Dave's Mormon Inquiry

With Friends Like These

I suspect this thought will occur to the few LDS leaders who read A Malay Site For Book of Mormon Events, a short article in the latest Sunstone. One can hardly fault the author for trying to match up Book of Mormon geography and names with real-world locations. Mormons have been doing this since 1830. What is really damning about the article is that it actually makes as plausible a case for the Malay peninsula as any other effort has managed for North America or Mesoamerica.

Science News

There's a good post on biological taxonomy at Panda's Thumb. It has moved beyond my kingdom-phylum-order-class-family-genus-species system from high school biology. Taxonomy is where attentive biologists discover philosophy (nominalism versus realism).

Four Word Book Review

Last week I discovered one of the funnier sites on the web, Four Word Film Review. Go check out the collection of four-word film reviews (yes, just four words) of Fellowship of the Ring, for example. Zingers: "Short hero, long movie"; "One perm rules all"; and "Are they there yet"? Iambic pentameter is more than I can handle, but the four word review is right up my alley. I'll specialize in the four word book review, starting with my just-completed Book of the Month, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.

Here it is: Everthing is like ants.

We Have A Winner

I'm declaring Let Us Reason the winner of Round 2 of Battle of the Blogs. It will now be entered at the top of the Blog Battle Winners blogroll on the right sidebar. A new battle will emerge when two new weblog contestants are identified or nominated by participating viewers. Best wishes to the blogger of the runner up BYU Law Blog, whose author is either off in Hawaii celebrating his graduation from the BYU Law School, or else sitting at a desk in the J. Reuben Clark law library mnemonically memorizing the four requirements for a court to issue a preliminary injunction.

Recruiting for Zion's Camp

I posted a short preview of the Zion's Camp expedition over at Joseph's Journal. The first group left Kirtland for Missouri on May 1, 1834 (which will post May 1, 2004, this Saturday). Joseph departed on May 5, 1834 (which will post on May 5, 2004, next Wednesday). Come follow the cross-country adventure of this intrepid band of brothers.

Battle of the Blogs - Round 2

Two new weblogs for your review and comment. Lest you wring your hands over having to choose a winner between two fine weblogs, I'll note that there's no rule against having two winners, and that may be the case this week. It's like you have two votes: you can either give two thumbs up, one up and one down, or two thumbs down. There's also no rule against these two site owners themselves voting or commenting! I would also invite veteran bloggers to share their accumulated blogging wisdom by offering these new bloggers their advice in the following form: "I've learned one of the secrets to running a successful weblogs is . . ."

Choice No. 1: BYU Law Blog, which carries the tagline "News and Thoughts on BYU, the Law, Mormonism, Current Events, and Anything Else that Pops into My Head." Someone tell this kid how to use Haloscan (I haven't done it before) as he wants to install comments. As an example post, check out this post on Mormon cussing.

Choice No. 2: Let Us Reason, a cleverly named weblog by a veteran of LDS bulletin boards "moving up" to weblogs. He shows his good weblog sense early--he's already piggybacking on other posts, as in this post entitled Atonement Analogies, building off an earlier popular entry on one of the Bloggernacle's two thriving group blogs.

If You Like Me Here . . .

I have joined the Mormon-themed group blog By Common Consent, which advertises itself as tolerating dissent but not stupidity. Don't believe everything you read--I think they're willing to tolerate a fair amount of stupidity too but they're just embarrassed to admit it. Anyway, if you like me here, you'll love the conversation there, so drop in. My first two BCC posts are here and here. I find I'm a little more careful composing posts on a group blog--don't want to embarrass my blogmates. I will, of course, keep up a regular stream of posts here at Mormon Inquiry and at my other blog project, Joseph's Journal (which will really get interesting in about a month when Zion's Camp embarks for Missouri).

Now that I'm reading Emergence (my Book of the Month, see top of right column) I recognize the formation of group blogs as a form of scale-dependent emergent behavior--self-directed organizing. As applied to humans, I think this whole "emergence" thing is just papered-over sociology, which has been considering human groups and institutions for a hundred years. New vocabulary, natural scientists who are ill-informed about social science, add ants, voila a whole new discipline. Not. But it's still a fun book.

