Mormon Pharisees?

[Mathete]

When I first heard that term by someone in my ward, I didn’t know what they meant. In the few days I have been on this site, I made a few short posts. My intent was to inspire reading and pondering and discussion of the scriptures. The point I was hoping people would discover is what a wonderful Teacher our Lord is. Most responses were attempts to belittle me or prove my ignorance. It was amazing how I posted about how the Savior’s enemies addressed Him. Not one mention or question from anyone about how did the follower of Christ address Him. Perhaps our highly educated friend could tell us what those words were and their meaning. It doesn’t appear the intentions of most on here are to edify the Savior, the Word or the Church. Seems more like a brood of vipers. Talmage was correct. 

[Benjamin McGuire]

A funny thing happens in the New Testament. Jesus is constantly approached by lawyers and pharisees and others who ask him questions - intending to find ways to trap him or get him to say things that contradicted popular interpretations of the scriptures. Your approach feels like this - you asked, for example:

Quote

Did you ever notice that the followers of Lord NEVER addressed Him as Jesus? Only His enemies and demons did that.

Here in this thread, you reiterate this request:

11 minutes ago, Mathete said:

It was amazing how I posted about how the Savior’s enemies addressed Him. Not one mention or question from anyone about how did the follower of Christ address Him.

This isn't so much a question or request as it is a statement. And it comes across as highly aggressive (in the same way that those who challenged Jesus approached Him). I don't (and I am probably not alone) see the things you have been writing and think that you are here trying to edify in some way. You seem to be trying to get people to engage with you in a specific way so that you can manage a discussion. This approach doesn't work very well when people don't accept the same sorts of premises and assumptions that you have.

Take these comments that I quote above. Although you don't say as much, my assumption here is that you are specifically referring to the Gospels in the New Testament. I say this only because once we get outside of the Gospels, we see the name of Jesus all over the place. The early Christian church took the instruction of Jesus in John 16 quite literally: "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." The name of Jesus entered into the church liturgy - in ways that has persisted to the present. But getting back to the Gospels - these texts were written by the followers of Jesus. They use the name of Jesus all over the place. So, then, I am led to believe that you aren't actually referring to the gospels as a message from the followers of Jesus, but to the explicit instances of dialogue in the text. You want to see something that represents itself as a specific quote in which a follower of Jesus calls him Jesus. And to this I have a couple of comments - first, at this point, you are referring to a really specific sort of content from a very specific set of documents. And from this, I start to wonder what your intentions are in making this sort of statement. Why is this observation that you make meaningful? Because I don't see how it would be meaningful to me. And, second, we get back to history. We do have ancient literature in which people refer to each other by name. One of the best known examples of this happening occurs in Plato's dialogues. But, it doesn't happen much at all in ancient Jewish literature. In the limited dialogue that occurs in the Old Testament, there is virtually none of this sort of thing. Why is this important? Because in order for you to make the claim (which you are - at least implicitly) that your observation is meaningful, you also have to make the claim that what you observe is unexpected. This is one of the reasons why your earlier observation that I responded to is problematic - you suggested that Jesus never refers to the Father by name (and I still am not sure what name you were looking for). I would argue that no one in the New Testament refers to the Father by the name that you are looking for (whatever that name is). And this means that we wouldn't expect Jesus to do so either. As I pointed out, this is likely caused much more by language and traditions than it is by any actual representation of real dialogue that may have occurred.

What is the point of all of this? You are making these observations - but they don't make good starting points for discussion. You seem to have some intention or sense of what you want to discuss, but these kinds of forums (and their participants - like myself) are not good at reading minds. So rather than simply making an observation and inviting comment, you should do more - you should explain what you think is significant about your observation. You should explain some of your assumptions. And you should perhaps (if you have ever given it much thought) explain the way that you view the texts of the Gospels and their nature (for example, do you expect that the narratives in the text are accurate representations in every way of something that actually happened). All of these things play a role when we start interpreting scripture and using it to draw out ideas that may or may not be wrong.

It is not about edifying or not edifying. It isn't that there are vipers here. There are a lot of different perspectives, different ways to understand the issues. And you will get far less push back and far more reasonable discussion if you make an effort to be open and up front with your expectations and intentions.

[Rain]

3 hours ago, Mathete said:

When I first heard that term by someone in my ward, I didn’t know what they meant. In the few days I have been on this site, I made a few short posts. My intent was to inspire reading and pondering and discussion of the scriptures. The point I was hoping people would discover is what a wonderful Teacher our Lord is.

I'm sorry I didn't recognize this.

For my part it felt kind of like a trap.  First that I needed to read your mind as to what you were thinking. Second, I felt that it didn't matter to you about concerns I had. I don't know why I felt this, it just hit me that way.

I will try to read your content with the intent you stated.

 

3 hours ago, Mathete said:

Most responses were attempts to belittle me or prove my ignorance. It was amazing how I posted about how the Savior’s enemies addressed Him. Not one mention or question from anyone about how did the follower of Christ address Him. Perhaps our highly educated friend could tell us what those words were and their meaning. It doesn’t appear the intentions of most on here are to edify the Savior, the Word or the Church. Seems more like a brood of vipers. Talmage was correct. 

[Pyreaux]

I didn't even recognize that you were a member of the church. You sounded more like my non-LDS friends, so I was getting contrarian. I'm sorry.

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Mathete said:

When I first heard that term by someone in my ward, I didn’t know what they meant. In the few days I have been on this site, I made a few short posts. My intent was to inspire reading and pondering and discussion of the scriptures. The point I was hoping people would discover is what a wonderful Teacher our Lord is. Most responses were attempts to belittle me or prove my ignorance. It was amazing how I posted about how the Savior’s enemies addressed Him. Not one mention or question from anyone about how did the follower of Christ address Him. Perhaps our highly educated friend could tell us what those words were and their meaning. It doesn’t appear the intentions of most on here are to edify the Savior, the Word or the Church. Seems more like a brood of vipers. Talmage was correct. 

Cute but not buying it.

[Hamilton Porter]

Stop using Pharisee as a pejorative. Pharisees were good people and are the ancestors of today's orthodox Jews.

I call Mormons who mix politics with religion mullahs.

[MustardSeed]

Welcome to the board- 

it does help to start with your intentions.    The culture of the board at time includes people trapping each other with their own words so trust is sometimes an issue.  Proving another’s ignorance makes one feel superior, and that happens here too.  I’ve done that myself.  Working on it. 
 

If you lead with “this is what I have learned and this is what I like, maybe you’ll like it too” then people will understand you.  It took a while for me to adjust and understand what this site was.  I’ve met some wonderful people here and I’ve learned a lot.