Questions on Margaret Barker

[boblloyd91]

Hello all! I watched the recent temple video which featured Barker. From what I have heard she has published material that is very favorable to the truth claims of the church. I know a little  bit about her but, I want to know more. I was wondering  if anyone could answer a few questions for me?

1. What is the best place to start in reading her material? What works are your favorite?

2. Do you think she will join the church, or are there things she disagrees with?

3. I promise that I'm asking this in good faith, but while studying a bit on Barker I ran across this post on an anti Mormon blog, here is the link https://www.google.com/amp/s/beggarsbread.org/2020/02/16/debunking-mormon-appeals-to-margaret-barker/amp/

I was wondering what some thoughts are of those attacks on Barker?

4. I quite like NT Wright, and saw someone post on another blog that he was a fan of her work, though I haven't been able to find any further information. Does anyone know anything more about this?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, boblloyd91 said:

Hello all! I watched the recent temple video which featured Barker. From what I have heard she has published material that is very favorable to the truth claims of the church. I know a little  bit about her but, I want to know more. I was wondering  if anyone could answer a few questions for me?

1. What is the best place to start in reading her material? What works are your favorite?

2. Do you think she will join the church, or are there things she disagrees with?

3. I promise that I'm asking this in good faith, but while studying a bit on Barker I ran across this post on an anti Mormon blog, here is the link https://www.google.com/amp/s/beggarsbread.org/2020/02/16/debunking-mormon-appeals-to-margaret-barker/amp/

I was wondering what some thoughts are of those attacks on Barker?

4. I quite like NT Wright, and saw someone post on another blog that he was a fan of her work, though I haven't been able to find any further information. Does anyone know anything more about this?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

I've enjoyed reading her thoughts on Mormonism:

• Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion
• Margaret Barker Transcript from The Worlds of Joseph Smith Conference

[stemelbow]

Ping @Kevin Christensen and I'm sure you'll get plenty of material to dig through.

[Bob Crockett]

It is a profound embarrassment that LDS scholars find appeal to her particular theology about post-exilic worship.  In my view, if she's correct, then there is really no God at all.  Her views conflict with LDS instructional manuals, but BYU scholars just think she's the greatest. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[Kevin Christensen]

As far as starting, if you are a Nibleyophile, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God.  That background helped me.   If not, Temple Theology: An Introduction, which a 100 page summary of her approach. 

As far as joining the church, she has told LDS students in her Summer School classes that she thinks she does more good where she is.  

And critics,  TT basically says she's not orthodox scholarship, based on the way he was trained.  A paradigm is a "group licensed way of seeing'.   John Gee has talked about how in the Universities, students are expected to convert to the "historical critical method, "expecting that after only two weeks, all our doctral students would assent to its assumptions and methods."  (Gee, RBBM 6/1, 59, notes 23.)  Barker went through this indoctrination at Cambridge but was not converted.   She talks about this in the opening panel discussion here:

http://www.templestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MormonismAndTheTemple.pdf

And she talks about being an independent scholar here:

Quote

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. 

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

At one point, I remember reading TT saying, "No one I know takes her seriously," which is another way of saying that he does not know Rowan Williams, who had been the Archbishop of Canterbury when he awarded Barker her doctrate, nor does he know His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox church, who wrote the introduction to her book on Creation.  Barker understands how paradigms work, and that her work offers an alternate paradigm.

Quote

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.

She has written that a new paradigm should not be tested by whether it agrees with the previous paradigm, but for how well it accounts for the data.

As far as Rob Bowman, again, he's basically charging that she does not teach the orthodoxy that he adheres to.  For instance Bowman says,

Quote

There are roughly a thousand statements in the Old Testament equating Yahweh with Elohim in a variety of ways: using the compound name “Yahweh Elohim,” affirming “Yahweh is Elohim,” referring to Yahweh as “our/my/your/his/their Elohim” or “Yahweh the Elohim of Israel,” and so on. Not only are there many such statements in the OT, but they are spread throughout the OT. 

