May 9, 2018 Show with Latayne C. Scott on “Leaving Mormonism: Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds” AND “A Conspiracy of Breath”

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this ninth day of May 2018 and I'm glad that the technical difficulties we were experiencing that looked like they were going to prevent us from going on the air today were finally resolved by the grace and mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ and thanks also to the prayer of my guest Dr. Latane C.

Scott. I'm so delighted to have back on the program Dr. Scott. She is a

Mormon convert to Christianity, the author of over 16 published books including her classic work

The Mormon Mirage. A former member looks at the Mormon church today. She is a recipient of the

Distinguished Christian Service Award by Pepperdine University and award -winning poet and she's going to be addressing her latest book co -authored with several other former

Mormons Leaving Mormonism Why Four Scholars Changed Their Minds and in our second hour today we're going to be discussing her new novel

A Conspiracy of Breath and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Dr.

Latane C. Scott. Thank you. I am thrilled to be here. I am thrilled to have you back and if anybody would like to join us on the air of the first hour with a question on Mormonism our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter let's say you are a

Mormon and you have you're starting to question your your faith and you don't want to draw attention to your identity

I can understand that something similar to that if it's a personal and private matter then please feel free to write in anonymously but other than that please at least give us your first name city and state and country of residence and Latane you have been on this program a number of times but for those of our listeners who have never heard you on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio before if you could give a summary of your conversion to Mormonism and then your leaving

Mormonism to embrace the true Jesus Christ and the true gospel of holy scripture well

Chris I became a Mormon in the way that many people become Mormons my dad had met some missionaries and he invited them to our home and they presented the missionary lessons elder

Cronin and elder I can't even remember the name of the other elder but they very patiently went through what they had at that time was a flip chart and I thought this was just the greatest thing ever because I was troubled by the thought that people who had never heard the gospel would be given a second chance after death that was great

I was very interested in Native Americans so finding out that the book of Mormon was supposed to be a record of the ancient

Americans that was right up my alley and plus I had a very tumultuous home life violence mental illness a lot of other things going on so the

Mormon church was like a rescue to me and I became a Mormon at age 11 and attended church faithfully and loved

Mormon doctrine loved the Mormon lifestyle and I have been a writer my whole life and I won writing scholarships to Brigham Young University and attended

BYU on scholarship and worked for church publications there on the campus just was just a gloriously happy contented fulfilled

Mormon and I came back to Albuquerque New Mexico my hometown for work during the summer between my junior and senior years at BYU and my mom who had never been a

Mormon was working at a place and there was a young man who worked there also and she wanted to introduce me to him and I was not at least been interested because he wasn't

Mormon I was actually waiting for a Mormon missionary who was on his mission to Germany and this

Mormon missionary Bruce Porter later became a general authority of the Mormon church which is the highest echelon of leadership in the

Mormon church but anyway I was waiting for him so I wasn't interested in this young man my mother wanted me to meet but we kind of accidentally met and agreed to just go out for fun for the summer but he began to challenge my

Mormon beliefs in a way that I thought I could certainly rise to the occasion because I had been a resident assistant in a dorm at BYU had had non -Mormon girls in my dorm that I had taught or helped teach and they had become

Mormon I had no no doubt that I could convert this young man to Mormonism and that then when my missionary came back

I'd get married in the temple and have the Mormon life that my patriarchal blessing promised me that I would have and that this this conflict of ideas during that summer of 1973 was horrific it it made me sick physically ill to contemplate the possibility that this lifestyle that I love so much this heritage this this beautiful way of life and this complete access to information through living prophets all of that to think that that might not be true was just more than I could hardly bear and so I went back to BYU because I just lacked a few hours uh finishing my undergrad degree at BYU and when

I got back there I thought nobody would notice that I was not the same enthusiastic Mormon I'd been before of course that didn't last very long and I only stayed there a couple of weeks

I guess and I came back to Albuquerque I made a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ the true and living

Lord Jesus Christ in September of 1973 and was baptized that was as much a capitulation to a conquering entity as it was a profession of full trust in him because I tell people once you've been burned by a religion it is very very difficult to trust a deity again once you found out the

God you've served for your most of your conscious life is does not exist you're not anxious to get in a relationship with another

God and of course the God of Mormonism and the God of the Bible are very very different they have points of conjoined history so to speak but they're not the same person and this this was a as much a surrender on my part as it was a joyful joining with another group of religious people and I was weird

I admit it I was weird the church that I became affiliated with is the same church that I attend today 45 years later and the people have been loving understanding and welcoming to me when

I was just played weird well uh join the club and I wouldn't

I wouldn't categorize myself in the past tense that way well well there you go now were you were you dr latine c scott when while you were still a mormon or did your doctorate come about after you had left mormonism oh no

I didn't get my doctorate until I was in my late 40s early 50s I got a master's degree in biblical studies and my phd is in biblical studies from trinity southwest university here in albuquerque which is very well known for dr stephen collins who is the man who is currently excavating in jordan the hashemite kingdom of jordan the site of the biblical sodom and he and I wrote a book together discovering the city of sodom which was published by howard simon and schuster about six years ago but it's through his institution that I gained my master's degree phd and I am

I'm very very proud to be affiliated with that time that educational entity yes

I've as you know interviewed dr collins uh at least two times and it was fascinating to have him on the program

