FAIR

Faithful Study Resources for Come, Follow Me

FAIR Staff

Faith and Reason 3: A Prophet’s Birth from Noble Heritage

by

Podcast: Download (7.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

In this episode, Michael Ash discusses: A Prophet’s Birth from Noble Heritage. Both Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith came from a line of worthy ancestors. Some of their progenitors were patriots, pioneers, and ministers. Seven were pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower, and three of the seven signed the Mayflower Compact.

One of Lucy’s ancestors was John Lathrop, a former minister of the Church of England who allied himself with an independent religious body when he no longer approved of the church government. For eight years Lathrop and his congregation met secretly in London until they were arrested. During his imprisonment, Lathrop’s wife became fatally ill and he was allowed to visit her in her dying moments before returning to jail. He was finally released after pleading with the bishop for the sake of his motherless children. Lathrop and his children then sailed to America, where he became a leader in church affairs.

Joseph Sr. and Lucy wed in 1796. The following year they delivered their first child, an unnamed daughter who died shortly after birth. Alvin, Hyrum, and Sophronia followed. The Smiths moved several times as they struggled to support their growing family. They finally settled in Sharon, Vermont after purchasing a farm from Lucy’s father, Solomon Mack. Joseph Sr. cultivated the farm and taught school during the winter. Gradually, their financial circumstances became more comfortable.

Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805. He was the fifth child of an eventual eleven to be born to the Smiths. Twenty-nine years had passed since America had declared her independence from England, and only twenty-two years had lapsed since the Revolutionary War had formally ended. The Bill of Rights had been in force for only fourteen years, and George Washington had died just six years earlier. Thomas Jefferson was serving as president of the United States –which consisted of only seventeen of our current fifty states.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 2: Primer on Ancient Documents

by

Podcast: Download (27.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

From the book: Of Faith And Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims to be the restored church, therefore, many of its supposedly “unique” doctrines are actually restored doctrines which had previously been taught in the Lord’s church.

With the exception of the letters of the Apostolic Fathers and the writings of the early Christians and historians, most of these recently discovered or rediscovered manuscripts fall into one of three categories of ancient writ. These categories are 1) Gnostic, 2) Pseudepigrapha, and 3) Apocrypha.

All three categories embody works which are considered by many scholars to be equal in importance to the scriptures included in our Bibles today. Likewise all of the above categories contain works which the Primitive Church (either Jewish or Christian) embraced as scripture.

When comparing the teachings of the Lord’s church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –organized in 1830, there are certain similarities. Yet most of these ancient texts lay unnoticed, unstudied, or unknown until the last seventy-five years. In episode two of Faith and Reason, Michael R. Ash discusses the ancient writings that continue to influence Christ’s church today.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Faith and Reason 1: Introduction

by

Podcast: Download (13.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

 

From the book: Of Faith And Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michael R. Ash

In the first episode of Faith and Reason, author Michael R. Ash discusses the importance of using one’s heart and mind in search of truth. Ash places value in secular evidence and the Lord’s counsel to “seek…diligently…words of wisdom” from the “best books” –and “seek learning even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). Ash assures listeners that questioning one’s faith is not a sin, and can lead to greater faith.

Latter-day Saint scholarship has been amassing evidence supporting the Restoration for over a half a century, yet most people are completely unaware of these exciting discoveries. The purpose of this podcast is to present evidence of the prophetic abilities of Joseph Smith, the antiquity of unique LDS doctrines and practices, and tangible support for the authenticity of LDS scriptures in a friendly, conversational format.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FairMormon.org). He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

Reverend Spalding Strikes Again: A Response to Internet Criticism of Kerry Muhlestein’s Book of Abraham Videos

by

Administrator’s note: The following is the result of a combined effort by many FAIR volunteers, all of whom made substantive contributions, and so is posted here under the group authorship “FAIR Staff.” Also, some of the individuals discussed below are either anonymous or pseudonymous; because we do not even know their genders in some cases, all references to these individuals will use masculine pronouns (“he,” “his,” “him) for the sake of brevity.

Critics on a particularly hostile Internet message board have been celebrating over e-mail responses to some YouTube videos of LDS Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein. In the videos Dr. Muhlestein commented on some matters related to the Book of Abraham. The e-mails are from Egyptologists at UCLA (where Muhlestein earned his PhD). These scholars were solicited for their views by being sent the following e-mail from a critic on the message board:

Dr. Muhlenstein [sic] has recently been in a series of videos where he discusses his recent research on these papyrus fragments. His conclusions about the veracity of [Joseph] Smith’s translation of these papyri, their related facsimiles, and the explicit connection between the ancient biblical figure Abraham, and the ancient Egyptian book of the Dead, are contrary to what I thought the scholarly consensus was.[1]

Unfortunately, the e-mailer set up a straw man from the beginning: The videos are said to be “on these papyrus fragments,” meaning the Joseph Smith Papyri. He then goes on to speak about “[Muhlestein’s] conclusions about the veracity of Smith’s translations of these papyri.” Actually, Muhlestein says the papyri are not the source of the Book of Abraham (see note 13). Much of what Muhlestein talks about in the videos—such as various traditions about Abraham, the so-called Kirtland Egyptian Papers, and so forth—are not really related to the Joseph Smith Papyri at all, or even Egyptology proper. Two videos do focus on the facsimiles, of which only Facsimile 1 could be said to be related to the papyri that we have in our possession.

