Blake Ostler on God and Gods (continuation)

Blake T. Ostler gave to me the third volume in his Exploring Mormon Thought series a while ago.  The book has almost 450 entries in its bibliography.  I don’t know where Blake has the time to research all this.  Seriously, how many hours per day does this lawyer allot to theological reading?  This is incredible.  Does he have a research assistant like many evangelical professors do?

I am highly interested in what kind of schedule Blake maintains for fulfilling the writing of his scholarly LDS works.

I have read up to page 221 in Of God and Gods.

I knew it.  I knew sometime down the road this would be brought up as an analogy for LDS Social Trinitarianism.

When it is asserted that “the Father is God” and “the Son is God,” but “the Son is not the Father,” these assertions can be logically consistent given the assumptions of social Trinitarianism.  It is like asserting that “Dieter Uchtdorf  is a member of the First Presidency,” “Thomas Monson is a member of the First Presidency,” but “Dieter Uchtdorf is not Thomas Monson.”  There are three in the First Presidency but only one First Presidency.   Moreover, if we assume that everything that is done by any member of the First Presidency must be by unanimous agreement and that whatever information is shared with one member is shared with all three, then we begin to get a close analogy to how identity statements function in ST propositions.” (pp. 220 – 221).

Hebrews Inductive Study (Chapter 11)

I have no full post on questions for you as of yet.  But verse 3 is a BIG DECLARATION for the I-15 Corridor.

Don’t you think that this verse might lean more in support of creation ex nihilo than to the doctrinal, fundamental  LDS idea of “eternally existing matter”?

F.F. Bruce has encouraged me to look outside the canon as well for fun.

2 Macc. 7:28 – where the mother of seven martyrs reminds her youngest son how God made the world “out of things that had no existence” (ek ouk onton)

2 Baruch 21:4 – “O thou . . . that hast fixed the firmament by the word, . . . that hast called from the beginning of the world that which did not yet exist”

2 Enoch 25:1-4 – “I commanded . . . that visible things should come down from invisible.”

Hebrews Inductive Study (Chapter 10)

Questions for Hebrews 10

Observation

  1.  What can the Law never do?
  2. What is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats?
  3. What was prepared for Jesus? (v. 5)
  4. We are sanctified through what? (v. 10)
  5. What can animal sacrifices never do?
  6. What happened to the veil of Herod’s temple?  What is the veil to the heavenly temple?
  7. Since Jesus is our great priest, we are encouraged to do what three actions (“Let us”)?
  8. How have the readers of Hebrews suffered? (vv. 33-34)?
  9. What are all the O.T. passages quoted in this chapter?
  10. If verse 38 is a severe warning, what is verse 39?

Interpretation

  1. Would it be acceptable to equate the Holy Spirit with Yahweh?
  2. A man, who has been sanctified by the blood of the covenant, can be in danger of doing what (v. 29)?   How do you interpret this verse?
  3. If God remembers your sins no more, is there any more need for you to confess any sins?
  4. “The day drawing near” (v. 25) – what is that day?
  5. What is the difference between doubt and apostasy?

Application

  1.  Are there some sin memories in your life that plague you continually?
  2. What are some of those repetitious rituals that you might be tempted to rely upon for achieving forgiveness before God?
  3. What are the hindrances and temptations that seek to keep you from being fully submitted to the Father and doing His will?
  4. How are you doing with the “Let us” exhortations in this chapter?
  5. How has someone else stimulated you toward love and good deeds?  How have you encouraged someone to persevere in the faith?

Hebrews Inductive Study (Chapter 9)

Questions for Hebrews 9

Observation

  1.  What was in the ark of the covenant?
  2. What is the Greek word for mercy seat?  Where else in the Bible do we see this word?
  3. How often does the high priest enter into the “second” (the Holy of Holies)?
  4. The high priest offers gifts and sacrifices for what kind of sins?
  5. Do these gifts and offerings make the sinner perfect in conscience?
  6. Where in the Old Testament do we see the blood and ashes being sprinkled?
  7. How is verse 14 Trinitarian?
  8. Without shedding of blood, there is no what?
  9. Is Jesus coming a second time?
  10. How would you summarize chapter 9?

Interpretation

  1.  How do you translate thymiaterion in verse 4, altar of incense or censer?
  2. What is the Greek word for “symbol” in verse 9?  How does that shed light on the priesthood service?
  3. What is the human conscience? (v. 9)
  4. What is the “a time of reformation”? (v. 10)
  5. What is a mediator? (v. 15)

Application

  1.  Do you have a clear conscience?
  2. What have you been freed to do?
  3. Can you sing the precious hymn, “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus”?
  4. Are you eagerly awaiting the return of your great High Priest?
  5. What can you add to the sacrifice of Christ?

