Reread Dialogue Article on Talmage and Postmodernism

[Archaea]

The article contained within this version, http://www.dialoguejournal.com/store/?id=199 ,

Modernism and Mormonism: James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ and Early Twentieth-Century Mormon Responses to Biblical Criticism, by Clyde D. Ford, pg. 96, is interesting in many respects.

It showed that Dr. Talmage was familiar with the arguments of higher and lower Biblical criticism, as well as the arguments of "believing" Christians when he cited to sources of non-Mormon authors such as Farrar.

In contrast to Talmage who was requested to write Jesus the Christ, what some call a Mormoninzation of Farrar's work, McConkie once again took it upon himself to write the Messiah series. And not surprisingly, McConkie's work represents a regression in terms of accepting the work of nonMormon scholars. Apparenly, McConkie was dismissive of some of Talmage's work even though in most respects it appears Talmage was more familiar with then current scholarship and possessed my scholarly skills than McConkie.

It actually saddened me that McConkie represents an academic regression in terms of Mormonism as compared with the hopeful works of Widtsoe and Talmage.