But what really brought me to realize this is the right church is perhaps the strangest thing in the world: my class comparing the Tanakh with other Ancient Near Eastern texts. I was astounded to learn that there is a large consensus among scholars that the original Hebrew religion was monolatry (worshipping one god but not denying the existence of others, “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” 1 Cor. 8:5-6) that God had a wife in their original belief system, that God was most definitely anthropomorphic, that the Greco-“Christian” concept of a God was totally un-imaginable to the anicent Hebrews (just read the Old and New Testament, yeah, that’s a God who has no passion or parts), that creation ex nihilo was never a part of Judaism or Christianity until they were hellenicized, and then also through my own independent study of the Disciplina arcani, I realized that these scholarly arguments, grounded in real history and not neo-platonic theology (or “orthodox” theology, there the same thing) that these facts about the real beliefs of the Israelite nation would KILL the Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Orthodox, etc. These are real conclusions formed through real research by real scholars. But do they make a dent on the LDS church? Not a bit. In the 13th article of Faith, Joseph Smith wrote, " If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praisworthy, we seek after these things." I’d say 150 years of solid scholarly research would be “of good report.” And to think an ignorant New York frontiersman, with a 3rd grade education, came forth and brought these truths to light before all these things were known, now, if that doesn’t make him a prophet, I don’t know what does. But then, I did what the missionaries told me to, to go and ask if these things were true, and guess what, I did. And now I bear my solemn testimony that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith brought in the Restoration and is a true prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is a true record of the ancient inhabitants of America, and that Heavenly Father does have a plan for all of us. I do say this, in the name of the one and only, living Son of God, Jesus the Christ. I didn’t have a burning in the bosom. The Holy Ghost told me the truth of all things by opening my mind and making me receptive of the truth. Mormonism makes it all fit. This is my testimony. I’m not a member yet, and I’m not telling you to listen to me. Ask your Father about these things, don’t appeal to anyone else but him. Blessings,
Lawrence ( I go to an unaffiliated college (Boston U.) and the class has as its working assumption that religion is a social construct, not any religion presented there.)