BYU Hiring Ancient Scrip Prof

BYU is looking to hire a professor of ancient scripture in their department of Religious Education. For the entire posting go here.

Here is an excerpt from the listing. Below it are some thoughts.

If All is Sacred

If all is sacred, is nothing sacred?

This is related to a previous discussion here at FPR.

The categories of “sacred” and “profane” have a long history in the study of religion. And attempts to collapse the sacred and profane can be understood many different ways. I actually find it valuable to consider “All as Sacred”; but not in the sense that “the sacred” is simply a spatial category. IMO, the sacred is a relational category contingent on how we perform within a given space. In other words the sacred is a mode of becoming involving multiple parties (us and God in most cases), rather than a state of being that exists independent of my performance and simply within a given space. In this light, everything is sacred in that there is a proper and an improper way of us performing life’s events (including the option of non-performance in cases that call for it). To perform it improperly is to desecrate a sacrality within ourselves. The sacred, IMO, need not be understood simply an external quality found in a given sphere.

Five Recommended books for Understanding the Old Testament

Five or so…

First, a good Bible or two, meant for understanding and personal study. Given only one choice, I’d recommend the Jewish Study Bible. The JPS translation is dynamic (thought-for-thought),the commentary is useful, and the essays included in the back are excellent. If I were to add a second Bible, I’d recommend the NIV Study Bible. It’s Evangelical and conservative, but I find it’s OT notes useful, the translation quite readable.

Offenders for a Word

The classic Daniel Peterson/Stephen Ricks historical defense of LDS doctrine, Offenders for a Word, has been put up on the FARMS website, along with a slew of other volumes.

Curses!

A discussion I had recently with a friend of mine reminded me of one of my other favorite soap boxes that I haven’t stood on in this forum before. No, it has nothing to do with swearing (in a traditional sense at least). Today I’m more interested in the sort of curses that God lays on peoples. Like on the Lamanites and stuff. And yeah I know that there is nothing new in the ‘Nacle so I’ll just say outright that I haven’t even looked elsewhere to see who has already broached the subject and what they said. Feel free to restate and/or link.

LDS at SBL: Roll call

The annual Society of Biblical Literature conference will be held next month in San Diego, in combination with the American Academy of Religion or AAR. ( The American School of Oriental Research or ASOR used to hold theirs concurrently as well.) SBL is probably the largest conference of its kind, lasting several days, with several thousand people in attendance. The best parts are the socializing and networking, and the Bookanalia, in which hundreds of academic book and software publishers set up booths and offer their wares at serious discount.  I guess there are lectures to attend, too.

Numerous LDS presenters  are on the list, a paper copy of which is sent to all registered to attend. Some are students or recently graduated, some participate in the bloggernaccle, and some are on faculty at BYU.

There is also a relatively new section, the “LDS and the Bible Consultation” (S19-72), which appears to have mostly LDS presenters, exceptions being Margaret Barker and  Alden Thompson.

In short, it should be a good interesting conference.

Which among you will be in attendance? Roll call.

Have We Been Praying to Her All Along?

Submitted from an anonymous reader: 

If “the song of the righteous is a prayer” (D&C 25:12), does singing “O My Father” constitute praying to Heavenly Mother? It does, after all, contain the line “Father, Mother, may I meet you / In your royal courts on high? / Then, at length, when I’ve completed / All you sent me forth to do /  With your mutual approbation / Let me come and dwell with you.” 

Conference Announcement at Prinecton

“Mormonism and American Politics”

Princeton University, November 9-10.

Mitt Romney’s run for the White House raises perennial questions about the place of religion in the public square and offers scholars an interesting occasion to reconsider the contested intersection of religion and politics. The media has made much of Romney’s religion and so have some sectors of the American public. What can we learn from public attitudes about Mormonism? Are the religious beliefs of a political candidate relevant to serving in office, and if so, how? Are there political implications to Mormonism? Do the legislative records and political careers of other Mormon politicians shed any light on this question? In what ways is Mormonism politically comparable to other religious groups?

This conference will explore some of these issues in four separate panels that will discuss 1) the earliest encounters of Mormonism and American politics, 2) Mormonism as a case study for church/state separation 3) media perceptions of Mormonism and 4) the role religious identity plays in the public square.

Participants include Richard Bushman, Richard Land, Kathleen Flake, Philip Barlow, Marci Hamilton, Alan Wolfe, Helen Whitney, Mark Silk, Noah Feldman, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Stephen Macedo, Thomas Griffith, Melissa Proctor, Robert George, Russell Arben Fox, Chris Karpowitz, David Campbell, John Green, and Francis Beckwith.

The event begins Friday, November 9th at 8:00 p.m. and continues until 5:00 Saturday, November 10th. It is free and open to the public.

For more information please see http://www.princeton.edu/~csrelig/

Jesus Christ: Inspiration and/or Aspiration

Are we morally creative agents?

A distinction that I’ve given some thought to lately is that between “Inspiration” and “Aspiration”. This isn’t to say that there necessarily has to be some deep divide between these two concepts, but it can be useful to think of them separately. I believe that most LDSs see Jesus Christ as more of an “aspiration” rather than an “inspiration”. This means that he is our model or our ambition (in the sense that we try to do as he has done), before he is our motivation to take creative action in our unique circumstances. This is not to say that we do not see him as our “inspiration”; but we tend to look at him (and “history” in general) as providing a “model”, “example”, or a “standard to attain to”; before a point of departure to help us forge our own particular paths in life. Once again, this isn’t to say that we do not already do this to some extent; but we tend to see ourselves trying to get where these examples of the past have already been more than seeing ourselves moving in a unique direction because of the inspiration they’ve been.

Holiness and Housework: The Sacred and the Mundane

One of the most influential theories for explaining religion over the last 50 years has been that religion is a system which divided people, places, and things into essentially two categories: the sacred and the profane. This view, popularized by Mircea Eliade, held that the sacred was a locus of holiness, where God could be encountered. Temples, churches, special times of the day for prayer, holy days, priests and priestesses, etc were examples of the sacred. The profane was everything else. Sometimes the profane was forbidden, but usually the profane was just the ordinary. This way of thinking about religion has come under some scrutiny for various reasons, but it is a useful way for thinking about Sister Beck’s controversial Conference talk.