NOM

John, do you have any historical data on why the names Satan and Santa are so similar? BTW, I love reading your posts because you are so knowledgeable. Thanks! "Santa" derives from the Latin "sanctus" (holy) and "Satan" derives from the Hebrew "śāṭān" (accuser). Latin and Hebrew are not related, nor ...

There's an evolution of the idea of angels in Old Testament Judaism. Through most of the First Temple period, Israelites were pagans with many gods totally indistinguishable from the rest of the Western Semitic peoples (Canaanites, Aramites/Syrians, Phoenicians, Moabites, Edomites) as they are all ...

From a Christian perspective, this proposition doesn't make any sense. We have to remember that Mormons have re-defined "angel" to mean "ghost," i.e., the spirit of a human either after they are dead or in some cases before they are born. In traditional theology, angels are not human ghosts. Angels ...

Kwaku has a brand new video out called “ The End of John Dehlin .” Not sure if some new Mormon group is bankrolling this character assassination video or if it one of the usual suspects just doing a clandestine end-run around after they had been told to knock it off and act in a disciple of Jesus ma ...

John, where do the Comoros Islands and its capital Moroni fall on the scale of something and nothing? Here's a scale of "Takes" on the Book of Mormon. Moroni, Comoros Islands, falls somewhere between Meaningless Coincidence and Trivia. It's possible that Joseph Smith saw a map and got it from there ...

There's no such thing as a bulls-eye — that's not how scholarship works. The Book of Mormon is fully consistent with its composition timeframe, c. 1829-30. The anachronisms make an ancient origin impossible. So "NHM" has zero explanatory value. One of the Books of the Bible is "Nahum" — the Bible is ...

The idea of "history" hadn't been invented yet, so no one thought it was "historical." The person composing the text was most likely creating entertaining identity-stories for the royal court of Judah. The text is part of a courtly narrative, i.e., one that is of interest to nobles in a royal court ...

Of course, the convenient workaround for this is to say that the word serpent is really just a personality descriptor, like the way "skin of blackness" is really a description of moral intent rather than a physical characteristic. Then recast the Book of Revelation's rebellious angel that fell from ...

It's not really even a myth, it's a fable. Myth has a Greek root and fable a Latin root, but can't these words can be used interchangeably? Although there are overlaps in usage, fables are narratives that contain talking animals (or other things that normally don't talk). The fact that the serpent ...

The word "Adam" just means "man." The story includes a talking snake. It's not really even a myth, it's a fable. It's impossible to imagine this fable as history. There is zero chance that there are historical figures involved in this obvious fable.

It often looks like the LDS church is being slowly yanked, kicking and screaming, to become more in line with the Community of Christ. I'm curious how members of the CofC see Adam and Eve, and what fallout may of happened from doctrinal changes. In interviews I've watched of Stephen Mark Veazey he ...

Wow. I can confirm that Benjamin Park is a thoughtful scholar, and SEB is neither of those things. Her multi-volume works on early church membership records are widely regarded as an unfortunate, non-scholarly joke.

The chance that Adam and Eve are historical figures: 0%. If your religion is based on them being actual people in history, it's toast.

That's a fascinating perspective John. About what year would you think that Mark was written? Probably after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem (70 ad) but before the first Jewish-Roman War finally ended (73 ad). The author of Mark is aware of the temple's destruction, but thinks the ...

Do you have any thoughts on the long ending of Mark? I believe from previous podcasts you believe it was added on later, but I've been reading some writings that claim the long ending was original and was spoken of by people before it was added on by scholars. I tend to think the long ending was a ...

If I were a BoM apologist I would say that Lehi and his descendants didn't know any of that, and they just naively assumed that everything in the Brass Plates was literally true, as so many people do with the Bible today. Of course, that leads us to another 6-pack of canned worms waiting to be ...

Biblical scholarship (literary criticism) proves that the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not in question. Since the book is literarily dependent on the King James Bible (with italics) there is zero chance that it is anything other than a modern text. I explain the issue here: https://www ...

If people want to watch the recording, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dFiA8UvD3k

This was a pretty amazing service. We broke records with well over a thousand individuals participating live from dozens of countries.

Thanks John. I tuned in for part of it but I also had my Oasis Community meeting and was checking in with my wife who was watching Zoom Sacrament Meeting in the other room. Is it just me or does your corner of the universe have a very different vibe from the Salt Lake branch? I have attended a few ...

What changes were these John? We can now celebrate the sacrament simultaneously in multiple remote locations. If a person is in Antarctica, and is not in priesthood, he can mindfully prepare emblems. Then, live at a remote location, a priest or Melchisedec priesthood holder can read the blessing on ...