I was utterly amazed recently to be speaking with someone in his late 20s who had no idea what sodom and gomorrah was

I was taken aback I was taken aback by that and the reason why it even came up in conversation is

I went with this person this friend of mine and his family to see the new avengers movie and one of the heroes in this movie is a female character is named

Gomorrah and you have to wonder why they would choose a name like that for a hero in the in the movie but when

I said uh I find it strange that they would name that character Gomorrah and he said why

I said well haven't you ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah and he said no so I had an opportunity to explain what

Sodom and Gomorrah was wow but uh as far as being a mormon and specifically the book leaving mormonism why four scholars change their minds what would be some of those areas of mormonism that once one becomes more literate in the bible and perhaps even history and perhaps even archaeology speaking of dr

Stephen Collins uh what would be the the major things that would that should make a person say to themselves this church this mormon church cannot be true christianity and it in fact uh has clearly made up things where its leaders from especially from the past like joseph smith and brigham young have actually invented things that are historically not even real not even true if you could give us some of those things i can answer that in a one word sentence ready yep internet it uh uh in fact i document in the mormon mirage how the mormon church in japan was a fairly well established stable uh group of wards or congregations in japan and once the people japanese people gained access to the internet and started reading um the documentation of things that are so contrary to what the mormon church has taught about itself for instance up until just recently the mormon church has insisted that joseph smith was married to his wife emma and emma only while everybody that has done anything in history knows that he was married multiple times many times to uh underage women and many times to women who were currently married to living men and so once these uh poor bewildered people in japan saw things like that and that's just an example of some of the things that are easily accessed on the internet which were not available you know widely available in the past the mormon church suffered great losses in japan and i think that access to documentation and information on the internet has been probably in my opinion the single most damaging or debilitating element to the mormon church and well if you could i know that for instance some of the claims of mormonism that delve into archaeology well i should say that that delve into an ancient history of the americas that when one delves into the archaeology there is clearly not any evidence that some of these peoples and lands and tribes and so on ever existed in the american north american continent well there are you know i spent my my youth my dad was an engineer on the san jose railroad and we traveled all over mexico and i've climbed every major pyramid in mexico thinking oh these are my lamanite brethren that built this you know but in order for uh something uh an archaeological find in the americas to fit the book of mormon narrative they would have to uh by by archaeological standards they would have to fit in the time frame of the book of mormon that's 2200 bc to ad 425 most of them don't most of them happened after that um if artwork would have to you'd have to find some um indication of artwork that's not totally pagan and all the artwork that i know of you know is is that of fantastic monsters and um winged serpents you know that sort of thing um and uh not that of course i'm not saying that because the jews were not known for their artwork and the and christians were early christians were not known for their artwork that a culture shouldn't be dominated by pagan artwork if it is a christian culture she's going to them um they must have had at least a few metal coins and because the book of mormon mentions um a piece like a pieces of eight and that's in alma chapter 11 you'd think that during the times alma which was 82 bc or so that you would have found some coins there's none of that you would expect to find evidence of reformed egyptian in which part of the book of mormon was written you'd have you expect to see within this time frame sheep cattle horses domesticated animals chariots that are mentioned in there in there smelted iron not meteoric iron but smelted iron used in the in the many weapons mentioned in the book of mormon and or anything that reflected a jewish -based culture which the uh book of mormon claims that early uh americans at least some of them had and none of that has been found none of that and what are the odds of uh having worked with dr stephen collins an archaeologist what are the odds of nothing being found from civilizations that have been claimed to have thrived for so long right here on the north american continent well you know you can go over to israel or jordan as i have and uh find you know thousands of artifacts that have been certified by the israeli government or the uh the jordanian government for sale that fit descriptions in the bible for instance oil lamps like the the small lamps that the convergence had that we didn't hold very much oil i actually own one of those because i an ordinary citizen could could buy one of those because there's so many of them nothing extraordinary about that they're everywhere whereas these things that are that are coming out of the dirt in the united states and in mexico central america south america these things the things that are coming out of there do not reflect anything in the book of mormon and so and believe me mormon archaeologists have been looking real hard to try to find that and there's just no evidence of the kind of culture that is mentioned in the book of mormon just doesn't it's just not here now i'm willing to concede that perhaps it's still hidden and like some delight things that might seem to support the book of mormon but to this point mormons and i would agree that there is nothing anywhere approaching on the scale of what we find in israel and jordan and other places in the in the near east to reflect the cultures that we have in the bible in the same way that they would find something in the americas that would reflect the culture of the book of mormon now we've also as you know reached a an age uh in modern medicine that involves dna and things like that and i have heard that there have been some or at least one for certain former mormon who was a scientist and one of the things that caused him to question seriously the author sent office what's that i can't even speak today authenticity and integrity of his religion uh was the fact that the claim that the native americans were really uh among the lost tribes of israel and the dna for semitic people from israel there's nothing in common with native americans am i right on this you're speaking of the research of simon sutherland dr simon sutherland yeah and he was a mormon when he started his research and um the book of mormon depicts three separate migrations to the new world from what we would call the holy lands and so uh there's no of course they allow mormons would allow for the possibility they intermarried with some indigenous people here but the fact is as simon sutherland has demonstrated that in native americans there is no dna vestiges or not a significant amount of dna vestiges of semitic people in native american blood now when i was a mormon growing up here in albuquerque new uh we called uh all native americans laymanites there was a singing group that byu made up of native american singers they were called the laymanite generation the laymanite was one of the major tribes supposedly in the book of mormon and who had their skin turned dark because of their disobedience and of course another issue is that the modern mormon churches actually changed the wording of the book of mormon they used to say that they were dark into something different but anyway that was my understanding and the understanding of every mormon i knew in my childhood and my youth we have brandon from franklinton north carolina he says i will be doing a presentation on mormonism at two churches in my area later this summer i've just finished quite a bit of study on the mormon doctrine of life after death i'm amazed by some of the things i'm learning i want to be sure my presentation has practical application for the listeners and their interactions with mormons could you ask dr scott to give me the one thing i need to be sure to include and emphasize in the presentation what's the one thing my listeners will need to take home with them i am assuming that his audience is going to be christians and not mormons and so i'm going to i'm going to answer the question on that assumption what is the one thing that a christian would need to know about the mormon doctrine of what happens to someone after death that they need to know and that is that mormons treasure the thought of an afterlife in which people who have not heard the mormon gospel get a second chance to do so to either accept it or reject it and that the mormons expect in the afterlife expect and joyfully look forward to being in a in the top part of a three -tiered heaven where they themselves will become gods and goddesses this is in the doctrine of covenants this is straight doctrine this is nothing strange or weird uh it's in the doctrine of covenants and it's also in all of the temple rituals in which uh mormons participate with the anticipation of becoming gods and goddesses well thank you brandon and i hope that uh your presentations are quite successful in enlightening your your audience and equipping them to lead mormons out of their false religion and please make sure we have your your full mailing address there in franklinton north carolina so that cvbbs .com

