Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Mormons again

An appreciative article about the LDS faith from a non-Mormon professor of religion who considers them "obsessed" with Christ, though not a Christian religion.

One thing he does not mention is that current Mormon theology identifies Jesus Christ with the God of the Old Testament: Yhwh, or as he is oddly but widely known, Jehovah*. All other Christians read the Old Testament as the voice of the Father. For the Latter Day Saints, it is Christ who gives the Ten Commandments, etc. etc. The god they call "Heavenly Father" is not Yhweh, but Elohim. So although their theology put them outside of historical Christianity --the article calls them both more than and less than Christian-- their Christ plays a huge role in the Bible, both in Old and New Testaments.

However, they never pray to Christ, only to Heavenly Father.

*Trivia: in Hebrew, the Divine Name consists of four letters, transliterated as YHWH. Originally written without the vowel marks that later came into Hebrew (as they also later did in Arabic, a sister language). Since pronouncing this name was forbidden, whenever it appeared in a text, the speaker substituted the Hebrew word for "lord", Adonai. The vowel markings for this word gave the sounds A O A.  The YHWH came to be written with the vowel markings for Adonai...which sort of gives you Yehova. At least that's the dominant theory.

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