1 Peter 2:9; The “Royal Priesthood” and Evangelicals

1 Peter 2:7-9

7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,

8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

This passage is so often used by Evangelicals to argue that the LDS view of priesthood contradicts the bible. They say that it teaches that all believers are part of the “royal priesthood”, as opposed to the LDS practice of having only worthy males belong to the priesthood.

Indeed, Peter refers to the Christian community as a “royal priesthood.” What Evangelical critics always fail to note, unfortunately, is that Peter is quoting God as he speaks to Israel through Moses:

Exo 19:5-6 

5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine;

6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

The obvious point is that although God referred to the believers in Israel as a “Kingdom of Priests”, only the Levites would actually become priests. Likewise, if Peter is correctly quoting God (and we must believe that he is) then the ancient Christian Church could be a “royal priesthood” without requiring that every Christian be a priest. Instead, like ancient Israel, certain worthy individuals held the priesthood and the entire Church was blessed by them.

John Tvedtnes writes more about this issue here, which I highly recommend: http://www.fairlds.org/Bible/Is_There_a_Priesthood_of_All_Believers.html

Part 2: Larry Hurtado and 2nd Temple Jewish Monotheism

It turns out that Weaver had a different essay/book in mind. The message is still the same, however. These are my notes on chapter 1 of Larry Hurtado, “Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity” 2003.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_MH-_ZQuZrgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Larry+Hurtado&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Some summary bullet points:

• Hurtado describes God’s uniqueness not in terms of ontological attributes (species uniqueness as Heiser calls it) but in terms of worship-worthiness. The Jews are “monotheistic” because they offer cultic/liturgical worship to only one individual, the God of Israel. Hurtado distances himself from Bauckham who argues that God was seen as conceptually/doctrinally unique.
• The Jews recognized other “divine” figures besides the one God, exalted humans and angels, who serve God. The Jews honor and reverence them, but do not worship them.
• Hurtado does not discuss any nuance the word “divine” carries in his usage, and he refers to lesser exalted figures as well as God as “divine”.
• Hurtado does not discuss the exact meaning of the word “god” either. However, he does not refer to any individual but God as a “god” when discussing 2^nd Temple Judaism.
• The only mention Hurtado makes of creatio ex nihilo is in criticizing another scholar (Peter Hayman) who places that limitation on the definition of “monotheism.”

When discussing 2^nd Temple Jewish monotheism and modern Mormonism I find it very easy for two individuals to talk past each other. The terms “divine” and “god” can be ambiguous if not specifically defined. We may find that we are equivocating on those terms if we are not careful. For example, D&C 132 describes exalted men as “gods”, but other scholars (such as Hurtado) might consider a “god” to be only that which is worshipped (though he doesn’t specify). LDS do not consider exalted men to be worthy of our worship. Thus, confusion and miscommunication are companions to any discussion of these issues unless terms are very carefully and specifically defined.

If “monotheism” is defined as the worship of only one god, then Mormonism definitely qualifies as monotheistic. The Book of Mormon and the D&C clearly teach that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are “one God.” One might question how the inclusion of various members of the Godhead fit into that formula, but that is a question that other Christians likewise must wrestle with. The acceptance of Jesus Christ as being worthy of worship but as being distinct from the Father was a radical development in Jewish monotheism, but was one that was not seen by its adherents as breaching monotheism. That is a subject for another post, however. The bulk of Hurtado’s book is dedicated to that topic. Here we only examine his description of 2^nd Temple Jewish Monotheism.

Below are some selected excerpts from chapter 1 of  Hurtado’s book.

Part 1: Larry Hurtado and 2nd Temple Jewish Monotheism

This post will be a bit long, as I quote extensively from an essay. The reader is invited to read all of the fantastic quotes, or to simply read the summary given in the first quote. 

A fellow I frequently run into at CARM (goes by the moniker Weaver) recently stated, in reference to an essay by Larry Hurtado about 2nd Temple Jewish monotheism (I paraphrase), “Any Mormon who reads this essay will immediately be forced to cease being a Mormon.” That is pretty strong language. Larry Hurtado is a scholar of 1st century Christianity and Judaism at Edinburgh University. Weaver apparently feels that Hurtado’s findings utterly refute the LDS view of God. I beg to differ.

