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Economic Theology And The Death Of God In The Context Of The Crisis Of Neoliberalism, Jared A. Lacy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In light of the ongoing political and economic crises in the twenty-first century, this study aims to apply the discourse of political theology, alongside Nietzsche’s concept of the death of God to an understanding of neoliberalism and the problems it faces on a global level. However, because of the centrality of sovereignty in political theological discourse and the view of neoliberalism as diffusing sovereignty in favor of an ordered system, I attempt to further develop an offshoot discourse of political theology referred to as economic theology. This discourse allows a theological signature of power to be traced through the history …

How Perception Meets Hermeneutics: An Empirical Investigation Of Tasseography, Elizabeth Avetisian

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Tasseography is a divination method to provide insight about the seeker’s past, present, or future life by interpreting patterns in the dregs of a liquid. Although it has been practiced with coffee throughout Europe and Middle East, particularly among women, no known studies exist on the seer’s perceptual process of the ambiguous patterns or how the roles of the seeker and seer, symbols, ritual, and cultural epistemology shape the divinatory hermeneutics. This study focused on the Armenian coffee divination ritual, asking what are the processes and conditions that enable experienced cup readers to obtain divinatory insight in tasseography? Two seekers …

“We Might Have Enjoyed Our Possessions And The Land Of Our Inheritance”: Hebrew Yrš And 1 Nephi 17:21, Matthew L. Bowen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The verbal expression “we might have enjoyed,” as used in a complaint that Nephi attributes to his brothers, “we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance” (1 Nephi 17:21), reflects a use of the Hebrew verb yrš in its progressive aspect, “to enjoy possession of.” This meaning is evident in several passages in the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps most visibly in the KJV translation of Numbers 36:8 (“And every daughter, that possesseth [Hebrew yōrešet] an inheritance [naḥălâ] in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe …

An Unfortunate Approach To Joseph Smith’S Translation Of Ancient Scripture, Spencer Kraus

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

This is the first of two papers that explore Jonathan Neville’s two latest books regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon. Neville has long argued that Joseph Smith did not use a seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon, and he has more recently expanded his historical revisionism to dismiss the multitude of historical sources that include the use of a seer stone. Neville’s “Demonstration Hypothesis” is explored in A Man That Can Translate, arguing that Joseph recited a memorized text from Isaiah rather than translate Isaiah from the Book of Mormon record. This hypothesis, meant …

Review: Michael Hubbard Mackay, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, And Brian M. Hauglid, Eds. Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’S Translation Projects In The Development Of Mormon Christianity. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2020., Sonia Hazard

Mormon Studies Review

Joseph Smith was, among much else, a translator. One of the most distinctive qualities of early Mormonism is that saving knowledge came not only from revelations—though Smith received plenty of those— but also through texts from the ancient past. In order to be useable as scripture, those texts required translation, and Smith tackled the office of translator with relish. What did translation mean for Smith and early Saints?

The editors of Producing Ancient Scripture—Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid—set out to answer that question with a comprehensive treatment of Smith’s translations, and they delivered. Among the seventeen …

Full Issue

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Review: Terryl Givens. Mormonism (Or The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints): What Everyone Needs To Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020., Jill Peterfeso

Mormon Studies Review

Terryl Givens’s new book Mormonism (Or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): What Everyone Needs to Know is a resource guide that seeks to explain the LDS Church’s history, beliefs, and practices, and in so doing clarifies items of confusion and controversy. The book is organized into topic-driven chapters (such as “History,” “Polygamy,” “Organization,” and “Conflicts and Challenges”), which unfold in a question-and-answer format. The questions Givens tackles range from predictable (“Why did the Latter-day Saints practice polygamy?” “What is the church’s relationship to Christianity?”) to unexpected (“What do Latter-day Saint scriptures teach about peace and war?” “Does …

Address Of The Warrioress: Old Testament Warfare And Women's Role In Wartime Role In W, Madeline Ruby Nielsen

Seattle Pacific Seminary Theses

This thesis examines the manners and methods employed in the battles of Old Testament passages and what they reveal about the spiritual formation of God’s people in times of combat. Paralleled with this examination, this thesis analyzes certain female figures who have played a significant role in Old Testament narratives of combat and violence. Through this study, the analysis of female figures reveal how their character and/ or actions impacted the precipitation of warfare, participation in military victory, and finally establishing their own testimonies that challenge the implications and integrity of the Biblical master narratives.

