Why Byu And The Maxwell Institute Are In Serious, Serious Trouble

[Hamilton Porter]

David Seely has a degree in OT and is a good scholar. He's currently working on finishing the Deuteronomy volume for the Anchor Bible Commentary series. I think very highly of him, and many others in Religious Ed. Again, I'm not trying to be critical and injure the department. I'm just saying that the problem is not CES vs. Academics. The problem is a fundamentalist approach that looks upon academic studies in Bible as something to be feared and avoided.

That's great news for the glory of BYU, because I had heard he turned that opportunity down.

His degree was in ANE though.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Hamilton Porter

[Hamilton Porter]

...

Edited June 28, 2012 by Hamilton Porter

[HiJolly]

I'm just saying that the problem is not CES vs. Academics. The problem is a fundamentalist approach that looks upon academic studies in Bible as something to be feared and avoided.

But David, I've never met a CES instructior that didn't "fear() and avoid()" OT academic studies, generally because of having a literalist or (in this context) fundamentalist mindset.

So I'm having difficulty understanding the distinction you're making.

HiJolly

[Bill Hamblin]

That's great news for the glory of BYU, because I had heard he turned that opportunity down.

His degree was in ANE though.

At the University of Michigan biblical studies was done under the Near East Studies Department. Seely studied Bible, did his dissertation on the Bible, and his advisor was David Freedman, one of the leading biblical scholars of the time. (I took some Bible classes with Freedman with Seely at Michigan; we were there together.)

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

That is part of the debate. Specifics are undocumented, claims have been made, claims have been denied....

The problem wiith being bedridden and not being able to know all the questions being asked. Sorry. How does Dan feal? I have not noticed a post from him. Using this Ipad it is had to see some things.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

But David, I've never met a CES instructior that didn't "fear() and avoid()" OT academic studies, generally because of having a literalist or (in this context) fundamentalist mindset.

So I'm having difficulty understanding the distinction you're making.

HiJolly

I know much of the OT is allgory...hope I spelled that right. Some think God actually bartered with Satan concerning Job.

[David Bokovoy]

...

Edited March 3, 2014 by David Bokovoy
Name removed

[Grillmeister]

To paraphrase Brent Metclafe: "Finding out that Brigham Young believed and taught the Adam-God theory won't destroy faith but finding out an apostle lied about it will."

I don't wanto argue about BRM(he wasn't lying, he was just wrong) and the particulars of Metclafe's idea, but the jist is correct.

Teaching things that are demonstrably false WILL destroy faith. Biblical scholarship will not.

Absolutely true. The internet exacerbates this and makes such teachings painfully obvious.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I was contacted by Dana Pike who asked that I share the following email in this thread. My response was simply,

I am not sure what to make of this. Oh well.

[David Bokovoy]

I am not sure what to make of this. Oh well.

I don't know that there is much to make of it. Dana Pike, Richard Holzapfel, and David Seely wish to state publicly that none of them were ever called into the Dean and/or Department Chair's office to discuss concerns over mentioning such issues as the Documentary Hypothesis and the lack of Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch in a Deseret Book publication.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I don't know that there is much to make of it. Dana Pike, Richard Holzapfel, and David Seely wish to state publicly that none of them were ever called into the Dean and/or Department Chair's office to discuss concerns over mentioning such issues as the Documentary Hypothesis and the lack of Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch in a Deseret Book publication.

ok Thanks.

[Matthew J. Tandy]

I don't know that there is much to make of it. Dana Pike, Richard Holzapfel, and David Seely wish to state publicly that none of them were ever called into the Dean and/or Department Chair's office to discuss concerns over mentioning such issues as the Documentary Hypothesis and the lack of Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch in a Deseret Book publication.

While I didn't comment on that particular post of yours, It occurs to me now I was a student of Dana's when he and others were finishing up the final draft for publication of that book. Dan McLellin (sp?) was handling a lot of the photos at the time. I remember talking about inclusion of things like the DH, among other items. I don't recall any comments about recanting them or having any problems with it other than a few random people questioning putting it in a book where inexperienced people would read it. But it was more of a "word it well" kind of thought. And I only heard Dana and a few others talk about the book a couple of times.

I really like that book by the way, and its New Testament Counterpart. They are an easy and visually beautiful way to softly introduce members to a larger world of scripture study.

[David Bokovoy]

I now conclude my comments on these issues.

