Consider the phenomenon at hand: the Joseph Smith Enoch (JSE) contains some level of parallels to the Ethiopic Enoch (EE). My point is simply, so what? For purposes of discussion, let’s grant the parallels are valid. Let’s further grant that Joseph Smith actually produced his Extracts from Enoch acurrately and by divine means. We thus have a divinely inspired work from the nineteenth century that has parallels to a work from intertestamental Judaism. Once again, so what? The EE does not contain any of the important truths of the restored gospel, in short, it is an apocryphal work, not worthy of canonization. If we want to adopt religious/theological speak, we should be wary of it, for in part, at least, it is full of the wiles of the devil. Thus, is the standing of JSE somehow enhanced if parallels to a doctrinally deficient, apocryphal work established?

Let me make a bold assertion, Enoch did not write EE. The work was written by a Jew from the intertestamental period. No one believes EE was written by someone from the fourth millennium before Christ, nor is it believed by anyone that EE preserves traditions from the patriarchal period. There is, therefore, no benefit in drawing parallels to JSE–other than to demonstrate that when some intertestamental Jew fabricated a work supposedly written by Enoch, he produced a document in some regards parallel to what Joseph Smith supposedly received by revelation in the nineteenth century. If the LDS church wants to grant canonical status to EE, and maintain that it is Scripture written by the inspiration of God, then, and only then, will these parallels be of true apologetical value.

So how does the “collective unconscious,” or its LDS analogue, the “light of Christ,” come in? Well, it is a possible explanation for why the parallels exist. A viable explanation from the LDS perspective might be: the author of EE was inspired in some degree by the light of Christ and that is why there are parallels to JSE. In other words, these parallels in no way strengthen the claim that Joseph Smith was a divinely inspired prophet; yet, they do demonstrate that the light of Christ was active, inspiring certain individuals with portions of the truth.

Finally, on the work of Nibley, the paper sought to present a taxonomy of errors–that is, the errors discussed are the types of errors one may find in Nibley’s work, they are by no means an exhaustive list from that work. If anyone thinks I have been overly harsh in my criticism, I suggest that they pick a similar work by Hugh where he is enlisting parallels to support LDS scripture and examine every one of his notes. I know that is not an easy task, but until one performs the exercise for herself, one will never truly appreciate the issues involved, nor the criticisms I have offered. If that is too hard, then use my paper and check the references that I give. Do not trust Hamblin’s most unfair FARMS review. He never bothered to read the contents of my notes, but rather, routinely ignored the caveats I included there. Even more instructive, read Hamblin’s own review of Nibley that I cite in my paper. It’s hard to believe that the same man wrote both pieces.

I’ve been trying to understand better the way Mormons approach biblical criticism. I started a list of quotes and links here. I was mainly looking for attitudes toward literary criticism vs. “more objective approaches” (see Stephen Robinson’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism article linked there) amongst Mormon religion teachers and scholars. I’d love any additional insights, links, or sources (it’s a wiki page, so anyone can add to it).

Also, Sunday school classes that don’t dig too deeply at the scriptures don’t bother me too much (now) b/c I think there are pretty good resources out there now for deeper digging. I tend to view the internet as a good place for more intellectual thinking about the church, and Sunday meetings as being more spiritual (at best, fluffy and lachrymose at worst). But maybe there’s more less-intellectual activity than intellectual activity amongst Mormons on-line, I don’t really have a good sense….

I think a really good teacher can teach to a class with very diverse students, those who like a more scholarly approach and those who like a “gospel emotions” approach, as my father-in-law puts it. Given a diverse set of students, I think the GD manual isn’t too bad. If it were longer, more scholarly, or more intellectually challenging, I think it would frustrate many GD teachers. For “more advanced” teachers, I don’t think there’s a proscription on using other scripture commentaries. (The intro to this year’s manual seemed softer on this point than what I remember reading from earlier manuals.)

Another issue is balancing the intellectual vs. spritual issues, which I think can be a very difficult task. I again, I think one could do a lot worse than the current GD manual.

My understanding is that bishop’s have a fair amount of latitude on this front. In Pittsburgh we had basically four levels of classes, Gospel Essentials (new members and investigators), Gospel Living (an intermediate-level class that the bishop experimented with), the main gospel doctrine class, and second, smaller gospel doctrine class where the intellectuals and so-called apostates would tend to congregate (come to think of it, there was also a fifth “celestial marriage” class that may’ve over-lapped with the “gospel living class”; I think they used old RS and Priesthood manuals for the gospel living class).

I was in the SS Presidency and was mainly in charge of the adult classes and sort of pushed for this approach. I usually down-played to the SS president and bishopric how often the ‘aspostate’ class would use Dialogue articles in lessons, for precisely the reasons you mentioned—there were several students attending that class who probably wouldn’t have attended church if it hadn’t been for that class. On the other hand, I sort of cringed when newer and more conservative members would attend that class (they tackled pretty controversial topics more often then not). Moreover, the class wasn’t typically very spiritual, at least in any conventional sense of the word….

Interesting analogies can be made with human interaction—a good listener will hear what the other person has to say. Several philosophers (mostly in the continental tradition) have aslo taken up this topic more generally, (cf. Buber’s “I-though” vs. “I-it” and “the other” in writings by Levinas and many others).

What exactly is “prooftexting” and why is it bad?

But if you mean that the manual is discussing something or raising an issue that is not in the scriptural context, I’m not sure your claim, at least in this instance, is defensible.

In the case of Abraham’s servant and Rebekah, Abraham’s motivation seems related to spirituality and/or divine covenants (we discussed this a bit at Jim F.’s T&S lesson starting at comment #30). To me, it doesn’t seem a big stretch to relate this to temple marriage as pertaining to today’s members.