Lds Perspectives Podcast: After All We Can Do'

[Dan McClellan]

48 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks, this kind of a future is one that I can get behind and feel like I can positively contribute to.  I still haven’t picked up the first theological introductions books from Maxwell institute yet, but I’m planning to.  

So Joe Spencer authored the 1 Nephi volume, and I think he's a wonderful example of the kind of scholarship we could be doing. He published a great article a couple years ago in a mainstream Bible reception journal on how Isaiah is used in the Book of Mormon. You can find it here, if you'd like to see what kind of work he does:

https://relegere.org/relegere/article/view/707

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:

So Joe Spencer authored the 1 Nephi volume, and I think he's a wonderful example of the kind of scholarship we could be doing. He published a great article a couple years ago in a mainstream Bible reception journal on how Isaiah is used in the Book of Mormon. You can find it here, if you'd like to see what kind of work he does:

https://relegere.org/relegere/article/view/707

Thanks, I have his The Vision of All collection of Isaiah lectures on my shelf I just haven’t gotten to it yet.  A good reminder for me, needs to be on my reading priority sooner than later.  

[mfbukowski]

On 3/18/2020 at 10:40 AM, Dan McClellan said:

I recently spoke with Laura Harris Hales on her LDS Perspectives Podcast about some recent publications of mine, including a forthcoming article about 2 Nephi 25:23 and the concept of being saved by grace, "after all we can do." I'd love to hear what you think.

Also, it should go without saying, but everything I share in the interview is my own personal opinion and not that of my employer, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I do not speak for the Church. The research I talk about was done on personal time (though sparked by discussions at work), and the conclusions I reached are not official in any sense whatsoever.

https://ldsperspectives.com/2020/03/18/despite-all-we-can-do-with-daniel-o-mcclellan/?fbclid=IwAR1CJ4D4sK79crADORJE6X4I_liffEOuZCZIZ-uC01Gkc-M0RMF6RDzztG4

I made it!!

Thanks to covid19 I actually could make it through the full 60 minutes. 

The first half is great at giving one a context, for those who have not made a serious study of language and it's functions, or cognitive science.

In the second half, they finally get to subjects relevant to the title of the piece.  For those who are aware of, or immersed in linguistic analysis, or cognitive science, I would suggest you skip the first half hour.

On the other hand the first half is Sunday school worthy.  I know it was a challenge mixing those two cultures.

Dan's conclusion and "translation" into contemporary culture, after some very impressive research, is that the meaning of "after all we can do" is very close to the contemporary usage of "despite all we can do", which can be seen as a dramatic change in meaning, and which strips away the time implications of the word "after".

That puts grace at the forefront of the entire concept, instead of making it happen "after", in time, we have done all the ordinances etcetera.

That one change in wording can make a huge difference in the understanding of the atonement.

Brilliant stuff, thanks Dan.

" We are saved by grace despite all we can do"

What a difference one word can make!

Edited March 21, 2020 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 3/19/2020 at 9:33 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

I am arguing for a fully reciprocal, intertextual reading, rather than your exclusionary "despite all we can do."  We need only substitute your "despite" in the various parallel phrases to see how unworkable it is.  In addition, "despite" doesn't seem to comport with what we find in LDS Church publications

Oops.

There I go again, shooting off my mouth before reading the rest of the thread.

☹️

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Do you think as a culture that we can successfully get to the point where we're focused more on the text and less on historicity?

If the church is to survive it is absolutely essential.

But the first challenge is teaching the general membership what text IS, as a human construction.

That idea of a Human Construction, with a Human God as Father of the Word, through which everything as we know it was created, fits perfectly with our theology but not in Sunday School.

It's all veiled right there in John 1.

[mfbukowski]

Error, duplicate 

Edited March 21, 2020 by mfbukowski

[hope_for_things]

8 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

If the church is to survive it is absolutely essential.

But the first challenge is teaching the general membership what text IS, as a human construction.

That idea of a Human Construction, with a Human God as Father of the Word, through which everything as we know it was created, fits perfectly with our theology but not in Sunday School.

It's all veiled right there in John 1.

Agreed.  Sometimes it feels like a very heavy lift, but then some changes happen rapidly in our world.  I gave a pretty progressive SS lesson as a substitute late last year on a NT lesson and I openly shared scholarly information about authorship of books of scripture and briefly shared my paradigm for reading scripture from a historical perspective on one hand and a devotional perspective on the other and how the two methods can inform each other.  
 

