Remembering Chris Henrichsen
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by jupiterschild
2y ago
Note: This post was written by John C. I lost my friend the other day. Chris Henrichsen was a scholar of Rawls, a Mormon, a father, a teacher, a husband, and a great friend. We were not as close as I’d like (especially geographically) and, outside of birthdays, we probably hadn’t really spoken in years. This is probably my fault; Chris was always active on social media and I tend to be quiet lately. I’m to blame for getting Chris into blogging and into the wider world of Mormon blogging. We were teaching assistants in Pierre Lamarche’s Ethics class together at UVU (along with Emily Asplund). C ..read more
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Literacy, Imitation, and Literary Borrowing in Early Mormon History
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
2y ago
Recent academic discussions about the composition of the Book of Mormon and the concept of translation in Joseph Smith, Jr.’s worldview have tended to revolve around the question of what Smith meant by the use of the term translation when dictating his texts. Although most attempts to explain early Mormon concepts of translation in relation to Smith’s texts have focused on data pulled from the texts themselves, no single theory has yet to reach a consensus. Two broad theories have tended to attract the most scholars and represent the clearest divide. The first argues that Smith produced his te ..read more
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John Gee’s Book is only a Symptom of Serious Intellectual Disease at BYU
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by ClosetedRelEdProf
3y ago
A few recent posts have called attention to a deeply problematic, unethical, and even possibly traumatizing book authored by John Gee and published by BYU Religious Education (RelEd) through the Religious Studies Center (RSC), jointly with Deseret Book. Gee holds one of the few endowed chairs at BYU–in Gee’s case, the William (Bill) Gay Research [!!] Professorship, now housed in the department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages. He was moved there recently from the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, which itself was, when Gee was appointed, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mo ..read more
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Sensationalism? Nauvoo and the Angst of Tradition
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
4y ago
Book reviews, especially as done back and forth among the academic community, are not always the friendliest areas of engagement but for the most part are professional and informative for a broad audience. Most often they are a reliable space where readers can quickly turn to get a sense of the feeling of a book and what it has to offer them as they figure out whether or not to spend their money on that volume or another. Fortunately, for readers, the author, and the publisher, Benjamin E. Park’s The Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier has enjoye ..read more
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The Problem of Claiming Liberal Bias in Biblical and Mormon Scholarship
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
4y ago
Blake Ostler’s 1987 essay on the Book of Mormon as a modern expansion, by Joseph Smith, of an ancient source has been an important part of academic discussion within Mormon studies for over thirty years. Early responses were negative, leading Ostler to walk back some of his arguments in the original essay. Since those early criticisms in the late 1980s and up until the early 2000s it seems that Ostler’s theory has come to enjoy new life with both academic and lay Mormon audiences as a way to engage the Book of Mormon as history but also account for many of the historical issues in its pages as ..read more
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The Curious Announcement of Donald Parry’s Editorship for Biblia Hebraica Quinta
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
4y ago
Back in 2009 BYU University Communications announced that Donald W. Parry, professor of Asian & Near Eastern Languages, had been selected as the editor for the book of Isaiah of the prestigious Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), the official scholarly critical edition of the Hebrew Bible used around the world. To put that into perspective, BHQ will be, on completion, the fifth edition of the famous Biblia Hebraica originally published in 1906 under the editorship of Rudolf Kittel. The academic study of the Hebrew Bible for over the last century has been driven by this edition and its legacy is ..read more
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Rel Ed Faculty Who Fail to Launch
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by BYU Alum
4y ago
There is a curious rash of legitimate PhD holding, BYU Rel Ed faculty whose professional and intellectual development essentially culminated in their dissertations. This represents wastage of time and resources, both on the side of top flight training left fallow and, more disturbingly, vast expenditures of university monies, benefits, research funds, etc., to leave the sunk costs to students to the side in this discussion. Rel Ed faculty with BYU’s version of tenure make, on the very low end, $80,000 per year, and many are near, over, or well past the $100,000 mark, plus excellent benefi ..read more
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BYU Religious Education’s Investment in Its Students
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
4y ago
A major theme over the years at the Faith Promoting Rumor blog has been the department of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Because BYU is known around the world as a religious university with a dedication to promulgating knowledge about the current and past state of religion in society, as well as training and preparing it students for the workforce, it would be natural to expect the university to house a department analogous to, say, the department of Theology at Notre Dame University, the department of Religious Studies at Brandeis University, the department of Religion at Ba ..read more
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Take 2: Blumell, New Testament History, Culture and Society
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by DT James
4y ago
Review of Lincoln H. Blumell, ed., New Testament History, Culture, and Society (Provo and Salt Lake City: RSC and Deseret Book, 2019). In a recent blogpost (May 26, 2019), Kevin Barney published a favorable review of Lincoln H. Blumell, ed., New Testament History, Culture, and Society (https://bycommonconsent.com/…/review-of-blumell-nt-history…/), that was contextualized by its application to Kevin’s Gospel Doctrine teaching experiences and needs. I would like to offer a different perspective on the volume that seeks a context within a larger academic narrative and probes the quality of ..read more
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The BYU Honor Code Office and the Idea of Reasonableness
FAITH-PROMOTING RUMOR
by Yakov Ben Tov
4y ago
Those aware of the similarities and differences between Brigham Young University-Provo (BYU), Brigham Young University-Idaho (BYU-I), and Brigham Young University-Hawaii (BYU-H) have grown accustomed to knowing that while BYU may have some interesting tendencies in its culture surrounding dress, grooming, standards in the apartments, and prior aversion to caffeinated beverages (they’ve progressed on that, yay), none of their wackiness comes close to what can be seen at BYU-I. There, in Rexburg, Idaho, students are not allowed to wear shorts at all (except and only when engaging in a sport for ..read more
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