David Bokovoy's explanation of OT

[Kevin Christensen]

Margaret Barker on independent scholarship:

Quote

Being an Independent Scholar [2]

 

by Margaret Barker

 

 

The future of biblical scholarship in the UK lies with independent scholars. By this I mean faith-based biblical scholarship, since any other kind is merely using the biblical text as the basis for practising another discipline such as anthropology, ancient history or literary criticism. Such scholars should be working within departments more suited to their chosen discipline and, although they can and do contribute to the discipline of real biblical study, they should in no way be allowed to set the agenda as has unfortunately become the case in many places.

 

There is no such thing as objective biblical scholarship, that is, biblical scholarship produced by those with no faith commitment. I have often said that a professor of French who had never been to France, did not speak the language, and doubted that France even existed would not be taken seriously. The same should apply with biblical studies, but it does not.

 

The result is that the much biblical study produced in the UK, outside the faith-based institutions, is of no use to the consumers of biblical scholarship, that is, the faith-based communities. Any medical school that produced no graduates fit to practise medicine and no research relevant to the human body would be closed down. The same should apply with biblical studies, but it does not. 

 

All the independent biblical scholars that I know work from a faith-based perspective, and it is with us that the future lies. It is necessary to recognise this, and not allow ourselves to be convinced that those who are not earning a living by their scholarship are somehow second rate. 

 

Those who want to continue biblical scholarship need to have another profession too, simply to earn a living, and it will be obvious that only those with a real commitment to scholarship will be prepared for the considerable hard work and real sacrifice that is necessary. In many cases the years of family responsibility will be a time of just keeping up to date and general reading; it is only when such responsibilities become less time consuming that productive research becomes possible again.

And this:

Quote

Being an Independent Scholar [3]

 

by Margaret Barker

 

What do I say to independent scholars?

 

First, read Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published 50 years ago, and see how changes come about. Although written about a world very different from biblical studies, it shows how establishments resist changes until in the end the next generation [us!] forces a paradigm shift. The current paradigm is going towards a non-faith-based study, which has no future. By this I do not mean simply that the study is not faith-based; it is based on non-faith, and so criticism does not mean close study; it so often means destructive study. New paradigms emerge from those aware of the crisis, who recognise that the situation is not likely to be remedied by the methods that caused it.

 

So, do not lose confidence in yourself or in your importance to your faith-community. 

Second, remember that those with the privilege of earning their living by their scholarship are not necessarily better than you; just more privileged. It is possible to survive without research grants and paid sabbaticals, paid conferences expenses, secretarial support, etc. I have never had any of these.  The standard of biblical scholarship would improve if no post in higher education could be held for more than 7 years, not renewable, and if nobody could spend more than 21 years in their lifetime in any form of employment in higher education. This would stimulate circulation and make for a healthier body of scholarship.

 

Third, remember that your ideas may not be well received by established people; this does not mean that your ideas are wrong. They may be, but then so may be the ideas of the established person and s/he will not welcome any really serious threats. This is the problem with peer-reviewed journals; the ‘peers’ can often be the establishment perpetuating itself. There does, however, have to be a way of ensuring that the quality of independent scholarship is maintained. This is something that needs to be worked out. Being published is not necessarily an indication of the quality of your scholarship; a publisher is running a business and s/he publishes what will sell. 

 

Fourth, never compromise your standards or integrity for the sake of any perceived immediate advantage – such as getting published. You will regret it. Stick with your vision until you yourself find the need to modify it.

 

Fifth, do not be put off by a bad review, unless it is from someone whose scholarship you know and respect. When you have taken the considerable time and trouble that is needed to write a book or paper, you will know a lot more about that subject than many of those who will review it. No one should review books who has not actually published one. Anyone can express an opinion on, say, Amazon, and these are often anonymous. You will also find yourself the focus of discussion groups who debate something you have never said. That just has to be accepted as the negative side of the otherwise huge advantage that on-line material offers to the independent scholar. 

 

***

 

On the practical side, you will need to have another profession to earn a living, and you must usually be content to remain fairly low down in that job, so as not to allow it to take up too much time and energy. This does not apply if your other profession commands high fees, and you can therefore work fewer hours in a week. I taught in various schools: English, Classics, Maths and even RE. I do not recommend the latter though, even though this seems an obvious choice for a biblical scholar. Political correctness makes it a very trying way to earn a living, and your managers may know less about the subject than you do, if they have devoted themselves to the management and administrative skills necessary for promotion in the teaching profession.