Notice that his approach completely glosses over what she says in The Great Angel, that the Bible distinguishes between the divine sons of El Elyon (God Most High) and the human sons of Yahweh.  She says that since Yahweh is one of the sons of El Elyon (see DSS version of Deuteronomy 32:8-), this distinction must have originated from a time when El Elyon and Yahweh were seen as distinct, and she traces that through a wide spread set of texts.  The proof texts that Bowman cites don't account for her arguments, and her arguments, that the Second Isaiah fused El Elyon and Yahweh, and that a school agreeing with him continued to edit texts, accounts for his proof texts.  

Bowman and TT both object to her use of 1 Enoch, but neither really deals with her case that 1 Enoch is "ancient, as it claims."  

Quote

For example in the case of 1 Enoch as casting light on the atonement rituals, Barker writes that “we do not date the biblical texts on the basis of either their actual MS remains, or of the latest redaction or allusion discernible within them. Such a procedure would be recognized as ludicrous, yet it is the one scholars employ to decide the date of the Enochic material.”¹²² The oldest manuscripts of both 1 Enoch and Isaiah come from Qumran. She observes that in 1 Enoch we have “clear evidence of prophetic and wisdom forms used together within the framework of the angel mythology, in conflict with Deuteronomic ideology, indicating a deep-rooted dispute among the heirs to the traditions of Israel.”¹²³ Among other things, she notices that “before Hezekiah built the tunnel that brought [the Gihon’s water] into the city (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:20), the water of the Gihon created a real stream in the Kidron Valley. It is interesting that Enoch’s journey [1 Enoch 26:1‒2] describes accurately the geography of Jerusalem before the time of Hezekiah, that is, in the ministry of Isaiah.”¹²⁴ In her atonement essay, and at greater length and detail in The Older Testament, Barker also explores ties between 1 Enoch and Isaiah. All this contributes to Barker’s assertion that

[Page 69]the new paradigm is that the Enoch tradition is ancient, as it claims, and that it was the original myth of the Jerusalem temple, long before Moses became the key figure and the Exodus the defining history. The world of the first temple was the taproot of Christianity, and that is why the young Church treated Enoch as Scripture. Those who preserved the Enoch traditions were a formative influence on Christianity and its key concepts: the Kingdom and the resurrected Messiah. Since Enoch was a high priest figure, and Jesus was declared to be “a great high priest” (Hebrews 4.14), we should also concern ourselves with the high priesthood.¹²⁵

If Barker is correct, then we should also find these themes in the Book of Mormon and the revelations to Joseph Smith.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/light-and-perspective-essays-from-the-mormon-theology-seminar-on-1-nephi-1-and-jacob-7/

I also consider Nibley's case for the antiquity of the Enoch Figure in his essay with that title, pointing out thematic ties to the most ancient and wide spread myths.

As as N.T. Wright goes, he does cite her in the Gifford Lectures on History and Eschatology.

And personally, after she read my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, she told me that she read the Book of Mormon, the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price in one day.  And reported that "I was amazed at how much I recognized."

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Kevin Christensen

[teddyaware]

28 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

It is a profound embarrassment that LDS scholars find appeal to her particular theology about post-exilic worship.  In my view, if she's correct, then there is really no God at all.  Her views conflict with LDS instructional manuals, but BYU scholars just think she's the greatest. 

I believe her primary focus is on pre-exilic worship and theology.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Bob Crockett said:

It is a profound embarrassment that LDS scholars find appeal to her particular theology about post-exilic worship.  In my view, if she's correct, then there is really no God at all.  Her views conflict with LDS instructional manuals, but BYU scholars just think she's the greatest. 

She is a Methodist preacher,  Bob.  Why would we expect her to engage in LDS-speak?  The reason she is respected is that what she says dovetails with LDS theological concerns, yet she arrived at such views based on her own research.  Why do you find that so embarrassing?

[Robert F. Smith]

https://www.scribd.com/document/439717261/PARADIGMS-REGAINED-A-SURVEY-OF-MARGARET-BARKER-S-SCHOLARSHIP-AND-ITS-SIGNIFICANCE-FOR-MORMON-STUDIES

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol14/iss1/12/

 

 

 

[strappinglad]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

she read the Book of Mormon, the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price in one day.

Evelyn Wood would be proud. 