Book of the Month

I have replaced my Image Box with a Book of the Month feature. The best images are people, and I don't want to spend time explaining how the black and white photo in the box to the right is not really me but some noted Mormon patriarch. Hence my new Book of the Month photo.

Feel free to read along. I'll try to work the Book of the Month into several blogs, kind of building a theme into my thinking. Sort of like the law school game where over the course of the day you try to make a comment in each class that refers in some way to a designated notable case. It's amazing how versatile The Slaughterhouse Cases can be, for example: The court here read this provision right out of the statute, much like the Supreme Court did to the Privileges or Immunities Clause in The Slaughterhouse Cases. And you will no doubt be amazed at how many phenomena can be explained by emergence over my next few blogs. In fact, it might even explain the the Slaughterhouse Cases!

Blogroll Adjustments

Keeping my link lists up to date: I added Doctrinal:Net back to the Weblog link list (without putting it through a Battle of the Blogs) in view of dp's recent return to commenting and dp's consistent participation in the Bloggernacle (note my acquiescence in this now-official term). I also replaced Life According to Jordan (his law blog) with The Book of Jordan (his LDS blog), but I do tip my hat to a fellow practitioner of polybloggery. A couple of other underperforming blogs were dropped from Weblogs (really my Bloggernacle list).

I moved a few others down to Media, and I'll highlight them as media blogs that follow religion on the web are great sources: Religion News Blog (no commentary) and Bartholomew's Notes on Religion (a Salon Radio blog featuring bloggish commentary with many links). The Revealer, another religion and media site I picked up from an earlier reference at T&S, was added to my Media list earlier.

One Thing I Like About the Church

I’m delighted to accept Steve’s invitation to come blog with BCC’s talented crew. To get started on a pleasant note, I’d like to take up Richard Bushman’s recent challenge “to name one concrete, personal thing [I] like about the church.”

Critic Unlimited

Just finished Harold Bloom's Poem Unlimited (Riverhead Books, 2003), his pleasantly short collection of celebratory observations on Hamlet and Hamlet. It comes to only 176 pocket-book size pages, a limited book for an unlimited poem. Remarkable, really, since Bloom could no doubt have written a thousand pages on Hamlet, and a few hundred more on Hamlet.

Battle of the Blogs - You Choose

Two new finds lurking in the Oort cloud of weblogs circling the Mo-Blog. Vote for the one you want me to add to my list of Weblogs on the link list to the right.

Choice Number One: Latter Gay Saint Blog offers impeccably presented posts, pictures, and commentary by a gay man in SLC. I especially like the magenta links. Actually, it's fairly prosaic stuff--maybe just Utah gays sound that way, or maybe all gays, when you get past the bluster, are actually worried about the same things everyone else is--staying healthy, finding their next job, saving for retirement. But you absolutely must see the humor section.

Choice Number Two: Latter-day Blog, which actually got the hyphen in the name, suggesting the blogger has an eye for detail. I saw a site pitch this as the only existing Exmo weblog, but the posts, such as the post discussing LDS activity rates, supported by statistics from LDS data, are fairly good. And this post giving a link to an article suggesting 8% of Raelians are Mormons or ex-Mormons is kind of fun.

So: Choose ye this day the new blog for my link list.

Update: From this and other links, the Latter-day Blog got too much traffic and is temporarily offline--it should be back up in a few days. In the meantime, you may access an online synopsis of one of that blogger's articles, entitled Latter-day Saint Social Life: Social Research on the LDS Church and Its Members. Furthermore, despite the comments I referred to above, that site does not self-identify as Exmo or state the author's present stance vis-a-vis the Church.

Reverence as a Virtue

I finished a fine little book, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), by Paul Woodruff, a classical scholar at UT-Austin who is into Thucydides and ancient political philosophy. For many today, "reverence" is just a polite Sunday codeword for "shut up and stop hitting your sister." For Woodruff, reverence is a forgotten classical virtue that has more to do with politics than religion--it is "the virtue that keeps leaders from taking control of other people's lives" (p. 4). "Reverence is the well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have" (p. 8). He is preaching virtue ethics from a classical, rather than a purely philosophical, perspective.

