Original title: In the Beginning: Premortal Existence, Creation Out of Nothing, and Trinity

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the fourth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (January 16-22) covers John 1 - and is titled "We Have Found the Messiah".

If you are in the Provo or Salt Lake City area - we invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

On NT textual criticism, generally - here is an Interview with Daniel Wallace that is well-worth a listen. No essential doctrine of Christianity is impacted by even the major variants that are debated, contrary to what is now popular opinion.

A few of the LDS sources emphasized in this episode:

• The Light of Christ (more info below)
• D&C 93
• Jesus Christ Chosen as Savior
• JST John 1 (more info below)
• The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent

A few additional sources for some of the deeper aspects of Mormonism:

• The King Follett Discourse (Joseph Smith)
• The Nature of Man (Brigham Young)
• Man (John Taylor)
• The Meaning of the Atonement (W. Cleon Skousen)
• The Constitution: Heavenly Banner (Ezra Taft Benson)
• "Lightning out of Heaven: Joseph Smith and the Forging of Community"(Terryl Givens)
• Treasures in the Heavens (Hugh Nibley)

Resources:

Sermon by Pastor Russ of FBC Provo on John 1: The King Has Come

Exegesis of John 1.1-3 (James White)

Sermons (here and here) on John 1.1-5 (Terry Johnson)

• Anselm (here)
• Irenaeus (Against Heresies, Book Two)
• Irenaeus as Logos Theologian (Jackson Lashier)

Reformed Dogmatics by Herman Bavinck

Core Christianity by Michael Horton

The Trinity: An Introduction by Scott Swain

The Forgotten Trinity by James White

Simply Trinity by Matthew Barrett

The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til by Lane Tipton

Brief overview of the basics of the Trinity (here and here)

Defending Trinitarian Classical Theism (Craig Carter)

Revelation Connected to the Nativity (Lane Tipton)

Brief overview of the Council of Nicaea (here, here, here and here)

The Bible Among the Myths by John Oswalt

Creation Out of Nothing by Paul Copan and William Lane Craig

In the Beginning was the Word by Anthony Esolen

The Gospel Code by Ben Witherington III

The Creedal Imperative by Carl Trueman

Christianity and Classical Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan

Note 1: Skyler said that some LDS apologists will point out places where Smith seemed to get something right in the JST. John 1 is not one of those places! (That could've been stated more clearly.) That being said, in places that seem more plausible than his changes to John 1 - and contrary to the typical retort that "How could Joseph Smith have known?", there is plenty of evidence and analysis that he indeed could've known (and even did know) about hebrew parallelism (chiasmus) and had access to some scholarly work of his time.

• Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Revised and Enlarged) by D. Michael Quinn (esp. chapter 6, and definitely pay attention to footnotes like 106, and 108. Incredibly informative.)

• The Joseph Smith Translation and Ancient Texts of the Bible by Kevin Barney; "In short, the JST phrasing is apparently Joseph Smith's way of getting his theological point across...No parallel ancient variants exist for the majority of JST readings. This lack of textual support suggests that the JST does not restore actual textual material. Some scriptural exegetes have hypothesized deliberate and widespread textual corruptions early enough to be incorporated into biblical manuscripts which have survived. Since the original autographs are irrecoverable, this assertion cannot be completely disproven, but it has been weakened with the discovery of Hebrew texts from the Old Testament as early as the second century B.C. which support the basic integrity of the later manuscripts. Some New Testament manuscripts date to the fourth, third, and even second centuries A.D., leaving an increasingly small frame of time in which the hypothesized textual corruptions could have occurred." (p.86) In his conclusion, he states: "We have seen that the majority of JST changes lack ancient textual support. Although we cannot say with complete assurance what stood in the original text, manuscript discoveries have made the argument that there could have been massive early deletions from the text untenable, at least for the New Testament." (p.100)

• Thomas Wayment, who did the translation that even the Interpreter was whole-heartedly promoting on their podcast, did some of the more recent work on the connection of the JST to Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary - which explains even some of the things Smith supposedly did correctly. RFM covers the subject well here, and here. (The main source being the book Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith's Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity)

• Mormons and the Bible by Philip L. Barlow (esp. chapter 2) In fact, on the JST of John 1.18 - Barlow states: "In addition to harmonizing the Bible internally, Smith rendered it compatible with his own experience and revelations." (p. 56)
• Sandra Tanner, it should be said: as usual, was way ahead of the game on these kinds of issues, whether original work or a popularizer of those who did original work. (e.g. here and here)

Note 2: One can listen to the scholar Daniel Boyarin in this interview and hear him describe some of his own analysis and then judge for one's self whether he's concluding that John 1 teaches polytheism.

• The Jewish Gospels by Daniel Boyarin
• The Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology by John Ronning
• The Angel of the Lord by Douglas Van Dorn and Matt Foreman
• Some of Michael Heiser's work is relevant here, and here, and here

Note 3: On the distinction between Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit (which Christians do not make, given the two words come from the same greek word) - Charles Harrell wrote some helpful analysis in his book "This Is My Doctrine": The Development of Mormon Theology:

"The Book of Mormon refers to the Holy Ghost as 'it', not 'he' (2 Ne. 32.5, Alma 34.48, 39.6), and early revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants similarly speak of the Holy Ghost as 'it' in the sense of an influence. (D&C 76.35, 88.3)" (p. 187) "The evidence suggests that early Latter-day Saints understood the Holy Ghost to be a spiritual power or influence, not a personage. While Latter-day Saints now distinguish between the Holy Ghost, the influence of the Holy Ghost, and the light of Christ, such differentiation was unknown and unnecessary to the early Saints. The Lectures on Faith published in 1835 defined the Holy Ghost as the 'mind' of God, noting that only the Father and the Son are 'personages.' Today the 'mind' of God would be equated with the Light of Christ or influence of the Holy Spirit; not with the Holy Ghost itself." (p. 188)

On the reliability of John's gospel: here and here and here.

Relevant debate and discussion on Genesis 1: here, here, here, and here