Sharon H. Ringe on The Woman At Bethany and the Anointing of Jesus

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." (Mark 14:3-9 RSV; cf. Matt 26:6-13)

Commenting on this event in the Gospels, Sharon H. Ringe, at the time of writing, professor of New Testament at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio, wrote the following which was rather interesting:

The Woman at Bethany

(Matt. 26:6-13//Mark 14:3-9)

One’s response to “the poor” is also associated with the confession of Jesus as the Christ in the story of the anointing at Bethany. The story is presented in virtually identical form in Matthew and Mark. Its principal points are:

1. The woman’s extravagance in anointing Jesus’ head (Matt. 26:7//Mark 14:3);
2. The objection to the waste of the ointment instead of its sale to provide for the poor (Matt. 26:8-9//Mark 14:4-5);
3. Jesus’ words of commendation to the woman and his statement about the poor (Matt. 26:10-12//Mark 14:6-8);
4. Jesus’ assurance that the woman’s deed would be remembered wherever the gospel is preached (Matt. 26:13//Mark 14:9).

If one takes the story out of context, it appears to contradict the message of “good news to the poor,” for in this account Jesus is said to rebuke those who are concerned about the poor and to praise the woman’s apparent extravagance. To draw such a conclusion, however, would be to deny the significance of the place in the Gospel narrative in which this account is found, and also to fail to pay close attention to the saying about “the poor.” The anointing story in Matthew and Mark (like the similar story in John 12:1-8) is set in the midst of the passion narrative, at a point when Jesus’ approaching death is coming into sharper focus. This story is set between the account of the conspiracy against Jesus by the religious establishment and that of Judas’s plan to betray Jesus. In that context, the words attributed to Jesus concerning the woman’s act compliment its timeliness and its appropriateness without denying the importance of the others’ concern for the poor.

The saying about the poor substantiates the conclusion that, far from denying the significance of care for the poor, this episode interpreters that concern against the background of the extraordinary demands of the impending crisis in Jesus’ life. In fact, the parallelism of the clauses of Mark 14:708a (RSV) essentially equates the woman’s act at that moment with a continuing commitment to care for the poor:

a. ongoing time: “For you always have the poor with you” (v. 7a);
b. appropriate action: “Whenever you will, you can do good to them” (v. 7b);

a’. immediate crisis: “But you will not always have me” (v. 7c)
b’. appropriate action: “She has done what she could” (v. 8a)

The difference between the two actions (b and b’) is not the superiority of one over the other, but rather the difference between an ongoing need (a) and the urgency of a one-time event (a’). Mark, or the community to which this formulation of the story and interpretation of the anointing of Jesus is to be attributed, thus appears to be saying that the question of discipleship, or of one’s relationship to Jesus and the gospel, is intimately related to one’s relationship to and care for the poor.

The story of the anointing at Bethany once again makes it clear that to proclaim the gospel, both as Jesus’ message and as the story of his life and ministry, is first of all to proclaim “good news to the poor.” It is a short step from this story to the perspective of the parable of the Great Judgment (Matt. 25:31-49), where the enthroned and sovereign Christ is explicitly identified with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned, and where one’s case before the heavenly tribunal is resolved on the basis of one’s responsiveness to the human faces of Christ in the poor and the oppressed. (Sharon H. Ringe, Jesus, Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee: Images for Ethics and Christology [Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], 63-64)

William Barclay on John 1:1c

. . . John says that the word was God. This is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because Greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which English speaks. When Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is theos and the definite article is ho. When Grek speaks about God it does not simply say theos; it says ho theos. Now when Greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective. John did not say that the word was ho theos; that would have been to say that the word was identical with God. He said that the word was theos—without the definite article—which means that the word was, we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said the word was God he was not saying that Jesus was identical with God; he was saying that Jesus was so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in him we perfectly see what God is like. (William Barclay, The Gospel of John, volume 1: Chapters 1-7 [rev ed.; The Daily Study Bible; Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1975], 39)

William Barclay on the Institution of the Eucharist in the Gospel of Luke

Commenting on the institution narrative of the Eucharist in Luke’s gospel, William Barclay wrote:

(i) He said of the bread, “this is my body.” Herein is exactly what we mean by a sacrament. A sacrament is something, usually a verb ordinary thing, which has acquired a meaning far beyond itself for him who has eyes to see and a heart to understand. There is nothing specially theological or mysterious about this. In the house of everyone of us there is a drawer full of things which can only be called junk, and yet we will not throw them out; we cannot make ourselves do so, because when we touch and handle, and look at them, they bring back to us this or that person, or this or that occasion. They are common things, but they have a meaning far beyond themselves. That is a sacrament. When Sir James Barrie’s mother died, and when they were clearing up her belongings, they found that she had kept all the envelopes in which her famous son had sent her the cheque he so faithfully and lovingly sent. They were only old envelopes, but they meant much to her. That is a sacrament. When Nelson was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral a party of his sailors bore his coffin to the tomb. One who saw the scene writes, “With reverence, and with efficiency, they lowered the body of the world’s greatest admiral into its tomb. Then, as though answering to a sharp order from the quarter deck, they all seized the Union Jack with which the coffin had been covered and tore it to fragments, and each took his souvenir of the illustrious dead.” All their lives that little bit of coloured cloth would speak to them of the Admiral they had loved. That is a sacrament. The bread which we eat at the sacrament is common bread, but, for him who has a heart to feel and understand, it is the very body of Christ.

(ii) He said of the cup, “This cup is the new covenant made at the price of my blood.” In the biblical sense, a covenant is a relationship between man and God. God graciously approached man; and man promised to obey, and to keep God’s law. The whole matter is set out in Exodus 24:1-8. Now the continuance of that covenant depends on man’s keeping his pledge and obeying this law. Man could not and cannot do that; man’s sin interrupts the relationship between man and God. All the Jewish sacrificial system was designed to restore that relationship by the offering of sacrifice to God to atone or sin. What Jesus said was this—“By my life, and by my death, I have made possible a new relationship between you and God. You are sinners. That is true. But because I died for you, God is no longer your enemy but your friend.” It cost the life of Christ to restore the lost relationship of friendship between God and man.

