I think I will ignore the “From the Life of Joseph Smith” section of the lesson entirely this time and jump immediately into the actual teachings of Joseph Smith. By the way, this lesson quotes extensively from one source that is clearly not the words of Joseph Smith: the last two paragraphs of p. 163 and everything from the last paragraph of p. 164 through the end of the lesson come from an 1834 epistle entitled “The Elders of the Church in Kirtland, to Their Brethren Abroad,” and it is quite clear that the words were written by one of the other early leaders of the Church. That is not, of course, to say that they aren’t quite interesting and helpful, but there is good reason, I think, to separate these teachings off from the others. I’ll take the lesson in two parts, then: the words of others, and then the words of Joseph. Read the rest of this entry »

From Mack Stirling’s Institute Class, 1995

Alma 8-16 (Lessons 23 and 24)

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Article of Faith 14: The world sucks.

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For those who might be interested in following the discussions there, the Alma 32 seminar (part of the same umbrella project as the Reading Abraham seminar of last year) is officially under way (the first post was put up yesterday). It seems worth mentioning here because (1) it will entail, in the end, a sustained, detailed study of Alma 32 over the course of six weeks; (2) it will hopefully be an example of good, serious scripture study; and (3) a number of folks from the feast project are involved (JennyW, Jim F, Robert C, and Joe Spencer, who are all regulars here, are on the project, and the other two participants, Adam Miller and Julie Smith, have commented here on occasion—and everyone knows Julie from T&S I imagine). Anyway, the link: Read the rest of this entry »

The blog portion of Feast Upon the Word is going nicely. We seem to have plenty of materials posted for various Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society lessons, and they keep coming (even if there are sometimes slow downs). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m in the middle of a cross-country move, which means that I have had plenty of “ponder time” driving through America’s heartland. I’ll share a little thought that came to me in Iowa as I thought about King Corn, food chains, ethanol fuel, housing costs, and the focus of many of my Gospel Doctrine lessons: grace. Read the rest of this entry »

In the classic Bill Cosby sketch, after the LORD tells Noah to build an Ark, Noah responds with “Right. What’s an ark?”

Recently, University of London professor Tudor Parfitt is challenging our own perceptions of another ark by claiming to have found the Ark of the Covenant in Africa. Unlike the gold-plated weapon of mass destruction from the original Indiana Jones movie, the real ark, according to Parfitt, was and is a wooden drum and primitive gunpowder spewing tribal relic carried by temple priests from Jerusalem to Yemen and eventually to Africa.

Check out the Time magazine summary of the argument here, or for a more complete treatment you can check out Parfitt’s book The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Old Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark.

But regardless of how close Parfitt is to the truth here, he does provide an interesting challenge to our scriptural preconceptions, as well as a nice case study of how to carefully examine a cherished text.

When I was in the MTC almost 20 years ago (ouch!), our large group meeting trainer was a guy named Elder Slaughter who had served his mission in Mexico. Rumor was that he had baptized thousands of people like some latter day Ammon or something. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is my Easter lesson for 2008. I know we have talked about the atonement here before, and if anyone can find the link feel free to post it here:

It is interesting to think about how BOM writers, who certainly had never heard of any “atonement theories,” understood this concept.

THE FALL AND ATONEMENT AS TAUGHT IN THE BOOK OF MORMON
EASTER SUNDAY 2008

Based on two lectures by Robert L. Millet.

The Atonement and the Fall are a package deal – you can’t teach one without the other in the Book of Mormon

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Lesson #10: 2 Nephi 26-30 Next week: 2 Nephi 31-33 Read the rest of this entry »