“Christian” – an elastic term

Stephen Prothero writes in his latest book, God is Not One (HarperOne, 2010) (see the latest review):

Christianity is now so elastic that it seems a stretch to use this term to cover the beliefs and behaviors of Pentecostals in Brazil, Mormons in Utah, Roman Catholics in Italy, and the Orthodox in Moscow. (p. 67)

Verily, I think it is a stretch.  But my Mormon friends don’t.

Notice the section in the book devoted to Mormonism (pp. 82-84).

Hebrews – what the English translator thought 475 years ago

Do you know what William Tyndale wrote as he translated Hebrews into English, around 475 years ago?

 . . . Now therefore to come to our purposes again, though this epistle (as it saith in the sixth) lay not the ground of the faith of Christ, yet it buildeth cunningly thereon pure gold, silver and precious stones, and proveth the priesthood of Christ with scriptures inevitable.  Moreover there is no work in all scripture that so plainly declareth the meaning and significations of the sacrifices, ceremonies and figures of the old testament, as this epistle: in so much that if wilful blindness and malicious malice were not the cause, this epistle only were enough to weed out of the hearts of the papists that cankered heresy of justifying of works, concerning our sacraments, ceremonies and all manner of traditions of their own invention. . . .

Some more Joseph Smith ouch to John’s Gospel

John 6:65 – And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

John 9:4 – I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

John 13:10 – Jesus saith to him, he that has washed his hands and his head needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit:  and ye are clean, but not all.  Now this was the custom of the Jews under their law: wherefore, Jesus did this that the law might be fulfilled. (JST)

John 14:30 – Hereafter I will not talk much with you:  for the prince of darkness, who is of this world cometh, but hath no power over me, but he hath power over you. (JST)

John 19:17 – And he was bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:

___________

And what in the world?  How do these interpretations jive with John’s Gospel?

John 14:1-5 – “Of this passage the Prophet Joseph Smith taught, ” ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ It should be–‘In my Father’s kingdom are many kingdoms,’ in order that ye may be heirs of God and joint-heirs with me. . . . There are mansions for those who obey the celestial law, and there are other mansions for those who come short of the law[,] every man in his own order (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 366).”

John 17:20-26 – “To establish Zion, then, we must become of one heart and one mind.  God seems to be celebrating not diversity but unity.  That may not be too popular a notion in the world, but the Godhead is encouraging us to become as they are–to feel and to think as they do.  And where are we more united, as one, than any other place?  In the House of God.  In his Holy Temple we present ourselves equally before the Lord, all dressed in the same white clothing symbolic of cleanliness and purity, not one better than anyone else (no matter how much money we possess, what executive position we have, or what Church position we serve in)–all are alike before God.  As we learned from Joseph Smith about the washing of feet, that ordinance and all ordinances of the Temple unite us, helping us to become one. . . . Surely the three Gods are teaching us mortals the fundamental and indispensable principle that will lead us to become as they are.  In this great intercessory prayer, our Advocate with the Father is pleading:  ‘Holy Father, keep . . . those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are’ (John 17:11).”

John 20:14-17 – ” ‘Hold me not,’ he gently explained to her, ‘for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God’ (JST John 20:17).  There would now be a respectful separation between immortals and mortals.  Jesus taught: He is first my Father and God, then your Father and God.  And Jesus himself was now more than mortal friend and associate in the divine work; he was Savior, Lord, and God to those brethren and sisters and to all mankind.  If, as the Savior indicated, he had not yet ascended to his Father, where had he been?  The answer is more gloriously and plainly presented in Doctrine and Covenants 138 than anywhere else in scripture.  The Lord Jesus Christ had not yet ascended to the home of his Father but had gone only to the spirit world, which is the place of all spirit beings and living things occupying the very same space as this physical Earth.  He had organized in the world of spirits, among the billions of the Father’s children who had lived from the days of Adam and Eve until his own day, that same missionary effort that he had organized on earth during his mortal ministry.  ‘And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on condition of repentance’  (D&C 138:19).”

John 21:23-25 – “The word spread:  John the Beloved was not going to die a mortal death but would continue to live as a translated being in the mortal sphere until the Lord returned to reign during the Millennium (Matthew 16:28).”

– taken from Verse by Verse: The Four Gospels  (Deseret, 2006) by D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C. Skinner

August 20, 2006

That date marked the day when our church family began a serious study of The Gospel of John.  And it was soon after, I began Heart Issues for LDS (HI4LDS).

Yesterday, we finished our examination of the 879 verses.  I am greatly privileged that my church family would allow me to lead them in over 150 hours in this study.  And I will always treasure the hours of meditation and prayer in my personal journey through this book.  The Gospel has changed my life.

And this is no mere hyperbole:

And there are many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.  Amen.