(iii) Jesus said, “Do this and it will make you remember me.” Jesus knew how easily the human mind forgets. The Greeks had an adjective which they used to describe time—“time,” they said, “which wipes all things out,” as if the mind of man were a slate, and time a sponge which wiped it clean. Jesus was saying, “In the rush and press of things you will forget me. Man forgets because he must, and not because he will. Come in sometimes to the peace and stillness of my house and do this again with my people—and you will remember.”

It made the tragedy all the more tragic that at that very table there was one who was a traitor. Jesus Christ has at every communion table those who betray Him, for if, in His house, we pledge ourselves to Him, and then if, by our lives, we go out to deny Him, we too are traitors to His cause. (William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke [The Daily Study Bible; Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1955], 276-78)

Wendy Ulrich on Christ as Deacon

In her recent book on women and the priesthood, Wendy Ulrich had a really nice section entitled “Christ as Deacon”:

Jesus Christ, the Jehovah of the Old Testament who provides manna to the Israelites, retains His flock-feeding role during His mortality. In fact, Jesus teaches that He is the Bread of Life that comes down from heaven that, unlike manna of old, will completely satisfy the hunger of those who eat it, giving them eternal life (see John 6:48-50). Christ further demonstrates His role as the Shepherd and feeder of the flock when, one two occasions, He feeds thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes (see Mark 6:30-32; 8:1-9; John 6:5-13).

Consider the ironic setting for one of these occasions: Christ proposes taking His Apostles to the desert to “rest a while; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat” (Mark 6:31; emphasis added). Despite His efforts to feed them, however, the private, leisurely picnic is overrun with thousands of people eager to hear from this new and inspiring teacher. Rather than being annoyed, Jesus “was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them” (v. 34). Then, when the day is far spent, the compassion of the faithful Shepherd and Priest moves Him to feed His flock. There is not a bakery in sight; in fact, many bakeries would be woefully inadequate for such a crowd. But Jesus takes a little bread and fish, looks up to heaven to give thanks, breaks the loaves, and asks His disciples to take the deacon’s role of distributing the miraculously multiplying food until more than five thousand “did all eat, and were filled” (v. 42).

Christ had refused to feed Himself through supernatural means after fasting for forty days in the wilderness (see Matthew 4:4), but He does not hesitate to pull out all the stops in miraculously (and publicly) feeding His sheep. In this time period, men did the planting and the harvesting and women prepared the food for the family. But Jesus does it all from a few borrowed loaves and fishes as the disciples “wait on” the guests.

Even though there are thousands, millions, billions of us, Christ continues to feed us, too. As utterly unlikely as it seems, a woman could conceivably forget her nursing child, Christ teaches, but He will never forget us, engraven as we are on the palms of His hands (see Isaiah 49:15-16). He feeds us primarily, however, though us—through giving the basket of food over to us to distribute to the world. Both women and men share in this physical and spiritual commission. When we distribute the world’s resources in accordance with His principles, there is enough and to spare (see D&C 104:17), for we are acting with godly power in a godly role. (Wendy Ulrich, Live Up to Our Privileges: Women, Power, and Priesthood [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019], 56-58)

In a footnote for the following, I was happy to see that, when discussing the wedding at Cana, Ulrich did not quality the “wine” Jesus miraculously produced from water as being “grape juice” (surprisingly [and rather, frustratingly, as they are simply wrong] I have encountered some errant Latter-day Saints who think it was not alcoholic wine!):

Even before His formal ministry begins, Christ miraculously (and privately) turns about 135 gallons of water into wine at the end of a marriage feast, just because his mother was worried they might run out. I don’t know how many people typically showed up at the average wedding feast in Cana, but by any conceivable estimation that must have been quite a feast (see John 2:1-10; a firkin was about nine gallons). (Ibid., 57 n. 6)

Excerpts from Mark D. Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament”

In his essay, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament” Lincoln H. Blumell, ed. New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament (Provo/Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center/Deseret Book, 2019), 532-54, Mark D. Ellison (an associate professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at BYU) did an excellent job at addressing these topics. The following are some of my favourite passages:

Jesus’ teachings on Celibacy

In Matthew these teachings on marriage and divorce are immediately followed by an exchange that affirms a single life as a worthy spiritual vocation for some individuals. When the disciples remark that if divorce is so serious, “it is better not to marry,” Jesus states: “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can” (Matthew 19:10-12 NRSV). The reference to those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” is best understood not as a literal reference to emasculation, but as a figurative reference to voluntary celibacy that uses the same kind of hyperbole Jesus employed in such sayings as “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out” and “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Matthew 5:29-30 NRSV). Since the saying is followed by references to Peter and the other disciples having left everything (including family, if only temporarily) in order to follow Jesus, it may figuratively describe the disciples during the time they traveled with Jesus. (p. 541)

In a footnote for the above, we read:

Bruce R. McConkie proposed that the eunuchs Jesus mentioned were apparently “men who in false pagan worship had deliberately mutilated themselves in the apostate notion that such would further their salvation.” Doctrinal New Testament Commentary (1965-1973), 1:548. Jesus, however, referred not to pagan practices but to those whose celibacy was “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake”; he never used the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” with references to pagan nations of afterlife. Regarding Jesus’s use of figurative language, the Gospels take a dim view of Jesus’s  hearers who understand his words too literally and fail to grasp their higher, symbolic import (see, e.g., Mark 8:14-21; John 3:1-12; 4:5-14; 6:22-66). (p. 551 n. 47)

Early Christian Belief in “Eternal Marriage”

Intriguingly, literary and archaeological evidence show that early Christians anticipated that spouses would reunite after death. Tertullian (third century AD) wrote that believing spouses would continue to be “bound” to each other in the Resurrection (58). An inscription on the tomb of a twenty-two-year-old woman named Bassa (fourth century AD) speaks comfort to her bereaved husband Gaudentius with assurance of their affectionate reunion in heaven: “Sweet husband, most closely bound to me forever, drive off your tears, the noble court of heaven is pleasant . . . You will be saved, I confess, and will come to the kisses of Bassa” (59) The sarcophagus of a couple named Catervius and Severina (fourth century AD) portrays the pair receiving a crown of glory from the hand of God (1 Peter 5:4; 2 Timothy 4:8) directly beneath an inscription blessing them to “rise together among the blessed with the help of Christ” (60). John Chrysostom (fourth century AD) assured a young widow whose husband had died after just five years of marriage, “You shall depart one day to join the same company with him, not to dwell with him for five years as you did here, nor for 20, or 100, nor for a thousand or twice that number but for infinite and endless ages” (61). Early Christians do not seem to have understood these reunions as “eternal marriage” or “eternal family” in the same sense that modern Latter-day Saints do (in the Roman world, the concepts of “marriage” and “family” were tied to many concerns of this world such as the production of legitimate heirs who would inherit possessions). However, the hopes early Christians expressed for heavenly reunions and living together eternally show that they did not believe Jesus’s answer to the Sadducees implied a dissolution of living marital and familial bonds after death. (pp. 543-44)

Footnotes for the Above:

(58) Tertullian, Monogamy 10.