[Spammer]

My 2 cents:

Since MB isn't LDS, she doesn't address LDS temple liturgy directly in her work.  There are clear parallels, but her focus is primarily on the temple roots of non-LDS Christian Liturgy, especially Catholic and Orthodox liturgies and the Protestant liturgies that came out of the former.  When MB describes parallels with Christian Liturgy in 'The Great High Priest'  and  'The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy,'  her focus is on the Catholic/Orthodox temple theology and symbolism found in those ancient churches and still in evidence today: temple, veil, altar, incense,  anointing, the white garment, angels, Melchizedek Priesthood, Jubilee, revelation, bread and wine, visions, ascensions, theosis, etc.  Reading Barker, alongside readings in the Apostolic and Ante-Nicene Church Fathers is what tipped the balance in favor of Catholicism when I was searching.  I wouldn't be a Catholic today if a well-meaning LDS person in a forum like this one, trying to help me when I was in spiritual crisis, hadn't suggested I read 'The Great High Priest'  for it's LDS parallels.  Along with the Patristic writings, I was floored at how 'Catholic' it all sounded when I read MB's book. After that, if I was going to give faith in Christ another go, it was the Catholic way or the highway. I've read 'The Great Angel,' 'The Older Testament,' The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy,' 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ,' 'Temple Theology,' and 'Temple Mysticism' since then. Really interesting stuff.  I'll always be grateful to MB for helping to ground my renewed faith in Christ - and to the anonymous LDS poster - who said he was a friend of Nibley's. I'm sure he'd be disappointed if he knew an unintended outcome was the result, but I probably wouldn't be a Christian now, otherwise.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Spammer

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

s far as joining the church, she has told LDS students in her Summer School classes that she thinks she does more good where she is.  

Which may be a nice way of blowing them off.  

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

She is a Methodist preacher,  Bob.  Why would we expect her to engage in LDS-speak?  The reason she is respected is that what she says dovetails with LDS theological concerns, yet she arrived at such views based on her own research.  Why do you find that so embarrassing?

Her research does not comport with LDS theology.  I tire of Kevin using the word "paradigm" so often that it has no meaning.  Does she really say that Molech/Moloch sacrifice is authentic Israelite religion?

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[boblloyd91]

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

As far as starting, if you are a Nibleyophile, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God.  That background helped me.   If not, Temple Theology: An Introduction, which a 100 page summary of her approach. 

As far as joining the church, she has told LDS students in her Summer School classes that she thinks she does more good where she is.  

And critics,  TT basically says she's not orthodox scholarship, based on the way he was trained.  A paradigm is a "group licensed way of seeing'.   John Gee has talked about how in the Universities, students are expected to convert to the "historical critical method, "expecting that after only two weeks, all our doctral students would assent to its assumptions and methods."  (Gee, RBBM 6/1, 59, notes 23.)  Barker went through this indoctrination at Cambridge but was not converted.   She talks about this in the opening panel discussion here:

http://www.templestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MormonismAndTheTemple.pdf

And she talks about being an independent scholar here:

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

At one point, I remember reading TT saying, "No one I know takes her seriously," which is another way of saying that he does not know Rowan Williams, who had been the Archbishop of Canterbury when he awarded Barker her doctrate, nor does he know His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox church, who wrote the introduction to her book on Creation.  Barker understands how paradigms work, and that her work offers an alternate paradigm.

She has written that a new paradigm should not be tested by whether it agrees with the previous paradigm, but for how well it accounts for the data.

As far as Rob Bowman, again, he's basically charging that she does not teach the orthodoxy that he adheres to.  For instance Bowman says,

Notice that his approach completely glosses over what she says in The Great Angel, that the Bible distinguishes between the divine sons of El Elyon (God Most High) and the human sons of Yahweh.  She says that since Yahweh is one of the sons of El Elyon (see DSS version of Deuteronomy 32:8-), this distinction must have originated from a time when El Elyon and Yahweh were seen as distinct, and she traces that through a wide spread set of texts.  The proof texts that Bowman cites don't account for her arguments, and her arguments, that the Second Isaiah fused El Elyon and Yahweh, and that a school agreeing with him continued to edit texts, accounts for his proof texts.  

Bowman and TT both object to her use of 1 Enoch, but neither really deals with her case that 1 Enoch is "ancient, as it claims."  

