Hi, I’m Joey. I’m a 40-something software engineer (read: big nerd) in Salt Lake City. When I grow up I’d like to be a seminary professor (read: even bigger nerd).
An LDS friend sent me an email several weeks ago.
My question concerns all the books of scripture referenced or quoted in the bible, but not found therein. Talmage lists about 18, some of which books are found in the Apocrypha; others are completely lost.
Many of these books were obviously regarded as authentic scripture at one time. The people who quote them as such are prophets and apostles.
Are these missing books scripture?
In my daily Bible reading a few days ago I came across Colossians 4:11. In this rather inconsequential verse, Paul mentions a couple of his friends and says, “these are the only Jews among my fellow workers.” For the first time I realized (though I’m not sure how it eluded me for so long) that Paul never stopped calling himself or other Jewish converts “Jews”. Being a Jew was his heritage and his upbringing.
Terry said:
There is a follow up book to “How Wide The Divide” called “The New Mormon Challenge.”
Terry, that’s one of my favorite books. I saw it more as a follow-up to Mormon America, but maybe I’m wrong, or maybe it’s both. In literature aimed at Mormonism, there is definitely a movement within Christianity away from vitriol and invective toward more scholarly material.
I believe there is enough error in Mormonism that there’s no need to make stuff up or sensationalize things. I didn’t read any “anti-Mormon” literature when I was in transition, and I honestly don’t think that material is effective at all.
Just a quick post to announce that the “wedding pictures”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeyday/sets/149656/ are up. Enjoy!
Well, I’ve gone and joined the internet craze that is Flickr. Feel free to snoop through “my photos”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeyday/. So far I’ve uploaded the same ones that are available at “janeneday.com”:http://www.janeneday.com, but in time I’ll be uploading actual wedding pictures. I’ve had at least one request and I intend not to dissappoint.
I’ve also installed a WordPress extension called “Flickit”:http://chancecube.com/flickit/. It allows me to post my Flickr images to my blog, like the one to the left.
Anyone else using Flickr out there? I’d love to see your photos, too. Post a link in the comments below.
Can someone kindly explain to me what Netscape’s designers were thinking when they designed “this atrocious looking beast”:http://browser.netscape.com/nsb/?
If you followed that link, then you know this post is about the new Netscape Browser 8.0 Beta. I happen to be typing this entry from within the new browser, and I must say, it’s got some intriguing options. Unfortunately, it’s so ugly I’m not sure I can bear using it for much longer.
I have been privileged to study four different languages in my as yet short lifetime. In middle school I took a year of German; in High School it was Latin; at the University I was required to take a semester of Spanish; and recently I’ve been dabbling in Koine Greek with the help of some do-it-yourself books. How much of these languages has stuck remains to be seen.
I didn’t make it far enough in the first three languages to be anywhere near fluent. More than anything they helped me to understand universal principles of grammar and how to apply them better to my English. I’m hoping to go a little farther with the Greek, God willing.
For the benefit of my Evangelical friends who may be reading this, let me start out with some context. Mormons do not display crosses either inside or outside their church buildings or in their homes. They don’t wear cross necklaces or glue plastic crosses to their bumpers.
Many Evangelicals wonder why Mormons seemingly avoid the cross, and many even think of Mormons as un-Christian because of it. They may cite verses such as Matt. 16:24 or Mark 8:24 in defense of their judgement, but I would submit that they are misusing the passages. Jesus did not say, “take up your plastic cross necklace and follow me.” Obviously, the cross he refers to is a metaphor for the persecution Christians face in their walk, not an actual tangible cross.
Verses like 1 Cor. 1:18 get more to the point, but still shouldn’t bother a Mormon. Mormons claim to preach the cross; they simply don’t use the symbol of the cross in public worship or displays of piety.
I’ve had an overwhelming (well, for me anyway) number of comments on the site recently. While I greatly appreciate these comments, I regret that, as a college student and a newlywed, I do not have the time to respond to them individually. While I feel that discussing these issues is vitally important, I also feel I have more important matters to attend to. Consequently, I’ve decided to make some changes in the way I handle comments.
I’ve converted my “Info”:http://joeyday.com/info page into a WordPress “Page” (I also added a new paragraph about the wiki). Converting it required me to build a new page.php template, but that was relatively easy. I had fun adding custom fields to my pages so that each page I build can have its own title and tagline, following my “-ation” word and definition pattern. I also use a specific body id on each of my pages to facilitate styling the navbar, so that was put into a custom field as well.
With the help of a “slick plugin”:http://ryanduff.net/wp-plugins/wp-contactform, I’ve also created a “Contact”:http://joeyday.com/contact page. I’m really getting tired of spam email, and having a contact page allows me to pull all my email addresses off the site indefinitely.