(59) ICUR 5.14076: “Dul[c]is in aeternum mihimet iun[tissi]me coniux, / Ex[c]ute iam lacrimas, placuit bona [r]egia caeli . . . Sospes eris fateor v[ . . .o]scula Bassae”; final line as reconstructed by Antonio Ferrua: “Sospes eris fateor u[enies et ad o]scula Bassae”; trans. Dennis Trout, “Borrowed Verse and Broken Narrative: Agency, Identity, and the (Bethesda) Sacrophagus of Bassa,” in Life, Death, and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sacrophagi, ed. Jás Elsner and Janet Huskinson (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2010< 341-43; and Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Giuseppe Bovini, and Hugo Brandenburg, Reportoriun der christlich-an-tiken Sarkophage, bd 1 Rom und Ostia (Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner, 1967), 229-30, Taf. 85, no. 556.

(60) CIL IX 5566 = ILS 1289 = CLE 1560a = ILCV 98b = ICI X 22b, “surgatis parter cristo praestante beati”; Jutta Dresken-Weiland, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage, zweiter Band: Italien mit einem Nachtrag Rom und Ostia, Dalmatien, Museen der Welt (Mainz am Rhein, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1998), 52-53, no. 148; and Aldo Nestori, Il Mausoleo e il Sarcofago di Vlavivs Ivlivs Catervivs a Tolentino (Citta del Vaticano: ontificio Instituto di Archeoogia Cristiana, 1996).

(61) John Chrysostom, To a Young Widow 3.188-201; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), trans. W.R.W. Stephens, 9:123. Additional examples in early Christian literature and archaeology discussed in Mark D. Ellison, “Visualizing Christian Marriage in the Roman World” (PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2017), 193-224.

Was Jesus Married?

Examples of Latter-day Saint arguments that Jesus was married include the following: (a) Orson Hyde, who speculated that Jesus was married on the evidence of the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-11) and the reference in Isaiah 53:10 to the Servant’s “seed” (in Journal of Discourses, 2:82). However, Jesus attended the wedding as a guest, not a groom (John 2:2), and the Book of Mormon interprets Christ’s “seed” as prophets who have taught of Christ and those who have believed in them (Mosiah 15:11-15). See fairmormon.org/answers/Jesus_Christ/Was_Jesus_married. (b) The claim that since Judaism held marriage and childbearing in high regard and rabbis were usually married, it would have been scandalous for Jesus not to have been married. For an example of this argument, see D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C. Skinner, Verse by Verse: The Four Gospels (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 109-9. This argument, however, oversimplifies the Judaism of the first century, which included groups of people who practiced sexual renunciation in pursuit of a holy way of life . . .John the Baptist may have been unmarried. (c) The claim that since Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-4 teaches that marriage is required for the highest degree of heavenly reward. Christ must have been married; see a variation of this in Ogden and Skinner, Verse by Verse, 108-9. Though theoretically possible, this reasoning fails to consider the utterly unique character of Christ’s mortal mission and the possibility that it might have required a single-minded devotion including a celibate life (see Matthew 19:12; Luke 12:50). Examples of Church spokespersons who have clarified that it is not a Church doctrine that Jesus was married include Charles W. Penrose, “Peculiar Questions Briefly Answered,” Improvement Era, September 1912, 1042, “We do not know anything about Jesus Christ being married. The Church has no authoritative declaration on the subject”; Dales Bills, quoted in “LDS do not endorse claims in ‘Da Vinci,’” Deseret News, May 17, 2006, “The belief that Christ was married has never been official church doctrine. It is neither sanctioned nor taught by the church. While it is true that a few church leaders in the mid-1800s expressed their opinions on the matter, it was not then, and is not now, church doctrine.” (p. 552 n. 51)

Paul’s Teachings on Marriage and Celibacy

Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the Undisputed Letters of Paul

Paul’s writings also display a complex attitude toward family and marriage. In some passages Paul sought to reinforce the stability of marriage among church members. First Thessalonians—likely the earliest-written book of the New Testament—includes Paul’s instruction to know how “to control your own body” (KJV: “possess his vessel”) in holiness and honor,” which might alternatively be understood as to take unto himself a wife in holiness and honor. In this context Paul teaches against fornication (Greek porneia, sexual sin) and uncontrolled passion (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 NRSV; compare 1 Corinthians 6:15-20; 9:25). Yet Paul’s teaching of self-control was balanced by a resistance of ascetic extremism. Responding to church members at Corinth who thought it was “well for a man not to touch a woman,” Paul discouraged sexual abstinence within marriage except perhaps for temporary, mutually agreed-on periods of prayer; otherwise husband and wife were to show each other consideration and deference in matters of sexual intimacy (1 Corinthians 7:1-5). Paul also reiterated Jesus’s teaching against divorce and encouraged believers not to divorce an unbelieving spouse so long as each consented to remain married, promising that believers would have a sanctifying, saving influence on their unbelieving spouse and children (7:10-16). Nevertheless, when people had a choice to marry, Paul’s counsel was to marry “in the Lord”—to wed a fellow Christians (7:39).

On the other hand, Paul expressed the wish that the Corinthians would be as he was, unmarried and sexually continent (1 Corinthians 7:8-9). Clarifying that he was giving his personal opinion, Paul taught that it would be preferable for the unwed not to marry (unless their passions were strong) and pointed to the free, unencumbered devotion to God possible in the unmarried state (7:6-40). Paul stated that his reason for this counsel was because “the appointed time has grown short” and “the present form of his world is passing away” (7:29, 31 NRSV). The plain sense of his rationale, as written, is that he was anticipating an imminent return of Christ and the apocalyptic and of the current age of the world, with all its attendant tribulations. Given this “impending crisis,” he wanted the saints at Corinth “to be free from anxieties,” able to give undivided attention to “the affairs of the Lord” and pleasing the Lord rather than being anxious about pleasing a spouse (1 Corinthians 7:26, 32-35 NRSV). Underlying Paul’s thought may have been Jesus’ teachings about the tribulations to come and how those days would be particularly difficult for any who were with child or caring for an infant (Matthew 24:19).