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/light-and-perspective-essays-from-the-mormon-theology-seminar-on-1-nephi-1-and-jacob-7/

I also consider Nibley's case for the antiquity of the Enoch Figure in his essay with that title, pointing out thematic ties to the most ancient and wide spread myths.

As as N.T. Wright goes, he does cite her in the Gifford Lectures on History and Eschatology.

And personally, after she read my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, she told me that she read the Book of Mormon, the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price in one day.  And reported that "I was amazed at how much I recognized."

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

This is exactly the information I was looking for, thanks so much!

[Kenngo1969]

3 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Her research does not comport with LDS theology.  I tire of Kevin using the word "paradigm" so often that it has no meaning.  Does she really say that Molech/Moloch sacrifice is authentic Israelite religion?

I wouldn't think you have engaged Barker's work, or Christensen's, for that matter, enough to "tire" of anything.

[Lemuel]

5 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

As far as starting, if you are a Nibleyophile, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God.  That background helped me.   If not, Temple Theology: An Introduction, which a 100 page summary of her approach. 

As far as joining the church, she has told LDS students in her Summer School classes that she thinks she does more good where she is.  

And critics,  TT basically says she's not orthodox scholarship, based on the way he was trained.  A paradigm is a "group licensed way of seeing'.   John Gee has talked about how in the Universities, students are expected to convert to the "historical critical method, "expecting that after only two weeks, all our doctral students would assent to its assumptions and methods."  (Gee, RBBM 6/1, 59, notes 23.)  Barker went through this indoctrination at Cambridge but was not converted.   She talks about this in the opening panel discussion here:

http://www.templestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MormonismAndTheTemple.pdf

And she talks about being an independent scholar here:

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

At one point, I remember reading TT saying, "No one I know takes her seriously," which is another way of saying that he does not know Rowan Williams, who had been the Archbishop of Canterbury when he awarded Barker her doctrate, nor does he know His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox church, who wrote the introduction to her book on Creation.  Barker understands how paradigms work, and that her work offers an alternate paradigm.

She has written that a new paradigm should not be tested by whether it agrees with the previous paradigm, but for how well it accounts for the data.

As far as Rob Bowman, again, he's basically charging that she does not teach the orthodoxy that he adheres to.  For instance Bowman says,

Notice that his approach completely glosses over what she says in The Great Angel, that the Bible distinguishes between the divine sons of El Elyon (God Most High) and the human sons of Yahweh.  She says that since Yahweh is one of the sons of El Elyon (see DSS version of Deuteronomy 32:8-), this distinction must have originated from a time when El Elyon and Yahweh were seen as distinct, and she traces that through a wide spread set of texts.  The proof texts that Bowman cites don't account for her arguments, and her arguments, that the Second Isaiah fused El Elyon and Yahweh, and that a school agreeing with him continued to edit texts, accounts for his proof texts.  

Bowman and TT both object to her use of 1 Enoch, but neither really deals with her case that 1 Enoch is "ancient, as it claims."  

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/light-and-perspective-essays-from-the-mormon-theology-seminar-on-1-nephi-1-and-jacob-7/

I also consider Nibley's case for the antiquity of the Enoch Figure in his essay with that title, pointing out thematic ties to the most ancient and wide spread myths.

As as N.T. Wright goes, he does cite her in the Gifford Lectures on History and Eschatology.

And personally, after she read my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, she told me that she read the Book of Mormon, the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price in one day.  And reported that "I was amazed at how much I recognized."

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/default.htm

I find her really interesting.  She does a good job setting the stage for the BoM in asserting that Josiah's reforms and the deuteronomists were the thing that led to Jerusalem's destruction.

See her essay: What did Josiah Reform? https://web.archive.org/web/20181106231202/http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1081&index=16

Kevin is being modest by not linking to his essay discussing her work: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/prophets-and-kings-in-lehis-jerusalem-and-margaret-barkers-temple-theology/

 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Her research does not comport with LDS theology.  I tire of Kevin using the word "paradigm" so often that it has no meaning.  Does she really say that Molech/Moloch sacrifice is authentic Israelite religion?

Sorry, Bob, but assertion is not the same as evidence.

