This Is My Doctrine: The Development of Mormon Theology

[creekster]

So I ordered the book at the Amazon link but I can't see any rerfernce to a volume II. Is there a spearate title?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Not sure I agree that this is the median view of the academy. Of course, deciding what is the median view of scholars can be tricky and I obviously I am an outsider to that academic community so I may misestimate the median view. I think I would summarize the consensus more like the following: I think most scholars today date the apocalyptic sections (chapters 7-12) and the final form of the book to about 167-164 BCE because they feel the visions are most accurate and detailed when writing about the crisis caused by the division of Alexander the Great’s empire. On the other hand scholars think that the writing is less accurate when describing 6th century BCE. Also, scholars tend to suggest the court tales (chapters 1-6) may date to an earlier period in terms of authorship.


Personally, I think it is a bit of aggressive to place Daniel 2 in 167-164 BCE but I also think that there is a non-trivial probability the core of is from that time period. And it certainly it wouldn't surprise me if there was some editing/redaction in that time period of Daniel 2. And I certainly doubt 6th century dating.

Thanks Pelagius. The date that Daniel was written is interesting, but what was most intriguing to me is how this same prophecy has been embraced by different people over time with different interpretations. Certainly not unique to this particular scripture, but I thought I would throw it out because the Daniel prophecy is topical at the moment.

[Jeff Lebowski]

So I ordered the book at the Amazon link but I can't see any rerfernce to a volume II. Is there a spearate title?

That's odd. I wonder if it is just the Kindle edition that has a Volume 1 and 2.

Solon?

[Katy Lied]

EDIT: I think it's interesting everybody is buying the kindle so they can read it in church. I initially bought the kindle version too, but my old kindle reader makes it tedious to check footnotes, so I bought a hard-copy. I guess i"m just old-school.

I have a kindle ap for my android tablet. To access the footnotes i press the little footnote link with the tip of my finger.

My kindle version says Part I, but it includes everything.

[Donuthole]

I have a kindle ap for my android tablet. To access the footnotes i press the little footnote link with the tip of my finger.

New School!

[Solon]

That's odd. I wonder if it is just the Kindle edition that has a Volume 1 and 2.

Solon?

When I bought the Kindle-version, it says specifically "Volume 1". This goes through Chapter 11 (the Pre-existence). There is no Volume 2 for sale in the Amazon Kindle store. I assumed Harrell was just planning to write another volume someday.

When I received the hard-copy, I found that there are 21 chapters. All one volume/book.

If you want all 21 chapters, I guess you have to buy some other format than the Kindle.

I don't have a smart-phone or tablet computer, but a 2-year-old kindle reader with no touchscreen capabilities. Checking a footnote is time-consuming. In fact, the device is almost worthless for reading anything other than kids books or fluff novels.

[Katy Lied]

Solon is correct. Kindle only has Part 1.

ISBN Hardcover 2011: 9781589581036
Amazon Kindle (Part 1) 9781589581562
Amazon Kindle (Part 2) 9781589581593

Nook also comes in 2 parts.

[Jeff Lebowski]

When I bought the Kindle-version, it says specifically "Volume 1". This goes through Chapter 11 (the Pre-existence). There is no Volume 2 for sale in the Amazon Kindle store. I assumed Harrell was just planning to write another volume someday.

When I received the hard-copy, I found that there are 21 chapters. All one volume/book.

If you want all 21 chapters, I guess you have to buy some other format than the Kindle.

I don't have a smart-phone or tablet computer, but a 2-year-old kindle reader with no touchscreen capabilities. Checking a footnote is time-consuming. In fact, the device is almost worthless for reading anything other than kids books or fluff novels.

I purchased both Volumes 1&2 in Kindle format.

I read the Kindle version on my iPhone and iPad (mainly iPad) and occasionally on my laptop. Searching feature is a godsend for the electronic versions and with the iPhone/iPad I can just wipe with my finger to highlight (and yowza, I do a lot of highlighting).

[Jeff Lebowski]

Solon is correct. Kindle only has Part 1.