Historian David G. Hunter comments: “It is fair to say that in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul failed to provide a truly positive rationale for Christian marriage. Ultimately he presented marriage as merely a defense against illicit desire. ‘By this essentially negative, even alarmist strategy,’ Peter Brown has observed, ‘Pal left a fatal legacy to future ages’” (David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy [New York: Oxford University Press, 2007], 87; citing Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity [New York: Columbia University Press, 1988], 55). Part of that legacy was the development of a tradition that virginity was of greater religious merit and would earn a greater eternal reward than a life that included marriage and childbearing (compare 1 Corinthians 7:38).

One means by which Latter-day Saints have avoided this legacy is the Joseph Smith Translation of 1 Corinthians 7:29, which alters the meaning of the passage by narrowing its audience, “But I speak unto you who are called unto the ministry,” and redefining the shortness of time as that remaining until those addressed, “shall be sent forth unto the ministry.” Thus, the unwed state was preferable for those embarking on full-time missionary journeys but not necessarily for everyone. It is not clear from the JST whether this represents a restoration of original intent (if not original text) or an inspired, prophetic reframing of the ancient text that harmonizes it with Restoration scripture and makes it applicable to the latter-day Church. In any case, there is no insurmountable theological problem with the plain reading of the received text of 1 Corinthians 7, including Paul’s expectation of an imminent return of Christ. Latter-day Saints believe that apostles may hold personal opinions and that “not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine.”

Often quoted in Latter-day Saint discussions of marriage, 1 Corinthians 11:11 does not deal primarily with marriage in its original context within the epistle. Rather, the statement “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” occurs in the course of a larger passage (1 Corinthians 11:2-16), notoriously difficult and much debated, regarding women in worship settings. Paul affirms that women pray and prophesy in Christian worship (1 Corinthians 11:5) yet is concerned that they wear proper hair coverings. The discussion is marked by tension between hierarchical and egalitarian views of gender. On one hand, the sequence of creation in Genesis (Genesis 2:7, 21-22) leads Paul to say, “The husband is the head of his wife” (1 Corinthians 11:3 NRSV). On the other hand, Paul turns around and challenges this notion as he states that man also comes through woman (is born of woman) and neither is without the other in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12). Though Paul’s overriding intention appears to have been to encourage unity in the church (1 Corinthians 11:18), his statement about the mutual interdependence and reciprocity of woman and man “in the Lord” certainly has application in marriage. Both in marriage and in the Church family are “intended to learn from, strengthen, bless, and complete each other” (pp. 543-44)

Eric Huntsman on the Absence of Gethsemane in the Gospel of John

Commenting on the Lamb of God Christology in the Gospel of John and how it offers a reason why Jesus’ suffering in Gethsemane is not mentioned therein, Eric Huntsman wrote:

Paschal imagery and the higher Christology of John may also explain other differences in the Fourth Gospel’s Passion narrative, which lacks any reference to Jesus’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and provides different details about the Crucifixion. This may be because the Passover lamb was not primarily a vicarious sin offering but rather a sacrifice that brought the hope of new life to the children of Israel, who were passed over by the angel of death because of the lamb’s blood. Perhaps rather than seeing Jesus shoulder the crushing burden of sin in Gethsemane and carry it to the cross, where he died as a vicarious sacrifice for sin, John focused on Jesus’s death as a source of life. Passing over reference to Jesus’s feeling abandoned by the Father, with whom he is always at one with in John, this account has Jesus declare “It is finished” and voluntarily “g[i]ve up the ghost” (John 19:30). Then, just as the blood of the paschal lambs was spread on the doorframes of the Israelites in Egypt, so the blood of the Lamb of God pours on the wood of the cross when a solider pierces Jesus’s side with a spear to make sure he is dead. Linked with the blood is a stream of water (19:34), recalling the fountain of living water of John 4:10 and the rivers of living water of John 7:38. To complete the Passover imagery, John 19:36-37 stresses that the soldiers did not break Jesus’s legs, a requirement of the paschal lamb being that none of its bones could be broken. (Eric D. Huntsman, “The Gospel of John” in Lincoln H. Blumell, ed. New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament [Provo/Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center/Deseret Book, 2019], 304-21, here, p. 317)

Andrew Skinner on JST Matthew 4:1

In the KJV of Matt 4:1, we read:

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

The JST makes an interesting change to this verse:

Then Jesus was led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be with God.

‎The parallel texts does not speak of Jesus being led by the Spirit to be with God, but to be tempted of Satan:

And immediately the Spirit took him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, Satan seeking to tempt him; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him. (Mark 1:10-11 JST)

And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was let by the Spirit into the wilderness. And after forty days, the devil came unto him, to tempt him. And in those days, he did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterwards hungered. (Luke 4:1-2 JST)

Andrew Skinner wrote the following about JST Matt 4:1:

The significant change of JST Matthew 4:1 regarding Jesus’s original reason for being in the wilderness (“to be with God” versus the KJV, “to be tempted of the devil”) is exceptionally enlightening and helps to answer the question raised by scholars about whether the “wilderness” in this context is to be viewed negatively or positively: “Is it to be understood negatively as a place of demons (compare 1QM 1) where creation has been cursed (Isaiah 13:19-22; Ezekiel 34:25; Luke 11:24-28) or positively as a place restored to a new creation by the coming of the messianic age (Isaiah 11:6-9; 32:14-20; 40:3; 65:25; Hosea 2:18; compare the pre-Fall paradise of Genesis 1:26-28)?”