 

You will need to find space for books, because these will not disappear from the scene in the near future and you will want to write things in your own copies. 

 

Always keep time for your family; blood is thicker than ink, and they are a part of your life in the way that friends and colleagues are not. Cherish your friends, though, and listen when they offer honest criticism. Join [or set up] a group in your area that shares your interest in biblical studies. You may be surprised how many people there are who pursue biblical studies to a high level whilst earning a living in an entirely other field. Among my email friends publishing biblical studies I number a research scientist, a lawyer and a computer boffin, as well as people who are ordained.

http://christpantokrator.blogspot.com/search/label/Barker%3A%20'Being%20an%20Independent%20Scholar'

She also treated this theme at greater length in her 2000 talk reflecting on Biblical Studies:

Quote

We need to distinguish between the vision and the society in which that vision was first glimpsed, to recognise what is fundamental to the vision and what is not. Nobody wants a return to  the society of bronze age Palestine or second temple Jerusalem. We seek to stand where they stood, to look where they looked so as to glimpse what they saw.

There is, in my opinion, far too much concern for the ‘earthly’ aspects of the Bible, perhaps because they are things one can‘prove’, and a great neglect of the ‘vision’.

There is a major crisis in biblical studies of which the churches seem unaware, and there is need for urgent action to ensure that at least in theological colleges something is taught that does not simply rely on university departments

and replicate their syllabus and interests. Theological colleges and university departments now have very different agendas.

See http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/ReflectionsOnBiblicalStudies.pdf

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[stemelbow]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Here is a bit of my first response to Stan, who had sent me a list of "obsolete" forms of words used in the Book of Mormon, which supposedly show it to be of an earlier period than Joseph Smith's day. He said these words were not in use in Joseph's day but had become obsolete after the Elizabethan era. Here's part of my reply, wherein I show him that the obsolete usage is present in Joseph Smith's day, not just in the 1500s and such. The italicized portions are Stan's words. I should note that anyone can use Google's n-gram viewer to duplicate what I found. This is just my partial response to the first list he sent me, but this went on for a few months, with similar results. 

Looking at n-grams in Google books (IOW, duplicating Stan's method), I found the words he listed as follows:

 

It feels a little like the, Joseph-wasn't-educated-enough-therefore-he-didn't-write-the-book-of-Mormon argument.  I mean, ok, but that doesn't really do much but assume a conclusion.  Seeing this stuff, though, it might be that it's worse than the Joseph couldn't write it therefore it's inspired stuff. 

[jkwilliams]

13 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It feels a little like the, Joseph-wasn't-educated-enough-therefore-he-didn't-write-the-book-of-Mormon argument.  I mean, ok, but that doesn't really do much but assume a conclusion.  Seeing this stuff, though, it might be that it's worse than the Joseph couldn't write it therefore it's inspired stuff. 

I can't explain why Stan's results were so different from my own, but for his theory to hold water, the "obsolete" usage would not show up in English and American print after the Early Modern English era. It really doesn't take "careful scholarship" to show that's not the case, just plugging these words into Google's n-gram viewer (again, that is duplicating Stan's methodology). Here are the results for "tremendious," for example:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tremendious&year_start=1500&year_end=1900&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctremendious%3B%2Cc0

The other consideration is that, even if we couldn't show the presence of these words in print, that doesn't rule out their use in colloquial speech.

Either way, as I said, I spent way too much time on this over several months. I don't see anything there, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Edited May 25, 2016 by jkwilliams

[Gray]

15 hours ago, canard78 said:

I'm interested to see that your language on this proposal has evolved over the last couple of years. When Skousen and other proposed the idea of Joseph dictating a book that used language that could not be his, you were reserving judgement. Now it sounds like you've bought in completely to the proposal.

Are you saying, with as much certainty as is available to you, that the translation of the plates from reformed egyptian was done by "persons unknown" in the 14/15th (?) century?

If so, how can people translating "centuries before" the 19thC also produce content and wording that "has a 19th century ring to it." Richard Bushman (and, I think, @Brant Gardner) both suggest that there is strong evidence of phrasing and content that comes from 19thC.