ISBN Hardcover 2011: 9781589581036
Amazon Kindle (Part 1) 9781589581562
Amazon Kindle (Part 2) 9781589581593

Nook also comes in 2 parts.

Here is part 1: http://www.amazon.com/This-Is-Doctri...3112611&sr=1-1
Here is part 2: http://www.amazon.com/This-Is-Doctri.../dp/B005FRGG42

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have a kindle ap for my android tablet. To access the footnotes i press the little footnote link with the tip of my finger.

My kindle version says Part I, but it includes everything.

Are you sure? It has the entire TOC, but the content spans two documents.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What I like about the author is that he delivers crushing blows to some of my most beloved LDS beliefs* in a matter-of-fact voice. No nasty atheist glorying as another latter-day sentiment bites the dust. No apologetic compulsion to explain it all away. Just a businesslike lets-clear-all-the-cobwebs-away so we can really get down to brass tacks about what we believe.

*I've posted about how I was crushed, crushed I tell you, to find out Isaiah's "Line upon line, precept on precept..." was a mistranslation.

That's a great description, KL.

Here is another little gem in that category that I read over the weekend. This has to do with I Peter 3:18-20:

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

This is the classic scripture referenced in LDS tradition to show that Jesus visited the spirits in prison between his death and resurrection and it was the beginning of the great work to redeem the dead. Jesus may in fact have done that, but this scripture might not support that idea. First of all, there are two fundamental problems with the scripture:

1) The term "quickened by the Spirit" is code for "resurrected".
2) In LDS theology, Christ went to the righteous people in Spirit Prison. Verse 20 indicates that people were the wicked people at the time of Noah's flood.

Furthermore, there is another interpretation of this scripture that might provide a better fit. It has to do with the story of the "fallen angels" from the book of Genesis. Now I am going to sheepishly admit here that I was largely ignorant of this story, but maybe you all are more familiar with it. This comes from Genesis 6:1-4:

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Every time I have read this passage I have focused on the part about the giants and didn't really catch the rest. It turns out there is a rich tradition in both Judaism and Christianity which inteprets these "sons of God" in verse 2 as a group of angels who came down to earth and had sex with a bunch of women and gave birth to a race of giants. This is the origin of the term "fallen angel". Furthermore, this is seen as one of the main motivations for the flood (see the very next verse, Genesis 6:5). This story is given much more detail in some of the apocryphal books, especially Enoch 6-9:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe009.htm

A few excerpts:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. 2. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'
...
And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. 2. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells:
...
And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. ... <they then tell the Lord that something needs to be done about this great wickedness>

See also Jubilees 5:6.

As the legend goes, a spirit prison was created in a cavity under the earth and these angels were cast into this prison to await final judgment. There is support for this in 2 Peter 2:4-5:

4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

Note the reference to the sinning angels, and then the reference to Noah. So now let's look back on the main scripture in question:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Thus, many biblical scholars believe that this refers to the resurrected Christ visiting these fallen angels. Furthermore, the word "preached" is more directly translated as "proclaimed" and there is no reference to the gospel in this scripture, so it is thought that the purpose of this visit was kind of a victory tour to declare to these angels that Christ had conquered all.

Finally, note that the Book of Moses in the PoG makes a connection between spirit prison and the wicked at the time of Noah:

37 But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers; Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?

38 But behold, these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them.

[Indy Coug]

Nibley's Enoch the Prophet is a good read to dig deeper into this topic.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publ...oks/?bookid=53

[Solon]

Here is part 1: http://www.amazon.com/This-Is-Doctri...3112611&sr=1-1
Here is part 2: http://www.amazon.com/This-Is-Doctri.../dp/B005FRGG42

Nice. I need to refine my search-skills. Although, Amazon should refine its search engine if it wants to sell more copies.

It makes the advertised 72% discount from the $35 list price look better than it is - buying both on Kindle is still $20.

