“Joseph Smith Performing A Miraculous Healing According To A Non-LDS Source”

The Tabernacle of Moses — A view of the Old Testament tabernacle
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Newly published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship and, accordingly, available to interested readers at no charge:

“The Tabernacle: Mountain of God in the Cultus of Israel,” by L. Michael Morales

Abstract: In this article, Michael Morales considers how the building of the Tabernacle had been pre-figured from the earliest narratives of Genesis onward. It describes some of the parallels between the creation, deluge, and Sinai narratives and the tabernacle account; examines how the high priest’s office functions as something of a new Adam; and considers how the completed tabernacle resolves the storyline of Genesis and Exodus, via the biblical theme of “to dwell in the divine Presence.”

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See L. Michael Morales, “The Tabernacle: Mountain of God in the Cultus of Israel,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of The Expound Symposium 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 27–70. Further information athttps://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-temple-worship/.]

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Those still looking for materials to add to their Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” Files might want to look through the article at this link. There may be some material in it that can be wrested to the purpose:

“Latter-day Saints on the Navajo Nation in the thick of the COVID-19 fight”

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Some who are otherwise disposed might enjoy the following:

“Video: A behind-the-scenes look at filming the bicentennial proclamation in the Sacred Grove with President Nelson”

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One of my readers, an extremely dogmatic and extremely vocal atheist, is unpersuaded (of course) by the miracle narratives in the New Testament. He would, he says, be interested in seeing an account of one of Christ’s miracles from a source other than an ancient “holy book” — a class of historiography from antiquity to which (unlike most archaeologists and ancient historians) he refuses to grant any historical credibility at all.

I doubt that seeing a non-biblical account of a miracle performed by Jesus would make the slightest difference to this particular fellow.

But here’s an analogous case:

“Joseph Smith Performing a Miraculous Healing According to a Non-LDS Source”

I have not the slightest anticipation that reading this account will have any effect whatever on the particular fellow whom I have in mind. I offer it, instead, for the general interest of those who are not afflicted with dogmatic rigor infidelis.