Hurtado describes late 2nd Temple Jewish monotheism as a monotheism defined by the worship of only one god/divine being, while recognizing various lesser divine beings which are part of God’s retinue. Monotheism here is determined by studying how many divine beings are worshipped, not by how many divine beings are recognized.

Elder Holland: Conference Address Video

Elder Holland gave a riveting sermon about the Book of Mormon in General Conference yesterday (Sunday, Oct 4, 2009). This talk will be quoted for a long time to come, and Elder Holland has quickly become a favorite for many LDS apologists. One notable quote among many:

For 179 years this book has been examined, and attacked. Denied and deconstructed. Targeted and torn apart, like perhaps no other book in modern religious history. Perhaps like no other book in any religious history, and still, it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born, parroted and died. From Ethan Smith to Solomon Spalding, to deranged paranoid, to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination, because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young, unlearned translator.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, General Conference talk, Oct. 4, 2009

Here is that sermon, which is better watched then read.

Part 1

Part 2

‘God is spirit’: John 4:24

The following commentary is from The Oxford Bible Commentary. The bolded portion is my emphasis:

vv. 21-2, the evangelist underlines that Jesus himself is a Jew (cf. v. 9) and that salvation comes to the nations through the Jews (cf. Isa 40:1-31 and the synoptic tradition). But at the same time Jesus questions the two places of worship, Mt. Gerezim and Jerusalem. vv. 23-24, ‘in spirit and truth’ is a double phrase with a single sense, similar to ‘Spirit of Truth’ in 14:17; 15:26; 16:13. It means an openness towards the Spirit whom Jesus gives (3:6; 4:14) and the truth that he reveals (1:14, 17; 14:6). ‘God is spirit’ has nothing to do with the Enlightenment description of the nature of God, but underlines that God will give his Spirit through his Messiah. 

Rene Kieffer, “John”, The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press, NY, 2001. pp. 968.

LDS Christology & Trinitarian Christology: A Comparison

The following is part of an email I sent to an Evangelical friend. I discuss the differences between LDS Christology and mainstream Trinitarian Christology. For those who don’t know, Christology is basically the study of what Christ is, answering the question of how a God could also be a man. I first describe Trinitarian views of God and man, then I describe my take on the LDS view of God and man. Then I explain why I find Trinitarian Christology to be problematic. Everything after this sentence is from that email.

Problems with Calvinism: Blake Ostler

The following is by LDS thinker and author Blake Ostler. I pulled this from a larger essay that discusses the book “How Wide the Divide?” by Stephen Robinson and Craig Blomberg. The quoted portion can be read at the very end of the essay (just before the footnotes, of course) here: http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=11&num=2&id=319

Below is Ostler:

For Calvinists, God’s prevenient grace moves the human will to accept God’s efficacious grace. According to Calvin, persons can accept the saving grace only because God has predestined them to salvation and causally determined their will to accept efficacious grace through his prevenient grace. Moreover, God’s prevenient grace is irresistible—it cannot be rejected by an evil will. Those who do not accept God’s efficacious grace, or grace that accomplishes their salvation, fail to do so because God has decided in his arbitrary election to leave them to damnation. That is, in the Calvinist view God has decided not to grant irresistible prevenient grace to some and thus has decided to abandon them to damnation.⁷⁶

This concept of prevenient grace makes God an arbitrary and evil tyrant. He could save all persons, but he has decided not to. This is not the God of love taught by Jesus. This view of grace makes God unjust, unfair, unloving, and loathsome. Blomberg adopts a notion of salvation by grace alone (by which he apparently means that human will has no role in salvation);⁷⁷ God’s election alone explains who is saved and who is damned (see p. 185).⁷⁸ Blomberg responds to the argument that (at least this view of) grace is unfair in the same way as did Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther: “We should not want God to be fair” because we all fall so short of God’s holy standard that we cannot hope to make it on our own (see p. 185). According to Calvinists, because of sin all persons (including little children) “deserve eternal death” (p. 171). But this response is a dodge; it evades the central issue: if God can save everyone, and he desires to save everyone out of love, then why has he decided to leave some persons to damnation? It just won’t do to observe that we all deserve to be damned, so we should be grateful that God has decided to save some of us. What would we think of a parent who could pull both her children safely from a burning car, but decides arbitrarily to save one and not the other?⁷⁹ We should be morally outraged. We should be even more outraged if we learn that the parent’s decision is based on the judgment that the child who burned deserved it because the child supposedly was guilty for sins of an ancient ancestor—even though she was only three years old! Of course, the child who was saved deserved salvation or damnation equally, so this supposed justification is not the reason for salvation or damnation at all—the decision is purely arbitrary and capricious. I cannot worship such a “god.” I wouldn’t even want to spend the weekend with such a person—let alone an eternity.