The Healing Body: Recovering The Church's Mission Of Shalom, Heather Long Mcdaniel

Seattle Pacific Seminary Projects

Christianity is an embodied faith. God shaped human beings from the dust of the earth in God’s own image, in relationship with God, each other, and creation, and called us “good”. Our bodies, souls, and relationships are inextricably intertwined, and full health can be defined as a state of shalom, the flourishing of our whole selves in the context of our relationships and environment. Alienation, sickness, injustice, and suffering are experienced as brokenness in our bodies, souls, relationships, institutions, and environment. Restoration of health involves identifying and healing what is broken. God affirmed the goodness and worth of our bodies …

A Deeper Understanding Of The Temple In 175 Entries, David Calabro

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In a must-have book written for a Latter-day Saint audience, Donald Parry offers profound insights into 175 features of ancient and modern temples, including architectural features, aspects of ritual, and temple-related doctrine.

The Body As The Temple Of God, Lareina Hingson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Metaphors occur when there is a contradiction in the senses of the words used that cause the text to be interpreted non-literally, as Paul Ricoeur has noted. The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians describing the body as a temple has been taken to be one such scriptural metaphor: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? … know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). As a metaphor, it is a strong one. The supposed …

Should I Be My Brother’S Keeper? Yes And No, Daniel C. Peterson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

We typically teach and often even sing that we should be our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers. And we do it with the very best and most holy of intentions. For many of us, indeed, loving and caring for our brothers and sisters is at the very heart of what it means to live a life of truly Christian discipleship. And rightly so. But there’s another way to think about this matter. I’ve pondered it for decades, and now, maybe some others will also find it thought-provoking.

Modern Near East Archaeology And The Brass Plates, Noel B. Reynolds

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Contemporary Palestinian archaeology has produced two major threats to traditional interpretations of the history of ancient Israel. The first threat, which derives from scientific discomfort with the exodus story as an explanation for the sudden population expansion in southern Palestine at the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1200 bce), has led to a wide variety of theories about how these Israelites could have been drawn from existing populations in the general area. This challenge is answerable in ways that preserve the exodus account, which is fundamental to the Book of Mormon as well as the Bible. The second threat …

“This Great Mystery”: Gathering Still Other Sheep Through The New Covenant Of Peace, Matthew Scott Stenson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The Book of Mormon sheds light on a “great mystery” located in John 10:16 (D&C 10:64). In this paper, using a comparative method that traces intersecting pastoral imagery, I argue that John 10:16–18 (as opposed to merely John 10:16) not only refers to Jesus’s visit to the Lehites in Bountiful and the lost tribes of Israel (the standard LDS view), but that it has a scripturally warranted covenant-connection to the emergence and dissemination of the Nephite record. Specifically, the Book of Mormon, according to the Good Shepherd (3 Nephi 15:12–16:20), effectively serves as his recognizable voice to the inhabitants of …

When An Evident Fact Cannot Be Allowed To Be True, Daniel C. Peterson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Miracles occur relatively often in scripture, as do people who, for various reasons, want or even need to deny their occurrence. The arguments that are deployed to justify such denial haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. In fact, they’re still around today.

There Is No Beauty That We Should Desire Him, Loren Spendlove

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In two separate passages Isaiah appears to describe the mortal Messiah as lacking in physical beauty and perhaps as even having some type of physical disfigurement (see Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2–4). On the contrary, Joseph, David, Esther, and Judith — portrayed in the biblical text as physical saviors or deliverers of Israel — are represented as beautiful in form and appearance. In fact, their beauty seems to be a significant factor in the successful exercise of their power as physical saviors of Israel. Unlike Joseph, David, Esther, and Judith, Christ may have been foreordained to descend to his mortal state …

The Servicemaster Company As A Model For Bam Startups, Larry W. Sharp

Pollard Research Fellowship Papers

A template/typology for Business as Mission startups using the redemptive methodologies of ServiceMaster, which focused on the people-first development of the employee, with a focus on areas of the world which restrict free speech.