This means we need to consider two possible approaches for the translations process

1. That unknown people translated a set of gold plates in an unknown location and managed to do it while also including "a lot of nineteenth-century Protestant material in it, both in terms of theology and of wording" (Bushman). This translation was then transmitted, word-for-word to Joseph. Despite the fact that he needed other people to translate the Book of Mormon for him, he went on to translate/dictate the D&C, Book of Moses, Abraham etc using very similar language and building from similar theological concepts
2. That Joseph dictated the Book of Mormon (by inspiration or otherwise) using his own language as either a translation in his own words or an inspired modern scripture, still in his own words. The presence of potentially anachronistic biblical passages in the Book of Mormon is simply because they were articulations of ideas and principles that Joseph was drawn to and dictated. He "studied it out in his mind" then "felt it was right" and spoke it.

In order for "1" to be the preferred approach, it would need Skousen and others to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the words and phrases used by Joseph couldn't possibly have come from a 19thC mind. I don't think they've done that. I've read their examples and I think it's plausible that all of those phrases could have come from a 19thC mind. There were several examples proposed early on that I debunked on this board (you might remember a conversation we had about it when you were, at the time, undecided about the proposal).

Honestly the Skousen proposal about a 16th (?) century translation sounds very far fetched. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Gray

[Gray]

7 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

It does if you don't really believe in things like prophets and revelation.

Or if you're a Biblical scholar who is well read on the issue. 

[RevTestament]

22 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Margaret Barker on independent scholarship:

And this:

http://christpantokrator.blogspot.com/search/label/Barker%3A%20'Being%20an%20Independent%20Scholar'

She also treated this theme at greater length in her 2000 talk reflecting on Biblical Studies:

See http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/ReflectionsOnBiblicalStudies.pdf

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Seems like she advocates the "take the harder path" view of the gospel....

I have to say I feel much like her.

[jkwilliams]

6 minutes ago, Gray said:

Honestly the Skousen proposal about a 15th century translation sounds very far fetched. 

I'm at a loss as to how acknowledging the authorship of Isaiah precludes belief in prophets and revelation.

[Gray]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I'm at a loss as to how acknowledging the authorship of Isaiah precludes belief in prophets and revelation.

Obviously if you don't take a fundamentalist view of the scriptures you've rejected the supernatural. In life everything comes down to simple dichotomies.

[stemelbow]

40 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I can't explain why Stan's results were so different from my own, but for his theory to hold water, the "obsolete" usage would not show up in English and American print after the Early Modern English era. It really doesn't take "careful scholarship" to show that's not the case, just plugging these words into Google's n-gram viewer (again, that is duplicating Stan's methodology). Here are the results for "tremendious," for example:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tremendious&year_start=1500&year_end=1900&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctremendious%3B%2Cc0

The other consideration is that, even if we couldn't show the presence of these words in print, that doesn't rule out their use in colloquial speech.

Either way, as I said, I spent way too much time on this over several months. I don't see anything there, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

I'd agree and that's why I would see this as a waste of time.

I don't even know what Google's n-gram viewer is.  I guess I'll have to take a look.

[jkwilliams]

22 minutes ago, Gray said:

Obviously if you don't take a fundamentalist view of the scriptures you've rejected the supernatural. In life everything comes down to simple dichotomies.

Exactly. If Deutero-Isaiah postdates the exile, then a fundamentalist reading of the Book of Mormon isn't possible because it's a glaring anachronism. But as David said, it just means one has to step back and shift the paradigm in reading the Book of Mormon. I think this is what Blake Ostler was trying to do with his "Modern Expansion" theory. 

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

Exactly. If Deutero-Isaiah postdates the exile, then a fundamentalist reading of the Book of Mormon isn't possible because it's a glaring anachronism. But as David said, it just means one has to step back and shift the paradigm in reading the Book of Mormon. I think this is what Blake Ostler was trying to do with his "Modern Expansion" theory. 

And if you are able to see David's position on the OT, other scripture, to think the possibilities with the Book of Mormon is not far-fetched.  In fact, it's pretty close to what we'd expect. 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I'd agree and that's why I would see this as a waste of time.

I don't even know what Google's n-gram viewer is.  I guess I'll have to take a look.