cumberland valley bible book service can ship you out a free copy of leaving mormonism why for scholars changed their minds and now i am going to say something that i have i don't think i've ever said to a listener submitting a question there is no way no how i will ever ever ever send you a free copy of the book we are discussing the reason why i'm saying this is that it's one of the co -authors of the book oh it's uh dr lynn k wilder and she obviously has a copy of the book that's why i made that little joke there but uh lynn uh k dr lynn k wilder who i've had on this program and i look forward to having her back on and having her husband back on and having uh the the folks from adams road the musical group on the program uh i know her son at least one of her sons one of her children is a part of that group but lynn uh she says submitted a number of questions actually i have loved using latane's book the hinge of your history phases of faith to mentor college age believers in jesus can you tell us about these phases of faith you delineate in this book and which phase do you see your own faith in and in which phase do you see your own faith and why oh well what a what a wonderful um affirmation of that book and i appreciate that so much uh the hinge of your history uh is a book that delineates that biblical faith happens in three phases the first phase one is a promise or commandment from god and inevitably follows a period of contradiction in which it seems impossible that that promise could be fulfilled or that the uh the commandment can be followed because the circumstances just seem to completely contradict it and then god himself brings a resolution and i just mentioned to chris as we were trying to get this program set up his uh his recording equipment his uh his technical equipment in the studio would not work and i he says i don't know why this has happened it's never happened before and i told him i i people i love around me for the last two weeks have been under satanic attack and i it didn't surprise me at all that he thought he might have to cancel this program because god gives us promises and he gives us commandments but then things happen that seem to make it impossible that those things can be fulfilled or that we can follow through on what god wants us to do so um lynn thank you so much for that affirmation of that book which has helped so many people i really appreciate it and by the way uh latane can you mention anything i mean obviously this you don't have to share any details you don't want to share but can you tell why you think this is happening this satanic attack i puzzled about that because i personally things in my personal life for me are going about as well as they've done in quite a long time i've had some health issues they're resolving i am um i am secure and happy where i live i my ministry is going great guns i am just at the cusp of signing a contract for a new book with a major publisher thrilled about that other things are going so well but all around me everybody that's close to me is under some sort of attack just crazy things um uh that uh like a uh studio equipment suddenly stops working so um that it it is a great uh comfort to me to know that if i can be faithful and if anyone who is in a period of contradiction right now and i'm saying this to any of your listeners if you have promises from god that he will be that jesus christ will be with you if you have affirmation that he has called you to a ministry whatever it is if you're in a period of contradiction this is natural to faith this is what happened to abraham he he uh got all these promises from god and yet it seems more and more impossible that they could ever be fulfilled every year that passed made it less likely his sterility ferris sterility made it more and more unlikely and indeed even impossible with a dead womb to be able to do that but god is the god of miracles and if he makes promises if he gives callings like in the in the call of jeremiah he says it does not matter what you can or can't do because i will enable you and i want to i know there's somebody i mean this is a condition common to me to men and women i know that there must be somebody who needed to hear that lesson today that god himself resolves contradictions if we can just be faithful in the middle of them great and uh we are going to our first break right now and we do have a couple of more questions from dr lynn k wilder that actually uh are related to our discussion on leaving mormonism and then we will also later on in our second hour ask her question on a conspiracy of breath your novel but we do also have other listeners waiting for their questions to be asked and answered as well so uh if you'd like to join them and get in line our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

chris arnzen at gmail .com please give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa don't go away god willing we'll be right back with dr latine c scott right after these messages with more of leaving mormonism why four scholars changed their minds iron sharpens iron welcomes solid rock remodeling to our family of sponsors serving south central pennsylvania solid rock remodeling is focused on discovering understanding and exceeding your expectations they deliver personalized project solutions with exceptional results solid rock remodeling offers a full range of home renovations including kitchen and bath remodeling decks porches windows and doors roof and siding and more for a clear detailed professional estimate call this trustworthy team of problem solvers who provide superior results that stand the test of time call solid rock remodeling at 717 -697 -1981 717 -697 -1981 or visit solid rock remodeling .com