A Relational Account Of Structure And Agency Via ‘Lived Ancient Religion’ And The ‘Processing Approach’, With A Case Study Of Circumcision In Ancient Judaism*, Thomas R. Blanton Iv

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Addressing studies of the concepts of structure and agency, in 2008 sociologist François Dépelteau called for a ‘relational approach’ that compared the ‘trans-actions’ of actors, but notably left open the question of how such a study should be conducted. The present article attempts to operationalise Dépelteau’s call, albeit in a manner tailored specifically to meet the needs of researchers in the area of ‘lived ancient religion’. The study of ‘trans-action’ is operationalised here by employing key terms drawn from Staf Hellemans’s ‘processing approach’ to the study of religion, in which agents ‘process’ their environments through selection, modification, assembly, performance, integration, …

Transformative, Noetic, And Transpersonal Experiences During Personal Development Workshops, Helané Wahbeh, Cassandra Vieten, Garrett Yount, Agnes Cartry-Jacobsen, Dean Radin, Arnaud Delorme

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The global personal development market was valued at $38.28 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow an additional 5% from 2020 to 2027. Many of these workshops promise to be transformational. This secondary analysis study examined transformative, transpersonal, and noetic aspects of personal development workshops. We found that 74% of post-survey records endorsed that participants experienced a moment of clarity or profound insight during their workshop. In addition, 66% endorsed that participants had experienced at least one noetic experience, and 84% endorsed at least one transpersonal experience. These analyses provide preliminary evidence for the transformational potential of personal development …

Eliciting Awe In The Spectator: The Case Of A Dhrupad-Based Dance Performance, Alfonso Santarpia, Andrée Martin, Armando Menicacci, Pierre De Oliveira, Daniel Lemieux, Laurence Éthier, Caroline Charbonneau, Bruno Pucella, Christophe Flambard, Les Frères Gundecha, Louis-Charles Lusignan, Alice Bourgasser, Élisabeth-Anne Dorléans, Ariane Dubé-Lavigne, Angélique Poulin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This paper describes “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” an immersive Dhrupad-based dance installation designed to elicit feelings of awe in the spectators, in a real-life artistic context. This study used a mixed-methods approach in order to explore spectators’ awe experience (N=45), using specific scales and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results suggested that “Kalos, eîdos, skopeîn,” with its combination of nature motifs and the slow dance-walk associated with the Dhrupad music in the choreography, was able to produce awe-related moments in some spectators and inspire a degree of positive emotions. Our qualitative results viewed awe explicitly as a positive emotion and showed that generally …

Ekpen-N'Owa: Conceptualizing The Human-Animal Relationship In The Benin Peoples' Worldview, Itohan Idumwonyi

Religious Studies Faculty Scholarship

Animals are prominently ubiquitous in the Benin peoples' cosmologies. These philosophies associate animals with the transformation of the primordial chaos into a livable world, human beings, and the supernatural. In this context, specific animals are used in religious rituals to express the concepts of authority, supremacy, and nobility. Metaphorically speaking, the Oba (monarch) who rules over other monarchs is an Ekpen (leopard). Ekpen is an integral part of Benin's worldview and recurrently compares the Oba (ekpen-n'owa, the house-leopard personified) with the ekpenn'oha (wild leopard). Yet, studies in African Religion undermine the symbolic representation of the Oba as ekpen-n'owa. This article …

Beyond A Dance: The Resonance Of Ugie Ekaba As God's Conduit To "Play" With Humans, Itohan Idumwonyi

Religious Studies Faculty Scholarship

Scholars map Benin’s (City, kingdom in present-day southern Nigeria) historical contours with its monarchy and royal arts as the subject of rich literature (Paula, G. Ben-Amos 1999, 178; Okpewho, Isidore 1998). Yet, the trajectory to advance Benin’s cultural history and arts is at the expense of the less acknowledged, under-represented, and under-studied aspect of the Benin people who live beyond the capital. This scholarly neglect does not promote the understanding and appreciation of the people’s religious tradition. Fascinatingly, these people constitute and share in the (city) kingdom’s language (dialect), culture, and religion. This qualitative research is interdisciplinary and primarily descriptive, …

Khor Rori: A Maritime Resources-Based Candidate For Nephi’S Harbor, George D. Potter

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Khor Rori, which forms the mouth of Wadi (Valley) Darbat, is the largest inlet along the Dhofar coast of southern Arabia. The khor was excavated into a harbor by the erosive action of the river that flows through Wadi Darbat. In ancient times, Khor Rori was the only harbor in the Dhofar Region that could accommodate large sailing ships. The first colonizers of Khor Rori, who arrived around the ninth century bc, must have realized that this particular khor, because of its morphology, was an ideal natural port for trading their frankincense with other seafaring nations. Because Khor Rori has …

Our Faithful Lord: Passover To Easter, Rebecca Reynolds Lambert

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Studying the origins and traditions of Passover enriches our understanding of Easter. We can deepen our own worship and expand our ritual memory by an acquaintance with these traditions. Latter-day Saints possess unique understandings that further illuminate the constancy and plenitude of the Lord’s covenantal relationship with us.