The reading of the Joseph Smith Translation shows that the Holy Ghost did not purposely lead Jesus to the devil to be tempted. Rather, the Holy Ghost led Jesus to the Father, to a higher spiritual environment, which is one of the purposes of the Holy Ghost. The wilderness experience foreshadows the Millennium and harks back to the paradise of Eden. A hallmark of the earth’s paradisiacal condition was the presence of God, and that was the environment of Jesus’s forty-day wilderness sojourn. The whole earth will return to that state at the second coming of Christ. (Andrew C. Skinner, “The Life of Jesus of Nazareth: An Overview” in Lincoln H. Blumell, ed. New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament [Provo/Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center/Deseret Book, 2019], 245-77, here, pp. 252-53)

On the temptations of Jesus (Matt 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13) and how they present Jesus as the New/Second/Last Adam, see, among other important studies,

Brandon D. Crow, The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels and

Jeffrey Gibson, The Temptations of Jesus in Early Christianity

Avram Shannon on the Problematic Use of Rabbinic Sources by Earlier LDS on the Trial of Jesus

Commenting on the errant use of the Mishnah and other rabbinic texts by Latter-day Saints vis-à-vis the trial of Jesus, Avram Shannon, assistant professor of ancient scripture at BYU, wrote the following:

Difficulties with the trial of Jesus

One instance where rabbinic literature has been used to further understand the New Testament, but where there are very real difficulties in how that literature was deployed, is the trial of Jesus. The notion that the trial of Jesus was illegal is something that has pervaded Latter-day Saint thinking since at least James E. Talmage’s Jesus the Christ. Latter-day Saints, building from Talmage, found support in a book by Walter M. Chandler, an American lawyer and politician. The evidence mustard for the illegality of the trial of Jesus comes from various parts of rabbinic literature, without any real regard for questions of when and where the various laws and quotations are coming from. Because the trial of Jesus has been used so much for anti-Semitic purposes, it is especially important to handle the rabbinic sources judiciously.

The Mishnah represents, in many ways, a utopian law code—in other words, the Mishnah represents the way that the sages understood the law of Moses and how they wanted it interpreted but not necessarily how it was actually lived. The most obvious example of this is the large amount of space dedicated to the administration and regulation of the Jerusalem temple. The temple had been destroyed for over 130 years by the time of the Mishnah was collated, but it still contained regulations on how to administer the sacrifices and what the proper rules and vows and other temple-focused laws from the law of Moses were.

The regulation of capital punishment is a crucial example of probable utopian laws that has direct bearing on the trial of Jesus. It is unclear from our sources whether the Jews living under Roman control had the power to execute capital punishments. Mishnah Sanhedrin, the mishnaic tractate on legal judgments and courts, presumes that the rabbis retain the biblical power to enact punishment for capital crimes. The mishnaic tractate of Sanhedrin covers many issues of rabbinic jurisprudence, including the sentencing of crime according to the biblical mandate. Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:6 states, “Four forms of execution were transmitted to the [rabbinic] court: stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation.” The Mishnah then lists various ways in which these executions were to be performed. The Mishnah, drawing on biblical laws, presumes that it has the power to perform execution. The New Testament, however, makes an opposite claim. The contradiction is likely because of the utopian nature of much of the Mishnah’s laws—they are describing the world as they wished it to be. In John 18:31 the leaders of the Jews tell Pilate, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.” This passage is useful precisely because it lays out what appears to be a direct contradiction between a rabbinic source on the one hand and the New Testament on the other. Because of it, it shows the danger in using the Mishnah to explore the illegality of the trial of Jesus. Thus, the connection between the legal world described by the sages and the legal situation of Jesus’ trial is tenuous at best.

This has been recognized by Latter-day Saint scholars in recent years. Dana M. Pike notes, “Claims that Jesus’ ‘trial’ was illegal because it violated Mishnaic regulation have no historical basis and are best avoided.” Likewise, in their study companion to Talmage’s Jesus the Christ, Thomas Wayment and Richard Holzapfel state, “Scholars today realize the Jewish sources used by earlier scholars to identify the illegalities of the trial come from a later period than the New Testament, and, therefore, likely do not give an accurate portrayal of first-century Jewish practice. The Gospels do not accuse the Jewish council of illegalities so we assume there are none to report.” This acknowledgement is an important step in helping us better understand how to use the New Testament and rabbinic literature in making comparisons. If rabbinic literature is read only for its connection to the New Testament, it is possible to make grave mistakes and overstatements. (Avram R. Shannon, “Rabbinic Literature and the New Testament” in Lincoln H. Blumell, ed. New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament [Provo/Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center/Deseret Book, 2019], 122-38, here, pp. 129-30)

Jonathan Neville criticizes Book of Mormon Central for being responsible

The following article, penned by "Peter Pan" on the Neville Neville Land blog, shows that Jonathan Neville has absolutely no clue what responsible scholarship and intellectual honesty and integrity are:

Neville criticizes Book of Mormon Central for being responsible

Early Latter-day Saints, Temple Theology, and Revelation 11:19; 12:1, 5

In my work on Mariology, I have discussed the identity of the “woman” in Rev 12:1 (e.g., Refuting Taylor Marshall on the Bodily Assumption of Mary Interestingly, many early Latter-day Saints tied this passage and v. 5, speaking of the Man Child and the woman fleeing into the wilderness as a symbolic prophecy of the Church being “hidden” due to the Great Apostasy, only to return from the wilderness due to the Restoration through the prophet Joseph Smith (see D&C 5:14; 33:5; 109:73 for allusions to such) as well as tying this, and related (11:19; 12:5) texts to Latter-day Saint temple theology.

In his recent (and highly recommended) biography of Brigham Young, Thomas G. Alexander wrote the following about the construction of the Nauvoo temple and how Rev 11:19; 12:1, 5 played a role informing the symbolism thereof):

Perhaps because of the Mormons’ general belief that Christ’s Second Coming and the Millennium were close at hand, on the exterior of the temple, artisans reproduced in graphic form some features of John’s Revelations. The temple’s pilasters consisted from top to bottom of starstones, sunstones, and moonstones in an apocalyptic motif. Construction foreman Wandle Mace wrote that the stones were placed in the same order as those surrounding the woman described in Revelation 12:1, which said: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under het feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” She bore, in Revelation 12:5, “a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.” Significantly, John wrote in verse 11:19, immediately preceding 12:1, that “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” (Thomas G. Alexander, Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith [Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019], 63)

In a sermon delivered April 6, 1853, Brigham Young tied Rev 12 to the Great Apostasy and Restoration, with a focus on v. 5, speaking of the Man Child (and the “woman”) fleeing into the desert:

If Jesus could not lay his head in an unholy, polluted temple, how can the Latter-day Saints expect that the Holy Spirit will take and abide its residence with them, in their tabernacles and temples of clay, unless they keep themselves pure, spotless, and undefiled?