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scott a mormon convert to christianity author of over 16 published books including her classic work the mormon mirage a former member looks at the mormon church today she's also a recipient of the distinguished christian service award by pepperdine university she's an award -winning poet and she's addressing during this first hour her latest book co -authored with several other former mormons leaving mormonism why four scholars changed their minds during the second hour we will be addressing her new novel a conspiracy of breath and going back to uh dr lynn k wilder who co -authored leaving mormonism with you she asks in the book leaving mormonism you address the topic of your dissertation what are the basics of representational research um i would like to to kind of give some background about the other authors uh dr wilder was a tenured professor at brigham young university at the time that her son micah who founded the group adams road was on his mission and began reading the bible like a child began seeing that what he was teaching on his mormon mission could not possibly sync with the teachings of the new testament and he contacted his parents who were horrified his dad was a high priest his mom's a professor at byu and he micah contacts them and says i am coming home from my mission he stood up in front of all of his missionary colleagues and said i you know i can't do this anymore you have to read the bible for for itself with i don't remember exactly how he put it but his message to them was the bible is enough and jesus is enough and uh that lynn and her husband began investigating the things that they knew about mormonism and comparing it with biblical teachings and lynn's background is uh in um i'm gonna call it social worksheet uh her her expertise at byu led her to to contribute in this book to a very insightful look at the social ramifications of the mormon doctrine on people and her chapter is social consequences of mormon teachings finding post -mormon mental health uh another colleague on in this book dr corey miller was a lifetime mormon unlike lynn and i who were converted to mormonism he was a lifetime mormon and he found his way out and is now the head of a very influential and i think terrific organization called racial christy which helps believers on college campuses be able to defend their faith at an academic level and then uh dr vince eccles is a uh a scientist a research scientist who came from a likely miller a very long heritage i mean a generations and generations of uh mormon heritage in utah and he left the mormon church he and his wife became members of an evangelical church and then he suffered his own crisis his second crisis of faith in trying to really get to the bottom of what he believed christianity was and so we have we have all four of us who are very unique in that we all have earned doctorates we all were faithful mormons and we all left mormonism and are using the subject matter of our doctoral research to talk to christians about mormonism on a level where it's not really ever been discussed before lynn's question was my education is on representational research and representational research has two main points and and the first point is that the representations of god the mind of god is represented in the bible so that we can access the way he thinks about things and that is always in contrast to the natural inclinations of the human mind and therefore the bible always has to be the agent that looks at the human mind as a patient not the human mind analyzing the bible and its second emphasis of representational research is that the the incidences and teachings in the bible can be used to generalize to form generalizations that are timeless and applicable to any person anytime anywhere or situations we compare them my colleague dr mike strong who i need to to acknowledge was the genius behind the hinge of your history i did not think of that that that concept or give it that terminology but dr strong who is also a the foundational i guess he and dr john all are the foundational scholars of representational research he compares a generalization to something you can take from the bible you can formulate it and take it and put it in your pocket and take it out and use it so as far from being pie in the sky representational research is extremely practical i use the teachings of representational research to in this book to show the difference because a a language or concepts have three elements a fact and a representation and then whatever links them to show the difference between a fiction an error a lie and the truth and to examine in this book what whether or not uh mormons can look at their own view of their own doctrine and determine whether or not they are involved in truth fiction error or a lie well uh thank you lynn we'll get back to your other question about a conspiracy of breath god willing in the second hour when we are talking about that novel by our guest dr latane c scott oh wait a minute there's one more question that involves mormonism here from dr lynn k wilder how does the mormon concept of truth differ from the biblical concept of truth um well uh the mormon concept of truth is constantly changing it's always being amended it can always be updated uh for instance i mentioned that the mormon church actually changed a word of its own scripture to reflect uh what they said was a better understanding well if you go back to joseph smith's account of how he supposedly translated the book of mormon he would uh write or recite a line of uh scripture from god and then if it was not correct he couldn't go on to the next one so every word was supposed to be vetted by god before it ever came out in the book of mormon and so the in also in my chapter in leaving mormonism i give example after example of how the concept of truth is much more fluid in the mormon church than it is with the which is what stood the test of time for the thousands of years it's been out without having to be constantly amended or changed um the for instance another concept of mormonism that perhaps is shared by catholicism too is the the church itself is the guardian of truth and the arbiter of what is truth and the interpreter of scripture in other words in mormonism their scripture is patient and the mormon church is the agent that acts on the patient it's it's what's practical uh it can for a mormon truth does not necessarily have to sync up with human history um it's a layered reality uh it's and probably the most important thing that your listeners need to know is that the bottom line of whether or not a mormon says i believe the church is true is a subjective feeling called a burning in the bosom which is supposed to be a physical confirmation of the truth of mormonism and that really is the bottom line of truth in the mormon church yeah what a uh bizarre and subjective experience that they have to to uh be a litmus test for something uh being from