I am in no way predicting the demise of the university or the Maxwell Institute. Despite these challenges, as a Church institution, I have no doubt that BYU will very much roll forward and have considerable success in blessing the lives of its students. Clearly, with the loss of Peterson, however, the MI will need to increasingly look towards those outside of the university to support its efforts.

Though the loss of Peterson in this course is not a positive outcome, seeking outside assistance to meet the MI's goals will no doubt have a positive influence on the Institute's efforts.

Edited March 3, 2014 by David Bokovoy

[Hamilton Porter]

At the University of Michigan biblical studies was done under the Near East Studies Department. Seely studied Bible, did his dissertation on the Bible, and his advisor was David Freedman, one of the leading biblical scholars of the time. (I took some Bible classes with Freedman with Seely at Michigan; we were there together.)

thanks for the clarification.

[David Bokovoy]

...

Edited March 3, 2014 by David Bokovoy

[David T]

Terry Ball, the Dean of Religious Education at BYU has also asked that I correct this information. Here is his comment:

This statement is absolutely untrue. I don’t know where you ever got such information but it is pure fiction. I love the JWOT volume they produced and have given them high praise for it. I have never censured them of the volume. We hold Dana and David in the highest esteem and greatly value their work and depend upon their training and expertise tremendously. Dana is the newly appointed Director of Publications for the RSC and David is serving as the Director of Ancient Scripture Research for the RSC.

Thanks, David. I'm very glad to hear that what was said was not accurate.

[happy]

So who all here is leaving the Church over this?

[Robert F. Smith]

Good yeh or bad yeh?

A very good "yeh." I think I even gave you a rep point for it. Right on, brother!

[David Bokovoy]

So who all here is leaving the Church over this?

Obviously no one is leaving the Church over this matter, nor are my differences in opinion a negative reflection on BYU. I have strong feelings about these issues, and I'm afraid that this recent experience with my friend Daniel Peterson has reopened some pretty deep wounds in my life. For the record, I fully support both BYU and its departments of Religious Education and sincerely wish the Maxwell Institute well in all of its future endeavors.

And I have asked the Moderators to close the thread.

Edited June 28, 2012 by David Bokovoy

[juliann]

Obviously no one is leaving the Church over this matter, nor are my differences in opinion a negative reflection on BYU. I have strong feelings about these issues, and I'm afraid that this recent experience with my friend Daniel Peterson has reopened some pretty deep wounds in my life. For the record, I fully support both BYU and its departments of Religious Education and sincerely wish the Maxwell Institute well in all of its future endeavors.

And I have asked the Moderators to close the thread.

I think you speak for many and I always run to read anything you write so I've enjoyed having you back. Not so sure I enjoy you sucking me back in, though.

[wenglund]

And I have asked the Moderators to close the thread.

Nothing that a good BBQ can't fix.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Robert F. Smith]

There are a number of things wrong, at least in my limited view, with the opening post.

Let’s take “Nephi and his Asherah” as a primary example. This was, in my view, a masterfully written and insightful piece, and one of the Review’s best works. I’m in the process of writing a blog piece about the loss of the Review and this article will be front and center. But, this article demonstrates what went wrong with the MI and the Review.

Dr. Peterson in “Asherah” combined cutting-edge Semitic scholarship with Latter-day Saint notions of a mother in heaven to generate a thesis that, in my mind, is unsupportable from traditional Latter-day Saint views of the scriptures. Dr. Peterson draws upon the arguments of feminist/atheist scholar William Dever, the latter of whom argues essentially that the Hebrew Old Testament is really a cover-up of what the Israelites really practiced, and that was a cultic worship of a fertility goddess, whose names include “Asherah.” What troubled me deeply about this article, and the fact that many LDS scholars jumped on the atheistic bandwagon playing trombones for feminism, is that the Dever is not without his substantial detractors. Basically, the tension between Dever and his substantial detractors, which is whether Yahweh really existed to give revelation and to denounce His competitors, is something “Nephi and his Asherah” completely overlooks. What makes Dever so formidable is that he has made the transition from the academic press to the popular press (Dever, “Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel” (2005, ISBN-13: 978-0802828521), something his rabbinical and other competitors have been unable to do.

