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Fair Issues 75: How did Noah’s ark and Jaredite barges get light and air?

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MAThe story of Noah, or some equivalent figure, is found in a wide array of ancient non-biblical literature and could have easily have been known to the ancient Jaredites.  Some of these traditions about the Ark – or “deluge boat” – contain details and oddities not found in the Bible.

In this podcast brother Ash talks about how the Jaredite barges along with Noah’s ark may have been built to not only withstand the strong winds of sea travel but to also allow proper ventilation and light during their voyages.

The full text of this article can be found at Deseret News online.

Brother Ash is author of the book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, as well as the book, of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Both books are available for purchase online through the FairMormon Bookstore. Tell your friends about the Mormon Fair-Cast. Share a link on your Facebook page and help increase the popularity of the Mormon Fair-Cast by subscribing to this podcast in iTunes, and by rating it and writing a review.

The views and opinions expressed in the podcast may not reflect those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or that of FairMormon

 

 

RiseUp Podcast: Small and Simple Truths Blog Interview

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In this episode of the RiseUp podcast, Blake sits down with some young adults who are called as digital missionaries in their stake. As digital missionaries they share articles and testimony on a blog called SmallAndSimpleTruths.com

These youth talk about being called as digital missionaries, and what it means to defend your beliefs online, as well as sharing your testimony with strangers. They talk about how they were able to overcome the fears they had and how this calling has blessed their lives and the lieves of their readers.

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Faith and Reason 31: Raw Meat in the Book of Mormon

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

by Michael R. Ash

After turning east at Nahom and continuing their journey to Bountiful, we read that the Lehites suffered many afflictions and had to live on “raw meat” because they were not to make fire frequently (1 Nephi 17:12). Early critics found this strange because little was known about ancient Arabia when they made this charge. According the Near Eastern archaeologist Dr. Jeffery Chadwick, the Lehites probably didn’t make much fire because of the lack of firewood and kindling and because they probably travelled in the cool of the night and rested during the day when no fires for visibility were needed. Dr. Hugh Nibley wrote that many desert travelers ate goat and sheep kidney raw –with a bit of salt. Others ate entire slices of flesh raw, or scorched it quickly over a small fire. In either Nibley or Chadwick’s scenario, the actions of the Lehites and their eating of “raw meat” are consistent with what we now know about ancient Arabian travelers.

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.

Articles of Faith: Samuel M. Brown – First Principles and Ordinances (Book)

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headshot-MikeStack-2014-09-24-art-background-croppedSAMUEL M. BROWN is Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of Utah and an intensive care physician in the Shock Trauma ICU at Intermountain Medical Center. His award-winning book In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early  Mormon Conquest of Death was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. He is also translator of Aleksandr Men’s Son of Man: The Story of Christ and Christianity. Here is here today to talk about his book First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple being published by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

Questions addressed in this interview:

Your book addresses, among other things, the topic of faith, but your journey through your own faith crisis becomes an important backdrop for your perspective as a writer. Perhaps you could give the cliff notes version of that to set the stage.

Your book is part of the Living Faith Book Series that is being put out by the Maxwell Institute at BYU. As I understand the series as a whole, and therefore part of the feel and function of your book, is the reconciliation of faith and knowledge which is particularly notable challenge some are having in discourse about Mormonism. How do you seek to approach the challenge of reconciling faith and knowledge with your book?

There is a statement that opens the promotional one-sheet that I received on your book that was quite gripping and thought provoking. I don’t know if you wrote it or if it was someone with the publishing side of this effort, but I want to share it and give you a chance to expound upon that in context of your book: “Familiarity can lead to a kind of blindness in life and in religion. The first principles and ordinances of the Latter-day Saint gospel are particularly at risk for misunderstanding through such familiar neglect.”

While not set up in such a way that it addresses critical questions that some may have about the church, there is a sort of positive apologetic angle, almost devotional feel to your book. Is that a fair assessment?

Your book addresses active faith initially. This is something that I have been studying and feeling for years now so it was nice to see some confirmation in your writings to that idea. You speak of two main models of faith at least the way Latter-day Saints talk about Faith, what are those two models?

RiseUp Podcast: Helping People in Faith Crisis

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Faith Crisis is a term describing a period of time or event where someone has serious doubts about their belief’s. You may have even experienced a faith crisis yourself. But how are we to approach those who are experiencing or have experienced this “faith crisis?” We have a few ideas….

There is a website called Millennial Mormon’s. It is a blog site that posts some decent articles but does so from a perspective and understanding shared by the rising generation, those of you who are in seminary or institute programs. The tag line of the site is “your grandpa’s gospel, now with #hashtags.

On that site was posted an article by Tanner Gilliland on November 4th, 2014. The article is entitled, “4 “DO NOTs” for Treating People in a Faith Crisis.” I actually found the article to be a pretty good opening reference that addresses some of the things that we may find ourselves doing or thinking with respect to people that experience a faith crisis. While I don’t agree with all the assertions they are minor and I trust that you will be smart enough and in tune enough to take in the correct spirit of the article, and not haggle over a couple of words.

4 “DO NOTs” for Treating People in a Faith Crisis

BY TANNER GILLILAND · NOVEMBER 4, 2014

With more and more information becoming available on the internet, more and more people are asking important questions about the church and its history. Sometimes these questions lead to serious doubts. Many of these doubts and concerns are not easily solved and require much prayerful effort, patience, and study.

Some people feel that they can’t find adequate answers to their questions so they leave the church. This usually is not an easy decision for them. Some lose friends or family, and others even lose their employment.

It is imperative that faithful members of the church, particularly millennials, learn how to appropriately interact with those who wrestle with doubt. To that end, I have created this list of things NOT to do when someone you know raises serious questions about religion:

1) Do NOT assume they are sinning

While sin is certainly darkens our minds, it is not always the cause of doubt. We must eliminate the stigma that those who doubt have some lurking evil, and that those who leave the church were just looking for a way out. This unrighteous judgment can be both harmful to us (it is a sin) and detrimental to the person we are judging.

2) Do NOT pretend that you know all the facts

Our religion is very complex. There are aspects of our doctrine and history that are very difficult to understand and we don’t claim to know all the answers. People who are deeply concerned with these issues have often given them many hours of study and consideration, so the “seminary answers” often don’t quite cut it. Rather than throwing out platitudes, try to understand their perspective. Share what you know and understand, and acknowledge that you don’t know everything. Always be honest.

3) Do NOT belittle their concerns

As one who ventures “down the rabbit hole” so to speak, I can testify of the frustration that comes when someone tells you not to worry so much. If we believe that our religious convictions will affect the our eternal destiny then of course we should worry about getting it right! What seems like a minuscule molehill to you may be a monstrous mountain for another. We can’t solve problems by ignoring them. Remember that our religion started with a boy who had some serious religious questions. Instead of disregarding the question, listen to the concerns and help find the answers.

4) Do NOT ostracize them

Though this is the last item, it is probably the most important. Nobody should feel like they aren’t able to express their concerns for fear of losing friends or family. Our love cannot be conditional upon someone’s level of belief. Christlike love is unconditional.To individuals with spouses whose beliefs are different, remember the counsel of Paul: “And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.” (1 Cor 7:13-14)People need your love, not your diagnosis. Expressing doubt or even leaving the church does not equate to being a bad person. In the end, even the acts of good by atheists will be accounted to them as righteousness. God’s love does not have a membership number or require a temple recommend. Neither should ours.From the Joseph Smith Papers project to the video about temple clothing, the church is taking progressive steps toward transparency and more open dialogue about controversial issues. I believe that our generation will be instrumental in continuing that trend. Let us always be quick to lend a listening ear, a supportive shoulder, and most importantly, an open heart.”

– End Article –

Wether you know someone right now experiencing some challenges to their faith or not, you will likely encounter someone in the not so distant future. So it is best to have this information and resource at the ready should this come up.

Should you be experiencing a faith crisis right now yourself, and someone is not following these 4 basic principles, try to do your best to also extend the same level of understanding you want others to have with you. Take these 4 things and reverse them…with a slight adjustment.

1) Don’t assume that people are judging you harshly.

2) Don’t assume that people know nothing about faith challenges – many go through them, and many come through them with even stronger faith than when they entered the faith crisis.

3) Do not belittle people who are trying to show concern but may not be the best at being crisis counselors.

4) Do not ostracize yourself. I once heard the analogy that the worst time to leave the storm shelter is when the hurricane is passing over you. In other words, if you are having a faith crisis and you are scared or upset and don’t know where to turn for help or answers, it is best to not leave the church, the source of strength that you need to help you through this time, especially when you are in the middle of the trial.

We don’t always know how to respond to people when they encounter difficulties in life, wether they be faith related or not. So, remember to be patient with others, as you would want them to be patient with you.

In conclusion I want to share with you a thought that was kind of sneaky from the October 2014 General Conference. Elder Anderson gave a talk and in the foot note of that talk was a quote from President Eyring that says this about how to approach those in faith crisis:

“In your love for them you may decide to try to give them what they ask. You may be tempted to go with them through their doubts, with the hope that you can find proof or reasoning to dispel their doubts. Persons with doubts often want to talk about what they think are the facts or the arguments that have caused their doubts, and about how much it hurts… You and I can do better if we do not stay long with what our students see as the source of their doubts… Their problem does not lie in what they think they see; it lies in what they cannot yet see… We do best if we turn the conversation soon to the things of the heart, those changes of heart that open spiritual eyes.”

(“‘And Thus We See’: Helping a Student in a Moment of Doubt” [address to Church Educational System religious educators, Feb. 5, 1993], 3, 4

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Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Vol. 3: Review

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JSP Docs V3_CoverThe Joseph Smith Papers Project has recently released volume 3 of the Documents series, as announced on its newly designed and updated website. This new volume covers the years 1833–34 of Joseph Smith’s life and ministry, and is a rich collection of important primary source materials related to the Church in Kirtland, Ohio and Jackson County, Missouri during this time.

The new volume is edited by Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Brent M. Rogers, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley. Alison Palmer is the leader editor on the editorial staff for this volume.

As the manager of the FairMormon blog, I was invited along with other bloggers to an event highlighting the release of the new volume and was graciously granted a review copy for this blog post.

According to Dirkmaat, there is “a great diversity of the types of documents in this volume.” Types of documents included in the new volume include letters, minutes, deeds, revelations, notes, and, for the first time in any volume of the Joseph Smith Papers, a transcription of architectural drawings for such things as the plat of the city of Zion and the Kirtland House of the Lord designs. Color images of the documents included in the new volume will be available on the Joseph Smith Papers website in the future.

Dirkmaat also discussed exciting documents in the new volume like the March 18, 1833 minutes of “an assembly of the high Priests” in Kirtland that collectively saw a “heavenly vision of the saviour and concourses of angels and many othe[r] thing[s].” The new volume also contains important documents relating to the violence inflicted against the Saints in Jackson County, Missouri, during the summer of 1833. This includes the July 29, 1833, letter of John Whitmer to Church leaders in Kirtland describing the violence in Jackson County and Joseph Smith’s reply written on August 18, 1833, entirely in his own hand. Brent Rogers described the significance of these texts. “The documents series is great because you see a chronological unfolding of Joseph Smith’s life,” Rogers explained. “You also learn about his contemporaries, including some lesser-known members and individuals.”

In addition to the new volume, the Joseph Smith Papers today launched a newly designed web site (linked above). With web traffic having tripled since the earlier website’s launch and a social media presence that includes over 50,000 followers on Facebook, the Joseph Smith Papers is gaining a significant presence online. The new website, besides having a refined search engine, features new photographs, both historic and modern, videos, chronologies, and other features. The new website has also been formatted for optimal tablet and phone usage.

Forthcoming volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers include the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon (forthcoming Summer 2015) and the 3rd and final volume in the Journals series (forthcoming Fall 2015). The highly anticipated Council of Fifty minutes are planned to be released in Fall of 2016.

Faith and Reason 30: Nahom

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Nahom

Image of Nahom from The New Era

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

by Michael R. Ash

 In 1 Nephi chapter 7, not long after their departure into the wilderness, Nephi and his brothers return to Jerusalem to bring Ishmael and his daughters (which later become the wives of Lehi’s sons). In chapter 16 Ishmael died during their journey through the Arabian Peninsula and in verse 34 we read that Ishmael was buried “in the place that was called Nahom.” Ancient Hebrew did not use vowels, so NHM could have been translated with the use of various vowel sounds including Nahom as found in the Book of Mormon.

In the late twentieth century, a non-LDS German archaeological team was excavating an ancient temple in southern Arabia when they discovered the inscription of a man belonging to the tribe of NHM. A few years later, two more altars from the same excavation were also found to contain the tribal inscription of NHM. Since this area had been utilized for more than 2500 years (and was actively used during the days of Lehi,) non-LDS scholars have suggested that—in typical Near Eastern Fashion—NHM was not only a tribal name, but the name of a territory in which this tribe lived. This becomes even more interesting when we recognize that NHM was the largest burial site in all of ancient Arabia, and starting in around 600 BC (the same time that the Lehites fled Jerusalem,) anyone could be buried there.

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.

Praise to the Man Even with 40 Wives and Teenage Brides

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mob-700x5581[This post was originally written by David Grant at LDS.net and is reposted here with permission.]

It makes for compelling headlines, “Mormon Church Admits For First Time That Founder Joseph Smith Had A 14-Year-Old Bride,” and “Mormon Church Finally Admits Founder Joseph Smith was Polygamist with 40 Wives.”

These headlines and the accompanying articles were written in response to the “polygamy” essays published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo and Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah.

Most who engaged with and shared the stories in the Huffington Post, theTelegraph and many other outlets gave no thought to significant linguistic nuances that make the headline factually problematic.

Mormon History Was Never Hidden

For instance, the word, “admits,” is charged with accusation that there had been a previous denial of some kind. On the contrary. Off the top of my head I can think of three definitive declarations that attest to the practice of polygamy early in church history: Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, a 1905 Improvement Era article by Prophet Joseph F. Smith, and a 1992 Ensign article.

In fact, being a student of Joseph Smith and history, I learned of these 14-year-old “brides” (another baggage-laden word) and 30-40 wives in my early twenties as a student at Brigham Young University, as I combed through journals and other documents in a quest to get to know and understand Joseph Smith better.

The events and history of Joseph Smith’s marriage to teenage and other brides have been well known and documented within available resources since there were accounts written of the event way back in history. All anyone had to do was look… and some did.

The information has been readily available for anyone to read. For example, Richard Bushman, in his book, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, has attempted to write more objective historical accounts of Joseph Smith and has included more difficult events in his history. Thanks to Bushman, the names of Joseph’s wives have rested on thousands of Mormon bookshelves since its publication in 2005.

Internet reach and information ease fluidity resulting in the availability and sharability of history have put the Church in the new and sometimes uncomfortable position of having to clarify interpretations of events, statements and doctrines when it would rather testify. [Read more…] about Praise to the Man Even with 40 Wives and Teenage Brides

Living with Fallibility

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[The following was written by James Faulconer at Patheos and is reposted here with his permission.]

Mormons have a joke that is so old it has become a cliché: Catholic doctrine is that the pope is infallible, but they don’t believe it; Mormon doctrine is that the prophet is fallible, but they don’t believe it.

Like many jokes and all clichés, that joke works because there is truth in it. The joke misunderstands the doctrine of papal infallibility, but it gets very close to the truth of the way many contemporary Mormons have thought about their leaders, not just the prophet. And for some the truth of that joke has become a tragedy.

The LDS Church’s recent postings on its history of polygamy (see here, here, and here) have caught many off guard. For a long time the Church has avoided and even covered over not only the particular facts about polygamy’s beginnings but sometimes even polygamy itself.

Frankly I understand the motive behind that avoidance: we don’t practice polygamy and haven’t for a long time, so let’s avoid talking about it so we can talk about more important things—like faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. But it is generally agreed that we made a mistake. That strategy has caused a lot of pain and doubt.

In spite of that, it is a mistake that I understand. As a young man I thought we should be more forthcoming about our history, but I’m not sure that had I been a leader at the time I would have done differently. Things looked different during the fifty-plus years that the Church was coming out of persecution and perceived persecution. Things looked different to people whose fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles had been expelled from Missouri and Illinois by force.

As Kristine Haglund points out, members of the LDS Church have lived in different circumstances, sometimes almost to the point of growing up in different churches. Some of us learned early on the things the Church is now writing about, so there is little new in the recent news. But not everyone did.

Many did not know about Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy or about the difficulties that surrounded that practice. Even fewer, perhaps, knew about the complications of bringing plural marriage to a halt. And the institutional Church bears considerable responsibility for their ignorance.

Having known about the history of plural marriage, about issues with the Book of Abraham, and so on for a long time, I’m long past those things being trouble for me. That’s not to say that I don’t understand that they trouble others or why. It is to say that they are no challenge to my faith. I’m interested in the recently published materials, but not because of what they say or don’t say about the history of the LDS Church.

I hope that the new strategy of making our story public even when we find it difficult to explain will in the future help prevent the kinds of pain we see some people suffering now. But those documents are important to me because I also hope that they will help Latter-day Saints rethink what it means to recognize authority and to have a living prophet.

We have often been guilty of a kind of idolatry of our leaders, implicitly imputing the characteristics of God to them because we thought that is what it meant to be called by God. To my knowledge few of our leaders asked for our idolatry, but we fell into it anyway. Perhaps our new strategy will help us repent.

I hope that the recently published documents on LDS history will help us see that prophets don’t usually get definitive answers to their questions, and even when the answer is definitive, they don’t often, if ever, get definitive directions for how to put into practice what they have been told. Being called and inspired by God doesn’t remove the need to figure out what that calling and inspiration mean, nor does it remove the possibility that I will confuse my will and desires for those of God.

Prophets speak for God, but he leaves them their personality, humanity, talents—and weaknesses. As he said through Joseph Smith in 1831, revelation is ‘given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language’ (D&C 1:24). God can speak to us only where he finds us.

But if prophets are human too, how can I trust what they teach? Even if a prophet is onlyanother human being like the rest of us, it doesn’t follow that I ought not to trust him. Trust—in other words, faith—and doubt are not mutually exclusive. Trust requires uncertainty, and human agency requires uncertainty. In turn, uncertainty and human fallibility mean that, Christ excepted, even the most righteous or smartest or whatever-you-wish person will misunderstand and be wrong when he hears what God has to say or when he tries to do what he has been asked. Those who are less than such a maximally great person, which includes all of the prophets, will not only be wrong, they will sometimes even do wrong.

But I don’t believe that those called by God, whether a Primary President or the President of the LDS Church is only another human being. I believe that callings can be and usually are inspired, and I believe that inspiration means something. It means that the person called has access to inspiration about his or her calling that I don’t have.

That inspiration will almost always come as a feeling or intuition about needs or directions. It always requires that the person who receives it make decisions not only about what it means but how to implement what it suggests, and mistakes both of intellect and of will are always possible. But since I believe that those people are called and inspired, I am willing to allow what they say to have more authority over me than I would allow someone who is just another person like me.

How far am I willing to go with that? There can be no definitive answer. Obviously some could go so far as to violate the trust I’ve put in them. I know such a violation when I see it. But I give people I love and respect more room for mistakes than I do others. My children can do a lot more than can strangers before I lose faith in them. People whom I have had good experiences with previously also get extra leeway. And if I sincerely believe that a person has been called by God, I am willing to continue to trust them though I am aware of their failings.

Hans-Georg Gadamer has argued that to passively submit to someone’s edict is not to recognize authority at all. Instead it is to agree to tyranny. So recognizing someone as an authority and having faith in that person doesn’t mean following them blindly. Faith in an authority needs to be wide-eyed. But being wide-eyed doesn’t mean being unable to look beyond a person’s mistakes and even some wrongdoing. Within parameters that I cannot specify in advance, I can do what a leader asks even though I think he is mistaken, especially if I remember my own fallibility.

My hope is that the conversations the recently published materials create will help us learn that being called by God isn’t an either/or. It isn’t that either the person is called by God and never makes a mistake in their calling or he isn’t called by God at all. I hope we will begin to see the falsity of that dichotomy, that we will develop a more mature understanding of our relationship to those who lead us, one in which we neither idolize the prophets nor assume that their humanity means we ought to no longer follow them.

Fair Issues 74: What happened at the Tower of Babel?

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MAIn Genesis we are told that following the confusion of tongues the people were scattered across the earth (11:7-9).  Many people have traditionally assumed that the scattering or dispersion, was caused by the divergence in languages.

In this episode brother Ash explores the possibility of a serious drought and  strong winds that could have contributed to this event.

The full text of this article can be found at Deseret News online.

Brother Ash is author of the book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, as well as the book, of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Both books are available for purchase online through the FairMormon Bookstore. Tell your friends about the Mormon Fair-Cast. Share a link on your Facebook page and help increase the popularity of the Mormon Fair-Cast by subscribing to this podcast in iTunes, and by rating it and writing a review.

The views and opinions expressed in the podcast may not reflect those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or that of FairMormon