User:Joe Spencer
From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.
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Where did I come from?
I live in Western Oregon with my wife, my five-year-old daughter, my two-year-old son, and my coming-up-on-one-year-old son. I should be finishing up a master's in library science at San Jose State University (online) sometime in 2009 (timing will depend on my thesis committee). I received my bachelors of arts from BYU in philosophy in 2004. I presently serve in the elders quorum presidency in my ward and teach early morning seminary (though my seminary lessons used to be podcasted, they are no longer available online). The remainder of my time is given primarily to research and writing, all of which centers on Mormon theology. Since 2008, I have been a member of the executive board of the Mormon Theology Seminar (see [1]).
Why am I here?
My interest in the wiki is two-fold. First, and most important, I understand the wiki to be a community: I enjoy communing here with consecrated folks who are trying to think the scriptures together. Second, it has become a sounding board for texts/topics I am studying in my personal scripture study (I even find myself doing commentary here for my study sometimes... most times). I always welcome responses, and I hope that others will edit anything I contribute for the better. Long live this project!
Where am I going?
I'm currently involved in working out a commentary on Mosiah 2:23-24 in a probject with RobertC. And I hope sometime soon to start working carefully through every explicit reference to writing in the Book of Mormon. Other projects will likely distract me.
A further note
I have added a number of user subpages--contrary to my own frustrations with user subpages--for the following reason: I want to tie some of my poetry to the commentary. I've wrestled with whether or not to do this, but I think that, in the end, it is a good idea. I hope this isn't megalomania. Ultimately, my reason for doing this is because some of the more difficult texts in scripture can best be handled poetically, through the more abundant logic of love that results in poetry rather than through the too often constrictive logic of rational theology. Anyway, here they are, named by the title of the poem (the scriptures these poems address are listed at the bottom of the poem on the subpage): /seven thunders, /coveting: Negative Dialektik: OFFERENTIA PASTORIS, /aher aruhah aher, /a song of (within) songs: Psalm 54, /eucharistic vision, /facsimile no. 1: un-scene, /hineni shalachni, /to those of the church, /Now abideth..., /Jude: unwritten semi-chorus, /who is like God, /By way of introduction: t(h/r)e(o/mb)l(o/in)g(y/), /(a quaint, but curious) volume of forgotten lore, /Alma 36, a proslogion, /Lordly, /Opening the Book of Mormon: 1 Nephi 20:1, /(This,) the face of my father: Peniel, /given Place to be made Holy, /at the western wall, /Sonnet: 86, /grace, /medical (alchemical) translation (decimation): umbilical granuloma, /Pentecost, /Atlas/Sychar, /Hymn, /, (little horn of oil), /Primordial Strife Supplanted (or, Self-Consciousness).
Joseph's "Before 8 August 1839" Discourse
Because I've come more and more to be convinced that this discourse, given by the Prophet Joseph, is perhaps the most important sermon he ever gave (for understanding both how Joseph understood of his revelations and translations and how Joseph interpreted the Bible), I've decided to make a subpage of it here. I have left it completely in the original format, with all the spelling errors, etc., as it is found in Willard Richards' Pocketbook Companion (a notebook in which several of the early Brethren wrote minutes, notes from sermons, etc.). This was apparently the only record of the sermon (if it indeed was a sermon, and not something less formal).
The Four Mormon Discourses
In May I will be delivering a paper on the four Mormon discourses at the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities conference in Virginia. Adam Miller and I are also doing a series of podcasts about the ideas I work out in this paper. (These discussions can be heard at [2].) So that those listening to the discussions can get access to the paper and perhaps especially to the mathemes of the four discourses, I am posting them here. The paper can be accessed by clicking the following link: /Four Discourses. The mathemes can be accessed by clicking this link: /Mathemes.
