New Revelations and the Future

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I was just frustrated because I wanted to know what you were saying.

Ah, I see.

The computer language thing was a very subtle joke, and I am afraid that only computer programmers would be able to get it.  It was meant to poke  fun at the idea that one can approach God as if He were a computer (or possibly a natural phenomenon that likewise has no free will, or purpose of its own).  Which is how atheists who are scientists tend to want to approach Him: if they can't measure him with a scientific instrument, he can't possibly exist.  

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Ah, I see.

The computer language thing was a very subtle joke, and I am afraid that only computer programmers would be able to get it.  It was meant to poke  fun at the idea that one can approach God as if He were a computer (or possibly a natural phenomenon that likewise has no free will, or purpose of its own).  Which is how atheists who are scientists tend to want to approach Him: if they can't measure him with a scientific instrument, he can't possibly exist.  

Danke schon

 

[Gray]

23 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh my gosh. Once again I must point out that the idea of spirit is far earlier then platonic.

The idea that the spirit survives death is as old as mankind itself.

No doubt. But in early Judaism there is no immortal spirit. It came into the Judaeo-Christian tradition by way of Plato. And of course by the time Mormonism came around the immortal spirit was taken for granted.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Gray

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

No doubt. But in early Judaism there is no immortal spirit. It came into the Judaeo-Christian tradition by way of Plato. And of course by the time Mormonism came around the immortal spirit was taken for granted.

Disagree. 

Far more complex, probably Babylonian and therefore Caananite and influenced by Egypt

Where do you think Pythagoras  got his stuff? Egypt

It's a soup of all cultures.

You are totally ignoring Egypt for Pete's sake.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 4/9/2018 at 12:37 PM, Gray said:

The immortal soul also comes from Greek philosophy. Christianity itself in inseparable from "pagan" influence. If you take that away it's more or less just the Pharisaical (not in the polemical sense) Judaism of the first century. 

Very ironic when you consider the Egyptians and Nibley's view of the "Egyptian Endowment" for example, the facsimlies, Reformed Egyptian, etc.  Regardless of its origin it's ancient origins are clear and VERY related to Mormonism from the very beginning.

If you believe the story or not, clearly Mormonism and the immortal soul  "as restored" in Mormonism can be interpreted to go back far before Pythagoras in concept.

I will not do so but I can EASILY see some Mormon scholar arguing that Pythagoras as a proto- Mormon with the basis of his beliefs in Egypt and Babylon and Assyria.  

And then we have Zoroastrianism which clearly can be seen as a precursor to Christianity, or in Mormon parlance as a possible earlier "dispensation" which sent the Magi to find the Messiah.  All of course with both a pre- and post mortal soul/spirit.

But if you want a clear theory of the immortal soul, which FAR predates the Greeks, Egypt becomes a choice which is quite obvious- and then you see the direct connection between Mormonism and Egypt.

And of course Platonism has pretty indisputable links to Egypt in my opinion.

For my money the entry of Greek philosophy into Christianity IS the apostasy.  And yes, it is already present by the time of the writing of the New Testament which fits perfectly into the theory as producing a need for a restoration.

I think once one accepts the Christian philosophical paradigm, the claim of Mormonism becomes quite strong.  Yes paradoxically one may see the Book of Mormon as an incomplete branch in that tree of intellectual history should one want to, but of course I strongly affirm the truth of the Book of Mormon within its religious context, nor do I deny it as history for all we know.  And I have a STRONG testimony that it is scripture regardless of its origins.

Of course one can ignore the Christian paradigm or not consider it justifiable for some reason, but that is completely a different argument.  I think once one accepts the spiritual validity of Christianity as "properly basic", Mormonism becomes a warranted Christian belief, a la Plantinga, with a clear way of seeing a justifiable and warranted historical path conceptually.

Edited April 15, 2018 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Where do you think Pythagoras  got his stuff? Egypt

It's a soup of all cultures.

You are totally ignoring Egypt for Pete's sake.

There's India as well. While harder to prove than Egyptian connections I think most scholars think it was an influence on Greek philosophers - particularly the Heraclitian strain. Indian philosophy tends to get neglected in the west but they had a very robust tradition going back centuries earlier than what we see in the ANE.