I’ve never had more positive comments and conversations from a lesson before.  It’s like many people are yearning for these approaches.  I’m hopeful for what the future holds.  

[teddyaware]

On 3/18/2020 at 1:40 PM, Dan McClellan said:

I recently spoke with Laura Harris Hales on her LDS Perspectives Podcast about some recent publications of mine, including a forthcoming article about 2 Nephi 25:23 and the concept of being saved by grace, "after all we can do." I'd love to hear what you think.

Also, it should go without saying, but everything I share in the interview is my own personal opinion and not that of my employer, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I do not speak for the Church. The research I talk about was done on personal time (though sparked by discussions at work), and the conclusions I reached are not official in any sense whatsoever.

https://ldsperspectives.com/2020/03/18/despite-all-we-can-do-with-daniel-o-mcclellan/?fbclid=IwAR1CJ4D4sK79crADORJE6X4I_liffEOuZCZIZ-uC01Gkc-M0RMF6RDzztG4

I’ve always understood the standard interpretation of 2 Nephi 25:23 to be doctrinally convenient for the proponents of salvation by works but that that that explanation was, in reality, incorrect. The fact is that in order for the formerly standard interpretation to be correct Nephi and his brethren would have labored diligently because they they believed divine grace could save only after accomplishing all they could humanly do first, but that’s not what the verse says. What the verse actually says is they were laboring diligently in order to persuade their brethren that it was absolutely imperative for them to first have faith in Christ and obtain a remission of their sins through the reconciling power of His atonement or all their diligent labors to obtain righteousness would be in vain. 

Edited March 21, 2020 by teddyaware

[Dan McClellan]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I made it!!

Thanks to covid17 I actually could make it through the full 60 minutes. 

The first half is great at giving one a context, for those who have not made a serious study of language and it's functions, or cognitive science.

In the second half, they finally get to subjects relevant to the title of the piece.  For those who are aware of, or immersed in linguistic analysis, or cognitive science, I would suggest you skip the first half hour.

On the other hand the first half is Sunday school worthy.  I know it was a challenge mixing those two cultures.

Dan's conclusion and "translation" into contemporary culture, after some very impressive research, is that the meaning of "after all we can do" is very close to the contemporary usage of "despite all we can do", which can be seen as a dramatic change in meaning, and which strips away the time implications of the word "after".

That puts grace at the forefront of the entire concept, instead of making it happen "after", in time, we have done all the ordinances etcetera.

That one change in wording can make a huge difference in the understanding of the atonement.

Brilliant stuff, thanks Dan.

" We are saved by grace despite all we can do"

What a difference one word can make!

Thanks for the kind review! There will be a lot more detail available once the paper comes out, but I hope I did it some justice in the interview.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Agreed.  Sometimes it feels like a very heavy lift, but then some changes happen rapidly in our world.  I gave a pretty progressive SS lesson as a substitute late last year on a NT lesson and I openly shared scholarly information about authorship of books of scripture and briefly shared my paradigm for reading scripture from a historical perspective on one hand and a devotional perspective on the other and how the two methods can inform each other.  
 

I’ve never had more positive comments and conversations from a lesson before.  It’s like many people are yearning for these approaches.  I’m hopeful for what the future holds.  

Wow.

I'm impressed!  I was very gratified in listening to Dan's podcast where at one point just in passing and without explanation he speaks about the problem of - my words- getting meaning out of someone else's head and getting it into ours, and if I got it right, he says in that context "It's all in our heads", which reminded me of our past discussions.

The idea that language "represents" something OUTSIDE "our heads" is what has to go.

It is all about the vast problem of getting what is in my head into someone else's, and vice versa.

Even science starts with something "in someone's head" and is about getting that out "into" the head of others.

Galileo's first vision of the rings of Saturn in that sense parallels Joseph's first vision.  All the rest is getting out The Word into someone else's head.     Each of us, either looking through a telescope, or seeking God in deep prayer, has to have a similar experience- either on our knees or looking through a telescope in this context- to "get it into our heads" in one way or another.

I think it might have been Gilbert Ryle - maybe not- who loved to use the analogy of astronomy in discussing what science and all human knowledge is.  

Does astronomy study "reality"?  After all - it is a "hard" science, right?  Fully based on "evidence"?

