Hugh Nibley and “It Came to Pass” in Ancient Egyptian
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus (British Museum) It could take a team of dedicated and skilled scholars a decade or longer to track down and analyze the myriad of citations in the publications of Hugh Nibley, the most influential Mormon scholar of the twentieth century. In fact, it would prove to be a frustrating task because it seems that in many cases there are no physical publications behind the citations. An interesting example comes in Nibley’s brief discussion regarding the expression “it came to pass” in the Book of Mormon. Here is the entirety of his comment in his book Since Cumorah, ori ..read more
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On the Alleged Clarity of Mormon Doctrine
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
In a recent blog piece entitled “On the Alleged Indeterminacy of Mormon Doctrine,” LDS scholar Daniel C. Peterson argues that “that Mormon doctrine is impossible to pin down.” Not so, according to Peterson. Even though they don’t produce detailed creeds, he argues, this doesn’t mean “that Mormonism lacks any and all doctrinal clarity.” As proof, Peterson rattles off a list of 50 questions he typed up quickly the night before: Does God exist? Is Jesus God’s Son? Did Jesus organize a church? And so on. He concludes: Latter-day Saint teaching doesn’t aspire to be like a system of geometry, with ..read more
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Dispatching Stock Mormon Objections
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
The website of our ministry, the Institute for Religious Research, has hundreds of articles examining the history, doctrines, claims, and religious practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The purpose of these articles is never to belittle, attack, or offend Mormons. Rather, we are seeking to provide information for people who are seeking answers to questions about the truth claims of the LDS religion. Such people may be LDS who are open to learning from outside sources, or they may be Christians (or others) who have Mormon friends or family members. If you do not fall int ..read more
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Robert Boylan, Alva Huffer, and Mormon vs. Evangelical Views of Being Children of God
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
In an online Facebook discussion between evangelicals and Mormons, an evangelical gave a link to my 2014 article on IRR’s website, “The Mormon Doctrine of Becoming Gods: What about the Early Church Fathers?” A Mormon named Christopher took issue with the article, beginning with the following claim: One of the less impressive arguments Bowman makes in his critical article is in his section of “becoming sons of God”. Obviously this approaches the biblical concept of adoption by/into God. But here Bowman is using a modern interpretation of the term (either deliberately or ignorantly). This comm ..read more
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Equip: Hank Hanegraaff, Eastern Orthodoxy, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
As discussed in my previous post here, on April 9 Hank Hanegraaff, the host of the Bible Answer Man radio program and president of the evangelical parachurch ministry Christian Research Institute (CRI), formally joined the Orthodox Church. In a forthcoming post I hope to delve more deeply into the story of Hanegraaff’s conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy and its implications for CRI and for evangelicalism. Right now, however, I want to explore some of the initial reactions we are seeing to this story and then point to some resources for those who want to learn more about evangelicalism and Eastern ..read more
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Evangelical Apologist Hank Hanegraaff Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Hank Hanegraaff formally joined the Orthodox Church. Since 1989 Hanegraaff has been the President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and (since ca. 1992) the host of CRI’s Bible Answer Man radio program.[1] Hank, his wife Kathy, and two of their twelve children were inducted by a sacramental rite called chrismation into the Orthodox faith at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, near where CRI is based. In chrismation, a baptized individual is anointed with oil in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.[2] There was no pri ..read more
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Amey and Boylan’s Response on Irenaeus and Scripture
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
Two days ago (March 30, 2017) I responded to a short article by Mormon blogger Robert Boylan in which he and his non-Mormon friend Errol Vincent Amey claimed I had quoted Irenaeus out of context. They have now responded in another piece on Boylan’s blog entitled “Bowman shoots…and misses on sola scriptura.” In what follows, I will sometimes refer to Amey and sometimes to Boylan, but it appears that for all intents and purposes Boylan’s post speaks for both of them. In my article, I stated repeatedly that Irenaeus did not hold to the evangelical Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, but only t ..read more
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Irenaeus, Sola Scriptura, and Modern Restorationism: A Response to Anabaptist and Mormon Apologists
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
In a Facebook exchange on March 25, 2017, in the group “B.C. and L.D.S. (Biblical Christians and Latter Day Saints)” with a non-Mormon named Errol Vincent Amey, I presented a series of quotations from the church fathers to counter Mr. Amey’s view of Scripture and authority. In brief, Mr. Amey is a follower of David Bercot, who teaches that true Christianity (which just happens in Bercot’s view to correspond to a modern form of Anabaptist Christianity) is to be determined solely on the basis of the consensus teachings of the ante-Nicene church fathers (i.e., the church fathers who wrote prior t ..read more
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The Alarming Truths of So-called Anti-Mormonism
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
In 2017, A Mormon blogger wrote a blog article on “The Alarming Truth about Anti-Mormonism.” Within a few days it had over 30,000 “shares” on social media. That blog is no longer online. However, the issues that piece raised remain important, so I am keeping this response available while removing references to the blogger’s name. The LDS blogger claimed “to expose what anti-Mormonism is and what its objectives really are.” According to the blogger, the objective of anti-Mormonism is to make Mormons become atheists: Anti-Mormonism isn’t just about getting people to lose faith in our Church, it ..read more
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Velikovsky and the “Temple of Solomon” in the Book of Mormon
THE RELIGIOUS RESEARCHER
by Rob Bowman
3y ago
In an attempt to shore up his criticism of my article on the non-Hebraic character of the expression temple of Solomon in the Book of Mormon,[1] LDS apologist Robert Boylan has cited what he claims is an exception to my observation that ancient Israelites and their cultural neighbors named temples for the deity to which they were dedicated, not for their mortal builders. Boylan’s paragraph on the subject has gone through a couple of expansions as his friend Andrew Sargent has kept him apprised of my discussion with him on Facebook about this issue. At last check the new paragraph reads in its ..read more
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