[mfbukowski]

6 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

There's India as well. While harder to prove than Egyptian connections I think most scholars think it was an influence on Greek philosophers - particularly the Heraclitian strain. Indian philosophy tends to get neglected in the west but they had a very robust tradition going back centuries earlier than what we see in the ANE.

Absolutely. And Hinduism is actually henotheistic and the story of Krishna has interesting parallels.

And one can trace the origins of process theology a la Blake Ostler, Cobb, Whitehead, and Claremont School of Theology directly to Heraclitus.

 

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, Gray said:

But in early Judaism there is no immortal spirit. It came into the Judaeo-Christian tradition by way of Plato. And of course by the time Mormonism came around the immortal spirit was taken for granted.

A certain conception of soul. I think it's a bit more complicated though. Some texts indicate no belief in soul with the more formal conceptions of soul, as you suggest, coming much later. However we also really have little of pre-exilic belief and once you get to the pre-Hezekiah period all bets are off. It's scholars typically arguing about what fragment of a text deserves to be called from that period. The idea of contacting the dead (necromancy) presupposes a belief in some sort of soul/existence after death. That's found in many passages including those often dated quite early. (Say 1 Sam 28) Now the common argument is that since such things were condemned they weren't part of Judaism but I think that's far too simplistic an argument to say the least.

A different way of looking at the same data is just to say the texts reflect different views (which of course the documentary hypothesis presumes) and shouldn't be taken to reflect an universal belief. Particularly if groups were in tension with each other. (Say tensions of those wanting the diffuse religion of the high places in contrast to the Deuteronomist centralization of the cult) If there's no unified authoritative theology then it's hard to make arguments of who believed what when (again IMO).

I suspect the Jews largely followed the beliefs of those around them, the Canaanites, and for more educated Jews, the Egyptians. In this view Egypt, as Mark said, probably is an important context. We know of later more syncretistic Judaism at Elephanti for instance. The educated class likely saw Judaism through an Egyptian lens. (It's tough not to imagine Moses, whatever the actual history, did as well) Probably theology in Israel - particularly in the divided Kingdom era - was fairly diverse.

The Canaanites, who at certain times it was hard to even distinguish from the Jews, (at least according to the narrative of Elijah), had a conception of soul. Admittedly though the oldest Canaanite texts tend to say little about cosmology with the cosmological texts being fairly late. (Much as with Judaism) However that gap ought cause us to be cautious in how we describe very early Judaism or more broadly Ugarit culture and religion. (IMO)

I'd also urge caution saying the Jewish soul came out of Plato. While there's no doubt a huge Hellenistic influence thanks to Alexander's conquest, the Platonic conception of soul is really quite, quite different from most Jewish conceptions. Although of course there are Hellenistic conceptions as well (Philo being the obvious) What I think Plato gives is the idea of permanence to the soul. However I'm not sure I even buy that part of the later Jewish conception of soul. I recognize it remains a popular Mormon view, particularly those who hold to either the tripartite model of soul or else the Nauvoo era belief of soul as a materialist fluid. However Brigham Young certainly held to a physicalist view of soul in which the soul  could be destroyed and was just made out of parts like everything else. In that sense I'm not even sure the immortality of the soul, as conceived of in Greek thought through medieval thought is necessarily a part of Mormonism.

I'd add that if you talk to Mormons about the soul, while they'd all agree there is a soul, they'd end up having quite different beliefs regarding it. Now of course some things we know that clearly weren't known by some ancient Jewish groups. i.e. spirit prison, judgment and resurrection and so forth. But again I tend to think there were different groups and particularly elite groups who may have had different beliefs that others. The analogy of theological knowledge in Nauvoo is always, I think, a good foil to taking too totalizing a view of Jewish belief. And those initiated into higher mysteries usually were under strict orders to not reveal what they knew to the masses. (What Alma 13 ascribes to pre-exilic Jewish practice - but also well in keeping with Egyptian practice at the time)

Edited April 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

49 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Absolutely. And Hinduism is actually henotheistic and the story of Krishna has interesting parallels.

And one can trace the origins of process theology a la Blake Ostler, Cobb, Whitehead, and Claremont School of Theology directly to Heraclitus.