Although there is continuing debate on the archeological evidence,[1] it does seem certain that human sacrifice (including child sacrifice) was made to Molech (including closely related deities). Molek is, for example, merely another name for Milkom or Kemosh, the Ammonite and Moabite chief god (Judges 11:24, 1 Kings 11:7–8, 2 Kings 3:4–8; Moabite Stele of King Mesha, who offered his own son). This applies as well to Baal Hinnom, to whom some kings of Judah sacrificed their own children (Isaiah 30:27–33, Mica 6:6–7, Jeremiah 19:4, 32:35).

Perhaps you don't believe that actual kings of Judah would do something like that.  Just like many Jews, they may have felt that such rituals actually had value.  Not only kings, but ordinary people in Judah are known to have used pagan idols.[2]  You always assume that just because the prophets opposed such backsliding, therefore no Jews could possibly have considered such religious observances as worthwhile.  You have got to stop sticking your head in the sand, Bob.

[1] Maev Kennedy, “Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say,” The Guardian, Jan 21, 2014, online at Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say ; J.H. Schwartz, et al., “Bones, teeth, and estimating age of perinates: Carthaginian infant sacrifice revisited,” Antiquity, 86/333 (Sept 2012): 738-745, online at Bones, teeth, and estimating age of perinates: Carthaginian infant sacrifice revisited | Antiquity | Cambridge Core ; idem, “Two tales of one city: data, inference and Carthaginian infant sacrifice,” Antiquity, 91/356 (April 4, 2017):442-454, online at https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5006E240CB75A1E324B3230F6DA17389/S0003598X16002702a.pdf/two_tales_of_one_city_data_inference_and_carthaginian_infant_sacrifice.pdf .           

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-8NUXmbTYA.

See also

Davidiy, Yair, “What is the correct interpretation of 2 Samuel 12:31—that King David sacrificed the Ammonites to Yahweh by burning them in a brick kiln or that he put them to work making bricks?” Quora, Feb 16, 2020, online at Yair Davidiy's answer to What is the correct interpretation of 2 Samuel 12:31—that King David sacrificed the Ammonites to Yahweh by burning them in a brick kiln or that he put them to work making bricks?

Green, Alberto R. W., The Role of Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East, ASOR Dissertation 1 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975).

Edited August 11, 2020 by Robert F. Smith

[Kevin Christensen]

On 8/11/2020 at 12:43 PM, Calm said:

Which may be a nice way of blowing them off.  

Actually, she says she loves when LDS come to her classes because "They know what I am talking about."  She says about 1/3 of those who sign up  now are LDS.  In her Book of Mormon talk at the 2005 Joseph Smith Conference, she five times refers to it as "the revelation to Joseph Smith," and she means what she says.  It's also interesting that in 2003 at BYU, she told John Tvedtnes that one of the things that turned her towards the temple was her  mid 1960s reading of an essay in the Jewish Quarterly Review, "Christian Envy of the Temple" by one Hugh Nibley.   I sent her a copy of Welch's Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount.  She was impressed.  Jack tells this Barker story:

Quote

Welch: True enough. The new book is rather expensive, aimed as it is at an academic, non-Mormon audience, not for the bookshelf of every Latter-day Saint, especially since the 1999 book is now available free online on the Neal A. Maxwell Institute website (maxwellinstitute.byu.edu). But let me tell you the story of how this new book came about. A few years ago, Noel Reynolds brought Margaret Barker, a Methodist temple-studies scholar from England, to BYU to run a weeklong seminar for anyone who wanted to come and read her materials on temple theology and temple themes. She had published some of her most recent publications in that area, and it was a very stimulating seminar. Without agreeing with everything that Margaret Barker said, people saw lots of ways in which her insights, intuitions, and even inspiration helps us spot some significant themes that we have missed. As I was driving Margaret out to Thanksgiving Point for a dinner after one of those days of presentation, we got talking about her projects and how the seminar was going, and as we were driving up I-15, there on the right was Mount Timpanogos and the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple. I started asking her what work she had done on about temples, mountains, and theophanies, and she of course started going through a lot of the things about holy mountains that are familiar to many people. After she had committed herself sufficiently to the idea that “the mountain” is always a symbol of the temple, I said, “Well, then what would you think about the idea of seeing the Sermon on the Mount as a temple-related text?” It took her a minute to catch her breath, but she said, “That is astonishing. I had never thought about that. That is amazing. What makes you think that?”

