Still Reading the BKC and an Addition

I really enjoying reading through the Old Testament with the Bible Knowledge Commentary.  I actually enjoyed reading the giving of the law in the Exodus and the explanation of the Tabernacle.  When they explained the size of a cubit being around 18 inches supposedly.  No one really knows what the size is but that's the accepted estimate.  I also understood just what they were talking about with the clothing or the high priest.  The reason that I understood this this time is that it's explicitly explained in the book.  As I was reading about the clothing for I realized that I bought an illustrated book about the Old Testament that probably had pictures that would show the cloths and the tabernacle.

I went and got it it's called "Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament: An Illustrated Reference for Latter-Day Saints."  I decided that I'd read the book as well and it's been pretty interesting as well.

Since the surgery I haven't been able to start doing the body weights exercises so I've been riding the exercise cycle every morning and I've really been enjoying the reading that I do.

The History of Hell from Christian History

The Christian History Magazine sent this nifty little book that has snippets of writings of theologians writings about hell throughout history.  It was pretty iteresting and it got me thinking about how LDS doctrine provides the "Whys" of theoloty.

Why is there Hell?  That is a good question, and I like the answer that John Stuart Mill gives.  "I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures: and if such a being can sentence me to Hell for not so calling him, to Hell will I go."

So if we can't say a person is good who would send a person off to eternal punishment for seemingly insignificant reasons we shouldn't then call that person God, and say He is unfathomable.

Here is the problem as I see it.  In Classical Christianity God is outside of time and creation and then decides that he will create creatures and a place for them to live.  Why?  That is un-answerable.  But some of the possibilities are that God wanted creatures to worship him.  Or that God wanted creatures to love him.  Or God wanted creatures to share his existence.  Or that God wanted creatures that he could love.  However, the point is that God created this existence and the way that it is.  So he created hell and creatures to go to hell.  He also created heaven and creatures to go to heaven, but again the question is why, but as John Stuart Mill points out the fact that Being that will create creatures to suffer means that he cannot be called good no matter what extenuating circumstances there are.

The LDS view is not perfect but at least it avoids a Being who creates creatures who's sole purpose is to suffer.  As I understand LDS doctrine there are eternal intelligence's and matter.  These two things are joined and can progress.  God is the greatest of these beings and he makes it possible for others to follow him if they choose too.  That's the difference in LDS doctrine and other Christian theologies.  We believe that for some reason Christ had to offer himself as a sacrifice and He willingly did so because all beings have the ability to make choices.  Those beings who choose not to follow God go somewhere where God is not and since God is light and love, if you go where God is not you go to a place where there is no light or love, a place of darkness.

Classic Christianity says that God the Father came up with a plan that required his son to suffer infinite punishment for the beings he made.  However the LDS and Christians agree that it is only because of Grace of Christ that we are able to enjoy the blessings of God and not anything we do ourselves.

BYU Studies 5

I read the fifth volume of BYU Studies, but I don't remember anthing special about it except that it had articles with long quotes in German and French.  I skipped those.

BYU Studies Vol 4

I'm slowly reading through the BYU Studies Journals.  They're included in the LDS Library 2009 CD which is an awesome deal.  It's so awesome that you can't get it anymore.  On this blog I'm going to start with Vol 4 because I've read the others already and I'm not going to go back to them.

Vol 4 was for the year 1961-62 and I really enjoyed BYU Studies.  It was written in 1961 the year I was born so that's very cool.

It's cool seeing how different the Journal used to be when it was starting out.  It seemed to be more oriented to literature and didn't have as many gospel oriented articles as it does now.  That's just my impression.  Some of the articles I just set aside because I wasn't interested in them, or didn't have any idea what they were talking about.  When I read the current Journals I almost always read them all the way through, unless it's really boring or I just can't get interested in what the article is about.  I'm not sure what my criteria is for reading or not reading an article is.  I guess it just depends on if I like it or not.  Some of the articles in the volume were fascinating.

The first two articles "Poetry in the Free World" by Carlton Culmsee and "Response" by Veneta Nielsen were talks that were given to some type of gathering of poets and were talking about the calling of poets and how they are to touch and change the world.  They had some pretty good ideas.

"Plato's Trinity And Problem and Promise in University Life" didn't finish reading.

