Myth, Modernity, and Mormonism

The category of “myth” is arguably the most important for evaluating the Bible in the last few hundred years. The very earliest critics of the Bible employed the category of “myth” in evaluating the stories and histories recorded there. D. F. Strauss (Das Leben Jesu, 1835) employed the term for making sense of the life of Jesus, among the first to suggest that the gospels were not literal history.

Besides the difficulty in identifying and defining myth, the most important interpretive problem comes in trying to figure out how to understand the significance of myth. In sum, is myth a good thing or a bad thing? Basically, two different options emerged that dominated 19th c. biblical studies.

How to Teach Yourself Hebrew from Scratch: Part II

Let’s assume at this point that you’re someone who took a year of Hebrew in school, but it was a long time ago.  Or,  you have worked through a grammar on your own. You’ve learned some basics, but you’re not quite ready to dive into Isaiah. What to do?

“How Sweet is Your Love”: Finding Meaning in the Song of Solomon

Introductory Note: Some time ago here at FPR TT wrote a post concerning the Song of Solomon

How to Teach Yourself Hebrew from Scratch: Part I

Inspired by a post at BCC and in lieu of a lengthy comment, here are my suggestions for teaching yourself Hebrew.

Christmas and Mary

1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. 6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. Revelation 12:1-6

The Divine Council

There has been serious discussion among Mormon scholars over the past several years regarding the divine council in the Hebrew Bible and its implications for Mormon thought. For instance, very recently Blake Ostler published his third volume of Exploring Mormon Thought, in which, among other issues, he discusses at length various aspects of the heavenly council in the Hebrew Bible and what their implications might be for Mormon theology. David Bokovoy, a Mormon PhD student studying at Brandeis University under noted biblical scholar Marc Brettler, also had a lengthy exchange with Evangelical scholar Mike Heiser in a recent issue of the FARMS Review that included serious discussion of the council motif. Moreover, this exchange itself was provoked by an even earlier essay by BYU Professor Daniel Peterson that included an analysis of the heavenly assembly and its relevance for Mormonism. Kevin Barney also mentions the topic in his article “Examing Six Key Concepts in Joseph Smith’s Understanding of Genesis 1:1″ for BYU studies. There has also been some discussion here at FPR regarding this topic. Given, then, the importance of this topic among Mormon scholars in recent years, I thought that in addition to pointing out these articles to those who might otherwise be unaware of them, I might also briefly describe the divine council as referred to in the Hebrew Bible, as well as some of its historical analogues. I invite any comments following that reader’s might feel to be of relevance to the divine council and/or its relationship to Mormon thought.

Tips on Applying: Spotlight on Harvard Divinity School

This spotlight is on Harvard Divinity School, and comes from Michael I., an alumnus and current PhD student at Harvard.

Tips on Applying to Grad Programs in Religious Studies: GRE (Part V)

In this post I would like to discuss one of the most time consuming, yet least significant components of the application process–namely the GRE.

Reading the Christmas Stories: What is biblical criticism? Part 3

Hopefully you have all done what I suggested last time and made notes on both of the nativity stories. Below are my notes (sorry for the bad formatting, WordPress for some reason does not allow arbitrary css styles on html elements, so I just gave up and let wordpress format it as it saw fit).

Genesis 1-3 and The Documentary Hypothesis (again)

Here at FPR there have been several posts pertaining to the Documentary Hypothesis, a theory that many scholars utilize to explain the compositional history of the Torah. (There are also a few online sources for specifically Mormon audiences concerning the topic, such as Kevin Barney’s or John Sorensen’s articles in Dialogue.) There are many versions of this thesis, and I do not here intend to argue for any particular one (although it seems virtually unanimous among scholars that the Torah was certainly compiled from a variety of sources). Rather, in keeping with David Clark’s recent posts on biblical criticism, I intend to use the classic text book example of Genesis 1-3 as a case study to demonstrate that there are (at least two) separate sources redacted together in Genesis. I recommend reading these chapters both before and after reading my analysis. I invite your comments afterwards on anything you might feel is related.