How Biblically Literate are Mormons as a Whole?

[Marcus]

It would be great if Dan McClellan yet frequented this board and would give his perspective on the thread title question.

That would be quite interesting to get his take.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

He used to be a consistent poster here, but that was some time ago.

[sock puppet]

The church has never been about Jesus Christ. You really think Christ would approve of spending more covering up child sexual abuse than feeding the poor? You really think Christ would approve of lying/deceiving and being fined by the SEC, hoarding 300 billion dollars, buying a billion dollars worth of Visa stock that charges 20% interest to poor people? Would Christ require you to buy special underwear and make a profit from doing so? Would Christ institute polygamy? Would Christ create a temple ceremony mirrored after Masonic rituals/handshakes that would change every few years? Would Christ ban blacks for over 150 years from holding the priesthood? Would Christ require you to wear a white shirt? Would Christ spend tens of millions on a temple in your city that no one could enter except a privileged few? Would Christ treat women as second class citizens? Would Christ exclude gays? Would Christ appoint a prophet and apostles, but not give them the ability to accurately reveal anything? Would Christ appoint a prophet and apostles and give them His priesthood without the ability to actually heal anyone (do you have the faith not to be healed)? Would Christ appoint a prophet and apostles and give them His priesthood authority without the ability to perform miracles?

Harsh words, but anyone can pick up the New Testament and read few first books to quickly realize the church is not the church of Christ. Not even close.

Harsh words, but each one of these 'bits' have answers and/or ways of approaching them in which at the end of the day, as I said, "Jesus Christ has ALWAYS been the mainstay/core of everything in the church".

Unfortunately, many lose sight of that fact.

Regards,
MG

Seems Joe Smith lost sight of that, didn't he? "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet." History of the Church, Vol 6, pp408-409 (https://byustudies.BYU.edu/online-book/ ... chapter-19). Is this one of Joe Smith's teachings you reject?

[sock puppet]

If the critic was raised as a Mormon as opposed to some other, more mainstream stripes of Christianity, such critic would not be as well versed in the Bible. Mormons don't embrace the New Testament and the Four Gospels particularly as much as mainstream Christianity does.

I don't know that this is true. In Priesthood meeting today a number of the scriptures that were used during the lesson were from the Bible. And that's not out of the ordinary.

Regards,
MG

Just cherry picking some Biblical passages and presenting them in Sunday School every four years does not make the teachers or the congregants versed near the level that is often typical of serious Christian religions. I taught the elder's quorum the year the Bible was supposedly the topic. It was a whirlwind approach in the lesson manuals. Perhaps three or more chapters of the New Testament presented by reference to/reading of 3 to 6 of the verses. We were done in 10 to 15 minutes of the 35 minutes allotted. So, we began contextualizing them by reading aloud several verses before and several after each of those cited in the lesson manual. That was followed by asking what then was the context (I made no comment myself). The elders in attendance would volunteer their respective takes on it, with a bit of interaction between them. Someone "ratted" out this approach, and the 1st Counselor in the Stake Presidency started showing up to make sure no one suggested anything that was not orthodox Mormony. He kept coming, week after week after week, and would tamp down anyone's comments with simply, "that's not what the church teaches" if the elder's comments went beyond basically the first and final paragraphs of the lesson manual entry for that week.

[Moksha]

It would be great if Dan McClellan yet frequented this board and would give his perspective on the thread title question.

That would be quite interesting to get his take.

That could be potentially damaging for Dan since he still values his association with Mormons.

I suppose he could always point to Louis Midgley attacking David Bokovoy over the Documentary Hypothesis, and the hubris shown by Mormons in their claims of having the absolute truth.

By the way, I think Bill Reel and RFM will have Bart Erdman on some future episode.