But what counts as "evidence"?  A few photons of light here and there that are, in human parlance, thousands or millions of years old, sometimes minutes old, but never "things as they now are"

And to make it more confusing, what he sees is an interpretation, made through the judgments of the astronomy culture, learned after years of study of that culture.  And some of those photons may be millions of years old, and some a few seconds old- but none of them are "things as they are"

So to apply that to what is happening on your desk right now, the only difference is one of time, and not a qualitative one, in looking around your room and seeing "objects" which are constituted by your interpretations of photons just as much as the cultural perceptions of astronomy are constituted by the astronomical culture.   Again to quote Rorty - since no one reads siggys- see my siggy for references and more....

Quote

  Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.

As Rorty says- of course there are causes for our experiences- but we cannot know what those are unaided by our human perceptions and human brains.  And that is why cognitive science is so important in at least putting out that message in a way even scientists will understand.

"Now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face".

Glad I found this church by the "grace" of God, "despite" my own pride. 

I had the philosophy but no wisdom! 

 

[hope_for_things]

On 3/21/2020 at 3:52 PM, mfbukowski said:

Wow.

I'm impressed!  I was very gratified in listening to Dan's podcast where at one point just in passing and without explanation he speaks about the problem of - my words- getting meaning out of someone else's head and getting it into ours, and if I got it right, he says in that context "It's all in our heads", which reminded me of our past discussions.

The idea that language "represents" something OUTSIDE "our heads" is what has to go.

It is all about the vast problem of getting what is in my head into someone else's, and vice versa.

Even science starts with something "in someone's head" and is about getting that out "into" the head of others.

Galileo's first vision of the rings of Saturn in that sense parallels Joseph's first vision.  All the rest is getting out The Word into someone else's head.     Each of us, either looking through a telescope, or seeking God in deep prayer, has to have a similar experience- either on our knees or looking through a telescope in this context- to "get it into our heads" in one way or another.

I think it might have been Gilbert Ryle - maybe not- who loved to use the analogy of astronomy in discussing what science and all human knowledge is.  

Does astronomy study "reality"?  After all - it is a "hard" science, right?  Fully based on "evidence"?

But what counts as "evidence"?  A few photons of light here and there that are, in human parlance, thousands or millions of years old, sometimes minutes old, but never "things as they now are"

And to make it more confusing, what he sees is an interpretation, made through the judgments of the astronomy culture, learned after years of study of that culture.  And some of those photons may be millions of years old, and some a few seconds old- but none of them are "things as they are"

So to apply that to what is happening on your desk right now, the only difference is one of time, and not a qualitative one, in looking around your room and seeing "objects" which are constituted by your interpretations of photons just as much as the cultural perceptions of astronomy are constituted by the astronomical culture.   Again to quote Rorty - since no one reads siggys- see my siggy for references and more....

As Rorty says- of course there are causes for our experiences- but we cannot know what those are unaided by our human perceptions and human brains.  And that is why cognitive science is so important in at least putting out that message in a way even scientists will understand.

"Now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face".

Glad I found this church by the "grace" of God, "despite" my own pride. 

I had the philosophy but no wisdom! 

These are the kinds of ideas I'm still wrestling with, when it comes to much weight I'm willing to give certain ideas that I know have strong evidence to support them.  One thing this brings to mind is this idea of everything being all in our heads.  How much of what we experience is because we as humans are meaning making machines.  Even in the hard sciences, there is a wrestle with concepts like whether or not math was discovered by humans, or invented.  

I listened to a podcast with Brian Greene, who I really like, who's promoting his new book that I'm looking forward to reading.  He touches on some of these ideas and I really enjoyed the interview.  

https://radiowest.kuer.org/post/brian-greene-end-time

Another idea that your post got me thinking about ties back into another podcast I listened to yesterday.  It was with Steven Harper and they were discussing the First Vision.  Steven is one of these church scholars who really perplexes me.  He clearly is well researched and engaged in the scholarship, and is a trained historian educationally, but then he ends up saying some things that completely don't sound like a scholarly historian to me.  On the other hand, since he's engaging with outside scholars like Ann Taves, I can't completely fault him because he's clearly maintaining a respectful and engaging relationship with them.  

https://faithmatters.org/memory-and-the-first-vision-steven-c-harper/

On his discussions about memory, he maintains that the variations in the different First Vision narratives are to be expected, which I agree to some extent, but then in this podcast he makes a statement where he says that they are "all true".  Every account of the FV is true.  And in this context I believe he's talking about subjective truth, rather than factual historical truth, which unfortunately its hard to tell with him because he seems to cross over back and forth into these different realms quite often which is frustrating to me. 