It is no wonder that the Son of Man, soon after his resurrection from the tomb, ascended to his Father, for he had no place on earth to lay his head; his house still remaining in the tressession of his enemies, so that no one had the privilege of purifying it, if they had the disposition, and otherwise the power, to do it; and the occupants thereof were professors in name, but hypocrites and apostates, from whom no good thing can be expected.

Soon after the ascension of Jesus, through mobocracy, martyrdom, and apostacy, the Church of Christ became extinct from the earth, the Man Child—the Holy Priesthood, was received up into heaven from whence it came, and we hear no more of it on the earth, until the Angels restored it to Joseph Smith, by whose ministry the Church of Jesus Christ was restored, re-organized on earth, twenty-three years ago this day, with the title of "Latter-day Saints," to distinguish them from the Former-day Saints.

Soon after, the Church, though our beloved Prophet Joseph, was commanded to build a Temple to the Most High, in Kirtland, Ohio, and this was the next House of the Lord we hear of on the earth, since the days of Solomon's Temple. Joseph not only received revelation and commandment to build a Temple, but he received a pattern also, as did Moses for the Tabernacle, and Solomon for his Temple; for without a pattern, he could not know what was wanting, having never seen one, and not having experienced its use. (JOD 2:30-31)

E.W. Hengstenberg's Use of Elijah/Elias in Malachi 4:5 to Denote a Forerunner

In my article “Elias” as a “Forerunner” in LDS Scripture, I presented some instances of 19^th century theological literature that used Elijah/Elias in a generic sense to denote a forerunner, similar to what one finds in D&C 27; 77; 110 and in some sermons delivered by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

In his massive two-volume Old Testament Christology, E.W. Hengstenberg (1802-1869) used Elijah/Elias in a very similar manner. Commenting on Mal 4:5 (3:23 in the Hebrew), Hengstenberg wrote the following:

Ver. 5 (chap. iii.23). “Behold, I send you Elias, the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.”

There can be no doubt whatever that Elias the prophet is identical with the messenger, whom the Lord will send to prepare the way before him (chap. iii.1). If, then, we have already proved in our remarks upon that verse, that the reference there is to an ideal messenger, the personified preacher of repentance, the same proofs are equally valid in connexion with the passage before us. The same idea is expressed in both cases: before God proves himself to be the covenant God by inflicting punishments and bestowing blessings, he shows that he is so, by placing within the reach of the children of the curse the means of becoming the children of the blessing. Of course we must not separate the power of the Spirit of God from the outward mission of his servants, and thus change the gift into mockery. There was no necessity to allude particularly to his, because it always accompanies the outward preaching, and in fact is in exact proportion to it; so that we may infer with certainty the amount of inward grace, from the extent to which the outward means of grace are enjoyed in any age.

The only point which we have to examine in connection with this passage, has reference to the one thing which is peculiar to it, the designation of the messenger by the name of Elias. The reason for this must be sought in the prophet’s own description of the office and work of the messenger and of Elias, namely, “to prepare the way of the Lord,” and “turn back the heart of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers.” Hence the messenger, as a reformer raised up by God, is called by the name of that one of the earlier messengers of God, who exceeded all the rest in spirit and power, who lived in a remarkably corrupt age, and whose rejection was followed by a particularly terrible day of the Lord, viz. first the calamities inflicted by the Syrians, and then the captivity of Israel, the ban, with which the land was smitten, because it did not realise its destination to be a holy land. The name of Elias recalled all these circumstances; when the people hard this name, they were weakened out of their dream of self-righteousness, and found themselves placed upon a level with the corrupt generation of the time of Elias. The coming of the Lord is that former age afforded a firm foundation of his future coming. Again, the reason why Elias should be especially selected, becomes still more obvious, if we trace the view which is very perceptible in the historical books, that he was the head of the prophetic order in the Israelitish kingdom, or rather in a certain sense the only prophet inasmuch as his successors merely received the spirit indirectly;--a view, to which we are also led by the striking resemblance which the acts of Elisha bore to his own. We find a perfectly analogous resemblance in the case of Isaac and Abraham, Joshua and Moses. In 2 Chr. xxi. 12 there is brought to the king a writing from “Elijah the prophet,” for Elijah as an individual had departed this life long before. In 1 Kings xix. 15, 16, the Lord says to Elijah, “thou shalt go and anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi , shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel.” Elijah himself did not perform either of these acts; but Elisha anointed one (2 Kings viii.13), and a pupil of Elisha anointed the other (2 Kings ix. 4-6). Elisha, who modestly acknowledge that his relation to God was not originally the same as that of his leader, desired the portion of the first-born in his spiritual inheritance (בְרוּחוֹ, 2 Kings ii. 9). Hence he also loos upon the rest of the prophets as the spiritual children and heirs of Elijah, and as standing in the same relation to him, in which the seventy elders, upon whom God put of the spirit of Moses, stood to Moses himself. According to 2 Kings, ii.15, the sons of the prophets said, “the spirit of Elijah (that is, the spirit of God in the particular form which it assumed in Elijah) doth rest upon Elisha.” And as an outward sign that his ministry was merely a continuation of that of Elijah, Elisha received his mantle. But a similar relation as this may be found existing altogether apart from scriptural ground. Look for example at the connexion which existed between Luther and Jonas or Bugenhagen, or again between the reformers generally and the churches of which they were the founders. It might also be shown that since this relation is an appointment of God himself, the words which are so frequently abused, be not the servants of men,” do not apply to it at all; though sin creeps into this, as into every thing human. But this does not form part of our present subject. We merely call attention to the fact, that if, according to these proofs, we are not limited to one single historical character, even when the Elijah of former times is referred to, but everything is attributed to Elijah, which constituted a continuation of his mission till the coming of the terrible day upon Israel, there is still less ground for seeking the Elijah of the future exclusively as one individual.—We have already observed that the prophet intentionally borrows from Joel (ii. 31), the expression, “Before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” The day foretold by Joel, the judgment on the enemies of the kingdom of God, was ardently desired. By the announcement of the coming of a preacher of repentance (μετανοια), the prophet shows how wrong it is for them to identify themselves with the kingdom of God, and expressly declares in the following verse, that, if his preaching makes no impression, the great day will inevitably be terrible to those who fancy themselves the supporters, but are in reality the enemies of the kingdom of God. (Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Old Testament Christology [trans. R. Keith; 2 vols.; 1854; repr., Mac Dill, Fla.: MacDonald Publishing Company, 1971], 2:1227-29, emphasis in original)