New Quiz on Jacob 7

Back to the Sunday School curriculum: Jacob 7 narrates the encounter between Jacob, Nephi's brother and the keeper of the holy record, and Sherem, the first of three Antichrists featured in the Book of Mormon.

As you recall, Sherem just showed up and started "to preach among the people, and to declare unto them that there should be no Christ" (v. 2). He was smart and a smooth talker, and "he could use . . . much power of speech, according to the power of the devil" (v. 4). Jacob stood firm against Sherem's arguments, his convictions secured by his own supernatural experiences of seeing angels and hearing the actual voice of the Lord from time to time (v. 5).

After unsuccessfully confronting Jacob, Sherem asks for a sign, whereupon Jacob suggests that God smite him, which immediately occurs (v. 13-15). After being in a coma for several days (or perhaps weeks), Sherem awakens, confesses Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost, admits he had been deceived by the power of the devil and that he was going straight to hell, then promptly dies (v. 15-20). Following this miraculous death, the people are overcome with astonishment and become much more attentive in reading their scriptures, which was mightily pleasing unto Jacob (v. 21-23).

This story is presented in the hightly edited Book of Mormon not as entertainment, but for edification. It is there to teach us something related to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So here's the question:

Question: What exactly are we supposed to learn from the events narrated in Jacob 7:1-23? What lesson, principle, or doctrine is this intended to teach the attentive, pondering reader?

Short essay (even one sentence), easy grading, clever or insightful answers get bonus points. No plagairizing from places like this, this, or this. You can do better.

An Easter Sermon

Thinking Anglicans posted the Easter sermon delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's a short address, well worth two minutes of your time. Here are the first few sentences:

A good few years ago, I heard a distinguished American scholar of ancient history commenting on the proclamation of the resurrection as it would have been heard in the classical world. ‘If an educated Greek or Roman had been told that someone had been raised from the dead’, he said, ‘his first question would have been “How do you get him back into his grave again?”’. The point was that most of those who first heard the Easter gospel would have found it grotesque or even frightening. Resurrection was not a joyful sign of hope but an alarming oddity, something potentially very dangerous.

A Table of Icons

I was getting ready to comment (well, hash) on the monthly astronomy and religion article over at the always entertaining Meridian Magazine, when I followed the author link back to his website and discovered this clever table. It's an iconographic representation of the table of the elements (which I was never very fond of). This seems like a really creative way to assist the chemically-challenged, like me. Besides, I'm in a good mood (just bought nice performance tires cheap at Costco) so forget the astronomy theme, let's just have some fun together. The cyber-me has been getting a bit surly lately--maybe I just need to lighten up a little. So without looking at a real table of the elements, here are my guesses for the first full row of 18 icons (starting with the teapot):

Results of Quiz on Genesis 19:26

Eight people (including me) took the quiz. Six of you received the full 20 points (Alaska, Grasshopper, Ann, Kaimi, Clark, and Breyers21). Kaimi, who waffled rather than giving a straight answer, might have gotten a 15 but was saved by his son's joke, which was actually quite funny ("Dad, was anyone else turned into a pillar of pepper?"). Jordan scored 25 for giving an unusually creative answer: Maybe she was killed by Lot or another man in the group for disobeying and looking back, then was buried under a salt pillar. More charitably, perhaps she died of natural causes (heart attack, chunk of flying debris) and was so buried.

Here's how the answers stacked up: four said it was figurative, two said it was literal, one said either one or the other, and Jordan cleverly reconciled the two. I'll post a new quiz tomorrow.

Quiz on Genesis 19:26

Update: Quiz open for three more days.

Twenty points to Grasshopper, Ann, Kevin, Quevedo, Kim S, Kaimi, and me for responding to Quiz on Jacob 2. [Update: Fifteen points for late submissions - Donald.] I'll make the new quiz a little easier so the rest of you will join in too. Short answer. Easy grading.

Question: Did Lot's wife really get turned into a pillar of salt, as recounted in Genesis 19:26?

In case you're a little rusty, in Genesis 19 angels mercifully hustled Lot (cousin of Abraham), his wife, and his daughters out of Sodom, which was scheduled for immediate destruction. The little group was warned to not look back while fleeing the city, but Lot's wife "looked back . . . and she became a pillar of salt" (Gen 19:26).

Jacob Hamblin's House and Wives

As promised, more on my Southern Utah Mountain Biking and Church History trip. Took a timeout to visit and tour Jacob Hamblin's house, located in Santa Clara, a pleasantly historic neighborhood located about four miles northwest of St. George. The SL Trib has a nice little writeup, with photo. Both myself and DW thought the kindly sister missionary who gave us the tour and spiel bore an amazing resemblance to my mother in both appearance and manners, which was probably God's way of discouraging me from asking nasty questions. I complied with this veiled hint from the Almighty. I'm surprised He knew I was coming and planned ahead; I didn't even know Jacob Hamblin *had* a house near St. George until last Thursday!

Weblog Open House

Joseph's Journal is now up and running--stop by for a visit. It is a serialized, day-by-day posting (with little or no editorial comment) of selections from Joseph Smith's journal as published in the 7-volume History of the Church. It is keyed to the present date minus 170 years, so as today is April 15, 2004, the posting at Joseph's Journal will be for April 15, 1834. Incidentally, there was no Internal Revenue Code in 1834, so Joseph's April 15, 1834 entry does not read, "Scrambled around like a crazy man trying to get my taxes done by midnight." Instead, he hauled a load of hay, and the next day helped a neighbor, Brother Williams, plow a field and sow crops.

The Bushman Cometh

Barry Bonds isn't the only one hitting home runs this week. T&S stunned the Mo-Blog by signing up a franchise player from the vast Mormon free agent pool, the eminent LDS historian Richard L. Bushman. He may be only a pinch-blogger, but he delivers--his first post, Capitalism and the Gospel, goes platinum (100+ comments) on the first day! Wow--this kid can blog.

Seriously, I think the entire Mo-Blog is a little honored to have such a noted visitor among us for a few weeks. Special thanks to the Big 4 at T&S for making things like this happen.

Update: This just in: By Common Consent added John Hatch (first post here), a guest blogger with impressive Mormon Studies credentials, to bolster their lineup. It's still spring, but this promises to be an exciting season of MLB (Mormon League Blogging). Several franchises have yet to be formed: we could use a West Coast team, a Utah team, and (of course) Satan's team (aka the bloggers from hell, red font, flaming logo, smooth talkers, the wicked wordsmiths).

Beta Site - Your Opinion Requested

When I signed up for the middle-tier service with Typepad a month ago, one of the perks was that you actually get three weblogs, not just one. How silly, I thought; like what would I do with three weblogs?

Over the last couple of days, I have set up weblog number three, Joseph's Journal. Go take a peek and tell me if it's worth the effort.

New Image - Hyrum Smith's Sunglasses

Certainly one of the more interesting LDS history artifacts you'll come across. Click here for a larger image. Somehow I never viewed Hyrum as really standing out in a crowd, but if he actually wore these around Nauvoo I'm sure he made a real splash.

Blogroll Adjustments

Dropped: Jan's Liahona, which seems to have moved away from LDS themes. And the link to Provident Living raises serious questions.

Added: MoBlo, short for Mormon Blogging, which is run by the younger brother of this notable weblog. And MoBlo links to this site, always a plus.

In Religion, I've added Bartholomew on Religion, which tracks religion articles in the media.

Bells and Whistles: Go click on the photo of Orson's telescope at Orson's Telescope, which is now linked to the NASA photo of the day. The other must-see visual is the pulsating sphere over at Mormon Metaphysics. This graphic bothers me because I can't shake the idea that even after it's off my computer screen, that sphere is still out there somewhere, oscillating.

This Just In - RNB Alive and Well

I really missed the Religion News Blog when it went offline last month. The Dutch couple who runs the thing explained that usage was exceeding bandwidth limitations imposed by their hosting server. I thought it was gone for good. But it's back, with a few upgrades like a scrolling headline. RNB is the best place to quickly identify news articles on developments in the ongoing polygamy story, among other nice features.

Recent stories linked by the new and improved RNB: The latest charges of LDS temple baptisms of Jewish holocaust victims, and a friendly article titled LDS Conferencegoers Greeted by Some Friendly Demonstrators. Sometimes I just go dig up the SL Trib article, but the Trib doesn't make it easy to find the LDS articles. Welcome back to life, RNB.