god very strange indeed when a pizza could do that to you i mean well yeah um but thank you lynn and we'll get back to your other question god willing during the second hour we have bobby in hartsdale new york who says i have heard that nothing could be farther from christianity in the realm of religion than the mormon church even though it uses much of the same vocabulary it has a different dictionary what are the four most vital ways in which mormonism disagrees with biblical christianity oh well i've never heard i've never heard someone say that it is the furthest from biblical christianity um that's that's an interesting concept i'm not i'm not really sure that i would would be on board with that because they do share uh they do share concepts but i think what your listener is getting to and he's making a very very good point is that mormons can use the same terminology as a christian and mean something very different and the classic example i give of that was when i was a teenager i was walking around at a fair here in albuquerque and there was a very earnest christian that came up to me and said are you saved and of course to that christian that is the that is the make it or break it most important issue of the human soul are you saved or not and i was just so impatient with that person i in my little mormon uh self said said well of course i'm saved everybody's saved because in mormon doctrine salvation means whether or not you're going to get your body resurrected and except for some very very few exceptions everybody's going to be resurrected so asking someone if you're saved is like asking are you alive what was important to me as a as a mormon was being exalted where i was going to spend eternity and which level of heaven the three levels of heaven and so that was a nonsensical question that the mormon asked me excuse me that the christian asked a mormon so that's uh one example um just the word bible i think has a very different meaning for a christian and a mormon because as a mormon i always believed that the other sources book of mormon the proliferate prize the doctrine of covenants and the teachings of lbs prophets could interpret the bible so it was always subject to interpretation where a christian would say no the bible is the final word it's the authority it's what speaks to our minds we don't go back and revise it or question it because it's the the final word and i think you're you're really wanted four areas um i think um the issue of faith and works for a mormon you are you are you become a mormon your sins are washed away at that point but from that point on where you end up spending eternity is is based on human effort um and an example of that is if you want to be in the highest degree of heaven you have to go to the mormon temple to go to the mormon temple you have to go before a bishop your your local congregational leader and he will in a private closed door session ask you questions about your uh sexual purity uh whether or not you attend meetings regularly whether or not you support the leaders of the mormon church whether or not you keep the health laws of the mormon church not drinking smoking etc and so you cannot get to the highest degree of heaven without being in a temple you can't get to a temple without a temple recommend and you only get a temple recommended if you can answer behavior -based questions most of them are behavior -based which is works which is works and there's a an inordinately high level of suicide and depression among mormon women who cannot keep up with the expectations that they have to be um uh you know active uh productive people keep having children almost until you can't have children anymore because you're supposed to be populating the earth with with bodies for mormon spirits from the eternity to come into and uh the pressure on a mormon mormon is just enormous more than men far more than men i think well one of the reasons why i am very sympathetic towards bobby's statement about there being nothing further from christianity than mormonism that is within the realm of a religion that professes christ is that there seems to be polar opposites in the most vital areas christianity christianity one of the pillars of christianity that would not or should i say if you remove the pillar it would cease to exist as christianity is monotheism and mormonism believes in an infinite number of gods that faithful mormons may become gods and even that very concept of becoming a god of your own planet and as you just mentioned the works righteousness as opposed to being saved by grace it seems that there is an opposite answer to the core questions on which eternal life hinges that mormonism gives you an opposite answer not a similar answer it seems that the only thing that we very often have in common with our mormon friends is not only some of the vocabulary that has different definitions according to them but a basic belief in biblical morals which even that is seemingly rapidly changing in the church of jesus christ the latter -day saints as they become increasingly accepting of homosexuality could you comment on that before we run out of time for our first hour it seems alarming and amazing that a church known for its very conservative points of view on issues of morality and on sex and gender are now becoming very soft and open to the the area of homosexuality if you could comment the mormon church has a history of bowing to cultural pressures on sexual issues and the best example of that is polygamy which was uh said to be an eternal principle without which you could not be exalted to the highest level of heaven back in the 1800s and then because it was illegal and considered immoral in american culture it was supposedly supposedly abandoned although i've known many many many people who consider themselves faithful mormons who grew up in uh in conclaves in in arizona or mexico who practiced and do practice today uh still practice polygamy so sexual issues on changing on sexual issues is not a new posture for the mormon church and although i'm shocked to hear that they are becoming uh that there are it looks like there are movements toward increased acceptance by the official mormon church of homosexual practice they've already made a statement recently that they are are accepting of people with homosexual inclinations and can accept them as brothers and sisters they've not gone to my knowledge over the point of saying that people who have homosexual practices are in full fellowship with the mormon church but i guess i shouldn't be surprised because they can they have changed so many what were presented to me when i was looking for a mormon as eternal ordinances unchangeable things they backed off of so maybe they will on this too in fact i just want to wrap up the subject of mormonism when we return from a break and then we will enter into our new discussion on your novel a conspiracy of breath but if anybody would like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