Yup. And Heraclitus is in an essential tension with the more Parmenides tradition that Plato tends to follow. I tend to agree with those that see all of philosophy as a tension between Parmenides and the idea of the most real as permanence with Heraclitus as the idea of change. While I'm much more in the Heraclitus camp, I think it's important to realize both are at play. In a lot of these discussions, particularly of Judaism, Plato and Parmenides get all the attention. I think the opposing views, which were also at times popular, get neglected. (And I'd say the neoplatonists of late antiquity make an interesting synthesis)

I think the problem speaking about the "immortality of the soul" is that we have to unpack what we mean by that. If we just mean ultimately a Parmenides conception of soul, then I'm not sure that's really getting at the fundamental issues about the soul. As I said, I certainly don't ascribe to such a view of the soul.

Edited April 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

There's India as well. While harder to prove than Egyptian connections I think most scholars think it was an influence on Greek philosophers - particularly the Heraclitian strain. Indian philosophy tends to get neglected in the west but they had a very robust tradition going back centuries earlier than what we see in the ANE.

Actually it was Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, where quadratic equations were used already in the time of Abraham.  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00407-013-0122-4 .    https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Earliest-Methods-used-to-solve-Quadratic-Equation-FKH72J4KRYZS .

[Marginal Gains]

22 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Ah, I see.

The computer language thing was a very subtle joke, and I am afraid that only computer programmers would be able to get it.  It was meant to poke  fun at the idea that one can approach God as if He were a computer (or possibly a natural phenomenon that likewise has no free will, or purpose of its own).  Which is how atheists who are scientists tend to want to approach Him: if they can't measure him with a scientific instrument, he can't possibly exist.  

I thought God was like a computer, in that Mormonism claims he is predictable in that if we do our part, he is bound to do his part. Sort of - if we tap the right keys, in the right order, the right thing happens on the screen. Or do you see God as unpredictable, random etc?

[RevTestament]

19 hours ago, Gray said:

No doubt. But in early Judaism there is no immortal spirit. It came into the Judaeo-Christian tradition by way of Plato. And of course by the time Mormonism came around the immortal spirit was taken for granted.

Eccl 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

[Gray]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Eccl 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Spirit meaning breath or animating force. Not meaning an intangible version of you as a person.

[Gray]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Disagree. 

Far more complex, probably Babylonian and therefore Caananite and influenced by Egypt

Where do you think Pythagoras  got his stuff? Egypt

It's a soup of all cultures.

You are totally ignoring Egypt for Pete's sake.

 

 

What did Babylonians believe about the soul? Hebrews were a kind of Canaanite to begin with.

[RevTestament]

28 minutes ago, Gray said:

Spirit meaning breath or animating force. Not meaning an intangible version of you as a person.

It was roughly equivalent to our idea of life. The breath of life returned to God who gave it. Whether they knew about material spirits is not the issue. Daniel too could be said to represent early Judaism, and it speaks of the dead rising from the grave.

Dan 12:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

So, the early Jews definitely did conceive of some life force which came from God and returned to God until their bodies were wakened from the dust. BTW this does not support the idea of most Christians that God created our spirits. In the beginning our spirits were breathed into our bodies by God after He creates the body. God does not form our spirits. He forms our bodies. The creation is about forming - not creating from nothing. Man is formed from the dust. The earth was formed from "the waters." 

[Gray]

On 4/14/2018 at 11:54 AM, RevTestament said:

Well, I disagree that it is just an issue of semantics. I see the present LDS idea as less platonic than my own because I view the spirit as eternal in time. I believe Abraham supports my belief, whereas the typical LDS apparently thinks of the spirit as being literally begotten in heaven as a spirit with a beginning of some sort, which is definitely not a platonic idea.

tba

Well the spirit isn't actually "begotten" in Mormonism - we always existed.