I essentially would agree with his statement that all the FV narratives are "true" if he's talking about subjective personal experience truth.  In that sense, every religious experience that anyone has is "true" and this has nothing to do with Mormon truth claims.  This statement, if he believes it as it sounded to me like he was stating it, essentially undermines the Mormon exceptionalism and exclusive authority truth claims that the religion promotes.  

But the problem is that Mr. Harper will make a statement about about truth which seems compatible with philosophical truth definitions, but then in the next breath he will talk about historical accuracy from a source criticism perspective and use the "evidence" to support his telling of the narratives.  These are two different things completely and he seems to conflate them in ways that I find irresponsible and confusing.  And if they are confusing to me, I can't imagine how confusing he sounds to your typical orthodox member of the church who listens to some talk he gives.  I imagine they couldn't follow his train of thought at all.  

At the end of the day, I still think there is a great chasm of difference between what scientific truths have been discovered, and the creative religious imagination of a farm boy in 19th century upstate NY.  I wouldn't put the two in the same ball park.  Someone's personal visionary experience, my dream I had last night, the thoughts I had in the shower this morning.  Some ideas that come to us may have more merit than others, but that doesn't make them ideas that hold up to scientific scrutiny.  

Many of the ideas about religion when it comes to God or the afterlife can't be proven or disproven, they are non-verifiable, so what merit do they have when it comes to describing any kind of reality?  They may have purchase when it comes to how they help people cope with life.  So what if I came up with a completely new religion, not based on any tradition from the past, something completely creative and uniquely new, and it was so compelling and effective at helping people cope with the challenges of day to day life, that I'm able to get a large number of followers quite quickly.  Would my new religion be objectively more "true" than Mormonism or Buddhism or Hinduism?  I don't think so.  Would it be pragmatically more true?  Possibly, yes, you could make a utilitarian argument for it being more true, especially if I was able to grow the religion. 

But none of that would make this new religion and its claims about things that are beyond our understanding scientifically, a more accurate description of things that we can't prove or disprove.  It would merely mean that this new religion somehow captured the imagination of other humans and was effective in perpetuating itself forward.  

[Stargazer]

In his recent book "Golden Answers: Why We Need the Book of Mormon" John Bytheway addresses 2 Ne. 25:23. It's in the chapter entitled "The No-Gaps Atonement of Jesus Christ".  

I've heard his discussion about the "after all we can do" phrase before, so it wasn't new to me, but he's basically saying that nothing we can do can save us, but we have to do "all we can do" nonetheless. In other words, nothing we can do will merit our salvation, and there is no gap.

As for the "after all we can do", after we've done everything we can, we are still fully reliant upon the merits of Christ.

"And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain..." Alma 24:11

So what is this "all we can do"?  The only thing we can do is have faith in Him who is mighty to save, and repent. And after that, it is ONLY Christ who saves us.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Stargazer

[Tacenda]

Listened to a podcast the other day, went back and caught more of it, it was with a woman coming out of the FLDS polygamist group and who is now an EV, I believe. The host and her were explaining more what the below scripture, Ephesians 2:8-10 meant. The audience it was directed to were a body of believers of Christ. And the following scriptures say, that once you are the believer, then prove that belief. Not do good works to be saved. I think that's what most are saying on this thread anyway, just felt like putting in my sliver of thought. 

Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

2 King James (KJV) 8:26

8 If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

 

Isaiah 57:11-13

11 Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lied and failed to remember Me or take this to heart? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me? 12 I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not profit you. 13 When you cry out, let your companies of idols deliver you! Yet the wind will carry off all of them, a breath will take them away. But he who seeks refuge in Me will inherit the land and possess My holy mountain.”…

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

These are the kinds of ideas I'm still wrestling with, when it comes to much weight I'm willing to give certain ideas that I know have strong evidence to support them.  One thing this brings to mind is this idea of everything being all in our heads.  How much of what we experience is because we as humans are meaning making machines.  Even in the hard sciences, there is a wrestle with concepts like whether or not math was discovered by humans, or invented.  

