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RE: On Apostasy and Q
For LDS there are various kinds of angels, and most of them are also historical persons. Moroni is the son of Mormon, an author-editor-compiler of The Book of Mormon, who is also himself an author-editor-compiler of the Book of Mormon. Moroni lived in the late 4th, early 5th C AD. He returned to the earth, angelically, in the 19C to tutor Joseph Smith and assist him in bringing forth the Book of Mormon.
I couldn't agree more with the point that LDS are unorthodox. That's part of my point about Theo-morphic man: it strikes me as an ever-present idea, even often widely held, but rarely considered "orthodox" or mainstream.
I should think many comic volumes could be written about historical farce as it relates to LDS AND what's "overwhelmingly accepted by scholars of biblical criticism." It might even be a close tie on who is more farcical. Mormonism as I understand it (and Omni-nerd, too) aims precisely to never let only trained people "who can read the original texts in their original languages" have a monopoly on interpretation.
Still, you're right, scholarship (perhaps even the Q invention) does help combat wrong-headed ideas, pig-headed ones too. It may be true that liberal churches should spend more time talking about source-hypotheses and that would undoubtedly clear up much misunderstanding about biblical origins. Having said that, the LDS are an interesting case for precisely the example you have raised: most LDS I know think the Bible has undergone purely human motivated editing, was compiled from many sources, AND they think Adam and Eve or Noah stories are literal truths ( - "literal" as in historical; what is historical is rarely literal . . .).
I suspect Q gets little play because it's not often clearly explained, accurately used according to its own precepts, clearly interpreted, and it does quite little for the average reader of the Bible that cannot be done by generically explaining the value of source-hypotheses . . . or maybe I'm missing something . . .
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RE: On Apostasy and Q
Indeed, Moroni lived 400 years after the death of NT apostles . . .
Ok. I'm confused. I thought Moroni was supposed to be an angel.
which, as I remember, makes the way Q is used look like a historical farce.
I wouldn't get too attached to that kind of stuff. First, it's overwhelmingly accepted by the scholars of biblical criticism that the two-source hypothesis (and thus Q) is legitimate. Now, since this directly implies that some (more conservative) interpretations of the bible's origins are quite probably wrong, it's a foregone conclusion that you'll have a ready-made source of nay-sayers.
It's true that extracting the "real" history and intent of these documents is complicated and there's much ambiguity, and that's exactly what these nay-sayers rely on in their dismissal of the parts they don't like, such as the Jesus Seminar's conclusion that Jesus was an itinerant "wisdom sage" who never rose from the dead. But what they always neglect to mention is that the exact same charges apply to their own interpretations of the whole thing.
The Jesus Seminar folks don't claim that their interpretation is based on "revelation". LDS, on the other hand, makes claims that are easily as unorthodox (Jesus appears to the Indians), claims they're "revealed" truth, and dismisses other interpretations as part of the "great apostasy". From this side of the fence, it looks like you're all engaging in "historical farce".
Because there's so much ambiguity, you'll always end up with arguments on both sides. The best thing we can really do is to let people who have the training to evaluate these things do it. And by that, I mean people who can read the original texts in their original languages, people who have spent a significant time studying the relevant historical periods.
I'm not saying Akenson's conclusions are wrong. I'm saying that he's making them in a context in which it's not difficult to spin the information a lot of different ways. Earl Doherty's conclusions in The Jesus Puzzle are quite credible, IMO, and he's very much in favor of Q.
Let's not forget Q is an invention, perhaps a helpful and useful one, but only if we don't forget its an invention.
That's kind of my point. Q is a very useful invention, that was created to help "sort the wheat from the chaff" in the gospels. So why, even in liberal churches, is it given so little attention? The only people who even know about it are the scholars and the occasional layman who's taken an interest in the matter.
It seems like there ought to be more discussion (again, at least in liberal churches) of what parts of scripture are reliable, and what parts are probably later accretions. To me, it seems like it's absence smacks of fear. Fear that by admitting that the bible isn't 100% pure, then people won't believe any of it.
But thinking that the bible hasn't undergone some purely human motivated editing is the same kind of wrong-headed gullibility that leads to believing that the Adam and Eve or Noah stories are literal truths.
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