"The War-Making Power: Congress Vs. the President" by Van L. Perkins.  This was a fascinating article.  It was talking about the Korean War, and the "Formosa" and some islands incident.  I was reading this and wondering just where is Formosa, and wondered if it's Thailand and that was correct, Thailand used to be called Formosa which means "Beautiful Island" in Dutch or Portuguese I think.

The fascinating thing about this is that the Vietnam War, or involvement with Vietnam or whatever you want to call it was just getting started when this article was being written.  I guess that the author probably knew about Vietnam but I wonder if he knew just how much the article's title was.

The author seems to think that Truman and Eisenhower took to much power unto themselves by their actions in Korea and Formosa.  Truman committed American forces before getting the UN OK for it, but doing it seems to have been a good thing.  I don't know exactly what was happening with Eisenhower but there was some problem over Formosa, and Eisenhower took a third, and new way than other presidents have done.  The article makes clear that the president as commander in chief can use the armed forces in ways that will get the USA into a "de facto" war.  I think the author says that this is what Truman did in Korea.  Eisenhower however saw that a situation in Formosa was arising that could very well lead to conflict.  He did something that no other president has ever done and got a pre-war declaration.  In other words he got Congress to pass a bill basically giving the president the OK to go to was with the Chinese over Formosa.  Some Senator's said when they voted for this that they weren't really doing anything that the president couldn't already do.  In my opinion, and the author says this as well, this would have been a very powerful political statement to the Chinese.

I'd never known this had happened and it really adds new understanding to what happened in Vietnam, and what is happening now, that our Nobel Peace Prize Winning President has used the presidential powers to get the USA into another war.

"Ibsen on Art"  This is a translation of a letter and an article by Henrik Ibsen.  The person who included it said that the things that Henrik said were meaningful to LDS artists of the time.  I didn't know who Ibsen was very well except that I'd recently heard a lecture about him from one of the Teaching Company Sets about Great Authors of the Western Tradition.  I also looked him up on Wikipedia.

At the time that he wrote this letter he was the director of the national theater of Norway and he was trying to get more money for the theater.  Of course this is always something that a director wants.  But the points that he makes are very interesting and applicable.  He says that the theater is the combination of all arts.  Painting, sculpture or the plastic arts as Henrik says, and literature.  OK I can see that this could be true, and I wonder just how much more it applies to movies which is an even tighter combination of all the arts.  Although I think the written word gets the short shrift in movies.

Which brings me to the second article "The Theater".  This was an article that was written by Henrik early in his career.  It talks about the fact that people go to the Opera to listen to the music but not to pay attention to the libretto.  The amazing thing is that I know what the libretto is.  Henrik says the opera is only great when t

"William James: Philosopher-Educator" by Truman G. Madsen.  Ok I like William James and Truman Madsen so I read this article and it was interesting.  William James sounds like he was a great teacher and influential man.

"Leonardo Da Vinci–Pioneer Geologist" by Daniel J. Jones  This was an interesting article and it sounds like Leo was very interested in geology and made some perceptive observations.  However, is he a pioneer if no one builds on his discoveries?  We already know he was a great man, now we know he was even greater.

"What is the Proper Role of the Latter-Day Saint With Respect to the Constitution?"  This was a series of articles that talked about the constitution that seriously got me to think about what the constitution is and what my relationship to it is.  I was seriously startled when I actually considered that the government might have responsibility to take care of people with social services, but it did.

Great series of articles I thought.

"A New Emphasis for the American Dream" by Weldon J. Taylor.  This article was very interesting.  It was written in the midst of the Cold War and basically it says that America has reached the point where they're able to fulfill the physical needs of most Americans, and in order to keep developing we're going to have to change the work environment of most Americans so that they can keep achieving higher levels of production.  The interesting about this article is it is saying things that the article presents as new ideas that might be controversial, but today are pretty much standard.  Basically it says that management is going to have to find ways so that workers fill more fulfilled at their jobs.

Reading Update

It's been a while since I've done some reading updates.  I've just been busy it's not that I haven't been reading.

The BKC, I've been reading it still.  Right now I read what it says about a chapter in the OT about every other day, the days that I ride my exercise cycle.  The problem is that it's not really saying anything that's caught my interest except recently.  I did discover that it looks like the authors is changed on every chapter.  The chapter on Exodus is written by John D. Hannah, and I seem to like the author of the first chapter on Genesis.  Allen P. Ross wrote the first chapter.  I guess if I'm really interested I could look up the authors information at the beginning of the book.