I should have thought that the best description of Bill Dever would be as a member of the Baltimore School (i.e., a student of W. F. Albright) rather than an odd reference to him as a "feminist/atheist." I first met Bill in early 1970 at the Hebrew Union College Biblical and Aracheological School in Jerusalem, where he signed me up for my first excavation (during Spring Break at Gezer). Not then, nor in any of the years since (most recently at a lecture at the Univ. of Judaism in L.A. a few years ago), in my personal conversations with him and in the lectures he has given he has never come across to me as a "feminist/atheist." I know that he converted to Judaism, perhaps (like the late Anson Rainey) because he had a Jewish wife. Perhaps he believes that women should be treated with more than pro-forma respect. What he is to me is a great and kind man, a dirt archeologist, and a dig interpreter without peer. He has also managed to sponsor interdisciplinary research of high quality, some of it representing an advance in Book of Mormon studies (even though he does not realize it -- I am speaking of Alma 11). I still recall the campaign he undertook to denounce "biblical archeology" some years ago (one of his best lectures with Q&A at BYU), and then turned around and castigated those who took his campaign too far.

His interpretation of the artifacts forces his conclusion about an Israelite folk-religion which did not win the approval of the priestly or prophetic elite, without passing any value judgments on either side. A descriptive analysis by its very nature is not atheistic, and stands or falls in any case on the data and the nature of the interpretation applied to it. In a world too much given to monomania, Bill Dever has always had something interesting and provocative to say.

So, “Nephi and his Asherah” is an archetype for the conflict between BYU’s mission for religious education, on the one hand, and cutting-edge Hebrew and New Testament scholarship, on the other hand, the latter of which is often atheistic. My experience with Claremont and Dr. Bushman showed me there that most of the budding young scholars there in the New Testament program are, indeed, atheists. I don’t condemn that, but it shows where scholarship in many of the journals lies.

I spent years hanging out at Claremont, but didn't meet that many atheists. Especially at the School of Theology (Methodist). Maybe the majority of budding young NT scholars at Claremont in general are indeed atheists, but I'd like to know the basis of your claim. It is true that one of the doctoral candidates in the Mormon Studies Program there is a self-declared atheist, but it is little wonder that a guy raised as an evangelical might find the fundamental basis of his religion unsound, as in this case. Is this an incisive critique, or just offhand and impressionistic rambling by you?

But, what was most confusing to me was the combination of this scholarship at MI/Review with a jaunty defense of the LDS faith. And, indeed, when the atheistic Hebrew and New Testament scholars make certain points about the Holy Scriptures, LDS scholars often say, “AH HAH! Moroni (and Isaiah) were right!”

BYU is ill-equipped to have its scholars undertake this marriage, and to some this marriage might be disturbing.

This is the oddest comment of all. I'm sure that it is only because I am too ignorant to see what you are saying so clearly and plainly, but perhaps you could give me one or two examples.

BYU’s Religion Department and all of BYU’s Departments were shaken up in the Holland administration to blend religious instruction with the secular departments. This caused a number of secular scholars to complain about a lack of academic freedom, and some to leave. Whereas I might have had my doubts about such a decision, because it flew so strongly in the face of the usual way universities were run, I could see that the Board of Trustees had their own views of how BYU should be run. BYU’s reorganization stemmed from a review of BYU’s role in the early 1980s when the Board was contemplating spinning off the institution as the Church had spinned off its hospitals [and the UofU]. The thinking then was that tithing dollars were being disproportionately spent to benefit white Wasatch Front children. But polling, conducted by Richard Wirthlin, revealed some remarkable things, and that was that the single most significant factor in predicting faithful adherence to the Church was not attending seminary, serving a mission or having LDS parents. It was whether a person had had a Church education. At this point, and inexorably so, the Board of Trustees has moved towards an expansion of educational opportunities (expansion of BYU-Provo; the PEF; growth of the Institutes; conversion of Ricks to BYU-I; proposed massive expansion of BYU-SLC; as well as brief exploratory looks at BYU-California).

The Department of Religion exists to educate college students about their religion and, secondarily, to educate seminary and institute teachers. It exists to buttress the secular education throughout the rest of the University. It does not exist to provide graduate degrees in theology or Church History, or to create theologians or New Testament scholars. This is not Berkeley’s GTU. The David Bokovoys of the world are not going to want to teach at BYU, as the type of publication pressure that might exist in the Department of Computer Science does not exist in the Department of Religion.

The David Bokovoys of the world are going to view the Department of Religion condescendingly, with lots of justification. I recall as a young freshman taking a class in the Book of Mormon from a recently-returned mission president who had no more ability to teach the Book of Mormon than a typical returned missionary and, in my view, less so. I was astounded by this good brother’s lack of preparation and inspiration, but the rest of my freshman experience at BYU was terrific. Further, I loved Monte Nyman’s class on Isaiah, but he was no religious academic.