 On Mal 4:5 itself, see, for e.g.:

Refuting the Tanners on the LDS Interpretation of Malachi 4:5-6

E.W. Hengstenberg on the Song of Solomon

In his Old Testament Christology, written in the early 19^th century (and translated into English in 1854), E.W. Hengstenberg (1802-1869) wrote the following about the Song of Solomon Why the following should be of interest to Latter-day Saints is that the author clearly struggles to make sense of the Song of Solomon and its contents and it being viewed as inspired scripture:

The Song of Solomon does not, strictly speaking, possess a prophetical character. It does not communicate any new revelations; like the Psalms, it only represents, in a poetical form, things already known. It sufficiently appears . . . The Song of Solomon then, is no apocalypsis—no revelation of mysteries till then unknown. There is in it no such disclosure as is e.g. 2 Sam. vii. on the descent of the Messiah from David, or as is that in Mic. v. 1 (2) on His being born at Bethlehem, or even as it that in Is. liii. on His office as a High priest, and His vicarious satisfaction. (Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Old Testament Christology [trans. R. Keith; 2 vols.; 1854; repr., Mac Dill, Fla.: MacDonald Publishing Company, 1971], 1:113)

 For a good summary of the debate concerning the canonicity of the Song of Solomon, see:

Marvin Pope on the Canonicity of the Song of Solomon

David L. Allen on Romans 8:32-34, Christ as a "Propitiation," and Arguments for Limited Atonement

In his recent book on the atonement, David L. Allen does a very good job at refuting many arguments in favour of Limited/Particular Atonement. This post will present two such arguments: (1) his comments on Rom 8:32-34 and (2) the claim that, if Jesus’ atonement was propitiatory, this necessitates limited atonement.

Rom 8:32-34 reads as follows:

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. (NASB)

Some Calvinists use this as a “proof-text” for Particular/Limited Atonement. Writing in response to this, David L. Allen, a critic of Reformed theology, provided the following answer:

Some have attempted to use this text to support limited atonement. Their argument is as follows. The “all” for whom Christ died, according to this passage, are given “all things.” The non-elect are not given all things; therefore, Christ did not die for them. This is a modus tollens argument as distinguished from a modus ponens argument with an a fortiori (greater to the lesser) layer as well: (2) If Christ died for you (the greater thing), you will be given “all things,” including all consequent gifts (lesser things). (2) Some—i.e., the non-elect—are not given the lesser things. (3) Therefore, Christ did not die for some (the non-elect). If P (you are died for; the greater thing), then Q (all things are given; the lesser things). Not Q (some are not given all things); therefore not P. The argument has a valid modus tollens form, but it is an unsound argument:

All the died-for receive all things.
Some do not receive all things;
Therefore, they are not died-for.

Here is the fallacy: The “us” (in “delivered Him up for us all,” Rom 8:32) is being converted into “all for whom Christ died,” when, contextually, the “us” refers to believers, not all for whom Christ died.

This line of reasoning fails to recognize that Paul is addressing believers and describing their status as believers in relation to God’s blessings. It confuses what Paul says to believers and about believers and extrapolates it into an abstraction concerning all the elect, whether believing or unbelieving. But this merely begs the question concerning the content of the atonement. The “all” in this passage refers to all believers, as context makes clear. To conclude from Rom 8:32 that Christ died only for believers and not for anyone else is to invoke the inference fallacy.

Paul is not speaking about all the elect qua elect, considered as an abstract class (the as yet unborn elect and the living but unbelieving elect). Paul’s point is that no condemnation accrues to believers for whom Christ died (the greater gift) and that they will be given all things (the lesser gifts), not that Christ did not die for all unbelievers. (David L Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ [Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019], 92-94)

With respect to the meaning of ιλασμος (“propitiation”) in texts such as 1 John 2:1-2, some Reformed apologist (e.g., James R. White) have argued that this necessitates limited atonement, unless one wishes to be an Universalist. As Allen notes, this is fallacious:

With respect to the word “propitiation” (Gk. hilasmos), it is important to note that John uses the noun form of the word and states that Christ is the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. As scholars have demonstrated, “propitiation” includes “expiation.” Advocates of limited atonement often make a serious mistake when they make an invalid noun-to-verb conversion of the noun “propitiation.” Nouns and verbs are distinct for a reason. Nouns speak to what a thing is or what it does. Verbs speak to what a thing is doing or has done or shall do. Unlike verbs, nouns do not have a tense. The result is to read “propitiation” as if it is speaking about the atonement as both accomplished and applied—or accomplished with intent to apply effectually only to the elect. Christ is viewed as actually propitiating and forgiving, and reconciling those for whom the propitiation was made. But this is emphatically not what the verse says.

Once the illegitimate noun-to-verb transfer is made, then syllogistic arguments follow. For example, if “world” means all people, this would entail that all humanity’s sin has been propitiated and expiated (as an accomplished action with resulting salvation, according to limitarians); but given that it is not the case and that the sins of all humanity have been expiated, “world,” therefore, cannot denote all humanity. In other words:

1. If Christ has propitiated the wrath of God for a man (hypothetically named “Smith), then that man cannot fail to be saved.

2. Christ has propitiated the wrath of God for Smith.

3. Therefore, Smith cannot fail to be saved.

Or, to rephrase the syllogism into a Modus Tollens argument:

If Christ died for the whole world, then the whole world will necessarily be saved.

It is not the case that the whole world is saved;

Therefore, it is not the case that Christ died for the whole world.

The syllogisms are formally valid but not logically sound because the first premise works only on the noun-to-verb conversion. However, the noun hilasmos (“propitiation”), does not refer to an accomplished past-tense action but to function—i.e., how something is accomplished. “Propitiation” points back to Christ’s sacrifice for sins as a means for sinners to find forgiveness. The cross is the means whereby one may find forgiveness—via an accomplished propitiation/expiation (noun) for sins, not to an already accomplished application of the benefits of the atonement as subjective effect already completed.

