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INTERPRETER§ a Journal of Mormon Scripture INTERPRETER§ A Journal of Mormon Scripture Volume 29 • 2018 The Interpreter Foundation Orem, Utah The Interpreter Foundation Chairman and President Contributing Editors Daniel C. Peterson Robert S. Boylan John M. Butler Vice Presidents James E. Faulconer Jeffrey M. Bradshaw Kristine Wardle Frederickson Daniel Oswald Benjamin I. Huff Noel B. Reynolds Jennifer C. Lane Allen Wyatt David J. Larsen Donald W. Parry Executive Board Ugo A. Perego Kevin Christensen Stephen D. Ricks Steven T. Densley, Jr. G. Bruce Schaalje Brant A. Gardner Andrew C. Smith Jeff Lindsay John A. Tvedtnes Louis C. Midgley Sidney B. Unrau George L. Mitton Stephen T. Whitlock Gregory L. Smith Lynne Hilton Wilson Ed Snow Mark Alan Wright Tanya Spackman Ted Vaggalis Donor Relations Jann E. Campbell Board of Editors Matthew L. Bowen Treasurer David M. Calabro Kent Flack Craig L. Foster Taylor Halverson Production Editor & Designers Ralph C. Hancock Kelsey Fairbanks Avery Benjamin L. McGuire Timothy Guymon Tyler R. Moulton Alan Sikes Martin S. Tanner Bryan J. Thomas Gordon C. Thomasson A. Keith Thompson John S. Thompson Bruce F. Webster The Interpreter Foundation Editorial Consultants Media & Technology Merrie Kay Ames Scott Dunaway Starla Butler Richard Flygare Kasen Christensen Brad Haymond Jolie Griffin Steve Metcalf Don Norton Tyler R. Moulton Kaitlin Cooper Swift Tom Pittman Stephen Swift Russell D. Richins Jennifer Tonks Alan Sikes Elizabeth Wyatt S. Hales Swift Victor Worth © 2018 The Interpreter Foundation. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. ISSN 2372-1227 (print) ISSN 2372-126X (online) The goal of The Interpreter Foundation is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ. Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, The Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is neither owned, controlled by nor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice. This journal compiles weekly publications. Visit us online at MormonInterpreter.com You may subscribe to this journal at MormonInterpreter.com/annual-print-subscription Table of Contents Is Faith Compatible with Reason?.................................................................vii Daniel C. Peterson On Being the Sons of Moses and Aaron: Another Look at Interpreting the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood................................1 Mark Hamstead “The Time is Past”: A Note on Samuel’s Five-Year Prophecy.....................21 Neal Rappleye Too Little or Too Much Like the Bible? A Novel Critique of the Book of Mormon Involving David and the Psalms...............................31 Jeff Lindsay The Word Baptize in the Book of Mormon...................................................65 John Hilton III and Jana Johnson Pushing through Life’s Pilgrimage Together..................................................81 Mauro Properzi The Gospel According to Mormon.................................................................85 Noel B. Reynolds Joseph Smith’s Universe vs. Some Wonders of Chinese Science Fiction.................................................................................................105 Jeff Lindsay Dehumanization and Peace.........................................................................153 Kent P. Jackson Peace in the Holy Land...................................................................................157 Shirley S. Ricks What is Mormon Transhumanism? And is it Mormon?...........................161 Gregory L. Smith Race: Always Complicated, Never Simple...................................................191 Tarik D. LaCour The Case of the Missing Commentary.........................................................197 Brian C. Hales Much More than a Plural Marriage Revelation.........................................219 Craig L. Foster Isaiah 56, Abraham, and the Temple..........................................................227 Taylor Halverson Toward a Deeper Understanding: How Onomastic Wordplay Aids Understanding Scripture....................................................247 Amanda Colleen Brown What’s in a Name? Playing in the Onomastic Sandbox...........................251 Kevin L. Barney The Habeas Corpus Protection of Joseph Smith from Missouri Arrest Requisitions.........................................................................273 A. Keith Thompson Missourian Efforts to Extradite Joseph Smith and the Ethics of Governor Thomas Reynolds of Missouri....................................307 A. Keith Thompson Is Faith Compatible with Reason? Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: In this article I argue that faith is not only rationally justifiable but also inescapable simply because our decisions regarding ultimate questions must necessarily be made under conditions of objective uncertainty. I review remarks by several prominent thinkers on the subject — both avowed atheists and several writers who have addressed the challenge implicit in issues related to faith and reason. I end my discussion by citing William James, who articulated clearly the choices we must make in addressing these “ultimate questions.” hat title, our severely limited time, and the diverse character of this TFreedomFest1 audience suggest at least two things: First, my task here isn’t to prove faith, as such, true but to argue that faith is or can be, “compatible with reason.” Second, my obligation isn’t to demonstrate that any particular tenet of any particular faith is true. That’s not my job. Now, this is somewhat unsatisfying. After all, few if any people have faith generically, without a specific object of faith. By analogy, nobody speaks “language.” People speak English, say, or German, or Arabic, or Chinese. Thus too, religious believers assert specific propositions — for 1. This article, exclusive of one clearly marked addendum at the conclusion, is the affirmative statement with which I opened a debate with the atheist Michael Shermer on the topic “Is Faith Compatible with Reason?” at FreedomFest 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 12 July 2018. Dr. Shermer, trained as an historian of science, is a prolific author as well as the founder of The Skeptics Society and the editor-in-chief of its magazine, Skeptic. Dr. Shermer also writes a monthly column for Scientific American under the title “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye.” He did not appear to have a written text with him during the debate. See Daniel Peterson and Michael Shermer, “Is Faith Compatible with Reason?” C-Span video, 55:20. July 12, 2018, https://www.c-span.org/video/?448000-3/ is-faith-comptabile-reason. viii • Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 29 (2018) example, that Moses received the law on Sinai, that Jesus rose from the dead, that Muhammad encountered Gabriel on Mt. Hira’, or that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon “by the gift and power of God.” Thus, my task here today is not only modest but also artificially abstract. Still, we proceed. As a very blunt statement of unfaith, I choose a passage from the 1903 essay, “A Free Man’s Worship,” by the great philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell, the most vocal and famous atheist of the twentieth century: That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.2 Summarizing the views he once held as an atheist, Leo Tolstoy sounds like Lord Russell: “You are a temporary, incidental accumulation of particles.”3 “The meaninglessness of life” is “the only indisputable piece of knowledge available to man.”4 The bottom line, as one American atheist philosopher put it, is that the things that matter most will ultimately be at the mercy of the things that matter least.5 In contrast to that,
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