chris arnson at gmail .com please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter this is the segment of our program which is an elongated break because grace life radio 90 .1

fm in lake city florida requires a 12 minute break between our two major segments so please be patient write down information that our our advertisers provide and also write down questions for our guest letane c scott don't go away god willing we'll be right back after these messages paul wrote to the church at galatia for am i now seeking the approval of man or of god or am i trying to please man if i were still trying to please man i would not be a servant of christ hi i'm mark lucans pastor of providence baptist church we are reformed baptist church and we hold to the london baptist confession of faith of 1689 we are in nofolk massachusetts we strive to reflect paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how god views what we say and what we do than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity but since that wasn't the apostle's priority it must not be ours either we believe by god's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of christ in truth and love if you live near nofolk massachusetts or plan to visit our area please come and join us for worship and fellowship you can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our tv program entitled resting in grace you can find us at providence baptist church ma .org

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click support and click click to donate now if you want to advertise with us just send us an email to chris arenson at gmail .com

and put advertising in the subject line and as long as whatever it is your advertising is compatible with the theology we express here we would love to help you launch an ad campaign you do not have to believe exactly as i do to launch an ad campaign but whatever it is you're promoting can't be militating against what i believe and be in conflict with the theology we believe on interpret design radio but other than that please feel free to submit a request for advertising and we'll see what we can do because we would love to make use of those advertising dollars we surely need them that's also the email address by the way you can send in a question to dr latane c scott chris arnson at gmail .com

chris arnson at gmail .com if you have a question for her today we are now wrapping up the subject of mormonism and we will be entering very soon into the new topic of her new novel a conspiracy of breath but uh that that email address again is chris arnson at gmail .com

if you have a question uh dr scott uh as far as leaving mormonism is concerned we were just talking about the encroachment of liberalism and pro -homosexual sentiments into the official church of jesus christ of latter -day saints and i know that there have been liberals within mormonism for a long time and amazingly i don't know how they get away with being public about their liberal beliefs such as harry reid and other men like that who are very bold and public about their views that are very very foreign to not only the bible but the history of mormonism but uh are there people are there rumblings and of course there may be rumblings in ordinary households of mormons but i mean with significant people significant scholars or clergy if you will within mormonism if they use that term clergy uh in regard to hey we've got a we've got to start a new church i mean this is getting scary with this acceptance of homosexuality etc etc do you know anything that's going on because obviously splits are nothing new to mormonism well there's a there's a problem with the essence of mormonism and it's based on the premise that all truth was taken from the earth at the death of the last apostle in a .d

100 or so and that there was no scriptural authority for forming churches until it was given to joseph smith in the 1800s so if for something to be mormon it has to have scriptural authority and that authority exists only in the mainstream church so if they were going to form a new church i don't see how it could be authorized by what they would say is the only source of authority i know that sounds kind of convoluted well is there any is there anything eschatologically within mormonism that warns of a future apostasy for instance there i could see people making use of that and saying that a current president uh and apostles that are accepting things that are foreign to the history of mormonism i could i could see them being viewed as those false apostles and a false president and then just forming a you know a new uh apostolate and um and uh electing a new president and all that kind of thing i'd have to defer to others but my impression is that all of the the teachings on apostasy refer to the apostasy of the christian church in the past i do not know of any any um mormon prophecies that the mormon church itself would have a would need any sort of major renewal restoration reformation or anything like that now as i said there are those who may know more about that than i know and probably lynn wilder would be one to ask that but that i do not i do not recall ever hearing that the mormon church itself would undergo apostasy i am sure though that the uh fundamentalist mormons believe that in regard to the major denomination don't they well they do and and there are there there are mormon offshoots that believe that the mainstream mormon church um does not have the authority that it through that split you know the strungites or the uh or uh polygamist groups or whatever believe that their prophets are the only ones who are the true successors from justice net so i can see that but i i don't i don't i don't recall it or nor have i seen any rumblings of a a major split from the mormon church because of progressivism or liberalism now they do keep revising their opinions of things i mean one of the greatest books most uh quoted books when i was a mormon was called the miracle of forgiveness by a man who became a mormon prophet spencer w kimball and now that the teachings in that about several different subjects have become unpopular they just quietly taken his book out of print so they do it kind of in retrospect you see what i'm saying rather than in the future yeah i i just don't see it i could be wrong someone else may have a much more information than i have but i don't i don't think so i don't foresee nor do i see any basis in their predictions that this would happen that what you say would happen but it could well great and uh well if anybody wants to get a hold of the book leaving mormonism uh you can go to cv bbs .com

that's cv bbs .com carmelan valley bible book services are sponsors uh and if they don't have it in stock they will certainly order it for you i'm sure that you could uh get it from latane's own website latane .com

l -a -t -a -y -n -e .com and of course kregel publications who published the book and we thank them again for providing us with free copies their website is kregel .com

k -r -e -g -e -l .com but now we are entering into the controversial subject of latane's new novel a conspiracy of breath and uh why don't you set up for our listeners i know it's an entirely different animal if you will when you are discussing a novel on a talk program because you don't want to give away the store and ruin the ending of a novel by by giving too much information but if you could set up the premise of this novel for our listeners well i will give away the store at the end of all biblical fiction everybody dies ah so now um people have asked me why and this is not my first novel my first novel was published by moody publishing back in about 2009 and it was a novel about mormonism and i felt like that Some people will not read a scholarly book like Leading Mormonism.

They won't read a scholarly book like Mormon Mirage, but they will read a novel that shows how

Mormon doctrine plays out in the lives of real people. Yeah, in fact, you had me do the voiceover for an advertisement for that book.

You did. You absolutely did, Annette, and you can hear Chris's wonderful voice on the video that's on Littane .com

under the Latter Day Cipher, which is the name of the book, which is, it's a murder mystery, which is my favorite genre of pleasure reading, is murder mysteries.

