Paul McNabb's Religion Resources
I run across a number of papers and resources that are useful when
talking about religion. Listed below are things I've found useful
or interesting. Very little here is original to me.
CONTENTS
- Bible Resources
- LDS Resources
- Other Resources
- Sola Scriptura Resources
- Interesting Sites
- Miscellaneous Posts
- Apologetic Links
- LDS Blogs
Bible Resources
- The Greek New Testament Gateway
- Lots of resources for dealing with the New Testament in Greek.
- English Bible Versions
- A nearly complete list of all English translations of the Bible with links
to both the versions themselves but also explanatory information for them.
It also has general information about Bible translations and versions.
- Olive Tree
- This a site with about a dozen different Bible versions, all searchable.
- StudyLight
- Here is a place to search many versions of the Bible, but not at the same time.
- New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
- This is the Jehovah's Witnesses' NWT online.
- Virtual Christianity: Bibles
- This site has a huge list of English and non-English Bibles. It also has lots of pointers to other Bible studey resources.
- Chapters and Verses of the Bible
- This site shows a breakdown of Bible books and chapters, showing how
many verses are in each.
- Skeptics Annotated Bible
- This site has the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Koran "annotated" to
show violence, inconsistencies, errors, etc. A lot of it is strained, but
there is some good information here.
- Odd Bible Versions
- This site is basically a KJV-only site, but they give a lot of examples
of various "Bible perversions" that are interesting.
- KJV Only Refutation
- This is a site with a pretty good response to the KJV-only folks.
- KJV Changes
- This is a list of the changes between the 1611 KJV and the 1769 Oxford KJV.
- New Testament Manuscripts
- Here is a list of New Testament manuscripts, showing dates and content.
- Archaic KJV Words
- This has a list of some archaic words. They've left out some, such as
"let" from 2 Thessalonians 2:7.
- KJV Reading Quiz
- Here are some verses to test whether you really understand 100% of the
King James Version.
- The following is a neat chart showing different Bible translations.
LDS Resources
- LDS Scriptures
- Searchable LDS scriptures on lds.org.
- LDS General Conference Scripture Index
- This site allows you to search, select, and analyze all of the scriptural
references used in all General Conference talks from 1942 to the present.
- The Journal of Discourses
- This site has the complete JD online in a wiki format.
- Encyclopedia of Mormonism
- Here is the entire EoM online. The entire site consists of pdfs of the
pages, so it isn't super easy to navigate. But if you know what article
you want, it is a great resource.
- Bible Scriptures Relating to Deification
- I've put together some Bible scriptures that talk about the final
blessings and destiny of those who are redeemed.
- LDS Statements on
the Father and the Son
- This link has the text of the 1916 statement "THE FATHER AND THE SON:
A Doctrinal Exposition by The First Presidency and The Twelve."
- The
Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints
- This is the link to an authoritative testimony about Christ.
- Mormon Monastery
- This is Ben Spackman's excellent page on all things relating to the temple
as well as other LDS topics.
- The Family: A Proclamation to the World
- This is the 1995 proclamation on the family.
- Who is an anti-Mormon
- This is a little piece I made to define an anti-Mormon. If you
are doing one of the things on my list, don't be surprised if I label you
and your efforts "anti-Mormon."
- An Experience with Gordon B. Hinckley
- Here is a brief story of an experience I had with Gordon B. Hinckley.
- Thoughts on temple weddings and non-member friends and family
- Here is a short discussion of some things relating to temple weddings and the issue of non-member friends and family being unable to attend.
- Absurdities of Prayer in the Metaphysical Absolute
- This is a PDF of Blake Ostler's paper that appeared in BYU's Inscape student journal (Fall-Winter 1983: 24-38).
It is a great discussion of why the orthodox Christian view of a God of absolutes breaks down.
- The Book of Mormon (1830 edition)
- This is where you can read the original Book of Mormon.
The photocopies of the pages are quite readable.
- Champaign Illinois Stake Miscellany
- I have some various materials that may be of interest to members of the Champaign Illinois Stake.
Other Resources
Here are some other good sites pertaining to religion, but I wouldn't
classify them as "Bible" or "LDS."
- Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Here are lots of great documents: ECF, hymnary, etc.
- Translate2012.org
- This Christian site has a bunch of resources, some Bible related
(e.g., Luther Bible) and some other (e.g., The Complete Works of John
Wesley).
- Greek Fonts
- This is Eric Pement's Greek font page. I particularly like TekniaGreek.
- Perseus Digital Library
- This is the Tufts University Perseus site. It is a huge library of
ancient, medieval, renaisance, and other texts, in the original languages
and in various translations (mostly English). You can switch between
languages and look up words by clicking on them. Great site!
- Westcott and Hort New Testament
- This is on the Perseus Digital Library. It's a great place to look up
the Greek text.
- Creeds, Confessions of Faith, Sermons, and other notable documents
- This site has the major creeds (e.g., Nicene, Athanasian), Confessions
(e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, Chicago Statement on Biblical
Inerrancy), and many other writings (e.g., Luther's 95 Theses, "Sinners
in the Hand of an Angry God").