[Ego]

Other responses have not addressed this, so I will. To ask about Mormons as a whole requires taking into account many different sub groups of Mormons and evaluating how prevalent each group is. For example two different kinds of higher levels of biblical literacy could be seen in former mainstream Christians who have recently converted as well as among dedicated students at Church schools or even those who consume content from Mormon Bible scholars such as through various publications or podcasts. I would recon that such recent coverts are likely much more common outside the United States while the second is much more common within it.
Take Brazil for example where most members of the Church (except for certain hot spots like in São Paulo) are either directly converts themselves or are first generation children of the covenant; these people likely have a familiarity with the Bible in varying degrees according to however their previous Church handled it (which as has already been mentioned is hardly uniform).
Now for the latter, consider how common it is to hear someone bring up Follow Him in a Sunday school lesson for example and then rehearse some biblical scholarship that dear Hank and John’s guest that week shared. Even surface level familiarity with scholarship can provide great knowledge, even if it is a very different kind of familiarity than say the effect of simply reading the Bible every day might have. But I have a feeling that Mormons with this kind of familiarity are in the minority wherever they are.
Maybe this is too vague of an answer, ultimately I think only a statistic could give us the best picture, making sure to have a good sampling of all sorts of Mormons, but my hypothesis would be that less than half of Mormons are substantially familiar with the Bible some way, specifically because less than half (but still a sizable amount) live outside the US in countries that are predominantly Christian and I assume that in these countries (except some like the UK or Australia) that the trend is similar to Brazil’s.

[MG 2.0]

Harsh words, but each one of these 'bits' have answers and/or ways of approaching them in which at the end of the day, as I said, "Jesus Christ has ALWAYS been the mainstay/core of everything in the church".

Unfortunately, many lose sight of that fact.

Regards,
MG

Seems Joe Smith lost sight of that, didn't he? "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet." History of the Church, Vol 6, pp408-409 (https://byustudies.BYU.edu/online-book/ ... chapter-19). Is this one of Joe Smith's teachings you reject?

No. On its face what he says is true.

But if you were to sit down next to Joseph and Jesus I bet they would be able to set you straight.

And Joseph would be totally on board with what the Savior says.

Hint: Jesus is boss man.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Other responses have not addressed this, so I will. To ask about Mormons as a whole requires taking into account many different sub groups of Mormons and evaluating how prevalent each group is. For example two different kinds of higher levels of biblical literacy could be seen in former mainstream Christians who have recently converted as well as among dedicated students at Church schools or even those who consume content from Mormon Bible scholars such as through various publications or podcasts. I would recon that such recent coverts are likely much more common outside the United States while the second is much more common within it.
Take Brazil for example where most members of the Church (except for certain hot spots like in São Paulo) are either directly converts themselves or are first generation children of the covenant; these people likely have a familiarity with the Bible in varying degrees according to however their previous Church handled it (which as has already been mentioned is hardly uniform).
Now for the latter, consider how common it is to hear someone bring up Follow Him in a Sunday school lesson for example and then rehearse some biblical scholarship that dear Hank and John’s guest that week shared. Even surface level familiarity with scholarship can provide great knowledge, even if it is a very different kind of familiarity than say the effect of simply reading the Bible every day might have. But I have a feeling that Mormons with this kind of familiarity are in the minority wherever they are.
Maybe this is too vague of an answer, ultimately I think only a statistic could give us the best picture, making sure to have a good sampling of all sorts of Mormons, but my hypothesis would be that less than half of Mormons are substantially familiar with the Bible some way, specifically because less than half (but still a sizable amount) live outside the US in countries that are predominantly Christian and I assume that in these countries (except some like the UK or Australia) that the trend is similar to Brazil’s.

In summary, some are and some aren't. What you might think in a large group of people in which individuals have their own connections...from one degree or another ..with the Bible.

For me, the Bible is the authoritative voice for Jesus and his early followers. I'm so glad we have it and that it is there for us to study and gain a testimony of Christ.

The Bible is our connection with the rest of our Christian brothers and sisters, even with the doctrinal disagreements we may have.

Regards,
MG

[Ego]

For me, the Bible is the authoritative voice for Jesus and his early followers.

So how do you view the Hebrew Bible then (seeing as at face value this refers to the New Testament)?
Obviously your answer could be the same if you take the view that Yahweh is Jesus, but I felt like following up.

[PseudoPaul]

I would say that Mormons misunderstand the Bible in novel ways compared to the tried and true ways that Protestants and Catholics misunderstand the Bible.