 

Quote

I may take a look at that book, but my review of the recent archaeological evidence does not support the existence of a God named YHWH before the time of the exodus. I would not be surprised at later evidence although I'm sure than may be contested by Jews. Nevertheless, Jethro was apparently a high priest in Midian in the day of Moses. Also, I believe the Israelites were running around northern Midian for a number of decades, and later traded there, etc, so one might expect the name to pop-up then in the archaeological record. Attempts to connect the name to other peoples before the time of Moses are just the typical speculation. I agree with the archaeological evidence that the El titles were around before Moses, and this fact is supported by the Bible. Yeshua appeared to Abraham as El Shaddai. The Father was called El Elyon - the Most High Power. But to allege that the Israelites originally worshiped Ba'El or other Canaanite gods is just more speculation. All the smashed god idols in the destroyed Canaanite cities of the Late Bronze Age don't support the hypothesis imho. Nevertheless, I do agree that many Israelites adopted some of the Canaanite gods - including Ba'el and Asherah. They started out on the right foot, but the archaeological evidence agrees with the Bible that many of the Israelites adopted other gods. Their idols are found in Israelite dwellings. Their worship is a common theme in the OT.

I'm not sure of the various dates for Yahweh myself (it's been years since I picked up that book), but of course the Tanakh itself also post-dates the purported dates for the exodus and even the Babylonian captivity. There are literary threads that run earlier than that, but I'm talking about the edited version that our current texts are based on.

Regarding smashed idols, Judaism strictly forbid the worship of idols, even idols in the image of El.

 

Quote

Agreed. Deut 19:1 When the Lord thy God hath cut off the nations, whose land the Lord thy God giveth thee, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their cities, and in their houses;

I'm just pointing out the plain reading, and the way Yeshua interpreted it as well. If you want to interpret it some other way, I can't stop you. Most Christians do because the plain reading is hostile to their theology. I am just merely pointing out that your Wikipedia author seems to ignore the plain reading, which is sloppy in the least or perhaps purposefully misleading.

There are many ways to interpret text - there's the world behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text. Yeshua was many centuries removed from the world behind the text. If one is interested in the original meaning of such texts, a "plain" reading divorced from historical context will not get you there. But of course there are many ways to read such texts.

Yeshua himself seemed unconcerned with the history behind the texts, or even with a plain reading. He seemed to use the texts only as a rhetorical jumping off point for his own doctrines.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Gray

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

What did Babylonians believe about the soul? Hebrews were a kind of Canaanite to begin with.

Yeah exactly. That's why they had similar beliefs.  Remember Dives and Lazarus? Bosom of Abraham was for the more righteous the others stayed in Sheol

https://www.ancient.eu/article/701/ancient-mesopotamian-beliefs-in-the-afterlife/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosom_of_Abraham

What- I have to google it for you? 

 

 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Well the spirit isn't actually "begotten" in Mormonism - we always existed.

Things are a bit more muddled than that. The various tripartite models (here including Roberts, Pratt and the more Cartesian theologies popular in the 20th century) end up having the spirit created with a more essential "intelligence" that is uncreated. Those who more recently have looked at Nauvoo where the tripartite model either doesn't exist or is very, very vague, tend to favor a spirit as a fluid that is uncreated. This gets into all sorts of other complexities since the tripartite model becomes dominate around the same time as spirit birth becomes popular. Spirit birth isn't in Nauvoo in a clear unambiguous fashion but tends to arise after Joseph's death even though elements of it are in Nauvoo.

I think in contemporary Mormonism spirit birth is still accepted so the spirit is begotten although it's not clear what it means. (I don't think many, if anyone, thinks it'll be pregnant divine women on Kolob the way the Godmakers presents it but most assume it's something physical. I don't think most people really think through the implications of such a belief - but at minimum it either means we're equivocating over the term spirit or that birth physically changes a spirit that was already there in a more nebulous form.

3 hours ago, Gray said:

What did Babylonians believe about the soul? Hebrews were a kind of Canaanite to begin with.