Rich Vein Or Fools Gold?, Morgan Deane

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Proclaim Peace is the first full-length volume discussing nonviolent theology in Latter-day Saint thought. It seeks to provide a new understanding of Restoration texts that aligns Mormon thought with modern pacifist traditions. Unfortunately, the book suffers from methodology issues that include an overly creative reading of some scriptures to support pacifist theories and the minimization of others’ theories. The book fails to interact with just-war ethics in meaningful ways that could enhance their ethic of peace. As a result, the book is longer than other pacifist texts but suffers from the same problems as previous entries in talking past those …

Lehi, Joseph, And The Kingdom Of Israel, Richley Crapo

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

I present evidence of two priesthoods in the Jewish Bible: an Aaronite priesthood, held by Aaron and passed down through his descendants; and a higher Mushite priesthood, held not only by Moses and his descendants but also by other worthy individuals, such as Joshua, an Ephraimite. The Mushite priests were centered in Shiloh, where Joshua settled the Ark of the Covenant, while the Aaronites became dominant in the Jerusalem temple. Like Joshua, the prophet Lehi, a descendant of the northern tribe of Manasseh, held the higher priesthood. His ministry, as recounted in the Book of Mormon, demonstrates four characteristics that …

Could Joseph Smith Have Drawn On Ancient Manuscripts When He Translated The Story Of Enoch?: Recent Updates On A Persistent Question, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Ryan Dahle

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In this article, we offer a general critique of scholarship that has argued for Joseph Smith’s reliance on 1 Enoch or other ancient pseudepigrapha for the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses. Our findings highlight the continued difficulties of scholars to sustain such arguments credibly. Following this general critique, we describe the current state of research relating to what Salvatore Cirillo took to be the strongest similarity between Joseph Smith’s chapters on Enoch and the Qumran Book of Giants — namely the resemblance between the name Mahawai in the Book of Giants and Mahujah/Mahijah in Joseph Smith’s Enoch account. …

In God’S House, There Are Many Rooms: A University Minister Reflects Upon Fratelli Tutti., Melanie-Prejean Sullivan

Faculty Publications

For over fifty years, Roman Catholics who are interreligious leaders have been guided by the Second Vatican Council document, Nostra Aetate. The author, a retired university lay minister in the United States, was one such interreligious leader who worked with students, faculty, and staff of all faiths and none on a small Catholic campus to create an atmosphere open to diversity, inclusion, and respect for all. Her office facilitated campus programs that encouraged service, dialogue, and spiritual growth. In twenty years, campus ministry involvement grew from three dozen primarily Catholic students to over 400 students of many different faiths. …

Ecofeminist Theology In Islam: The Process And Application Of Synthesizing Rosemary Radford Ruether’S Insights, Islamic Feminist Aspirations, And Ecological Concerns, Nayawiyyah U. Muhammad

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The focal point of this dissertation is theoretical and applicatory in scope; it incorporates three distinct areas of scholarship, the ecofeminist theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Islamic feminism, and Islamic environmentalism towards the primary goal of making a case for the construction of an ecofeminist theology in Islam. Specifically, I seek to consolidate Islamic feminists and environmental theories and approaches while utilizing and bringing to bear the insights and critiques of Ruether. This is accomplished through a process of synthesis and application. The intersection of environmental destruction and gender disparity is the hallmark claim of ecofeminism and thus, I begin …

Strengthening An Understanding And Practice Of Spiritual Transformation For Sunday School Teachers Of Ellis Chapel Baptist Church, Patterson Springs, Nc, Linda Williams Lockhart

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The spiritual formation process can be clearly viewed through the lives of those who lived during the biblical era. People desire to change; however, the problem is that they do not know how because training in the spiritual formation process is not present within many churches today. This project was designed to train selected Sunday School teachers of Ellis Chapel Baptist Church through a four-week spiritual transformation process, hoping to strengthen their understanding of becoming image-bearers and practitioners of the Gospel that Jesus taught and exemplified. Through utilizing spiritual disciplines in journaling, training sessions, and assessments, selected teachers became aware …