I recall consulting with my grandfather, who was a long-time Academic VP of BYU and a one-year President of BYU in the 1960s. I told him that I was interested in a degree from BYU in religious scholarship or Church History. He said, "Don't you dare do that. BYU doesn't pretend to offer that expertise nor will it ever." So, I decided to worship Mammon instead.

Hugh Nibley told one of his students (his graduate assistant) that he'd never speak to him again if he stayed and got his masters at BYU. Nibley had no use for CES.

I come back to “Nephi and his Asherah.” This is not, at least as an archetype, what is wanted or needed in the Department of Religion.

The MI has indicated, I suppose, that it will be headed in a different direction. “Our areas of endeavor include the study of LDS scripture and other religious texts and related fields of religious scholarship, including the burgeoning field of Mormon studies.” This doesn’t say much, really, but I imagine the MI will focus upon the study of Mormonism, rather than a defense of the faith using atheism and feminism and other bohemian practices some might favor.

Quite so, and quite revealing. Back to BYU’s original mission, I’d say.

So MI is going to be "using atheism and feminism and other bohemian practices" in contradistinction to what Dan Peterson and crew were doing? Could you explain that to me. I must be very dense, because I just don't understand that comment. Perhaps you could set the former over against the latter.

[Kerry A. Shirts]

There are many instructors in evangelical seminaries that have earned doctorates at secular schools. But when they do, they'll often study in an ancillary field to Bible.

David Seely has a degree in OT and is a good scholar. He's currently working on finishing the Deuteronomy volume for the Anchor Bible Commentary series. I think very highly of him, and many others in Religious Ed. Again, I'm not trying to be critical and injure the department. I'm just saying that the problem is not CES vs. Academics. The problem is a fundamentalist approach that looks upon academic studies in Bible as something to be feared and avoided.

Utterly astounding and completely irrational if the Bible truly is the Word of God, it would withstand careful scrutiny. Obviously from past experience and research it cannot stand up to careful, rational, intelligent scrutiny and analysis without special pleading or mental gymnastics to make it conform to our modern hopes of what we wish it were. What other possible explanation is there for this ridiculous state of affairs? I'm still trying to wrap my head around this obvious concession that we cannot understand the Old Testament and keep our faith, anymore than any other Christian scholars can without being held by the hand of those in charge of religion departments to maintain faith in an ideal, rather than realizing the actual history and situation the Old Testament really present.

[Kerry A. Shirts]

I was contacted by Dana Pike who asked that I share the following email in this thread. My response was simply,

Dear David,

A neighbor of mine (Cr** ********(**; have you communicated with her?) shared a link to your post on

mormondialogue.org

about Dan Peterson.

In the latter portion of this post you wrote:

"Recently, when BYU Religious Education professors such as David Seely and Dana Pike in the Deseret Book publication Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament even made mention of the fact that most biblical scholars believe that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that it is comprised of separate sources, these scholars were called into the Dean’s office and corrected for possibly destroying faith."

We are concerned about this statement, because it is completely false.

Since yesterday, Richard Holzapfel, David Seely, and I have communicated about your claim, to make sure one of us was not in the dark about something that had happened to another one of us. Not one of us was ever called in by our Chair, Dean, or any other administrator at BYU regarding anything we wrote in our book Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. We are not sure how you came by the information you posted, but I/we would appreciate you posting a correction (especially since other people have responded to this particular part of your blog post, e.g., Kevin Barney).

Thanks for the clarification. I hope this just isn't phony damage control, and I truly doubt it. Seely has always impressed me as one of the true jewels of LDS scholarship. I LOVE his book with our own beloved Bill Hamblin on Solomon's Temple......

[volgadon]

Utterly astounding and completely irrational if the Bible truly is the Word of God, it would withstand careful scrutiny. Obviously from past experience and research it cannot stand up to careful, rational, intelligent scrutiny and analysis without special pleading or mental gymnastics to make it conform to our modern hopes of what we wish it were. What other possible explanation is there for this ridiculous state of affairs? I'm still trying to wrap my head around this obvious concession that we cannot understand the Old Testament and keep our faith, anymore than any other Christian scholars can without being held by the hand of those in charge of religion departments to maintain faith in an ideal, rather than realizing the actual history and situation the Old Testament really present.

Probably a notion that secular scholarship is a counterfeit, but nonetheless seductive, teaching which will corrode faith. In other words, attractive, but false, teachings.

Edited June 29, 2012 by volgadon