I listened to a podcast with Brian Greene, who I really like, who's promoting his new book that I'm looking forward to reading.  He touches on some of these ideas and I really enjoyed the interview.  

https://radiowest.kuer.org/post/brian-greene-end-time

Another idea that your post got me thinking about ties back into another podcast I listened to yesterday.  It was with Steven Harper and they were discussing the First Vision.  Steven is one of these church scholars who really perplexes me.  He clearly is well researched and engaged in the scholarship, and is a trained historian educationally, but then he ends up saying some things that completely don't sound like a scholarly historian to me.  On the other hand, since he's engaging with outside scholars like Ann Taves, I can't completely fault him because he's clearly maintaining a respectful and engaging relationship with them.  

https://faithmatters.org/memory-and-the-first-vision-steven-c-harper/

On his discussions about memory, he maintains that the variations in the different First Vision narratives are to be expected, which I agree to some extent, but then in this podcast he makes a statement where he says that they are "all true".  Every account of the FV is true.  And in this context I believe he's talking about subjective truth, rather than factual historical truth, which unfortunately its hard to tell with him because he seems to cross over back and forth into these different realms quite often which is frustrating to me. 

I essentially would agree with his statement that all the FV narratives are "true" if he's talking about subjective personal experience truth.  In that sense, every religious experience that anyone has is "true" and this has nothing to do with Mormon truth claims.  This statement, if he believes it as it sounded to me like he was stating it, essentially undermines the Mormon exceptionalism and exclusive authority truth claims that the religion promotes.  

But the problem is that Mr. Harper will make a statement about about truth which seems compatible with philosophical truth definitions, but then in the next breath he will talk about historical accuracy from a source criticism perspective and use the "evidence" to support his telling of the narratives.  These are two different things completely and he seems to conflate them in ways that I find irresponsible and confusing.  And if they are confusing to me, I can't imagine how confusing he sounds to your typical orthodox member of the church who listens to some talk he gives.  I imagine they couldn't follow his train of thought at all.  

At the end of the day, I still think there is a great chasm of difference between what scientific truths have been discovered, and the creative religious imagination of a farm boy in 19th century upstate NY.  I wouldn't put the two in the same ball park.  Someone's personal visionary experience, my dream I had last night, the thoughts I had in the shower this morning.  Some ideas that come to us may have more merit than others, but that doesn't make them ideas that hold up to scientific scrutiny.  

Many of the ideas about religion when it comes to God or the afterlife can't be proven or disproven, they are non-verifiable, so what merit do they have when it comes to describing any kind of reality?  They may have purchase when it comes to how they help people cope with life.  So what if I came up with a completely new religion, not based on any tradition from the past, something completely creative and uniquely new, and it was so compelling and effective at helping people cope with the challenges of day to day life, that I'm able to get a large number of followers quite quickly.  Would my new religion be objectively more "true" than Mormonism or Buddhism or Hinduism?  I don't think so.  Would it be pragmatically more true?  Possibly, yes, you could make a utilitarian argument for it being more true, especially if I was able to grow the religion. 

But none of that would make this new religion and its claims about things that are beyond our understanding scientifically, a more accurate description of things that we can't prove or disprove.  It would merely mean that this new religion somehow captured the imagination of other humans and was effective in perpetuating itself forward.  

Thanks for the reply.

You know me. I tend to go for the bottom line.

It appears to me that you keep begging the same question, which to me misses a central point.  

We cannot know anything outside of human perception.

Everything we know was either part of my personal human perception or someone else's perception conveyed to me by language.

In short it's all either what's "in MY head" or hearsay.

As Rorty says below and which I keep repeating, of course there is an outside world. But everything and I mean everything we know about it is because of our human perception.

You speak of objective versus subjective observation, but yet again I raise an important point.

What you call "objective" is an aggregate of many "subjective" experiences, upon which we all agree because language itself has codified it. You can even find it in Genesis.

"God called the light day and the dark night." God is the Word who organized reality AS WE KNOW IT through.... words!

We all have a common experience of what we call light. We all have a common experience of what we called Dark. Because we have words for these experiences, all defined by that particular experience which we share, the "existence" of light and dark becomes codified.

We learn our colors as children. "This experience is called red. That experience is called Green."

And so it is. If what I see as red you see as green we wouldn't know it. We have learned that our raw experience of that color is called "red", and that correspondence between the experiences and the words, has been codified by the words!