The e-mailer then asks if the Egyptologists“could help [him] understand how non-LDS Egyptologists view the Joseph Smith papyri, his translation of the accompanying facsimiles, and how valid the claims that Muhlenstein [sic] has been making in his recent videos are.”

The three responses from the solicited Egyptologists are reproduced below. [Read more…] about Reverend Spalding Strikes Again: A Response to Internet Criticism of Kerry Muhlestein’s Book of Abraham Videos

FAIR blog and politics

by

The FAIR blog is an occasional blog staffed by volunteers. Posts are typically driven by current events in Mormon apologetics and culture.

Sometimes Mormonism intersects with politics. During these times, the FAIR board and management wish to be sensitive to the political feelings of all Latter-day Saints. We expect posts to reflect even-handedness and a direct application to defending the Church.

This is not the place to discuss controversial political events that have only a marginal tie to Mormon culture and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are other blogs that cater to that need.

With that in mind, FAIR managers have removed a recent post on the Arizona immigration law. We apologize to anyone who felt that post was not in keeping with the highest standards of FAIR, and commit to elevating the level of discourse here.

Troy Wynn on O’Donovan’s Soapbox

by

[editor’s note: Troy Wynn is a doctoral student studying physics. He runs Some Mormon Stuff which is a “blog about Mormon history, its people and beliefs.” He has done several well-researched articles dealing with racial issues in the LDS church, including one that addressed Lawrence O’Donnell’s charge made the height of the Romney campaign that Mormonism was pro-slavery. Troy has been invited as a guest blogger to do a series on interracial marriage and to provide a critique of Connell O’Donovan’s seminal work on the topic. Previous discussion can be found here at FAIR and at the Juvenile Instructor blog.]

In his paper titled “LDS Historical Rhetoric & Praxis Regarding Marriage Between Whites and Blacks,” Connell O’Donovan asserts that Brigham Young’s fear of black sexuality was the reason he prohibited black-white marriage and instigated the priesthood-temple ban, and that Young’s resistance to black-white marriage must be seen within the context of his own marital experimentation which at that time was receiving scrutiny via the press and the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. He then lists several topics of discussion, such as, examples of inter-racial marriages in LDS history, the fruition of anti-miscegenation laws under BY, statements about black-white marriage from the Deseret News, and eventually how LDS leaders abandoned their restrictions against black-white marriage. Or, as O’Donovan puts it, “unnecessary restrictions on the boundaries of love and marriage.”

His paper also demonstrates that LDS feelings at one time were deeply hostile to black-white marriage and that many Latter-day Saints believed black-white marriages would never be permitted, etc. [Read more…] about Troy Wynn on O’Donovan’s Soapbox

Revelations and Translations I

by

Review
======
Title: The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations: Manuscript
Revelation Books
Editors: Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, Steven C. Harper
Publisher: The Church Historian’s Press
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2009
Number of Pages: 752
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1570088500
ISBN-13: 978-1570088506
Price: $99.95

Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak

This is the second book to be released in the Joseph Smith Papers
project, and the first volume of the Revelations and Translations
series. It is a “facsimile edition” of Revelation Book 1 (also known as
“Book of Commandments and Revelations”) and Revelation Book 2 (“Book of
Revelation” or “Kirtland Revelation Book”). It is quite large, measuring
approximately 9.25 by 12.25 inches and weighing nearly 8 pounds. This
means it won’t quite match the previously released Journals volume on
your shelf (which it effectively dwarfs), but apparently there will be a
few other volumes of the same size to go along with it, so the finished
set of 30+ volumes should end up looking quite nice together, in spite
of the two sizes. And there is a very good reason for the larger size –
the body of the book consists of photographs of each page of the two
books, with the photos on the left side, and a transcription running
parallel on the right. [Read more…] about Revelations and Translations I

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament

by

Lightning Strikes Twice: Review of Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament[1] by TB Spackman

In 2006, Deseret Book published Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament to widespread approval.[2] Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament (or WOT), a sequel of sorts, has appeared recently, a few fortuitous months before the Gospel Doctrine calendar changes over to the Old Testament as the course of study. WOT is clearly meant to parallel World of the New Testament, from the title to the layout and organization. However, the Old Testament is not the New, and the three authors of WOT faced a much tougher assignment. [Read more…] about Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament