volgadon

Take a look at the book I linked to. President McKay was extremely unhappy about the book. More than the numerous doctrinal errors, it was the authoritarian tone (and title) which concerned him, as well as the fact that elder McConkie didn't seek approval before publishing it. This "private assessment" wasn't made public denouncement only in order to save face for elder McConkie, to avoid losing credibility which would affect the work he was called to do as GA.

Jesus the Christ has fantastic spiritual insight and masterful prose, but the Victorian scholarship is, not to put too fine a point on it, outdated.

Here is a very good description of what occured with "Mormon Doctrine." David O. McKay and the rise of ... - Gregory A. Prince, William Robert Wright - Google Books

In places where the church is newer (IE almost entirely consisting of converts and occasional 2nd generation members) or has a smaller presence, if someone stops believing the doctrines they generally stop attending attending as well. Nobody would stick with the church because of heritage, community, culture, etc. when your heritage (as well as the majority of your family) is Russian Orthodox and most likely has been so since the 11th c., or when the LDS community might be 20 people in a city of 1/2 a million. Indeed, about 1/2 of those 20 members are probably little old ladies 2x or 3x your age. Without a belief in the doctrines of the church why would you stay in something that is detested feared by your friends, family, neighbours and coworkers, something which has no special holidays to speak of, no social framework that you couldn't find anywhere else, something which could cause you to discriminated against in school and at work? If key elements of social interaction with 99% of the people you meet are alcohol, coffee and tea, why would you want to remain in a religious framework which forbids such, unless, that is, you believed in said framework. In terms of society, you lose hardly a thing and gain much, much more by leaving the church than remaining in it. I'm not saying that soical Mormons occur only in Utah/Idaho/Arizona, but they are rare and unusual most everywhere else. Growing up in a branch which for most of the time consisted of my family and two or three others, I found the phenomenon of social Mormons inexplicable until I had lunch with John Dehlin. He did a good job of explaining why the social framework in Utah is conducive to such.

Why don't we imagine the following dialogue. God: What are you doing? William Williams: I'm praying for my children. They are very ill. G: Commendable. Who is it that you are praying to? WW: I'm praying to the Son of God. G: I am the son of God. WW: The one written about in the four Gospels. G: Ah, those ones. WW: He was born in Bethlehem, was baptised in the Jordan river, turned water to wine at Cana and walked on the water of the Sea of Galilee. G: Been there, done that, and never fell in. WW: He was crucified on Golgotha, laid in an empty tomb and arose from the dead on the 3rd day. Because of this all who believe on his name will be saved. G: indeed they will! WW: His name is Jesus Christ. G: Oh, is it really? Uh-oh. You must be thinking of someone else entirely. I'm afraid I won't be able to answer that prayer. My name, you see, is Yšwʻ Hʼmšyḥ.

Here are several factors right off the bat which would change pronounciation. Where is the stress laid? How long is the "e"? How guttural is the "a'? How much air is in the "sh"? Is the "ua" a dipthong?

If we are talking about transliteration (which has little to do with pronounciation) then yours is far from being "exactly and precisely the correct transliteration of his name." Yšwʻ would be at least one example of a transliteration far more precise and exact than your own. I highly suspect that your American pronounciation is all that closer.

Ah, but you weren't talking about "as close as we can get" were you. You were talking about "exactly and precisely." Which is exact and precise enough in order to get prayers answered? Is the accent on milra or is it milel? How guttural does the ayin have to be? What about the deaf, dumb and blind kid who doesn't know Jesus's name at all? I've had just as many prayers answered in the name of Jeus Christ, amen and vo imya Iisusa Khrista, amin, as I have beshem Yeshua haMashiah, amen.

I call my friend Mi-cha-el all the time instead of saying My-kol and I have several other friends that go by Serge/Sergey and Helen/Yelena. I'm perfectly happy to go by Alain. How would you pronounce Yeshua in a precise Galilean Hebrew dialect of the 1st c. AD?

Perhaps if you didn't take the ahistorical idea of sola scriptura and bash us over the head with the Bible, the Bible and only the Bible being God's word (an unscriptural position if ever there was one) we wouldn't have a problem. That it is a record of part of God's word, of great eternal importance and authority, we happily concede.

The only Russian tea I'm aware of is tea. They are inordinately found of green tea.

How about the time beofr they recieved even the partial Torah?

Na zdorovye. http://www.boap.org/LDS/History/History_of_the_Church/Vol_VI

Without the Bible how could the children of Israel have been assured that they were following the one true God?

Revelation is an interesting book. In it, the Lord states that the righteous will be worshipped. 3:9.

These verses prove the opposite of what you want them to. THe word "search" is what underlies midrash, where ideas and concepts were read into the Bible as much as they were derived from it.

In what language? Certainly not Hebrew, and the likely Egyptian etymology means "belongs to me/father/mother."

It means one who adds or increases. The Bible also includes a folk etymology of taking away, referiing to the Lord taking away Rachel's shame of being childless.

The point of the question is that Job doesn't know the answer not that he didn't exist.

You guys are welcome to the end of the world. No need to share.

11/11/11 is somewhat spoiled by the fact that it is 11/11/2011. The 12th c. would have been cooler for end times. 11/11/1111.

Please define true faith.

What do you trust? I grew up in a town that was almost entirely Jewish. Jews don't teach the same principle that we do with Moroni 10.

Not that clear-cut. I'm Jewish, yet my tribe is Ephraim and my brother's is Dan. My wife is Ukrainian and is from Menasseh, as is a Greek friend of ours. My mother-in-law is from Gad and a good Russian friend of mine is Simeon.

There is a difference between history written by Dan Vogel or Michael Quinn (even if I disagree with most of their cocnclusions) and the sort of polemics undertaken by Bob Betts, Ed Decker and Rocky Hulse. The majority of anti-Mormon literature is built around shocking one-liners, suitably punched in bold. Ironically, entirely emotive an appeal. Rarely is analysis or contextualisation of any sort attempted. Take a look at the Joseph Smith Papers project. Primary source material being made freely available by the church. As part of the general curiculum of the church, of course the faith-promoting aspects will be focused on. BTW, even in Russia, where church materials are limited, members (almost entirely converts) still know about Brigham Young's multiple wives.