But I felt very compelled to write this book that is based on the scholarly premise that a woman wrote a book of the

New Testament, which specifically the Book of Hebrews. The scholarly premise that has been around for hundreds of years by scholars like von

Harnack, by a modern scholar named Ruth Hoppen, and others, is that the only logical candidate for the writing of the

Book of Hebrews is Priscilla, because she's the only character we know of in the

Bible that fits all the qualifications that the writer of the Book of Hebrews would have to fill.

Now, we know for sure that it's not Paul, and despite the fact that the

King James Version of the Bible says the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, that was not part of the original manuscript apparently, it was added on because it was grouped together with the writings of Paul.

But in Hebrews chapter 3, I think verse 2, it says, it talks about people who had not known

Jesus, but had had something handed down to them. And so therefore it couldn't have been Paul, because he did see

Jesus. He saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, and apparently Paul was taught by Jesus in Arabia before he entered his public ministry.

But von Harnack and other scholars, and Ruth Hoppen, have advanced this theory because of the preeminence that the name of Priscilla is given in the seven scriptural mentions of her name, that over half, at least half, her name is listed before her husband's, which is very unusual in ancient cultures.

And she's given preeminence by Luke and by Paul, both of whom wrote about her,

Luke in the book of Acts and Paul in his writings. And that scripture was, by the way,

Hebrews 2 -3 that I was referring to before. It was someone that had to have been a colleague and a co -worker with Paul, because of the way that this person addresses and deals with Paul's doctrine.

And of course we know that Priscilla and her husband Aquila were tip -makers with Paul, also an affiliation with Timothy.

And just the book of Hebrews has an unusual, has two unusual things.

I read biblical Greek. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I do read biblical Greek. And I can tell you that the biblical

Greek of Hebrews is not like the Pauline letters. And anybody can tell you reading through it, the subject matter, especially the emphasis on angels, especially the emphasis on the tabernacle furnishings, these things are not typical

Pauline subject matter that seemed to be important to him. So style and subject matter.

But we also see a great many women mentioned in, for instance,

Hebrews 11, and that he was a faith captor. And even men that are mentioned there are only famous because of women.

And I say that because Barak, who said he wouldn't go to battle unless Deborah went with him, he was, she said to him,

I'm going to be famous for this battle and not you. But yet it's Barak that's mentioned there. Jephthah, who's known for the daughter of his sacrifice.

Samuel, who's mentioned there. Well, how did Samuel come about?

Because of his mother's prayer and his mother's giving over of him as a child to Eli for service to the

Lord. This writer was very well trained in rhetoric, in literary devices, and even in something that's dear to my heart, a kind of representational thought that goes back to Philo, a

Greek writer who advanced some of the same ideas. And she had to be somebody, whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, had all these qualities.

And so Cecilia is a patrician Roman name. We can expect that she, of all the women in the ancient world, a patrician

Roman woman would have had an education, possibly, probably may have been multilingual.

And we see in the book of Acts, we see Priscilla, her name mentioned first, teaching the very learned man

Apollos. She had resources enough to have the church meet in her home, which we hear

Paul mentioning. And the elephant in the room, when you're talking about the author of the book of Hebrews, as Eusebius said, whoever wrote it, only

God knows, because apparently by the third century, nobody knew who wrote it, but they knew that it was scripture.

It was accepted in the canon of scripture with very, very little heartburn, so to speak. And if any of the people, the more famous people that we know, wrote it, why had their names not been associated throughout history?

If Apollos wrote it, why was his name not attached to it? I mean, you validated a book by its authorship.

If Barnabas wrote it, as some people say, why did Barnabas not, his name never been attached to it, but I know it.

I debated, was it on your show, Chris, that I debated the fellow from Southwestern Baptist?

No, no, I remember you publicizing it, but that was not on Iron Trump and Zion Radio.

It was on another radio program, but there was a very articulate and gracious man who debated me on this issue.

I don't like to debate, but we had a very collegial debate. He believes that Luke wrote the epistle to the

Hebrews, which I've never heard before. He's the only person I've ever heard that advanced that, but he had some good reasons.

But like I said, the elephant in the room is why has it remained basically anonymous through the ages, except being corrected with Paul's writings, although nobody could say he wrote it because he was an eyewitness and the writer of the book of Hebrews was not an eyewitness of the risen

Christ. In other words, did not have apostolic qualifications.

So in other words, so God wanted on the Day of Judgment when he was revealing this to say, surprise misogynists.

Well, it's kind of a funny thing here, Chris, because as you know, I am a complementarian. I believe very, very strongly in the authority of male leadership as a model for unseen realities, the lordship of the

Lord Jesus Christ over his church, the submission of Jesus Christ to his father, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But when I first started writing this book and asking people to read it, I had two different agents that took it to all the major publishing companies who had published me before they knew me, could not get a hearing on it, could not get anybody to look at it, to consider it because the subject matter they considered,

I guess, too controversial. And it was only to egalitarians, to egalitarians who would read it and would see what

I was trying to do with it, which was the core of this book is what must it have been like?

What might it have been like to be a person and have the Holy Spirit or the Holy Breath move on you to produce scripture?

And we know from scripture, we have, you know, John caught up and looking into heaven.

We have Ezekiel picked up on a riverbank and dumped, you know, we have Paul talking about being caught up into the third heaven.

