Today in Sunday School here in Palmyra we discussed John 7.
15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
Bible commentaries point out that
The Jews taught their law and tradition in celebrated schools. As Jesus had not been instructed in those schools, they were amazed at his learning.
In our day, the M2C intellectuals who teach people to disbelieve the prophets make a similar argument. It goes like this:
How could Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery know the location of the Hill Cumorah, having never learned from scholars about all the "correspondences" between Mesoamerica and the M2C interpretation of text?
_____
We can't help but notice how things never change.
Today we have intellectuals in the Church telling us to disbelieve the prophets because they were not adequately trained.
Here I'm referring specifically to the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, including Letter VII. But the principle extends beyond that specific topic.
_____
These M2C intellectuals expect "ordinary" members of the Church to defer to their expertise.
They insist people have to be "trained in the ministry" to understand the Book of Mormon.
They resort to intellectual bullying by creating the M2C citation cartel that censors what the prophets have taught about Cumorah.
They seem determined to wrestle the Book of Mormon out of the hands of the "common people" and make everyone dependent on them, the experts, to understand the text.
But we are not beholden to these intellectuals.
We can see for ourselves what the prophets have taught, such as here:
http://www.lettervii.com/p/byu-packet-on-cumorah.html
_____
15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
Bible commentaries point out that
The Jews taught their law and tradition in celebrated schools. As Jesus had not been instructed in those schools, they were amazed at his learning.
In our day, the M2C intellectuals who teach people to disbelieve the prophets make a similar argument. It goes like this:
_____
We can't help but notice how things never change.
Today we have intellectuals in the Church telling us to disbelieve the prophets because they were not adequately trained.
Here I'm referring specifically to the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, including Letter VII. But the principle extends beyond that specific topic.
_____
These M2C intellectuals expect "ordinary" members of the Church to defer to their expertise.
They insist people have to be "trained in the ministry" to understand the Book of Mormon.
They resort to intellectual bullying by creating the M2C citation cartel that censors what the prophets have taught about Cumorah.
They seem determined to wrestle the Book of Mormon out of the hands of the "common people" and make everyone dependent on them, the experts, to understand the text.
But we are not beholden to these intellectuals.
We can see for ourselves what the prophets have taught, such as here:
http://www.lettervii.com/p/byu-packet-on-cumorah.html
_____
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