"The Gospel is True; The Culture is Not"

Too many terrible cultural norms to ignore.

Part of the Sunday School lesson this past week was about how Elijah restored the sealing power to the earth. I couldn't find that in the scriptures- can you? (I found a bunch of scriptures about Elijah turning hearts and binding stuff, though.)

After a few minutes of research into the Hebrew origins of the words, I came to the conclusion that bind and seal are two very different things. And I was careless enough to voice my findings in class. Bad idea. Apparently, Sunday School does not tolerate disagreement. A young, well-meaning woman told me that, in the bible Dictionary, the meanings are the same. I said, "There's a lot of inaccuracies in the Bible Dictionary." She says that the Bible Dictionary is true; it was written by the prophet. I said, "No it wasn't". Her young, well-meaning husband steps in and says that the Bible Dictionary is part of the Standard works and, as such, considered scripture. I said, "No, its not". He told me that saying that the Bible Dictionary isn't scripture is apostasy.

Their ignorance is adorable

 Oddly enough, I feel proud of myself for being called an apostate by this blissfully ignorant, young, well-meaning couple.

Just another day in my life.

Robert Matthews: look him up

By the way, Robert Matthews is largely responsible for the LDS version of the Bible Dictionary, not
Thomas S. Monson. Not even the Bible Dictionary itself claims to be scripture: "This dictionary is provided to help your study of the scriptures and is not intended as an official statement of Church doctrine or an endorsement of the historical and cultural views set forth."


Just sayin...