Reading Club: Ostler 1

Clark: Maybe this is due to my not having read Blake’s book, but I can’t make heads or tails of what you are trying to say in the paragraph that begins “The trick to all this…”. Could you elaborate?

Sorry Michael, I kind of briefly summarized that part since it’s been pretty widely discussed in LDS circles since the early 90’s. Basically the exile had a profound affect on Jewish religion. The general consensus is that prior to the exile the Jews were more like the Canaanites in terms of religion and the notion of God. After the exile and especially after Greek control of the area the Jews were complete monotheists. There’s a ton of books on this. The first one I encountered back in 1990 was Theodore Mullen’s The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature but since there there has been an explosion of literature on this. The arguments primarily focus on structural parallels between early Hebrew writings and their neighbors. My favorite book, while it doesn’t focus on the nature of God but on the nature of creation is Jon Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil. The latter Blake quotes from a fair bit.

Anyways that paragraph was primarily just saying don’t read post exilic religion too much into pre-exilic writings. But beyond that I was saying that despite this being the predominate position in scholarship there are still those who disagree - primarily by arguing one shouldn’t judge the texts by their similarity to Canaanite, Babylonian or other writings. Further they think that the theological notion of an unique revelation to the Jews entails that one shouldn’t make such contextual interpretations.

I have the first two books, but I’ve never seen the third one for sale at Amazon or even mentioned on the Kofford site. (I’ve been checking these sites every so often for a while now.) Any hints on where to find a copy?

Aurelius, that’s a really good question that I didn’t really have in mind the times I read it. It would do to pay attention to this. In other words is Blake arguing this is a strongly probable reading or that it is the reading with “metaphysical monotheism” being incompatible. I’d hinted at this problem above. That is to what degree should we see the neighbors of Israel as a way to interpret scripture and to what degree was it affecting Israel but not the central revelation. But beyond that there is the question of how to read scripture.

I think to the degree that Blake argues early Judaism is authentic and that the mainstream view that early texts reflect a plurality that it is incompatible with metaphysical monotheism, normally construed. The way out, perhaps, is for a Trinitarian to argue that these multiple persons are compatible with the notion of persons in the Trinity doctrine. (Which, of course, isn’t the same as a human person, although Mormons obviously give it that thrust)

The question will end up being what is literal versus what is figurative. And that is infamously more tricky than some take it. Since just because some or even most took something as literal entails it is literal.

The question of Heavenly Mother is all caught up in this and I’ve argued in the past poses a problem for Blake. I’ll wait until we reach those texts though. (I’d hoped to have time to make a library run since I’m fairly familiar with most of the texts Blake uses but I suspect that is not to be. So I’ll be stuck with what I have in my own library.)

“Worm”, the link in the post goes to Amazon which lists a few sellers with it. I got my copy at Confetti Books via Amazon which is still listing it for sale. I don’t quite know what is up with Kofford and Amazon.

Yeah, I tend to see that too Aurelius, although I think the notion that the creeds represent continuing revelation but there are no prophets to be problematic. That was kind of my point about the distinction between historical understanding and revelation. There’s a double standard if you say that some of Orson Pratt’s, Brigham Young’s or Joseph Fielding Smith’s views can be discounted as mere historic understanding but not revelation yet say that Israel’s religion must be treated differently. That is once you allow for a significant difference between doctrine and community ideas then a lot falls out.

I do think that Blake would agree though (and perhaps he’ll speak up). I think the argument is more that the historic understanding provides a theology more like what Mormons believe and thus provides grounding to support particular traditional Mormon exegesis of passages like Psalms 82 or Genesis 1:1. That is, I think he’s making a bit of an apologetic move. However I do think he’s probably making a move that says the ontological absolutist understanding of creation is flawed an a latter conception arising out of Greek thought. And I must confess that most of the proof texts for absolutist creation are pretty problematic. One could argue that later Platonic and Aristotilean inspired understanding was inspired but then Mormons could play the apostasy charge. In either case though one can’t point to the scriptures in their context to make the defense.

Whether that move works we’ll see as we examine Blake’s text more closely.

Next up is his exegesis of the Sermon in the Grove. I’d hoped to have that done last night but I had sick kids and a sick wife so it dropped off the charts. Hopefully today.

I think Blake’s objective in rejecting metaphysical monotheism is just an exegesical move. That is that one shouldn’t read the early Jews as adopting a Platonic or Aristotilean view of God.

As to the council of Gods, Blake’s particular theology is that there is a head God who is an absolute monarch. Other beings are called gods but in fundamental senses aren’t God. Rather they share in certain attributes. So I think for Blake the relationship between God the Father and Jesus isn’t close to the Trinity but is more akin to how an Eastern Orthodox Christian sees the unity of God and a deified human. (Remember that deification is an important doctrine in the east)

I should add that this is not the typical LDS view. The typical LDS view either leaves vague the unity of the Godhead or else sees it in more nominalistic terms. Although a more ontological reading of the unity is fully compatible with LDS doctrine and is held by many people (myself included).

So part of Blake’s aim isn’t just to make the LDS conception more defensible but also to provide prima facie reasoning for why his own monarchial monotheism is correct.