“Well,” I answered, “3 Nephi 11–14, for one thing,” and then I mentioned some of the things I had written. Since the Book of Mormon had come up on several occasions in her seminar that week, she understood quickly what I meant by this. We talked about the ideas in the 1999 Sermon at the Temple book all the rest of the way out to Thanksgiving Point. She expressed a great interest in reading that book, and I told her a little about my presentation at SBL and that it had been well received. I gave her the book the next morning. Before she left Utah, she had read enough of it that she pulled me aside and said, “Your book—you must write this book for the rest of us.” And I said, “Well, that will be hard because a lot of my evidence comes from the Book of Mormon. We do not have an explicit covenant-making context in Matthew. We do not have an explicit temple setting there.” She said, “You can make the case without the Book of Mormon.” And I said, “Well, that was what I tried to do in my SBL paper, where I primarily drew on ritual studies. What I have not done is to go back carefully through the Greek text of Matthew 5-7 to look at every word and every phrase with temple lenses on, to see how those words would have been understood by members of an audience who saw themselves in some kind of a temple context.” From that point forward, Margaret remained very supportive. We communicated back and forth, and I kept shooting her ideas, and she came back with others. We got together once at Cambridge to go over a lot of these new details. Out of all that came the 2009 book from Ashgate in England.

https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-12-no-1-2011/sermon-mount-light-temple

I've published on Barker's work, starting with Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker's Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies in 2001, (Robert F. Smith linked that one), and several times since, both as the main topic and as significant mentions, including a collaboration with her  in 2008, in Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries, edited by Givens and Neilson, published by Oxford University Press.  "Seeking the Face of the Lord: Joseph Smith and the First Temple Tradition".  I've met her on five occasions, including a visit to her home in Derbyshire in 2016.  She is a delight in person and a treasure.   I'm amazed to be a small part of the important developments that have happened over the past twenty years.  By this point there are a number of top ranked LDS scholars who have interacted with her more than I have.  She was so impressed with her Paris Temple visit, that she asked Jack Welch if they could do it again in Rome.  Shauna and I went to Yonkers to see her speak at an important Orthodox school there, and she told us that when she arrived she told them, "If you are serious about the temple, you will have to swallow your pride and ask the Mormons."

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited August 12, 2020 by Kevin Christensen

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I wouldn't think you have engaged Barker's work, or Christensen's, for that matter, enough to "tire" of anything.

That's kind of insulting.  I've read her papers and at least one book.  I read some of Kevin's formal stuff published on-line but in particular his FARMS occasional paper.  Paradiyms Revisited or something like that.  (Have you read his paper?  It is interminable.)  I'm surprised you'd accuse me of that.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sorry, Bob, but assertion is not the same as evidence.

Although there is continuing debate on the archeological evidence,[1] it does seem certain that human sacrifice (including child sacrifice) was made to Molech (including closely related deities). Molek is, for example, merely another name for Milkom or Kemosh, the Ammonite and Moabite chief god (Judges 11:24, 1 Kings 11:7–8, 2 Kings 3:4–8; Moabite Stele of King Mesha, who offered his own son). This applies as well to Baal Hinnom, to whom some kings of Judah sacrificed their own children (Isaiah 30:27–33, Mica 6:6–7, Jeremiah 19:4, 32:35).

Perhaps you don't believe that actual kings of Judah would do something like that.  Just like many Jews, they may have felt that such rituals actually had value.  Not only kings, but ordinary people in Judah are known to have used pagan idols.[2]  You always assume that just because the prophets opposed such backsliding, therefore no Jews could possibly have considered such religious observances as worthwhile.  You have got to stop sticking your head in the sand, Bob.