Our "subjective" experiences are codified by words into the "objective" because we all agree on the experience being matched with the word BECAUSE WE LEARNED THE WORD THAT WAY, not necessarily because the experience is the same.

It might be the same or it might not be but we cannot know for sure if my experience is the same as yours.  

And this is not me making up this stuff. It is what we find in most of philosophy literary criticism and yes even physics.

Think of Heisenberg! Think of what many physicists are now saying about how observation itself affects the results of experiments.

You say this above:

"It would merely mean that this new religion somehow captured the imagination of other humans and was effective in perpetuating itself forward."

Scratch out the word religion there add insert the word science, and you have a pretty good description of what Kuhn would call "a paradigm."

Your description above is also pretty good definition of the original definition of the word "meme" was.

Like an important Gene it perpetuated perpetuated an idea which was useful and productive.

So my slogan for today is

" Observation which we call objective can only logically be seen as an aggregate of observations we call subjective."

I hereby plant that slogan for today and wait to see if it produces fruit.

 

[InCognitus]

On 3/18/2020 at 10:40 AM, Dan McClellan said:

I recently spoke with Laura Harris Hales on her LDS Perspectives Podcast about some recent publications of mine, including a forthcoming article about 2 Nephi 25:23 and the concept of being saved by grace, "after all we can do." I'd love to hear what you think.

Also, it should go without saying, but everything I share in the interview is my own personal opinion and not that of my employer, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I do not speak for the Church. The research I talk about was done on personal time (though sparked by discussions at work), and the conclusions I reached are not official in any sense whatsoever.

https://ldsperspectives.com/2020/03/18/despite-all-we-can-do-with-daniel-o-mcclellan/?fbclid=IwAR1CJ4D4sK79crADORJE6X4I_liffEOuZCZIZ-uC01Gkc-M0RMF6RDzztG4

I never got back to this thread to post my thoughts, so I hope nobody minds if I resurrect this discussion after a few weeks.

I was going for a walk when I listened to your podcast, and as I heard Laura introduce you it was probably the most attentive I have ever been during any introduction:   Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, Second Temple Judaism, Early Israelite Religion, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.  Each and every one of those topics is on my fantasy wish list of areas that I would like to go back to study at a university if I had the time, money, and discipline to do so.   I kept thinking, this guy has the perfect background.  And then when you got to the part where you said you went to a Taco Bell for dinner while in Iowa, I let out a loud “Yes!”  Fortunately nobody was around me at the time except for some cows eating in a field, but they were looking at me kind of funny.  Taco Bell is my fast food place of choice when I am working at a client’s office across town.  So you hit everything right as far as I’m concerned!

I’ve always been intrigued by the way that scripture makes use of other scripture.  It happens across all of our standard works, but the use of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are especially interesting to me, particularly in Jewish studies and trying to understand how interpretations have changed.   So I especially liked your treatment on Psalm 82.  But one can’t look at Old Testament quotations in the New Testament without also getting into the Septuagint and the differences in wording lead you to textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, so one thing leads to another.  Most of the older scholarly introductions to the Septuagint criticize the wording differences as a bad translation, but of course that’s an antiquated view.   I’ve had discussions with several people of the Jewish faith and some Christians that still hold that opinion.  And this brings me to my question…

A few weeks ago I was going to ask you for some ideas on available sources related to textual criticism and the Hebrew source texts for the Septuagint translation, or for other sources on textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible in general (other than Emanuel Tov’s book that I list below).  And I still am asking that question, but I’ve answered some of it myself.  In the last few weeks I did some digging and I found a few things.   I have Emanuel Tov’s, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (second revised English edition, 1992, 2001), and I found some of what I was looking for in his footnotes to his discussion of the Septuagint on page 115.  I found:

F.M. Cross, “A New Qumran Biblical Fragment Related to the Original Hebrew Underlying the Septuagint,”  BASOR 132 (1953) 

And:

Emanuel Tov, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Understanding of the LXX,” in G.J. Brooke and B. Lindars, eds., Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings (Manchester, 1990)

And I stumbled on to a couple of others not found in his footnotes:

Emanuel Tov, “The Qumran Hebrew Texts and the Septuagint – An Overview”

Emanuel Tov, “Three Strange Books of the LXX:  1 Kings, Esther, and Daniel Compared with Similar Rewritten Compositions from Qumran and Elsewhere”.