I guess that the reason that I haven't really noticed anything of interest is because of the truly story nature of the last couple of chapters.  But it may just be that I haven't been that impressed with the writer.  For example, when he was talking about the plague of the frogs he says that perhaps the frogs came out of the river because of the fact that all the fish were dead from the blood of the first plague.  That my be true, but it doesn't make much sense.  1.  If the frogs came out because of all the dead fish why did they wait until Aaron used his staff?  Why didn't the frogs come out of the bloody nile?  Do frogs like to swim in blood?  If the writer is going to use reason to explain the plagues he should at least make it reasonable.

Also, in the introduction he goes into a lot of the different ideas about dating the Exodus and problems with the different times.  That was very interesting, but not new, then he just picks the date that he wants to use and starts using that date.  This means that the writer says things like this would have been the Pharaoh at this time.  Then he says that one problem we have with the dating is that there is a mistake in the translation of Reed Sea, as Red Sea.  He does say that the Hebrews were miraculously delivered, my question is how?  If the Hebrews came to the Reed Sea, why were they worried about getting across a swamp?  I mean it might be hard to do, but it's not like going across the Red Sea is it.  Then what happened to the Egyptians, they all rode into the swamp until they were dead?  I guess I'll have to wait till I get to that part to find out what happens.  I guess I don't like the mixing of reality based with faith based writing.

However, now to the interesting part.  When Moses tells the Pharaoh that he will lift the plague of frogs that the Pharaoh should pick the time so that the Pharaoh would know that it was the Lord that stopped the plague.  Another thing that I'd never noticed was that the Lord says that he will treat the Land of Goshen differently than the rest of Egypt.  Never noticed that before, but it makes a lot of sense.

I've caught up on reading the Ensign and New Eras.  I'd gotten behind this year for some reason and made a point of catching up on all the back issues for this year.  I'd thought that I'd caught up with July when on the day I finished with July the August Ensign and New Era showed up so I started reading them again and now I'm done with them.  Yeah.

Here's my current reading schedule.  On days that I do t turbulence training I listen to the scriptures, one chapter in the Book of Mormon, and the New Testament for the rest of the time (currently).  Then when I do the interval training I read a thought from "Come Listen to a Prophets Voice", which is a book by Lloyd D. Newell of "daily counsel and inspiration."  Then I either read the Ensign or New Era or the Church book that I'm reading currently.  Right now for my morning reading I'm reading "Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour through Modern Revelations" by Steven C. Harper.  Provides background information of each section of the D&C.

On days that I do the exercise cycle in the AM I read a chapter of the Book of Mormon.  Right now I'm reading "The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text" that was edited by Royal Skousen.  It's cool, it's his attempt to recreate the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith dictated it.  It has all the grammar mistakes that Joseph Smith made.  Dr. Skousen used the original manuscript where it exists, and the printer manuscript to recreate original text.  He also uses what he calls "Sense-lines."  There is evidence that Joseph Smith would read out a line of text and then make sure that the scribe had the line right before he moved on.  In the original manuscript there is no punctuation of any kind.  In the first printing of the Book of Mormon the printer edited the manuscript because he couldn't print a book sized paragraph.  So Dr. Skousen has re-punctuated the text and gives what he calls sense-lines which is what he things are the sections that Joseph read out to the scribe.  There is a fairly large introduction where Dr. Skousen give examples of things that are clearer in the original text.  For example there are a lot more "hebraisms" in the original text.  Also, Joseph's use of grammar was less than stellar which is what is expected from someone who was probably functionally illiterate.  Emma Smith in a quote later in life says that the production of the Book of Mormon was beyond Joseph Smith, and all you have to do is read some of his letters that he wrote himself from this time period, and this original text, and you begin to realize that Joseph had problems with the English language.  His writing got better as he worked on educating himself throughout his life.  Anyway, I really like reading this version of the Book of Mormon on my cycle riding days.

After I read a chapter from the Book of Mormon I then read the uplifting thought from "Come Listen to a Prophets Voice" then I read a chapter form the BKC and the corresponding chapter from the OT.  Then I read from the Ensign, New Era or the Church book that I'm reading in the morning as described above.

