I always thought the United Order and Consecration were the same thing. I’ve been reading a book called Great Basin Kingdom by Leonard Arrington (former church historian) and learned they are actually different. The basic difference to me seems to be that with Consecration, one gave all they owned to the church, and then were given back “what they needed.” With the United Order, it seems to have originated out of various economic cooperatives established to give fair, reasonable prices and jobs to the Mormons. In some cases, saints could choose to consecrate all their possessions to the United Order, but usually it worked more in an economic cooperative, where fair prices were established for Mormons. If they sold to gentiles, often the gentiles paid more.
Would you recognize this church?
Often on the bloggernacle, someone will ask (such as Faithful Dissident did recently) What Would Joseph Smith Think About The Modern LDS Church? The implication often is that we moderns have strayed. Perhaps, but another answer is we have evolved. But if we moderns were to travel back in time, would we recognize them?
Knowing – Nicolas Cage
I just saw this movie last night. I had never heard of it before, and literally knew nothing about it. I told my wife to pick a movie, and I thought she would pick a chic flick. She said she thought I might like it because it had something to do with numbers and predicting future events. I don’t want to give away any plot lines. It’s not the kind of movie that I typically like. In fact, I’d say that for about 90% of the movie, I thought, “This is just a weird, creepy movie.” Then the end came, and I really liked it (though my wife just thought it was a weird, creepy movie.)
Here’s what IMDB said about the movie, and a couple of trailers. Continue Reading »
Did Moses Copy Hammurabi’s 10 Commandments?
A friend of mine let me know about this news item at Signature Books. Apparently, one of their authors (David Wright) has a new book published by Oxford University Press. For those of you who don’t know, Oxford is known as a pretty tough place to publish. They have pretty high scholarly standards, so getting published there lends one some great credibility. So, the original press release at Signature stated that the Ten Commandments were plagiarized from Hammurabi. The old quote from the site is below. However, David Wright brought to my attention a correction in the press release. I will show both of them.
Mormons and Indians in the Great Plains
I have some good news, and some bad news. First the good news–I got a new job! Now the bad news–my new job will interfere with my frequent blogging, so there will definitely be a decrease in activity.
My book club has been reading a book called Establishing Zion by Eugene Campbell. I couldn’t find it in the library, but Signature Books has posted the entire book online and you can read it right here! Briefly, Campbell is a former history professor from BYU. I learned tons from it, though I did find the first 5 chapters a little slow. However, chapters 6-7 were very interesting, and I want to talk about them.
Early Church History: Oaks and Veazey
I’ve been reading a book by Apostle Dallin Oaks called Carthage Conspiracy. Oaks is a lawyer, former Utah Supreme Court judge, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, and president of BYU from 1971-1980 (updated 8/9/2009). He wrote the book in 1975, and analyzes the trial of the assassins of Joseph Smith. I plan to do a future post on the book, but let me say that when we look at Mayor(s) Daley and Gov. Blagojavich (sp?), it seems that crooked Illinois politics are alive and well, just as they were in the days of Joseph Smith. The trial was a travesty, though I admit that Mormon unwillingness to assist the prosecutor in convicting these murderers did not help matters. Apostle John Taylor, who was shot in the melee, went into hiding rather than testify. Certainly this didn’t help the Illinois prosecutor in trying to convict the murderers.
I want to look at one specific incident in the book describing events in Missouri, and contrast LDS views with CoC views on the topic. I want to review a specific statement from Prophet/President Veazey. While Pres Veazey wasn’t addressing any particular events, I think the event I want to illustrate could have been something he might have been referring to.
The Documentary Hypothesis
The 8th Article of Faith for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints states:
8 We believe the aBible to be the bword of God as far as it is translated ccorrectly;
This has to be one of the most oft-quoted articles of faith by members of the LDS church. In one of my previous posts on Scripture Literalism, the comments referred to Biblical inerrancy and literalism. Some evangelicals believe that the Bible is both inerrant and literal, and take great issue with the Mormon stance on the Bible. They don’t believe there are any mistranslations, and that every word in the Bible was spoken by God. Many of these people discount any contradictions in the Bible.
The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory that seems to identify at least four different authors/editors of the first five books in the Bible (also called the Torah in Judaism, or the Pentateuch.) I think many Mormons would find great agreement with the Documentary Hypothesis, though they might not agree with every part of the theory.
Science and Religion: Compatible or Not?
Ok, this is a post to tackle a few issues. #1, Bishop Rick did request a post: “Personally, I would like to see a post that shows how evolution could fit inside the Genesis account of creation. I predict a lively discussion there.” I did do a post on Evolution, but he didn’t know me then (My blog was very new.) However, it was quite lively over at Mormon Matters! This current post can also be considered a follow-up to my previous post on Science and Religion.
Also, the conversation veered off the road on my Malay post, going into the space-time continuum. So, since I like to compartmentalize things, I thought I’d open up a new post where space-time continuum, advanced civilizations, etc can be talked about. So, this is basically a science post where you can post anything to do with science vs religion. I don’t care about threadjacking here, as long as it shows some reference to science. I do want to pull a quote from Nachminides, as we start this discussion. I posted this previously on my DNA post: Continue Reading »
Pres Veazey on Scripture Literalism
Thanks to FireTag for letting me know about a recent statement by the current prophet of the Community of Christ. He talks about scriptural literalism. The videos can be found on the CoC website, and this quote comes from Chapter 4. Let me quote from Pres. Veazey directly: Continue Reading »
What if Christ’s Bones Were Found?
I don’t know why, but I love to learn about archaeology, especially religious archaeology. A few years ago, Simcha Jacobovici came out with a documentary and book called The Jesus Tomb. In it, he makes a claim that the bones of Jesus may have been located in a tomb unearthed in Jerusalem. Of course, the Da Vinci Code, while fiction, makes a claim that Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene were actually buried in France. A few months ago, I watched a documentary called Bloodline, which actually goes further, and makes the case that yes, indeed, the bones of Christ and Mary are found in France. (You can learn more at the official website.) I just came across a third source, which claims that Christ’s bones are actually located in India. See this website.
Mormon Heretic 