A lot of the same problems we have with Israel and Canaan apply to Babylon. That is a paucity of texts with the ones that talk about such matters the most also being the most late. Fortunately some of the main texts are quite old. By and large the Babylonian view is roughly akin to what we'd call spirit prison. (Not that the Babylonians had duality to it - there wasn't an idea of punishment or reward just that the land of spirits was darker and less intense than real life - I'm just noting that how most Mormons conceive of spirit prison is analogous to how Babylonians conceived of the land of spirits) Spirits were seen roughly the same as folk traditions of ghosts you find in most cultures. (Which is also why I think we have to be careful with ancient Israel - even if many didn't have a formal developed theology of spirits and the afterlife they appear to have a conception of ghosts and the like we find most places)

I should note that a fairly popular scholarly view is that the reason the oldest texts in Babylon, Israel and Canaan don't discuss these matters is because such things were self evident. That is they didn't feel a need to develop a theology of spirits after death because it was obvious. That is they held to the almost universal conception of ghosts, spirits and so forth. Of course the nature of scholarship and publishing being what it is, there's plenty who argue against this as well.

Also, again to reemphasize, we should distinguish folk and phenomenological views of ghosts, spirits and the underworld from more philosophical or theological conceptions of spirits and their nature. That's why I objected originally to raising Plato.

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Spirit meaning breath or animating force. Not meaning an intangible version of you as a person.

Again that's a blurry distinction. I understand why this is raised. You see it raised relative to Babylon or even Greece (particularly in Aristotle's conception of life). However I think that for those of a less philosophical inclination such distinctions probably aren't understood or maintained. 

12 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I thought God was like a computer, in that Mormonism claims he is predictable in that if we do our part, he is bound to do his part. Sort of - if we tap the right keys, in the right order, the right thing happens on the screen. Or do you see God as unpredictable, random etc?

Nope. He's bound by covenants but that leaves open a whole heck of a lot of room for implementation. 

6 hours ago, RevTestament said:

Eccl 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

While tradition ascribes this to Solomon in his old age, most likely it was compiled sometime between 400 - 200 BC. So this would be a late theological development. 

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually it was Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, where quadratic equations were used already in the time of Abraham.  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00407-013-0122-4 .    https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Earliest-Methods-used-to-solve-Quadratic-Equation-FKH72J4KRYZS .

I meant India in more broad terms. I certainly don't mean to dismiss Babylon which is also very important even prior to the exile.

Edited April 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

. However Brigham Young certainly held to a physicalist view of soul in which the soul  could be destroyed and was just made out of parts like everything else. In that sense I'm not even sure the immortality of the soul, as conceived of in Greek thought through medieval thought is necessarily a part of Mormonism.

That's a VERY interesting insight when you apply it to the idea of how intelligences somehow become personal spirits and the idea of spirit matter, and perhaps the "conception" of spirit children from the raw material of perhaps intelligence?   B.Y. always took a really naturalistic look at everything and it seems that the idea that somehow the personal spirit is "organized" by our Mother and Father in Heaven out of two elements, intelligence and spirit matter, not unlike perhaps sperm and egg?

And so then the Sons of Perdition could be "dissolved" in "Outer Darkness"?

I can see a whole mythology there brewing.... using that word in a good sense as opposed to "it's just a myth".   I see anything in language as metaphorical anyway since we cannot ever get out of language to describe anything "as it is" since words are not things, and I think that the reification of any religious idea is on dangerous ground as far as attempting to make it logically justifiable.

Call it a "theory" if you want- it is still an interesting notion!!

I kinda like it.  It is a comforting idea that even spirit children are "organized" by Mother and Father even if the elements are eternal both in the past and future.

So maybe we could think of "Intelligence" as a kind of ether, even more "refined" than spirit matter,  filling the universe which is combined with spirit matter to form spirit bodies.

Why not? 

It's not like any of this is falsifiable anyway.... 

And then Father can say to the Sons of Perdition  "I brought you into this universe and I can take you out too!" 

But uh oh.

We don't want to make that stuff "substance" do we? 

Nevermind. 

It must be the old Catholic in me.......

 

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I thought God was like a computer, in that Mormonism claims he is predictable in that if we do our part, he is bound to do his part. Sort of - if we tap the right keys, in the right order, the right thing happens on the screen. Or do you see God as unpredictable, random etc?

He freely makes his own rules/covenants and then binds himself to them.  It is the idea of "self-determination".

Unlike us, if God decides to determine himself to "go on a diet" he ain't gonna eat chocolate cake.    He is "free" to decide to never do something or always do something else- but that does not limit his freedom because it was a free choice in the first place

It's kind of like NEVER going through a red light- it doesn't mean that you are physically unable to hit the gas, it is that you have accepted the rule that you personally will NEVER do so.  Trivial example, but it captures the idea pretty well I think.

On this view "freedom" is created not by being random but actually by acting predictably "on purpose".  If we would drive on the left side or right side and ignore traffic signals we would not have the freedom to get around on highways due to crashes every few feet.  This is called "positive freedom" philosophically.  Rules actually MAKE one "free"

That's why the orderliness and predictability of the universe has been seen as an argument for the existence of God and that the universe has a "purpose" since it does have regularity

So regularity and determinism is actually compatible with freedom in many senses and there are many "compatiblists" in philosophy who stress that very point.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

.............................................. That is they held to the almost universal conception of ghosts, spirits and so forth. Of course the nature of scholarship and publishing being what it is, there's plenty who argue against this as well.

Also, again to reemphasize, we should distinguish folk and phenomenological views of ghosts, spirits and the underworld from more philosophical or theological conceptions of spirits and their nature. ........................................

There is the biblical instance of King Saul’s infamous inquiry made to a dead Samuel the Prophet via an unnamed female medium/necromancer (“mistress of an ‘ob”) at ʿEn-Dor (I Sam 28:7), erroneously called a “witch” by some.  This was a classic case of necromancy (consultation with ghosts).  However, when the unnamed woman sees Samuel, she tells Saul that she sees “an ‘elohim rising from the earth” –  ‘Elohim being a classic plural Hebrew term for “God” which nowhere else is used for “ghost” (I Sam 28:13 = LXX Θεοὺς), and for that reason very obscure of meaning here, although Murray Harris defines it in this case as a “spiritual being.” (Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus [1992], 24, following Brown-Driver-Briggs).

In the Greco-Roman world these functions were performed by a psychagogue, meaning “soul-conductor (like Hermes), necromancer.”  Was Joseph Smith therefore a necromancer?  Some at least apparently considered him to be a medium (the conclusion of Joel Tiffany based on his interview with Martin Harris in Tiffany’s Monthly, Aug 1859, cited by T. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 158).  Joseph himself argued that the Priesthood was a medium by which one could discern spirits, providing the very type of phenomena with which we are concerned here in a variety of biblical and more recent instances: Moses and the Magicians of Egypt, the so-called Witch of Endor, Simon Magus, the French Prophets, the English Irvingites, etc.

We must not overlook he highly developed ancient Egyptian view of royal and private person divinization (Osirification), because we see something suspiciously similar at Ugarit -- with royal divinization rites (including ascension and theogamy) and ancestor worship.  G. del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit, 2^nd ed., trans. W. Watson (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014), 161-168.  Brant Gardner discusses “the older underpinnings of a clan-based ancestral cult" in the Bible (Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History [SLC: Kofford, 2015], 60 n23).

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

In the Greco-Roman world these functions were performed by a psychagogue, meaning “soul-conductor (like Hermes), necromancer.”  Was Joseph Smith therefore a necromancer?  Some at least apparently considered him to be a medium (the conclusion of Joel Tiffany based on his interview with Martin Harris in Tiffany’s Monthly, Aug 1859, cited by T. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 158).  Joseph himself argued that the Priesthood was a medium by which one could discern spirits, providing the very type of phenomena with which we are concerned here in a variety of biblical and more recent instances: Moses and the Magicians of Egypt, the so-called Witch of Endor, Simon Magus, the French Prophets, the English Irvingites, etc.

It's interesting how much of priesthood was tied to either recognizing & identifying spirits, casting out spirits, or via the ministering of angels the meeting of spirits. I've not yet read Jonathan Stapley's recent book (I have it in my Kindle app) but I'm hoping he touches on this. One of the key functions of sealing is unifying the dead with the living in a family. I'd argue that much of LDS cosmological conceptions of priesthood (both theoretical and practical) end up being this "soul conductor" function.

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We must not overlook he highly developed ancient Egyptian view of royal and private person divinization (Osirification), because we see something suspiciously similar at Ugarit -- with royal divinization rites (including ascension and theogamy) and ancestor worship.  G. del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit, 2^nd ed., trans. W. Watson (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014), 161-168.  Brant Gardner discusses “the older underpinnings of a clan-based ancestral cult" in the Bible (Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History [SLC: Kofford, 2015], 60 n23).