[1] Maev Kennedy, “Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say,” The Guardian, Jan 21, 2014, online at Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say ; J.H. Schwartz, et al., “Bones, teeth, and estimating age of perinates: Carthaginian infant sacrifice revisited,” Antiquity, 86/333 (Sept 2012): 738-745, online at Bones, teeth, and estimating age of perinates: Carthaginian infant sacrifice revisited | Antiquity | Cambridge Core ; idem, “Two tales of one city: data, inference and Carthaginian infant sacrifice,” Antiquity, 91/356 (April 4, 2017):442-454, online at https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5006E240CB75A1E324B3230F6DA17389/S0003598X16002702a.pdf/two_tales_of_one_city_data_inference_and_carthaginian_infant_sacrifice.pdf .           

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-8NUXmbTYA.

See also

Davidiy, Yair, “What is the correct interpretation of 2 Samuel 12:31—that King David sacrificed the Ammonites to Yahweh by burning them in a brick kiln or that he put them to work making bricks?” Quora, Feb 16, 2020, online at Yair Davidiy's answer to What is the correct interpretation of 2 Samuel 12:31—that King David sacrificed the Ammonites to Yahweh by burning them in a brick kiln or that he put them to work making bricks?

Green, Alberto R. W., The Role of Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East, ASOR Dissertation 1 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975).

I think the descriptions of Moloch are fairly certain, both from the Bible and scholarly sources.  Heat up the arms to red hot and drop an infant into them.  Watch the infant explode into flames.  Fun.  Sounds like you think that is legit.  

You're just way off base with your love of Margaret Barker, but I've made my points in other posts.  No need yet to repeat my criticisms of her here.  I think I'm pretty well educated in the material enough not be sticking my head in the sand.

I, for one, don't know whether LDS teachings on the Josian reforms are right or wrong, or whether Barker's is right, at least as to the merits.  I'm ambivalent about all that.  But her methodology is way screwed up.  And she lacks the credentials where she ought to have them.  And people like Kevin who defend her credentials blissfully seem unaware of what you went through to get your doctorate and what I went through to get my pseudo doctorate.  Another example of the exception being the rule (grocery clerks are, on occasion, brighter than a Berkeley researcher in fluid dynamics; hence, do not discount grocery clerk opinion on fluid dynamics). 

And LDS teachings are what they are.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett

[Kenngo1969]

22 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

That's kind of insulting. 

So you can dish it out, but you can't take it? 

22 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

I've read her papers and at least one book.  I read some of Kevin's formal stuff published on-line but in particular his FARMS occasional paper.  Paradiyms Revisited or something like that.  (Have you read his paper?  It is interminable.)  I'm surprised you'd accuse me of that.

Life is full of surprises!

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Actually, she says she loves when LDS come to her classes because "They know what I am talking about." 

I just mean she is being kind about any proselytizing effort while not being interested in changing her faith. She likely doesn’t see the Restored Gospel as the Restored Gospel, I am guessing, the only true and living faith, etc.

The way you wrote it could be inferred to mean she was a believer in the Restored Gospel, but felt she could do more missionary work or conversion if she remained an official outsider to the religion, so was delaying baptism for now. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Calm

[OGHoosier]

Just now, Calm said:

I just mean she is being kind about any proselytizing effort while not being interested in changing her faith. She likely doesn’t see the Restored Gospel as the Restored Gospel, I am guessing.

There's probably parts of it she doesn't agree with, so she doesn't see it as the Restored Gospel full stop. But there's reason to believe that she meant it when she said that Joseph was receiving revelations. 

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

There's probably parts of it she doesn't agree with, so she doesn't see it as the Restored Gospel full stop. But there's reason to believe that she meant it when she said that Joseph was receiving revelations. 

Yes, I believe she meant it. I suspect though she sees priesthood currently different than we (only authorized by God, therefore only valid baptism, etc) do. I haven’t read much of her and what I read has been awhile so my impression is she accepts some that we teach as revelation as true revelations, but not all and I could be very wrong. She just seems like a person who would convert if she accepted the full package so to speak. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Calm

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

Sounds like you think that is legit.  

Not really. Sounds like he accepts some Israelites had apostate beliefs, including kings. 

[Bob Crockett]

25 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

So you can dish it out, but you can't take it? 

Life is full of surprises!

I don't insult posters, and I don't particularly insult them anonymously.  I think that someday God is going to call people on the carpet who post with other than their real names, when discussing the faith.   However, I take exceptions to posters' views.   

Edited August 11, 2020 by Bob Crockett