It's a nifty little tool that scans all the text in Google Books to show when certain words and phrases entered into the English lexicon, when they were most popular, and when they fell into disuse. For example, the boysenberry, a hybrid of blackberries and raspberries, was developed in the late 1920s. Plugging "boysenberry" into the n-gram viewer shows it appearing a few years later as it became more popular.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=boysenberry&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cboysenberry%3B%2Cc0

In the n-gram chart for "tremendious," we see it showing up in the late 18th century, so I have no idea how that makes it an Early Modern English word.

Edited May 25, 2016 by jkwilliams

[Johnnie Cake]

59 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

hah.  You should read.  He doesn't do either in my mind.  He's addressing Isaiah, at the end of part two he says:

Yes I actually went ahead and read both blog posts yesterday.  While Bokovoy did leave a few escape routes for belief to remain intact, like so many other pathways to belief it requires so much reinterpretation and nuance to the official story line that at least for me belief is impossible.  If your only goal is to hold to belief in spite of the evidence that undermines that belief...then I guess you will maintain belief.  If on the other hand one allows the available evidence to help form your conclusions then belief while possible becomes much more difficult to maintain.

Bokovoy demonstrably shows that Duetro-Isaiah is a significant problem for the BoM truth claims.  The mere fact that Nephi quotes from the brass plates words of Isaiah that could not have possibly written and had under any logical means included in those plates, because #1 They weren’t even written by Isaiah and #2 they wouldn't be written by their author for decades  after Lehi and Company had, according to the BoM timeline, left Jerusalem.  These 2 facts alone cast not only doubt but a nearly insurmountable problem for the book’s truth claims to overcome  And what is Bokovoy's escape clause?  Magic, nuance, reinterpretation and feelings.  Sorry but those are not satisfying pathways to belief for me.

 

[stemelbow]

9 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

It's a nifty little tool that scans all the text in Google Books to show when certain words and phrases entered into the English lexicon, when they were most popular, and when they fell into disuse. For example, the boysenberry, a hybrid of blackberries and raspberries, was developed in the late 1920s. Plugging "boysenberry" into the n-gram viewer shows it appearing a few years later as it became more popular.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=boysenberry&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cboysenberry%3B%2Cc0

In the n-gram chart for "tremendious," we see it showing up in the late 18th century, so I have no idea how that makes it an Early Modern English word.

Thanks.  If you see the word appearing on the graph at all, anywhere near 1830, it would throw out the theory by word.  I guess his argument is more that the trend of many words suggests the translation came from an earlier era.  While I could easily evaluate by word, to determine the trend and draw a conclusion is a bit outside of my level of expertise, but feels rather fluid and arguable.  So, as it is the theory itself hasn't impressed me enough to even go there. 

But thanks for the little link and demo.  I'll play with other words.  The "f" word was used in the early 1800s, peaked in around 1640.  It must have meant something else back then. 

[RevTestament]

10 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

My approach is simple.  Perhaps these scriptures were not in the brass plates at the time Lehi left Jerusalem but they were included in the plates later by the prophet Mormon himself.  How would Mormon know these scriptures?  I think that when Christ came to the Nephites he told them lots of stuff.  Some of that stuff would be scripture that was given to in the Old World after Lehi left.  There would be no reason for Christ to withhold this material from the Nephites.  So the Nephites wrote this stuff down and when Mormon was going through the records, he decided to include these passages with the earlier Isaiah.  Its seems like a logical spot to put them.  So if these Deutro-Isaiah passages where put in there by Mormon, they were in the plates by the time they arrived to Joseph Smith.  Can't prove this of course because we don't have all the records that Mormon had but it could be not more complicated than that.

 

10 hours ago, Freedom said:

What is wrong with the argument that all of Isaiah was written by Isaiah, but later writers modified the text? Does Isaiah have to be written by different authors?