(I got the hard-copy for $20 including shipping)

Harrell cites example after example of apparently misunderstood Bible verses that became fundamental catch-phrases of Mormon belief ("line upon line", as KL mentioned, appears again in 2 Nephi 28:30 in the LDS vein of understanding it as gradual revelation; "a marvelous work and a wonder"; the figure "Elias"; "the Lord shall lift an Ensign" are a few more) that leaves us wondering where, exactly, we should go from here.

I agree that his tone is neither apologetic nor accusatory. Nevertheless, some of the more interesting developments are relegated to the footnotes (e.g., the circumstances around the Charles Anthon letter).

I have a lot still to read and to re-read.

[pelagius]

A generally positive review from back when it came out by Matt Bowman (the author of The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith):

http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/re...-kofford-2011/

And another more positive one by Kevin Barney:

http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/09/1...s-my-doctrine/

[Jeff Lebowski]

One thing this book is making me appreciate is how much I have been missing by just reading through the scriptures and historical documents linearly. An in-depth analysis of a particular topic exposes consistencies and inconsistencies that are easily missed when individual passages related to that topic are viewed in isolation. I can’t think of a topic that better illustrates this than the doctrine of salvation for the dead. I found this section so remarkable that I read through it three times and then made a summary in table format.

Date	Source	Event
~60 AD	1 Peter 3:18-20	18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. As mentioned in an earlier post: These spirits in prison were typically thought to be the fallen angels who sinned just prior to the Flood. Christ preached to them AFTER he was resurrected (“quickened by the Spirit”). It doesn’t really say that he preached the gospel, only that he “preached”, which is more correctly translated as “proclaimed”. In any case, this is a key scripture in the development of LDS theology.
350-430 AD	Augustine	Augustine taught that during the time between death and resurrection, souls are either in Paradise or Purgatory. This is not explicitly stated anywhere in the New Testament.
~1800	Christian theology	The common Christian belief at the time of JS is that our eternal state (happiness or misery) is fixed at the time of our death. This life is a probationary state and after death “no man can work”.
~1800	Christian theology	It is also commonly believed that those who die in ignorance of the gospel are automatically saved through the atonement of Christ. This includes those who die in infancy. Many also believe that God judges people according to what they would have done, had they been given the gospel.
1830 (translation)	Book of Mormon	The BOM echoes the Christian theology at the time of JS, stating that after death we go to paradise or prison (Alma 40:11-14) and remain in that state until the judgment and “no labor can be performed” (Alma 34:33). Men must repent “while in the flesh” (2 Nephi 2:21). Note that there is no mention in the BOM for accepting the gospel after dying. The BOM also echoes the common Christian belief that those that die in ignorance have eternal life: “Those who . . . have died . . . in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them . . . have eternal life, being redeemed by the Lord” (Mosiah 15:24). “For behold . . . his blood atoneth for the sins of those . . . who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned” (Mosiah 3:11). It also seemingly discounts the need for baptism for the dead: “For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing— “ (Moroni 8:22)
1830-1831 (translation)	Book of Moses, PoGP	The Book of Moses references the disobedient at the time of Noah and reiterates that they were put in a spirit prison. The Lord says that the sin was mainly on the heads of their fathers (Moses 7:37). He also says that when Christ was resurrected, not only were the righteous who died prior to that time resurrected, but also “as many of the spirits as were in prison came forth, and stood on the right hand of God” (Moses 7:57). This represents an odd anomaly in the Plan of Salvation that is rarely noted in any LDS teachings.
1832	D&C 76, 88	JS reveals that those in spirit prison will go to a lower (terrestrial) kingdom (D&C 76:73–74). The spirit prison is said to include both those who died in ignorance and those who rejected the gospel in this life, but later accepted it as a spirit. Christ is said to have visited the rebellious in prison, but no mention is made of preaching to those who died in ignorance. The revelation contradicts the BOM, which states that those who die in ignorance are automatically saved (just like little children). The revelation also contradicts Moses by stating that those in spirit prison will not be resurrected until the second coming (D&C 76:77). Another revelation in D&C 88 has Christ preaching to the wicket in spirit prison. Again, both the ignorant and wicked are consigned to a lower kingdom. Neither of these revelations (76&88) say anything about baptism for the dead.