This blog doesn’t get tons of traffic, and it certainly doesn’t get lots of non-LDS traffic. But just in case a Calvinist comes along and reads this, I only ask one thing. You are more than welcome to comment, even debate, but please don’t try and prove Calvinism from the scriptures. Ostler does not try to debunk it from the scriptures, but deals with the theoretical and philosophical problems of it. Please, stick to discussing only those aspects of it. I’m interested to know if you think Ostler correctly describes Calvinism, and what, if any, objections you may have to it. Thanks.

LDS Read Bible More Than Catholics and Protestants

Part of a 2001 survey by the Barna Group concluded the following (seen here):

The 7 Most Controversial Statistic

Based upon the letters, phone calls and e-mail messages received in response to the bi-weekly Updates released during the year, Barna identified the statistics that got the greatest number of people exercised.

1. Among adults who have been married, born again Christians and non-Christians have essentially the same probability of divorce.

2. Mormons are more likely to read the Bible during the week than are Protestants or Catholics.

3. Adults who attend charismatic or Pentecostal churches were more likely to possess biblical beliefs than were those attending other Protestant and Catholic churches.

4. By the end of the decade, 50 million Americans will seek to have their spiritual experience solely through the Internet, rather than at a church; and upwards of 100 million Americans will rely upon the Internet to deliver some aspects of their religious experience.

5. Roman Catholics represent the second-largest denominational group of born again Christians in the nation – trailing the Southern Baptists, but way ahead of Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others.

6. Although one-third of all born again adults claim to tithe their income, only 12% actually do so.

7. Just half of all home schooling parents are born again Christians.

More interesting results can be seen here: http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/54-protestants-catholics-and-mormons-reflect-diverse-levels-of-religious-activity

How Did the Jaredites Fit Everything Into Their Barges?

Recently FAIR was asked the following question:

 How did 22 friends along with their wives and children board 8 barges and collected and packed in them “flocks and herds, male and female of every kind” along with enough food and water to feed them all for an ocean journey that would last for 344 days at sea?

Volunteer FAIR apologist David Stewart responded with this excellent reply:

As is often the case, the terse account in ancient texts with few details leaves many questions unanswered.  The text says nothing about the Jaredites taking cows with them, and what the flocks and herds consisted of is pure speculation (we have some mention much later in Ether, but no discussion as to which of these animals were brought on barges and which were indigenous).  At three families per large barge, there was clearly a large amount of storage space.  The text provides no other specific details which would answer logistical questions.  A variety of potential solutions could be posited in view of the scriptural parameters, but there would seem to be little point in engaging in such speculation.  There are also some Latter-day Saints who view this story as literal and others who see it figuratively, just as many non-LDS Christians view some of the early content of Genesis.

The Jaredite story is clearly less fantastic than the Noah’s Ark story, or a great many other stories that have come down in ancient records, and the limitations of our knowledge must be kept in mind.  Your question is therefore one which has little specific to do with Latter-day Saints, but engages long-standing themes of the Judeo-Christian scripture about which controversies are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.  One might as well protest in front of various Christian churches with signs reading “Noah’s Ark is a Lie” as to attempt to make hay of this much less problematic account in LDS scripture.

Divine Council & “Image” of God: Two Essays by Alan Hooker

I’m happy to publish here two neat essays by Alan Hooker. Alan is a non-LDS student of Theology at Exeter University in the UK. In the first essay Alan provides a nice summary and general discussion of the Divine Council as it is found in the Hebrew Bible. The second essay is a discussion about the meaning of “tselem”, or “image”, as used in the Hebrew Bible. Alan concludes that “tselem” generally refers to a physical object, including the important passage in Gen 1:26-27. 

Divine Council Motif in the Hebrew Bible

1000 word analysis on Tzelem