever the merits of his analysis (I haven't read it yet), he's not unqualified to render an opinion.

You twice mention John J. Collins in your footnotes. Collins examines that text at length in his book The Scepter and the Star and makes the following comments: "The designation 'Son of God' reflects the status rather than the nature of the messiah. He is the son of God in the same sense that the king of Israel was begotten by God according to Psalm 2. There is no implication of virgin birth and no metaphysical speculation is presupposed. He may still be regarded as a human being, born of human beings, but one who stands in a special relationship to God" (167–68). "One need

To be clear, I'm not saying that there's no continuity between the Old and New Testaments. Certainly there is. But there's also change. For example, Raymond Brown notes that "although the Jewish hope of the Messiah was highly idealized, there was no expectation of a divine Messiah in the sense in which Jesus is professed as Son of God. Moreover, a nationalistic coloring was never absent from any stage of the preChristian development of messianic thought, any more than the OT concept of salvation itself was devoid of earthly and nationalistic aspects. It is inaccurate and unjust to say tha

Well, as you know, I disagree. We've gone over all this before in detail (in this epic thread and elsewhere). I'm fine with believers "finding Christ in the Old Testament" by taking a sensus plenior approach. But I don't think we can assert that the Hebrew Bible is, in fact, Christian, and that Jesus of Nazareth is in view whenever it talks about an anointed one (and that all this would be obvious if the King James translators had only done a better job). Against Margaret Barker, I think the earliest Christians read Old Testament texts in new ways, not in old(er) ways. The religion of pre

There are a few scholars that do, but it's nowhere close to PacMan's 20 percent estimate. No, not everyone admits that. Reinhard Kratz and Juha Pakkala notably do not. But, yes, of course the question is when the various elements first come into existence. And in the case of the Deutero-Isaiah portions of the Book of Mormon, the overwhelming consensus of historical-critical scholarship is that they first came into existence after 540 BCE. Barker's theory that Isaiah 52:13—53:12 may ultimately go back to First Isaiah (due to a posited connection between the Servant's suffering

There is no evidence that Bradish recommended Anthon to Harris, although he could have. According to Anthon, the person who directed Harris to Anthon was Mitchill. Anthon left three accounts of the encounter and in each one he said Harris went to Mitchill first: "Some years ago, a plain, and apparently simple-hearted farmer, called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand." (1834) "Many years ago, the precise

It wasn't accidental. Barker doesn't support the traditional view of authorship. Barker is a maverick on many issues but not on the subject of the multiple authorship of Isaiah. She only comes up in these discussions because of her theory that the Fourth Servant Song was originally composed by First Isaiah in reference to Hezekiah (which she believes Deutero-Isaiah then drew on to symbolize the suffering of the people in exile).

There is no evidence that "Martin Harris knew to go to Charles Anthon." As Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit Dirkmaat note in their book, From Darkness unto Light, "Harris's exact plan and whom he intended to visit in New York City is unknown" (40). The first person Harris visited in New York City was apparently Samuel Mitchill, not Anthon. MacKay and Dirkmaat point out that when Harris left on his journey in 1828, neither Martin nor Joseph knew what language was on the plates. "Before Joseph sent Harris to New York City with the characters, he was told that ancient American prophets were

By "corroborated universally by all eyewitnesses" I assume you mean David Whitmer, who explicitly stated that he wasn't "all of the time in the immediate presence of the translator." Did anyone else corroborate Emma's statement?

That was the context for the question about Sidney Rigdon. A few days after the interview, Joseph Smith III wrote to critic James T. Cobb: "Mrs. Emma Bidamon, formerly Emma Smith nee Hale . . . informs me that she was married to Joseph Smith, my father, in South Bainbridge by a Justice of the Peace, whose name she believes was Tarbiell or Tarbell; that she was married at the house, or office of the Squire by him, and not by Sidney Rigdon, nor a Presbyterian clergyman. That she never knew Sidney Rigdon until long after the Book of Mormon was translated, and she thinks, published. . . . that dur

Keep in mind that this is the same interview where she also said: "There was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives. . . . No such thing as polygamy or spiritual wifery was taught, publicly or privately, before my husband's death that I have now or ever had any knowledge of. . . . He had no other wife but me; nor did he to my knowledge ever have. . . . I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise" (see Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 301–302). Also, when she said "he had neither mss nor book to read from,

Well, you're going to have to settle for 100 because I don't feel like doing this all night. These are all from the last 25 years or so: Adams, J. W. Albertz, R. Baltzer, D. Baltzer, K. Barker, M. Barstad, H. M. Barton, J. Bass, D. M. Berges, U. Berlin, A. Beuken, W. A. M. Blenkinsopp, J. Boer, R. Bokovoy, D. Brettler, M. Brueggemann, W. Carr, D. Ceresko, A. R. Childs, B. S. Clements, R. E. Clifford, H. Clifford, R. J. Collins, J. J.

If you think my offhand guess is "garbage," then feel free to refute it. If 20 percent of Old Testament scholars today hold that Isaiah 40-66 was written in the eighth-century, you should be able to provide a long list of names. I've only been able to identify 2 or 3 scholars that have argued for this view in the last 25 years.

LOL. Do I agree that Bokovoy's forthcoming analysis "have [sic] real issues"? No, sorry. I haven't read it yet. No one has. If you say so 😄