PYRAMIDS-R-US

A few weeks ago I spent a supper hour (it took that long) reading an article called “America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution” by Angello Codevilla.

The overall article is well worth reading to better understand current political debates, but that wasn’t what called my attention to it as a possible subject for this blog. Rather, the following paragraph toward the end of the Article startled me:

“Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than themselves are intellectually and hence otherwise humanly inferior…”

MORMON MATTERS POST: WANDERING MORMONS AS NEPHITES

More than two years ago, the Holy Spirit began insisting that I re-read the Book of Mormon. Of course, I didn’t recognize the impulse as anything but a good idea originating within my own intellect. That’s what I do with anything – process it intellectually first.

REPORT ON COMMUNITY OF CHRIST WORLD CONFERENCE

CROSS POST TO MORMON MATTERS:

The Community of Christ added a new Section 164 to its Doctrine and Covenants at its World Conference during April 10-17, 2010. I’ve been providing a series of commentaries on the canonization process for an LDS audience.

SORENSON, DNA, AND BOOK OF MORMON DIRECTIONS

Scholarly theories that place the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica define the “small neck of land” that separated the “land northward” from the “land southward” (see, e.g, LDS Alma 22:27-34 / CofChrist Alma 13:68-80; LDS Alma 50:6-16 / CofChrist Alma 22:6-16) to be some portion of the Isthmus of Tihuantepec. This immediately raises questions about the geographic correlation for modern readers and makes many Mormons look for alternative locations because that isthmus separates what we would consider “east” (Yucatan) from “west” (Central Mexico).

In his book, An Ancient American Setting for The Book of Mormon, John L. Sorenson spends some time explaining that the directions we use are cultural artifacts that are not universally shared. For example, modern Western nations define east to be the direction of sunrise, and west as the direction of sunset. In fact, though our cultures did that long ago, we actually transitioned to defining north and south once we had compasses and then laid out a global system of four cardinal directions for the entire planet even though the direction of sunrise and sunset varies throughout the year and by how far we are from the earth’s equator.

If we consider the DNA evidence of the peopling of the Americas, I think there is a way to build a better solution to the directional problem on Sorenson’s framework.

THE ICE SHALL FLOW DOWN

After several serious posts on climate, I thought it was time for something on climate that — I sincerely hope — proves entirely whimsical.

I remembered seeing something about ice as a teenager while reading the Doctrine and Covenants cover to cover. Sure enough, I found it in what is LDS D&C Section 133 (The Community of Christ version is numbered Section 108). So, if any of you reading this from the “north countries” should observe that the snow doesn’t entirely melt next summer as it usually does, please feel free to draw the appropriate prophetic conclusions. (And don’t buy property too near the shoreline of Salt Lake — Lake Bonneville was much larger.)

A GUEST POST APPEARING ON MORMON MATTERS

Recently I was requested by Mormon Heretic to prepare some posts about the process by which the Community of Christ adds to its Doctrine and Covenants that would be of interest to an LDS audience. MH has now posted the first of these at Mormon Matters.

UPDATE: MH has now posted a second, follow-up post on Mormon Matters that discusses some of the “headlines” from the proposed CofChrist Section 164 that will be most notable to LDS readership.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE NEPHIHAH CAMPAIGN

I am an avid reader of Morgan Deane (see his listing in the Science and Theology section of the blogroll) who studies the Book of Mormon from the perspective of an infantryman who is also a military historian. He recently produced a tactical analysis of the battle for Nephihah (as described in Alma) that induced me to spend time last week extending Morgan’s ideas on Nephihah to the operational and strategic level. He has graciously published my comments as a guest post.

DNA AND DYNASTIC CHRONOLOGIES

DNA conclusively shows that America was first settled by people who were separated from the rest of humanity approximately 20,000 years ago. The founding population contained 5 human haplotypes (A,B,C,D and X) that imply clear association with a Siberian basis for the settlement. Apologists for a historical basis for the Book of Mormon have tried to find ways to refute this information.

My question is, “Why?” This is the kind of evidence an apologist would want to find to support a historical interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

BEING PROPHETIC — SOMEDAY

I noted in the previous thread some doubts about whether my denomination’s response to its perceived calling was quite serious yet. Several environmental items this past week caught my attention in this regard.

REFLECTION ON AN APOSTOLIC EPIPHANY

Apostle Susan Skoor of the Community of Christ has just published a moving personal testamony about the sacredness of creation. All too recently, while walking along a beach on the Pacific Coast with her husband and sister, a large wave randomly rose up and swept her husband out to sea and to his death.