Feb. 1833	1 Peter 3:20 JST	JS changes 1 Peter 3:20 to read “some of whom were disobedient…” thus making it more consistent with D&C 76 indicating that Spirit Prison includes all the disobedient.
1836	D&C 137	JS sees a vision of his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom even though he had not been baptized when he died. JS reveals that all those who die in ignorance of the gospel “who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom” (D&C 137:7). Note that this contradicts Sections 76&88 but is more consistent with the BOM. There is no mention of baptism for the dead being necessary and no mention of them needing to hear and accept the gospel.
July 1838		JS states that those who die in ignorance will need to hear the gospel before they are judged. “All those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, and being administered unto by an inspired man in the flesh, must have it hereafter, before they can be finally judged.”
Aug 1840	Funeral of Seymour Brunson	JS preaches first sermon on baptism for the dead. This is a full 8 years after D&C 76.
Oct 1840	Letter to Apostles	JS again preaches baptism for the dead, but states that is only for those who would have received the gospel had they been given the chance (i.e., those who sinned in ignorance).
Oct 1841		JS declares that Christ preached to spirits in prison during the three days that his body was in the grave (in contradiction to 1 Peter 3:18).
April 1842		JS preaches a sermon and references Christ preaching to spirits in prison. He reiterates that is was the disobedient but argues that it was the disobedient from any era, not just those at the time of Noah. He said that all of the disobedient in spirit prison will have a chance to hear the gospel.
1894	Gen Conf	Wilford Woodruff states (speaking of those in the afterlife) that “there will be very few, if any, who will not accept the gospel.” Lorenzo Snow said something similar three days earlier.
1918	Joseph F. Smith revelation (D&C 138)	JFS receives a vision about salvation for the dead. It introduces several new concepts: Christ visited only the righteous on his visit to spirit prison. This contradicts many earlier revelations/scriptures which state that it was either the wicked or the wicked and those who died in ignorance. It also expands the definition of spirit prison to include the righteous. It is not clear why he would need to preach to the righteous, especially given they would be resurrected at the time of Christ's resurrection. Christ could not visit the wicked so he organized elders to preach for him. There is no mention of Christ visiting those who died in ignorance. In fact, there is no mention of them at all. The revelation divides the spirits into two camps: rebellious and righteous, again contradicting earlier revelations (D&C 76 for example). This revelation explicitly clarifies that all will have an opportunity to hear the gospel, regardless of circumstances, in this life or the next. It also explicitly states that both the rebellious and the ignorant will have the chance to repent and fully embrace the gospel and receive the saving ordinances (in contradiction to BOM). Presumably, this would allow them to enter the celestial kingdom, in spite of D&C 76. So this revelation kind of turned everything upside down. In the weeks following the revelation, the “Brethren” met repeatedly with JFS to express concerns about the doctrinal implications of the revelation. About 60 years later it was canonized. I wonder if those disputes/concerns led to that long delay.
1983	Seven Deadly Heresies talk	Bruce R. McConkie takes a hardline approach (surprise!) and repudiates D&C 138. If he is correct, we seem to be wasting a lot of time performing saving ordinances in the temple for these folks. “There is no such thing as a second chance to gain salvation by accepting the gospel in the spirit world after spurning, declining, or refusing to accept it in this life. It is true that there may be a second chance to hear and accept the gospel, but those who have thus procrastinated their acceptance of the saving truths will not gain salvation in the celestial kingdom of God.” http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=658
1978-1997	Gospel Principles book	The LDS publication Gospel Principles also implicitly rejects the inclusive theology of D&C 138 and reverts to a doctrine similar to D&C 76. “Those who reject the gospel after it was preached to them . . . on earth . . . suffer in a condition known as hell. . . . After suffering for their sins, they will be allowed, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to inherit the lowest degree of glory, which is the telestial kingdom.” This is actually more hardline that D&C 76, since D&C 76 states that these people will go to the terrestrial kingdom, not the telestial.