NOM

Good insights, thanks. Makes me realize I've got a good thing going.

I think it was set up as a mechanism to bind together an elite inner circle of people practicing polygamy. I think Joseph saw how well masonry did this and wanted to make an appendant rite (like the Royal Arch). When the succession crisis hit, Brigham saw how effective it did this and wanted to have...

Removed

Yes, I would definitely check it out. I think he does a great job of narrating the story and tying it altogether with Church history as well as getting into what the different fundamentalist groups practice and believe. Did you know FLDS can't have sex with a pregnant wife? That is considered a viol...

Loved the book and it has definitely causing a lot of buzz with a lot of different types of people, believing and non. I recently read Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. That book was always demonized when I was growing up, but I loved it. When I understood fundamentalism, the view of Tara...

My friend who told me about the rumored changes on Monday just went and confirmed the changes posted elsewhere.

I heard these rumors on Monday and have a friend going today to check it out. At this point, I do not think the changes are being rolled out today as spelled out in the rumor or yesterday in Nauvoo (that seems really suspicious that the Nauvoo temple would have been open yesterday, all the other tem...

didn't really have a response to that because it stirred up a bad past memory of an encounter I had with a born again Christian who hammered me with the "You Mormons think that God had sex with Mary." That was a WTF moment. If you have not seen this, you need to. The Mary part is a gem. https://www...

At my ward yesterday we had a couple speak who had just returned from a mission to the Harmony, Pennsylvania Church site. I was fascinated to hear the new narrative about the Book of Mormon translation. In a nutshell: God guided Joseph to find a seer stone. He was able to develop his spiritual gift ...

Just This Guy wrote:Do you happen to have a citation for this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_116_ ... te_note-22

It looks like it comes from Rough Stone Rolling

I'm surprised this isn't trotted out more in the Book of Abraham discussion. This is Josiah Quincy's experience with seeing the papyrus in Nauvoo: "And now come with me," said the prophet, "and I will show you the curiosities." So saying, he led the way to a lower room, where sat a venerable and res...

The words "Lord" and "God" in the Bible are English placeholders for the Hebrew names for Jehovah (Lord) and Elohim (God). So, using the name God is using a title or placeholder, not the actual name of God. My kids were watching a Studio C about funny greek god names, like the god of toilet paper. I...

No, Sandra wasn't there. There was one other employee at the store and someone else in the back. It's in the living room of an old house, across the street from the Salt Lake Bees stadium. I have always wondered about the provenance of the grainy black and white photos of the Smith family magical pa...

Sorry this took so long to post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf3MluItWQE

I had a conference in Salt Lake and stopped by the infamous Tanner bookstore. People like Mark Hofmann, Brent Metcalf and Thomas Ferguson spent time here discussing problems in Church history. I grew up hearing about the Tanners as the most infamous anti-Mormons. I thought the Mormon Stories intervi...

I was totally on board with the Melakanos/Trebas theory that it was a Smith Family project. I started reading Dan Vogel's biography of Joseph Smith and think he brings up some good points that poke some holes in that theory. As Alas points out, so much of the BOM is meant to address the internal pro...

I think Evangelical Christians like Melonakos run into the same problems with literal truth claims. I think we misinterpret what the Bible actually is, which I would say is an ancient tribe trying to explain the divine. The Bible incorporates creation myths, exaggerated conquest stories and an inven...

I thought the material was fascinating. But, I thought it was a hard interview to follow. I feel like I know a fair amount about early Mormon history and was lost during parts. Melonakos seems brilliant but very scatterbrained and kept trying to blurt out facts or left thoughts hanging in mid-air. S...

I enjoy perusing the more liberal Christian literature (Marcus Borg, Richard Rohr, Rob Bell) and listen to some podcasts (Robcast, Bible for Normal People). The general consensus among scholars seems to be: 1. Jesus lived and died a good Jew, meaning he did not set up a Church, based on what is in t...

Has anyone seen this on the Church website or Gospel Library app? https://www.lds.org/languages/eng/content/history/topics/martin-harriss-consultations-with-scholars?lang=eng. If you look on the left, there are all the topics. A lot of them appear to be a direct response to Mormon Think. It's intere...