This is my initial approach but I haven't studied the issue closely. Things like using the name of Cyrus, the Persian King, certainly does pose questions as it seems Isaiah could not have been alive at that time. Is it possible that a later redacter put in the name of Cyrus when the events transpired? I believe something like this happened with the use of the name Ramesses in Exodus for the city. In other words, the earlier version did not include the name. For Isaiah to prophesy a particular name of a person would be about the only such case in the OT. The other real challenging thing brought up by Bokovoy in my mind is the apparent Aramaic use of some of the words in "deutero-Isaiah." I will have to review the evidence to see how wide-spread these alleged uses are. I don't accept the view that "deutero-Isaiah" is not prophetic. I believe it certainly contains prophecies. I really don't even understand that argument because there are prophecies concerning the Gentiles and the inheritor of the Lord's mountains to come out of Judah in the last parts of Isaiah. I also believe the argument that Isaiah believed in the “the inviolability of Jerusalem” is a weak argument. It seems to transfer the prophesied protection of Jerusalem from the Assyrians to a later date regarding the Babylonians. The Lord did protect Jerusalem from Assyria if one believes the story of the angel bringing death upon the Assyrians in their siege, whereas Israel was allowed to fall. To claim that Isaiah wouldn't  have shifted the theme when it came to Babylon, just doesn't quite fly with me - it just seems like an argument a scholar made up. Anyway those are some of my thoughts on the matter at present. My take on it is that some of the later writings of Isaiah on Babylon got added to the book later, and experienced some editorializing by the scribes who did so. Initially, they would have been probably reluctant to accept visions prophesying disaster for Jerusalem, so they didn't get included until the scribes were in exile, got humbled and realized the truth of the matter.

Typical scholar arguments that Isaiah contains parts of other scriptures shouldn't matter to LDS, since we believe God can and does speak the same words to more than one prophet. Who is to say the later prophets did not borrow from Isaiah either rather than vice versa? I do note that the Book of Mormon doesn't contain the specific prophecy regarding Cyrus. Perhaps lumping all of Isaiah 40-66 into "deutero-Isaiah" should not be accepted as an accurate approach either.

Edited May 25, 2016 by RevTestament

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Thanks.  If you see the word appearing on the graph at all, anywhere near 1830, it would throw out the theory by word.  I guess his argument is more that the trend of many words suggests the translation came from an earlier era.  While I could easily evaluate by word, to determine the trend and draw a conclusion is a bit outside of my level of expertise, but feels rather fluid and arguable.  So, as it is the theory itself hasn't impressed me enough to even go there. 

But thanks for the little link and demo.  I'll play with other words.  The "f" word was used in the early 1800s, peaked in around 1640.  It must have meant something else back then. 

Well, that's the problem. "Tremendious" doesn't show up in Early Modern English, at least not according to Google Books. Given that this is the methodology Stan used, I can't explain his conclusion. Stan is a good man and very intelligent (and he's a fellow alumnus of the Bolivia Cochabamba mission so it goes without saying he's one of the best people on earth). I just don't find anything solid in this theory.

Edited May 25, 2016 by jkwilliams

[stemelbow]

3 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Yes I actually went ahead and read both blog posts yesterday.  While Bokovoy did leave a few escape routes for belief to remain intact, like so many other pathways to belief it requires so much reinterpretation and nuance to the official story line that at least for me belief is impossible.  If your only goal is to hold to belief in spite of the evidence that undermines that belief...then I guess you will maintain belief.  If on the other hand one allows the available evidence to help form your conclusions then belief while possible becomes much more difficult to maintain.

Bokovoy demonstrably shows that Duetro-Isaiah is a significant problem for the BoM truth claims.  The mere fact that Nephi quotes from the brass plates words of Isaiah that could not have possibly written and had under any logical means included in those plates, because #1 They weren’t even written by Isaiah and #2 they wouldn't be written by their author for decades  after Lehi and Company had, according to the BoM timeline, left Jerusalem.  These 2 facts alone cast not only doubt but a nearly insurmountable problem for the book’s truth claims to overcome  And what is Bokovoy's escape clause?  Magic, nuance, reinterpretation and feelings.  Sorry but those are not satisfying pathways to belief for me.

 

 There's too much room for faith in the world so it makes the "well the evidence argues against your faith" position is too easy.  I think to argue something like, "Bokovoy demonstrably shows that Duetro-Isaiah is a significant problem for the BoM truth claims" carries too many assumptions.  I'm more partial to the latter of his two LDS proposed mindsets regarding this issue, but I don't see any reason to draw the conclusion you have.  There is too much possible which we don't know.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, stemelbow said:

 There's too much room for faith in the world so it makes the "well the evidence argues against your faith" position is too easy.  I think to argue something like, "Bokovoy demonstrably shows that Duetro-Isaiah is a significant problem for the BoM truth claims" carries too many assumptions.  I'm more partial to the latter of his two LDS proposed mindsets regarding this issue, but I don't see any reason to draw the conclusion you have.  There is too much possible which we don't know.