Consider 1 John 2:1 as a parallel example and comparable in structure to 1 John 2:2. John says, “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate.” Here, Advocate (Gk. paraklēton) is a noun, and the sense is, if anyone seeks pardon for his sins, there is an advocate for them. The sense is not that Christ has already advocated (past tense verb indicated accomplished action) for them, but that He is their “Advocate” or the Counselor to whom they may go to find help and comfort. That is, if they confess their sin, He will advocate on their behalf. John is describing Christ’s office and function as Advocate—what He will accomplish with regard to those who confess their sins.

John’s point in 1 John 2:2 is that there is an accomplished, objective atonement that provides an ongoing means for subjective reconciliation to occur between a sinner and God when the sinner comes to God through Christ by faith. Propitiation accomplished does not, and cannot, ipso facto mean propitiation applied. Without repentance there can be no advocacy applied (1 John 2:1), and without faith in Christ there can be no propitiation applied. Christ’s death on the cross has made propitiation for the sins of all people and is objectively available—conditionally as to its efficacy to all who will come to God through Christ by faith. If any person confesses his sin, he will find in Christ an Advocate, because Christ is “the propitiation for our sins, and not or ours only but also for the whole world.” (Ibid. 160-62, italics in original)

Further Reading

An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology

Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30

Critique of "The Christ Who Heals"

Another Example of a Defender of Forensic Justification Slipping Up and Speaking of Justification as Transformative

It is rather common for Protestant apologists who believe in forensic justification and imputation to “slip up” and speak of transformative justification (e.g., The Infusion of Righteousness at Justification and Reformed Theological Inconsistency)

In a recent work on the atonement, David L. Allen wrote the following about δικαιοσύνη and δικαιοω, further evidencing how Protestants, in an attempt to defend their theology, end up revealing the real truth of the nature of justification:

The noun “righteousness” or its verbal form “to make righteous; to justify” occurs seven times in [Rom 3:21-26] . . . Christ does not become a propitiation only when people believe in Him. He is the propitiation for all sin and all sinners, whether believers or unbelievers (1 John 2:2). The only conditionality concerns the application of the atonement to an individual sinner, and that condition is clearly stated to be faith in Christ. As all are sinners, so all may be made righteous. (David L Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ [Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019], 77, 87, emphasis added)

S.J. Samartha on Paul's Subordinationist Christology

It would, however, be a mistake to assume that Paul formally makes Christ co-equal with God . . . New Testament scholars point out that it should not be assumed too quickly that Paul identifies Jesus Christ with God. Paul is extremely careful not to simply identify Jesus Christ with God. Throughout his writings, God the Father and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, are always two distinct beings, closely associated, but never identified. No one would deny that to Paul, Christ is central to Christian faith and life. Paul routes all traffic between God and the world through Christ and affirms that the only way to salvation is through Christ. But Paul, in spite of his radical Christocentrism, is extremely careful to retain the ultimacy of God. It is God who “was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). It is God “who raised up Jesus from the dead” (1 Corinthians 6:14), and it is God “who will sum up all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). He reminds the Corinthians, “You belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:23). And in his great resurrection text, Paul affirms that when all things are subjected to the Son, the Son also will be subjected to God “until God be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

It is difficult to see how conservative evangelicals who affirm the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible can get away from the authority of such clear texts in epistles regarded as authentically Pauline. In the doxological formulate that Paul often uses to begin or end his epistles, the context is liturgical. But even here God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:3) are surely not spoken of as God the Father and God the Son. To Paul, Theos remains the ultimate horizon for faith in Christos. The central purpose of Paul in his epistles is not to prove that Jesus Christ is God but to invite people to share in the salvation wrought through him by God. The New Testament seems to be concerned not so much with the ontological status of Christ in relation to God as with the functional nature of his work as Savior of all humanity. Cullmann points out, “The New Testament always speaks of the Son of God (task) and never of God the Son (status) that is the full co-equal deity is never taught in the New Testament” (Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, p. 251). “The Total Christian faith, as reflected in the New Testament, is essentially and primarily theistic, that is to say, monotheistic, and secondarily, christological” (F.C. Grant, Ancient Judaism and the New Testament, p. 130). (S.J. Samartha, One Christ—Many Religions: Towards a Revised Christology [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991], 121-22)

Robert Smith on Feelings versus facts

Commenting on how one should not privilege mere feelings over facts, one LDS author recently wrote:

Feelings versus facts

When truth revaluation is reduced to feelings, it becomes impossible to persuade, no matter how certain and clear the facts, because most often, the believer feels bad when prior held beliefs are contradicted (this is called cognitive dissonance). Those dependent upon feelings to maintain status quo beliefs are thus compelled to defend those feelings, whether or not those beliefs are true. Consequently, instead of debating the correctness or incorrectness of doctrine, which can be established through scriptural, rational, and historical investigating, one must defend against feelings.

We have no right to feeling strongly about something for which we cannot provide either charismatic or rational evidence. The ideas themselves should be the focus, not the feelings . . .The natural man is an enemy to God; finding truth requires us to yield our emotive response—which is carnal—to the voice of the Holy Ghost, the voice of reason.

Peter taught that we should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15) “A reason” implies that there are true facts, evidences, or observations supporting a given belief.

A sincere search for truth must be a consistent rational evaluation of new evidences, both those that support and those that refute currently held positions. In order to search for truth, then, one must be able to enumerate the reasons for their currently held beliefs. A surprising number of people defend their own beliefs without any substance at all. Instead, their entire argument consists of a few tired logical fallacies. These ineffective attempts fail to persuade because one has no reason to consider something until they have been given a reason to believe the new idea is at least possible. Moreover, an individual whose beliefs are not substantiated cannot be convinced of higher truth because it is impossible to argue against an irrationally held position.

False ideas do not stand up to scripture, logic, or history. For example, Sherem taught both that man “cannot tell of things to come” and also that he knew that Christ would never come (Jacob 7:7, 9).

If you do not question what others automatically assume to be true, you cannot be any different than they are. (Robert Smith, The Glory of God is Intelligence: Acquiring and Disseminating Light and Truth [2019], 156-57)

The TL;DR version of the above is: