pam

Thanks Mark.  An interesting read for sure.

Thank you for considering this article.

I have tried to be an amateur apologist for the church over the past years, and I have found this question of modern Bible scholarship to be the most troubling to me personally, the most troubling among all the "controversies" that anti-Mormons like to bring up.

It does appear that Elder McConkie and other past leaders have passed down a naive and simplistic tradition of interpreting the scriptures. Dangerously naive and simplistic, I would say. The more I study the questions raised by Bible scholars, the more I feel that the church needs to become more ready to answer these questions. I'm hoping they will eventually also add these types of things to the current Gospel Topics. At the moment, it seems to me that church members are left vulnerable in this area.

Now when I hear leaders talk about the scriptures, I unfortunately - disturbingly - find myself wanting to take what they say with a grain of salt. "Why don't they realize that the Greek in that passage doesn't really mean what they are interpreting it to to say?" or "Don't they realize this Old Testament verse is contradicted by that other Old Testament verse?" Stuff like that.

If I'm having so much trouble with this, then others will I fear have even more trouble. Despite my questions, my faith is not seriously shaken. I am committed to faith, and approach these questions with faith. However, other members haven't reached that decision yet and are more vulnerable.

That's a long-winded follow-up, but I am really concerned about this, and I expect anti-Mormons will start raising this more in the future, and that you will see more of that too in your roles.

I continue to wish I had time to help you. I was honored that you asked me to. However, I'm a middle-aged guy, so I feel that my mentally-productive years are numbered. So I have to choose carefully how I spend them now. I'm putting all my energy into preparing for graduate studies in Greek and Latin these days, and thereafter hopefully on to formal Bible studies.

I may participate in a small way on Ask Gramps, by way of user replies to articles. I want to start spending more time on that site.

I'm concerned with a recent answer on that website, however, about money and discipleship, that political ideology was behind the answer, which appears to have caused the answerer to dodge the question. I'm hoping that's an aberration, because it would cause me (and other readers I assume) to dismiss the site altogether. I haven't seen any other cases of this, so far, so I assume it was an aberration.

Best wishes to you