Do you have any recommendations for other sources on textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible or about the source texts for the Septuagint?   Or could you offer any opinion you may have on the sources I listed here?  Obviously most of the sources I listed come from Emanuel Tov, and the one from F.M. Cross is pretty old for this field of study, so I’d like to get a broader view on the topic, and maybe even an LDS perspective (no pun intended to the podcast name).

[InCognitus]

On 3/20/2020 at 1:59 PM, hope_for_things said:

2.  With so much of the BoM language being tied directly to the New Testament, I'm hoping that a more in depth analysis of the BoM will actually help people learn to appreciate the NT more, and especially how the NT was being used and understood in the 19th century.  Are you aware of any scholarly treatments that look at the similarities between the BoM and the NT as a way of interpreting meaning in BoM passages?  

I meant to get back to respond to your question too...  I was thinking about another one of the podcasts in the series:

Episode 92 Intertextuality in the Book of Mormon with Nick Frederick

Nick Frederick gets into the relationship between John's writings in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon translation. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by InCognitus

[Dan McClellan]

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

I never got back to this thread to post my thoughts, so I hope nobody minds if I resurrect this discussion after a few weeks.

I was going for a walk when I listened to your podcast, and as I heard Laura introduce you it was probably the most attentive I have ever been during any introduction:   Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, Second Temple Judaism, Early Israelite Religion, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.  Each and every one of those topics is on my fantasy wish list of areas that I would like to go back to study at a university if I had the time, money, and discipline to do so.   I kept thinking, this guy has the perfect background.  And then when you got to the part where you said you went to a Taco Bell for dinner while in Iowa, I let out a loud “Yes!”  Fortunately nobody was around me at the time except for some cows eating in a field, but they were looking at me kind of funny.  Taco Bell is my fast food place of choice when I am working at a client’s office across town.  So you hit everything right as far as I’m concerned!

I’ve always been intrigued by the way that scripture makes use of other scripture.  It happens across all of our standard works, but the use of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are especially interesting to me, particularly in Jewish studies and trying to understand how interpretations have changed.   So I especially liked your treatment on Psalm 82.  But one can’t look at Old Testament quotations in the New Testament without also getting into the Septuagint and the differences in wording lead you to textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, so one thing leads to another.  Most of the older scholarly introductions to the Septuagint criticize the wording differences as a bad translation, but of course that’s an antiquated view.   I’ve had discussions with several people of the Jewish faith and some Christians that still hold that opinion.  And this brings me to my question…

A few weeks ago I was going to ask you for some ideas on available sources related to textual criticism and the Hebrew source texts for the Septuagint translation, or for other sources on textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible in general (other than Emanuel Tov’s book that I list below).  And I still am asking that question, but I’ve answered some of it myself.  In the last few weeks I did some digging and I found a few things.   I have Emanuel Tov’s, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (second revised English edition, 1992, 2001), and I found some of what I was looking for in his footnotes to his discussion of the Septuagint on page 115.  I found:

F.M. Cross, “A New Qumran Biblical Fragment Related to the Original Hebrew Underlying the Septuagint,”  BASOR 132 (1953) 

And:

Emanuel Tov, “The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Understanding of the LXX,” in G.J. Brooke and B. Lindars, eds., Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings (Manchester, 1990)

And I stumbled on to a couple of others not found in his footnotes:

Emanuel Tov, “The Qumran Hebrew Texts and the Septuagint – An Overview”

Emanuel Tov, “Three Strange Books of the LXX:  1 Kings, Esther, and Daniel Compared with Similar Rewritten Compositions from Qumran and Elsewhere”.

Do you have any recommendations for other sources on textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible or about the source texts for the Septuagint?   Or could you offer any opinion you may have on the sources I listed here?  Obviously most of the sources I listed come from Emanuel Tov, and the one from F.M. Cross is pretty old for this field of study, so I’d like to get a broader view on the topic, and maybe even an LDS perspective (no pun intended to the podcast name).

Thanks for commenting! Glad to hear you share a lot of the same interests as me! My wife hates Taco Bell, so I really only get it when I'm traveling and happen to be stateside. When I head to the South Pacific for work, I always have to lay over on Oahu, and my restaurant of choice is a Buffalo Wild Wings right by the hotel I usually stay at. 

Tov has put most of his stuff online at his website: http://www.emanueltov.info/publications.html That's great stuff, but there's a lot more. My own master's thesis from Oxford deals a lot with textual criticism and the Septuagint. You can find it here: https://www.academia.edu/377946/Anti-Anthropomorphism_and_the_Vorlage_of_LXX_Exodus Another great book is Anneli Aejmelaeus' On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators (https://www.amazon.com/Trail-Septuagint-Translators-Collected-Contributions/dp/9042919396/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=). It's quite technical, but the goal is to use translation theory to see what can be reconstructed about the Hebrew source texts. Another fascinating book that's more about the role of the Septuagint in the development of early Christianity is When God Spoke Greek, by T. Michael Law (https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Spoke-Greek-Septuagint/dp/0199781729/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=), who supervised my Oxford thesis I linked to above. No study of the Septuagint is complete without that context. Most of the other scholarship that springs to mind deals with very specific questions about the sources for specific passages, but if you have some interest in particular passages, I might be able to point you in a good direction.

[hope_for_things]

18 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I meant to get back to respond to your question too...  I was thinking about another one of the podcasts in the series:

Episode 92 Intertextuality in the Book of Mormon with Nick Frederick

Nick Frederick gets into the relationship between John's writings in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon translation. 

Yes, thanks, that was a good episode!  

[Stargazer]

18 hours ago, Dan McClellan said:

Thanks for commenting! Glad to hear you share a lot of the same interests as me! My wife hates Taco Bell, so I really only get it when I'm traveling and happen to be stateside.

My comment here is completely off-topic, but since Taco Bell is brought up...

Taco Bell has always been a favorite with me. I admit that it isn't really Mexican food, but so what? I still love it.  Taco Bell hot sauce truly rocks: tasty and just spicy enough.

And the nearest Taco Bell to me is in the middle of downtown Brighton, UK, which is hard to get to. So hard that I've only been there once in three years.  When I go back to the States for a visit, Taco Bell is one of the first places I go to eat.

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

My comment here is completely off-topic, but since Taco Bell is brought up...

Taco Bell has always been a favorite with me. I admit that it isn't really Mexican food, but so what? I still love it.  Taco Bell hot sauce truly rocks: tasty and just spicy enough.

And the nearest Taco Bell to me is in the middle of downtown Brighton, UK, which is hard to get to. So hard that I've only been there once in three years.  When I go back to the States for a visit, Taco Bell is one of the first places I go to eat.

Continuing off topic...their tomatoes never seem ripe enough for me, so not my favorite.  Was a mainstay of my husband's when we were in Canada though.

[Stargazer]

18 minutes ago, Calm said:

Continuing off topic...their tomatoes never seem ripe enough for me, so not my favorite.  Was a mainstay of my husband's when we were in Canada though.

Nobody's tomatoes are ever ripe enough, sadly. They are always picked too early so they can "ripen" in transit, and almost always end up being red and nevertheless unripe.

The best tomatoes come out of one's own garden.  

[Dan McClellan]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

My comment here is completely off-topic, but since Taco Bell is brought up...

Taco Bell has always been a favorite with me. I admit that it isn't really Mexican food, but so what? I still love it.  Taco Bell hot sauce truly rocks: tasty and just spicy enough.

And the nearest Taco Bell to me is in the middle of downtown Brighton, UK, which is hard to get to. So hard that I've only been there once in three years.  When I go back to the States for a visit, Taco Bell is one of the first places I go to eat.

Taco Bell was where I went for my first meal on the way home from the airport when I got off my mission. When I did a master's degree at Oxford the closest we had was Mission Burrito, which was basically a bland version of Cafe Rio. I didn't even know there were Taco Bells in the UK. 

[Maureen]

21 hours ago, Stargazer said:

My comment here is completely off-topic, but since Taco Bell is brought up...

Taco Bell has always been a favorite with me. I admit that it isn't really Mexican food, but so what? I still love it.  Taco Bell hot sauce truly rocks: tasty and just spicy enough.

And the nearest Taco Bell to me is in the middle of downtown Brighton, UK, which is hard to get to. So hard that I've only been there once in three years.  When I go back to the States for a visit, Taco Bell is one of the first places I go to eat.

Around 5 or 6 years, a lot of the Taco Bells in my city were closing and I still don't know why. The only Taco Bells that I know exist here are about 5 minutes south of my house and downtown (20 to 30 minutes north of my house). I consider I'm lucky that I still can go to one considering I thought they were leaving for good all those years ago.

M.