So, we’re about to begin to study the New Testament this next Sunday. What of the JST? Or rather, what is the JST? With the publication of the original JST manuscripts in 2004, there seems to have been a little more interest among LDS scholars about the JST, but for the most part, things have been left to Robert Matthews’ now almost ancient book. What are we thinking about the JST now, and how should we be addressing those selective footnotes? Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps it’s because we as Latter-day Saints have been writing apologetics longer than we have been writing anything else, but it sometimes seems to me that we are all too apologetic a people in our teaching, our writing, and even our thinking (”apologetics” is, for those unacquainted with the term, a name for efforts to defend the Church or its teachings against detractors). Even our thinking: is there any particular reason that we feel like we haven’t “done anything” with a lesson, like reading, researching, or studying isn’t “with purpose,” if we don’t leave the activity with our “testimony strengthened”? I think we all know what I’m referring to here: why is it that a lesson (or study) that is filled with textual insight, with theological engagement, or with joy in the word, must somehow confirm (or even “prove”) that Joseph was a prophet, or some such thing? Why, that is, are we always focused on a question we would think should be a presupposition, rather than a conclusion? Read the rest of this entry »