I don't speak for David, but I read him as simply saying that Deutero-Isaiah makes it difficult, if not impossible, to take a fundamentalist approach to the Book of Mormon text. I know a lot of church members who are fine with that.

[Kevin Christensen]

12 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Yes I actually went ahead and read both blog posts yesterday.  While Bokovoy did leave a few escape routes for belief to remain intact, like so many other pathways to belief it requires so much reinterpretation and nuance to the official story line that at least for me belief is impossible.  If your only goal is to hold to belief in spite of the evidence that undermines that belief...then I guess you will maintain belief.  If on the other hand one allows the available evidence to help form your conclusions then belief while possible becomes much more difficult to maintain.

Bokovoy demonstrably shows that Duetro-Isaiah is a significant problem for the BoM truth claims.  The mere fact that Nephi quotes from the brass plates words of Isaiah that could not have possibly written and had under any logical means included in those plates, because #1 They weren’t even written by Isaiah and #2 they wouldn't be written by their author for decades  after Lehi and Company had, according to the BoM timeline, left Jerusalem.  These 2 facts alone cast not only doubt but a nearly insurmountable problem for the book’s truth claims to overcome  And what is Bokovoy's escape clause?  Magic, nuance, reinterpretation and feelings.  Sorry but those are not satisfying pathways to belief for me.

 

What does Bokovoy say about this this approach to Isaiah 53?

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/FourthServantSong.pdf

Just wondering.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't speak for David, but I read him as simply saying that Deutero-Isaiah makes it difficult, if not impossible, to take a fundamentalist approach to the Book of Mormon text. I know a lot of church members who are fine with that.

Agreed.  I find it reasonable to re-examine the fundamental approach and assumptions that go with it, all based on what we have learned through the rigors of scholarly work. 

[Kevin Christensen]

43 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't speak for David, but I read him as simply saying that Deutero-Isaiah makes it difficult, if not impossible, to take a fundamentalist approach to the Book of Mormon text. I know a lot of church members who are fine with that.

"Fundamentalist" is a term that carries a lot of baggage.

For what it's worth, my approach to Deutero-Isaiah and the Book of Mormon is here:

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=2694&index=7

Writing it now, I would also emphasize Barker's paper on the Fourth Servant Song, which makes the case that it was inspired by Hezekiah's bout with the plague.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited May 25, 2016 by Kevin Christensen

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

"Fundamentalist" is a term that carries a lot of baggage.

For what it's worth, my approach to Deutero-Isaiah and the Book of Mormon is here:

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=2694&index=7

Writing it now, I would also emphasize Barker's paper on the Fourth Servant Song, which makes the case that is was inspired by Hezekiah's bout with the plague.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

I'm using "fundamentalist" in its traditional sense, that the scriptures are meant to be read literally. To quote Eagleton:

Quote

The first of the seven fundamentals was a belief in the literal truth of the Bible; and this is probably the best definition of fundamentalism there is. It is basically a textual affair. Fundamentalists are those who believe that our linguistic currency is trustworthy only if it is backed by the gold standard of the Word of Words. They see God as copperfastening human meaning. Fundamentalism means sticking strictly to the script, which in turn means being deeply fearful of the improvised, ambiguous or indeterminate.

It's only this literalist reading that causes Deutero-Isaiah to be problematic. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

[Johnnie Cake]

59 minutes ago, Gray said:

Honestly the Skousen proposal about a 16th (?) century translation sounds very far fetched. 

But a guy translating golden plates that weren't present by putting a rock he dug from a well in a hat and reading the script that magically appears on it doesn't?

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Johnnie Cake said:

But a guy translating golden plates that weren't present by putting a rock he dug from a well in a hat and reading the script that magically appears on it doesn't?

Obviously, the Skousen theory takes the supernatural translation method as a given. 

[Gray]

13 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

But a guy translating golden plates that weren't present by putting a rock he dug from a well in a hat and reading the script that magically appears on it doesn't?

I believe Joseph Smith is the author of the Book of Mormon. I reject both the supernatural and the supernaturalish. But I also consider the Book of Mormon to be scripture. 

I will say that there are plenty of people who accept good critical scholarship on the scriptures and yet maintain belief in the supernatural.

(I don't consider God to be supernatural, though, and neither should good orthodox Mormons, I don't consider God to be supernaturalish either, which is where I differ from orthodox Mormons.)

Edited May 25, 2016 by Gray