Serious enquiry for maklelan.

[_Servant]

To move this discussion back onto the topic of how awesome and scholarly mak is, I'd like to have some recommendations from mak as to good introductory college-level texts on historical and literary criticism of the Old Testament. I have Ehrman's "A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings" which I've found helpful in illuminating other basic and more advanced texts related to scholarship with respect to the New Testament, so I'm looking for something similar on the Old Testament.

My wife was recently called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher and I indicated that I would assist as her research assistant in helping her pull some things together that are more illuminating and scholarly than what can be found in the basic seminary/institute manuals on the subject. Plus it would give us some interesting stuff to talk about with respect to the Old Testament, which is probably one of the most impenetrable books of Mormon scripture there is (in terms of understanding the historical context, the symbolism, etc.).

I got an updated Oxford Annotated Bible and Coogan's "The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures," so if you wanted to make a comment about either of those resources specifically that would be cool.

Tell her to throw away the Mormon junk and to read the Bible - after all, it's "Gospel Doctrine."

[_maklelan]

To move this discussion back onto the topic of how awesome and scholarly mak is, I'd like to have some recommendations from mak as to good introductory college-level texts on historical and literary criticism of the Old Testament. I have Ehrman's "A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings" which I've found helpful in illuminating other basic and more advanced texts related to scholarship with respect to the New Testament, so I'm looking for something similar on the Old Testament.

Great question. Probably the best two are David Carr's An Introduction to the Old Testament (If one were so inclined, one could google the name of the book and find an illicitly posted PDF of the entire volume) and John Collins' A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible.

My wife was recently called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher and I indicated that I would assist as her research assistant in helping her pull some things together that are more illuminating and scholarly than what can be found in the basic seminary/institute manuals on the subject. Plus it would give us some interesting stuff to talk about with respect to the Old Testament, which is probably one of the most impenetrable books of Mormon scripture there is (in terms of understanding the historical context, the symbolism, etc.).

The scholarly stuff is going to be difficult to integrate into a GD class, but not impossible. A good aid is a blog by a friend of mine that is oriented toward providing some academic context for each lesson. You can find it here. I also helped with a publication a few years ago that is basically an illustrated guide to the culture of the Old Testament. It's called Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. That might provide a bit more context, too.

I got an updated Oxford Annotated Bible and Coogan's "The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures," so if you wanted to make a comment about either of those resources specifically that would be cool.

Both are very good.

[_maklelan]

Tell her to throw away the Mormon junk and to read the Bible - after all, it's "Gospel Doctrine."

That's not sectarian at all, is it?

[_aussieguy55]

Mak, do you apply your skills to the Book of Mormon. You obviousley believe there were such persons as Lehi and Nephi who came to the America's. Do you see geniune chiasmus in the Book of Mormon? How do you deal with the chapters of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon that were written later? The word "Mormon" I understand is the Greek for "frightening" and in books on the Puffin birds on the eastern seaboard was used along with other Greek words to refer to these birds such as "Mormon Articus"
How do you deal with information that might be disconfirmatory that is outside your area of expertise? Such as DNA and archaeology?

[_Flaming Meaux]

Tell her to throw away the Mormon junk and to read the Bible - after all, it's "Gospel Doctrine."

Thanks for the incredibly helpful suggestion. If I were going to be crass enough to just "tell her to throw away the Mormon junk," then as a secular humanist I'd probably recommend that she take an entirely different approach to "Gospel Doctrine" altogether--you know, like getting the teaching grounded in enlightenment values or something. I give her full credit for already wanting to go outside the "Mormon junk," as you call it, to actually understand what more mainstream Biblical scholarship has to say about the texts. Though from seeing what you have written in other threads I'd guess you are likely only to encourage that approach to the extent it causes her to abandon some of Mormonism's dogmatic interpretations in favor of your own. That's consistency for you.

[_Flaming Meaux]

To move this discussion back onto the topic of how awesome and scholarly mak is, I'd like to have some recommendations from mak as to good introductory college-level texts on historical and literary criticism of the Old Testament. I have Ehrman's "A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings" which I've found helpful in illuminating other basic and more advanced texts related to scholarship with respect to the New Testament, so I'm looking for something similar on the Old Testament.

Great question. Probably the best two are David Carr's An Introduction to the Old Testament (If one were so inclined, one could google the name of the book and find an illicitly posted PDF of the entire volume) and John Collins' A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible.

My wife was recently called as a Gospel Doctrine teacher and I indicated that I would assist as her research assistant in helping her pull some things together that are more illuminating and scholarly than what can be found in the basic seminary/institute manuals on the subject. Plus it would give us some interesting stuff to talk about with respect to the Old Testament, which is probably one of the most impenetrable books of Mormon scripture there is (in terms of understanding the historical context, the symbolism, etc.).

The scholarly stuff is going to be difficult to integrate into a GD class, but not impossible. A good aid is a blog by a friend of mine that is oriented toward providing some academic context for each lesson. You can find it here. I also helped with a publication a few years ago that is basically an illustrated guide to the culture of the Old Testament. It's called Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament. That might provide a bit more context, too.

I got an updated Oxford Annotated Bible and Coogan's "The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures," so if you wanted to make a comment about either of those resources specifically that would be cool.

Both are very good.

Thanks Mak--particularly for the blog suggestion. I'm not sure what level of academic context she's going to ultimately end up including because, as you note, it can be difficult to integrate into a standard GD class (even assuming you had a class that was receptive to that), so maybe this will just be additional study on the side that gets the both of us actually discussing the Bible openly again.

[_Gunnar]

Mak, do you apply your skills to the Book of Mormon. You obviousley believe there were such persons as Lehi and Nephi who came to the America's. Do you see geniune chiasmus in the Book of Mormon? How do you deal with the chapters of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon that were written later? The word "Mormon" I understand is the Greek for "frightening" and in books on the Puffin birds on the eastern seaboard was used along with other Greek words to refer to these birds such as "Mormon Articus"
How do you deal with information that might be disconfirmatory that is outside your area of expertise? Such as DNA and archaeology?

I would also be interested in seeing mak's answers to those questions.

[_maklelan]

Mak, do you apply your skills to the Book of Mormon.

I do, but obviously not nearly as extensively as the Bible.

You obviousley believe there were such persons as Lehi and Nephi who came to the America's.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Do you see geniune chiasmus in the Book of Mormon?

Yeah. I see it in a lot of places.

How do you deal with the chapters of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon that were written later?

That's Joseph Smith's work.

The word "Mormon" I understand is the Greek for "frightening"

No.

and in books on the Puffin birds on the eastern seaboard was used along with other Greek words to refer to these birds such as "Mormon Articus"

Meh.

How do you deal with information that might be disconfirmatory that is outside your area of expertise? Such as DNA and archaeology?

Archaeology is not outside my area of expertise, although Mesoamerican archaeology certainly is. I don't see the DNA issue as that critical, since it really only problematizes certain interpretations of the Book of Mormon and its history, and I'm not really committed to any specific interpretation at this point.

[_aussieguy55]

Do you think the possible influences of chiasmus came from some of the material that the Johnson brothers found contained chiasmus and was part of the books published around Smith's time such as The Great War.?

[_Gunnar]

Maklelan, your answers to aussieguy55 give me the impression that you may actually be open to the possibility that the Book of Mormon may indeed be mainly or entirely a 19th century work of fiction (possibly divinely influenced to some extent). Is there any accuracy to that impression?