- Creeds of Christendom
- This site has a large collection of creeds from various Christian
sects and denominations.
Sola Scriptura Resources
I've been interested in the idea of sola scriptura for a long time.
There are lots of online resources about sola scriptura, but many
of them are just rehashes of each other.
Here are some resources that I consider to be above average.
The + means that the link defends sola scriptura,
the &ndash means that the link refutes sola scriptura.
- &ndashSola Scriptura, In the Vanity of Their Minds
- This article refuting sola scriptura is by Fr. John Whiteford,
a former Protestant pastor who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.
- &ndashDid the Church Fathers Believe in Sola Scriptura
- This article by Joseph Gallegos refutes William Websters paper (see below).
- &ndashScott Windsor answers James White on the topic of Sola Scriptura
- This is Scott Windsor's rebuttal to James White's defense of
sola scriptura in White's book The Roman Catholic Controversy.
- &ndashReply to
Jason Engwer's "Catholic But Not Roman Catholic"
- Dave Armstrong takes a detailed look at early Christian statements that
are often cited to support sola scriptura.
- +
A Critique of the Evangelical Doctrine of Solo Scriptura
- This paper by Keith Mathison argues against the idea of
"solo scriptura",
where people accept the Bible as the only authority rather as the
only infallible authority.
- +&ndashDoes The Bible Teach Sola Scriptura?
- This is a debate between James White (affirmative) and Patrick Madrid
(negative) on September 28, 1993. My opinion is that Madrid won this debate,
though White must think it was a strong showing on his part since he has it
on his website.
- +Sola Scriptura
- This is by A.A. Hodge. "Originally published in 1860, A.A. Hodge's Outlines of Theology is still regarded as a great introduction to classical Protestant theology." This is a defense of sola scriptura.
- +Sola Scriptura and the Early Church
- This essay by William Webster attempts to defend sola scriptura
using, among others, an appeal to the Early Church Fathers.
- +The Authority of Scripture
- This essay, also by William Webster, focuses on defending
sola scriptura primarily by an appeal to the scriptures themselves.
- +What did the Early Church believe about the authority of Scripture
- Here is another essay by William Webster. Here he pulls together what he
considers evidence of sola scriptura in the early Christian Church.
- +A Defense of "Sola Scriptura"
- This is an analysis of the arguments used against sola scriptura
by James Kiefer.
- +God-Insprired Scripture
- This paper by B.B. Warfield is an in-depth analysis of the "God-breathed"
phrase of 2 Timothy 3:16, the primary text used to defend sola scriptura.
Warning: this is poorly formated, almost one giant paragraph, so be prepared
to suffer.
Intesting Sites
I run into sites and articles all the time that are interesting.
Here are some that you may want to look at.
- Craig/Ehrman debate on the historicity of the Resurrection
- "On March 28, 2006, Dr. Craig, Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California, and Dr. Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, debated the status of the Christian claim to Jesus' resurrection from the perspective of historical data. The debate was sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and the Campus Christian Fellowship."
This will direct you to the 38 page pdf file of the debate transcript.
Miscellaneous Posts
I am active on a number of message boards.
Sometimes I have conversations with people that get repeated again and again.
I've grabbed a few of those conversations because I think the content might
be interesting to other people and I wanted to keep them around for later use.
Although all of these appeared on various message boards, I have taken
the liberty of compressing some posts into single messages and fixing
some spelling errors.
- Early Christian Environment
- A person asked for some information about influences on the early
Christian Church. I thought this list might come in handy again.
- What Is a Christian? Part 1.
- This is a conversation I had about being a Christian.
- What Is a Christian? Part 2.
- This is another conversation I had about being a Christian. This is the
one with the "Tribunal."
- Does the Bible say not to interpret prophesy?
- Many people use 2 Peter 1:20-21 to club their opponents into submission
by claiming that the other guy is just "privately interpretting" scripture.
But is this what Peter is really saying?
Apologetic Links
Here are some interesting links to LDS apologetic resources.
- Official LDS Website
- Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR)
- FAIR Wiki
- Mike Ash's Mormon Fortress
- Jeff Lindsay's Religion Pages
- Lightplanet.com
- The Cumorah Project
- Joseph Smith website (official LDS)
- Barry Bickmore's Book of Abraham Links
- Barry Bickmore's Early Christianity and Mormonism Page
- blacklds.org
- Wade Englund's Apologetics
- Scholarly & Historical Information Exchange for Latter-day Saints (SHIELDS)
- Kerry Shirts's Mormonism Researched
- My Egyptology
- John Tvedtnes's Book of Mormon Research
- Michael T. Griffith's LDS Information Web Page
- Elden Watson's Home Page
- Gerald Smith's LDS Evidences Home Page
- Moroni's Latter-day Saint's Page
- The-Book-of-Mormon.com
LDS Blogs
Here are links to LDS blogs.
- FAIR Blog
- Focused on defending Mormonism.
- By Common Consent
- Lots of good bloggers, including Kevin Barney.
- Times and Seasons
- Another top-notch blog site.