This is Part Three of a three-part series (read Part One and Part Two). The Book of Mormon authors who worried so much about their weak writing were promised by the Lord that it would be made strong:

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If you’re just joining the discussion, this is Part Two. In Part One, we asked why Nephi and Moroni would describe their writing as “weak.” I concluded that this was due, in part, to comparing their work with the rich, complex, and beautiful writing in the Old Testament. In Part Two, we ask:

2) Were Nephi and Moroni actually weak in writing?

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Two Book of Mormon authors, Nephi and Moroni, lament what they see as a weakness in their writing. Those who have come to love the Book of Mormon usually dismiss this as false modesty. But what if we actually took them at their word?
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[The following post was submitted by Gregorio Billikopf, author of Isaiah Testifies of Christ, a website with excellent resources and downloadable commentary on Isaiah. We are hoping that Gregorio will be sending us several posts over the next few months, esp. to help us get through the Isaiah chapters of 2nd Nephi when we cover them in Sunday school! I know Gregorio's daughter, Cristina, from sitting in on Jim F.'s Levinas class, so she gets credit for bringing Gregorio's work to my attention.]

“And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” (Zech 13:6, KJV)

There has been an increasing attack upon the integrity of the Holy Scriptures: an attempt to weaken the faith of those who hold to its marvelous promises. Because the Lord knew that many scriptures would be corrupted, some of the most sublime Messianic scriptures are hidden amongst passages that were unlikely to be caught by those who tried to change them. Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting article—a joint venture by (non-LDS) Christian scholars Paul Owen and Mosser—appeared in FARMS several years ago, reviewing the book How Wide the Divide?. The article issues several challenges to LDS belief, but one that I think is particularly relevant for Sunday School is below. The gist of the challenge is,

“If the Bible contains a sufficient body of information for…the Christian gospel, then no more scripture is necessary. This would not in and of itself prove that the Bible cannot be added to…. [In] theory no conclusive reason exists why the canon must stay closed, …it is difficult to see how any new book could ever successfully be added to it.”

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If anyone’s been looking to make a (significant!) Christmas investment in their scripture library, here’s a very good deal to consider:

Logos is offering a truly remarkable library package for $400. See here. The reason I’m especially tempted is that this package includes 27 volumes of International Theological Commentaries which usually cost over $500 by themselves and—based on my, albeit limited, experience—is a tremendous and rather unique commentary series in that it explores the theological issues of the text, unlike most commentaries which stick more strictly to only historical and textual issues. Note, however, it only covers the Old Testament.

Also included is the 3-volume Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, which is worth another $140 or so. This seems to be more comprehensive then most lexicons, but a bit redundant if you already have the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament set.

There are many, many other titles included, many of which also look quite interesting, though many titles seemed geared toward Christian pastors and would probably be of less interest to Mormon students of scripture. Please, Santa, please, please, please?!?!

It is time for a last post on Revelation, and I’ll dedicate it to what seems to me to be the most important–and most prevalent–theme in the entire Apocalypse: writing. Really, this means that I’ll be tracing two themes through the book: writing and Adam-ondi-Ahman. In the end, I think any “uniquely Mormon” reading of the Book of Revelation has to come to this in the end: it must give itself to this double theme in Revelation, to the place of writing in the text and how that weaves into the Apocalypse the role and purpose of the sort-of-future event that is Adam-ondi-Ahman. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll apologize now for not having been able to write up posts on Revelation yesterday or today (there has been too much Work–not work, but Work–to do!). I will be putting up a final post on Revelation tomorrow before leaving town. But in the meanwhile, I thought I’d put up a link to the podcast of the Christmas fireside I delivered last night. I had a great deal of fun with it, and perhaps others will find it of interesting in one way or another. At bottom, it is a very Joe-esque reading of the Christmas story. You can listen to/download it here. Enjoy!

Since my daughter is asleep in the room right behind me, I can’t really turn on any lights to consult commentaries this morning (I was planning on doing a bit of work on the book business of chapter 5). So instead I’ll take up the Moses/Elijah theme of chapter 11 and do a bit of reflecting on the place of Malachi in relation to the Apocalypse. Read the rest of this entry »

I was struck, as I worked through these posts the last few days, by the parallel between the mother-child scene in 1 Nephi 11 and the mother-child scene in Revelation 12. Now that I’ve got a few days to dwell on a few more specific parts of Revelation in a bit more detail, I want to begin there. Is there a connection between these two texts? Read the rest of this entry »