Yes, although one has to be careful too. I don't know much about Egyptian practice beyond what Nibley's written but I know many types of divinizations including those inspired by Egypt during the Roman heyday really don't bear much resemblance to Mormon conceptions.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

57 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

..........................................

Yes, although one has to be careful too. I don't know much about Egyptian practice beyond what Nibley's written but I know many types of divinizations including those inspired by Egypt during the Roman heyday really don't bear much resemblance to Mormon conceptions.

Oh, but they do:  Book of Mormon First & Second Death, along with the Lake of Fire are specifically ancient Egyptian (not found in the OT, and only in Rev in the NT).  We also only find the First Estate and Second Estate in ancient Egypt and in the Book of Abraham -- which also includes the very Egyptian notion of Creation from already extant material, and that stars are deities.  The Egyptian and Mormon notion of apotheosis is exactly the opposite of dark She'ol.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Things are a bit more muddled than that. The various tripartite models (here including Roberts, Pratt and the more Cartesian theologies popular in the 20th century) end up having the spirit created with a more essential "intelligence" that is uncreated. Those who more recently have looked at Nauvoo where the tripartite model either doesn't exist or is very, very vague, tend to favor a spirit as a fluid that is uncreated. This gets into all sorts of other complexities since the tripartite model becomes dominate around the same time as spirit birth becomes popular. Spirit birth isn't in Nauvoo in a clear unambiguous fashion but tends to arise after Joseph's death even though elements of it are in Nauvoo.

I think in contemporary Mormonism spirit birth is still accepted so the spirit is begotten although it's not clear what it means. (I don't think many, if anyone, thinks it'll be pregnant divine women on Kolob the way the Godmakers presents it but most assume it's something physical. I don't think most people really think through the implications of such a belief - but at minimum it either means we're equivocating over the term spirit or that birth physically changes a spirit that was already there in a more nebulous form....................................

One doesn't have to wait beyond 1833 (D&C 93:29) and the 1835 Book of Abraham 3:18-22 to find the basis for the tripartite model.  Joseph Smith himself explains that "Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning?  The intelligence of spirits had not beginning, neither will it have an end. . . . Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle."  (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 353-354)

As Joseph Fielding Smith explained:
"Some of our writers have endeavored to explain what an intelligence is, but to do so is futile, for we have never been given any insight into this matter beyond what the Lord has fragmentarily revealed. We know, however, that there is something called intelligence which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created nor made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual."  (Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:127)

We don't know what intelligence is composed of any more than we know what constitutes Dark Energy or Dark Matter.  All we really know is the spirit tabernacle which embodies an intelligence is made of refined matter, and our physical bodies of ordinary matter.  How all three can be glorified is beyond our current comprehension.

[clarkgoble]

43 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

One doesn't have to wait beyond 1833 (D&C 93:29) and the 1835 Book of Abraham 3:18-22 to find the basis for the tripartite model.  Joseph Smith himself explains that "Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning?  The intelligence of spirits had not beginning, neither will it have an end. . . . Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle."  (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 353-354)

In Nauvoo there wasn't a clear distinction made between intelligence and spirit. In most cases they are synonymous. We can appeal to a kind of distinction but it tends to be much more subtle and inconclusive. I've debated this with people who push the "it's all spirit" in Nauvoo view like Jonathan Stapley but I have to admit it's hard to argue for then as a clearly articulated distinction.

He's recently discussed this here: 

https://bycommonconsent.com/2009/04/15/tripartite-existentialism/

JFS and BRM more or less adopted Brigham Young's "intelligence is the building stuff" without buying into Pratt's intelligent atoms (more or less Leibniz' monads combined with Priestly's atoms). Both tended to push a "we don't know what intelligence is" but didn't really discuss often the use of intelligence as a synonym for spirit.

An older discussion is here: http://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/2009/04/what-joseph-believed-about-spirit-bodies/908/

I tend to favor a tripartite model but I'd be the first to admit we don't really have much trustworthy to say much.

Edited April 17, 2018 by clarkgoble