Besides all those books I'm also currently reading "Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations" by Mark Lyman Staker.  The title is pretty self explanatory, are when I'm not reading that I'm reading Vol 4 of BYU Studies on my iPhone.

So that's what I'm reading right now.  I just love reading.  I also just finished BYU Studies, Vol 50, Number 2 2011.  However, it was not very good.  Sometimes I love that journal and sometimes it just falls flat.  The only really interesting article in the edition was called "Last Rites and Dynamics of Mormon Liturgy" by Jonathon A. Stapely.  One of the books that was reviewed was the "Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text."  They reviewer seemed to like it as well.  Apparently there are some sections at the end of the book as well that sound as interesting as the introductory sections at the beginning were.  I'm looking froward to reading them.

So that's the round up on what's been happening in my reading life.

"Believing Christ" and "Following Christ" by Stephen E. Robinson

While reading those other books about grace and works I decided that I would reread my personal favorites "Believing Christ" and "Following Christ" by Stephen Robinson.  I love these books.  While reading them this last time I thought that perhaps I should start giving them out as gifts to young men leaving on missions.  I talked to Karen about it and she had the same thought that I did about it.  Some mission presidents probably wouldn't mind their missionaries reading them and some might (although I would have a hard time understanding why someone would.)  I don't know what I'll do about it for sure.

These books are just too awesome to try and review so I'll just share some stories about them.  First it took me a long time to read "Following Christ."  I thought that "Believing Christ" was so excellent that "Following Christ" could possible be worth buying, what else could be said?  In fact I don't think that I ever read it until I was able to get the PDF version off of the LDS Library and read it on my iPod.  How's that for a stupid person?  Guilty.

The full title of "Following Christ" is "Following Christ: The Parable of the Divers and More Good News."  The full title of "Believing Christ" is "Believing Christ: The Parable of the Bicycle and Other Good News."  When I read "Believing Christ" the first time I quickly picked up the 'Parable of the Bicycle.'  It's the story where Bro. Robinson tells his daughter in a offhand way that if she saves up all of her money she will one day be able to buy a bicycle.  His daughter takes him at his word and starts saving every penny she earns.  A short while later Bro. Robinson notices her saving some money from a chore and asks her what she's doing and she reminds him that she's saving everything she earns so she can get a bicycle.  Bro. Robinson remembers the promise he made her so he takes her to find a bike and when they find it she realizes it will take her forever to buy the bike.  Or as Bro. Robinson puts it, buy the time she's saved enough for a bicycle she'll probably want a car.  So he tells her that if she'll give him everything she has and a hug and a kiss it will be enough for a bicycle.  That's like the covenant we make with the Savior, except our efforts are even less in comparison to His.

However I read through "Following Christ" and when I got to the end I wondered how I'd missed the 'Parable of the Divers?'  This time I was going to pay attention to make sure that I got it, and I was surprised and a little disappointed when I read through it.  The parable this time is about a diving competition where Bro. Robinson and his friends are all in a diving contest.  They've all had years of practice on the diving boards in their backyards and what not.  There is a young man that come from a less well to do part of town and while he hasn't had years of practice in backyards he's got something that they don't have – he's fearless.  While they're doing pretty swan dives and what not, he's doing  back flips and one-and-a-halfs and gainers and what not, and while they're form is perfect on the easier dives his is not so good on his dives.  The scores on the dives make Bro. Robinson and his friends think that they're winning, but when the final score is given the fearless young man has won.  Bro. Robinson goes to protest and finds out about degree of difficulty.  While the fearless young man might not have scored as high on his dives the multiplier for the difficulty of the dives made him the ultimate winner.  Bro Robinson says that we will all be judged on how we handled the life that we were given to live.

I don't know why I missed this.  I guess that I thought that anyone that was participating in a diving contest should know about degree of difficulty, so maybe the story just didn't ring true with me, and I didn't relate to it as well as the first parable.  Anyway I was pretty surprised when I read it through the second time.  I mean I agree with the story and everything it just didn't hit me as hard as the first one on reading through it.

Something else that he said the "Following Christ" really struck me this time.  He said that LDS use 'sealing' in the same way that many Evangelical Christians say 'saved.'  We're not really 'sealed' yet, but the promise and intent is their and we function as though it is already a fact, and it mostly is a fact.  I thought that's a great way to think of it.

One other thing he said that I missed is that when he said some Christians believe in "cheap grace" i.e. that once you've accepted Christ you're not expected to do anything else, but it's not as many as LDS believe it is.  I think that I'm finding that to be true.

I give these books 5 stars and would recommend that anyone should read them.

"Classic Christianity" by Bob George

“Classic Christianity” by Bob George

This is the book that Bob Millet used an example from in his book "Grace Works."  I liked the example so much that I looked into the book to see what it was like.  I liked the description enough that I felt compelled to buy it.  This book is so popular that it has it's own website classicchristianity.org.  The book has sold over 600,000 copies and has been translated into a number of different languages.  On the web site it gives background about how the book came to be written and there are a number of testimonials about how the book has affected people throughout the world.  One of the comments about the book that I really liked (but I can't find where I saw it so this is a paraphrase) was "You should buy this book weather you're an Arianist or a Calvinst.  It has a great message."

The example of Christianity that Dr. Millet used was this.  There is a house full of people, some of who are deaf and some of who can hear.  There is a hearing person in a room that is listening to music on earphones.  He has his eyes closed with a smile on his face swaying to the music while tapping his toe and snapping this finger.  A deaf person comes in and sees the hearing person and decides that he is enjoying himself so he sits down next to him and starts imitating him, tapping his toe, snapping his fingers and swaying to the music.  After a minute he decides that doing all this is allright but maybe all he needs to do is to keep doing it to really get the hang of it, so he smiles slightly and closes his eyes to exactly imitate the hearing person.  Another person comes into the room and sees two people performing the exact same actions, but are they doing the same thing?  No they're not at all, and that's the difference between someone who is a true Christian and someone who is only going through the motions.  I liked that description and still do.

Another great example he had was this.  Suppose you own and world famous buffet style resturaunt and you go out back and see a begger who is fighting with the cats and dogs over food in the alley.  This man is emaciated and looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in years.  His cloths are ragged, he smells bad, and has sores.  You call the man over and bring him into your resturaunt and tell him that you don't want him to eat garbage in the alley any more.  You say that God has been good to you and you have this successful resturaunt and you want him to eat here whenever he's hungry.  The mans eyes open unbelievingly and he asks; I can eat however much I want?  That's right you answer.  I can eat whenever I want?  That right you answer again.  I can have what ever I want, desert as much as I want?  That's right.  Steak? Yes.  Lobster?  Yes.  Suddenly the man gets a sly grin on his face and he asks, Can I eat garbage?

This was a shocking example to me and very apropos.  Pastor George says that you'd think the man was crazy why would he want to eat garbage when he could have as much nourishing great tasting food as he wanted?  He says that this is the same with the Gospel.  If you show people how great following the Savior, or living the Gospel people want to live that way, they’d be just as crazy as the man in the example.  The problem with this analogy however, is we know that people do do things like that.  They may go back to eating garbage, or using drugs, or cheating on their wives or any of a number of things even though they know they shouldn’t.  Sometimes people just need to be given rules to live by to help them reach a point where they don’t go back to eating garbage.  Anyway this was a great example, and touched me powerfully.

The whole  book talks about an experience that started when Pastor George was on his way to work in tears and was praying to the Lord that he could return to the joyful time in his life when he was a new Christian and the gospel was a joy.  At the time we was in full time Christian ministry and the gospel had become a grind in his life.  After this prayer the Lord started leading him to a more joyful realization of how to live the gospel.

One thing he points out is that many many scriptures point out that when we’re baptized we put to death the old sinful self so that we can have a new life.  Living with the Savior is the point of the gospel.  Many scriptures point this out.

Another thing he pointed out was that he often counsels people in his ministry and many people see themselves in a negative life.  For example people will say “Hi I’m Bob and I’m an alcoholic.”  Or “I’m Sue and I have a big but.”  The point is that were all in mortality and we’re all sinners but we should see ourselves as sinners because that’s not the way the Savior sees us, we should see ourselves as beloved children of the Savior who want the very best for us.  Many people after they see themselves in this light begin to make great progress.

Pastor George many many times makes the point that we don’t have to do any of the things that he talks about in this book but that we will do them because we love the Savior.  His story about the man who likes to eat garbage was one example of this book.

I really liked this book.  I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to many people.  The only caveot I would have is that LDS people need to realize that not everything in it is right but there are a lot of great things in this book.