We have all of these descriptions that when God comes upon a person, especially to give them a message, he's not usually real gentle.

And so I wondered what it might have been like if it is possible and plausible and perhaps even probable that Priscilla might have written the book of Hebrews.

What might it have been like to have this Holy Breath move on you as it says, you know, men were moved along by the

Spirit to produce scripture. What would it have been like to be a woman and be in that situation? And what would it have been like?

The bigger question is to live in the most favored generation of all of human history, to live around the time that the

Lord Jesus Christ, God on earth, walked around on our dirt. What would it have been like to be witnesses of that or to know witnesses of that, to talk to people who had seen him, you know, as John said, that which we've seen with our eyes and we've touched, you know, we've heard this message, to have met with people like that who had actually seen him and touched him and talked to him and eaten with him, to be the most favored generation on earth and to have been so badly treated.

I mean, you talk about the phases of faith, to have the Word and then to have contradictions to that.

All of the great heroes of the New Testament died violent deaths, except for Paul.

I mean, excuse me, except for John the Revelator. These most favored people ended up paying the ultimate price with their bodies and and for witnessing to this great reality of a risen

Savior, of someone whose body reconstituted on its own, got up out of the grave.

And yet they had horrible lives. I mean, they lived in jeopardy, as Paul said.

Why are we in jeopardy every hour? If this is not true, and he said, Paul said it was true, why are we in jeopardy every hour?

And they were, you know, all of them were. And so this woman, Priscilla, I depict her as an articulate, learned woman, as the author of the

Hebrews, book to the Hebrews was. How did she manage?

How did other ordinary people caught up in this great machine of the Roman government and the persecution by the

Jewish authorities of the gospel? How did they survive and how did they maintain faith?

And I want it to be a help to people today to be courageous, to be brave in standing up for this reality that there was a man who walked on this earth, who was graveyard dead, as Jerry Cloward says, and got up out of a grave.

And because of that, he has the authority to say whatever he said goes, and we can give our lives for him, just as Priscilla and the others did.

Well, we have to go to our final break. It's a brief break. And if you'd like to join those already waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Dr.

Latane C. Scott right now or forever, hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time. The email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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That's Solid -Ground -Books .com. Well, we are back now with our discussion on Latane C.

Scott's new novel, A Conspiracy of Breath, which has to do with her theory that Priscilla is the author of the book of Hebrews, which the

Bible has not given us the answer for the author of that book through any kind of divine inspiration.

We don't know. Who wrote that for certain, but she has a theory and I'm sure she does not hold that theory alone.

And we have, let's see here, we have Bob in Westchester County, New York, who says earlier you quoted 2

Peter 1, verse 21, which reads, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the

Holy Spirit spoke from God. Is the original Greek word for men there giving permission to us to include women as in mankind, or is it specifically a male term?

I'm going to have to look that up. Go ahead and ask another question. Okay. And let me, that was 2

Peter 1, verse 21. And while you're looking that up, let me give our email address out again.

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. I don't know if you found that yet, but we could ask another question while you're looking.

No, I found it. The word is anthropoi, or anthropoo, which is mankind. It's not, andros is the word for a male, a specific male, but this is man, like mankind.

Okay. And guess what, Bob, you have won a free copy of A Conspiracy of Breath.

Make sure we get your full mailing address so we can have that shipped out to you by cvbbs .com.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asks, was there any pushback from the fellow complementarians that you know that made you think for a moment or more about whether or not this theory could possibly be true, considering the fact that this is an epistle that is teaching men, among others, and women are forbidden to be teachers of men in the scriptures, as you yourself, as a complementarian, must believe?

Well, I think there's a difference between teaching men, and that's not in the

Book of Hebrews, by the way, we're talking about Corinthians, where that admonition is. There's a difference between teaching and the

Pentecost promise in Acts chapter 2, when Peter said, your young men and your daughters will prophesy.

And that scripture has been very, very influential on me, because you've got

Acts chapter 2 happening on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the death of Jesus.

You've got the prophecy from the Book of Joel, repeated by Peter, your young men and your daughters will prophesy.

And can you give me one single example of the words of a woman prophesying from that point on?

Not the fact that they prophesy, because in 1 Corinthians it says that when you prophesy, when a woman prophesies, she needs to cover her head, for instance.

But you've got the only words you have of women from that point on, the words.

And we've got the words of Peter and Paul and John and James and, you know, others in the

New Testament, from after Pentecost. But we don't have any words of women, except, as I was saying, that is the price.

We have Lydia inviting Luke and his companions to come to dinner.

We have Lotus saying, Peter's standing at the gate. We have the words of the slave girl that says, these men are servants of the most high

God. And we have other examples of godly women, post -Pentecostal godly women, but we don't have their words.

It seems eminently reasonable to me that that Pentecost promise could be fulfilled with a woman author of the book of Hebrews, especially since, as most people assume, she's a

Roman woman writing to the Hebrews, just as we have Paul, a

Hebrew, writing to the Gentiles. It seems very balanced to me. It's a very, what's the word when things are lookalike on each side?

I didn't think of the word. But anyway, I just, it's too delicious to think that Peter made this big point about women prophesying.

He makes that point twice in that speech, and yet we don't have any of their words, other than just innocuous things.

By the way, were you thinking of the word ironic, or I'm not sure. No, what is the thing?

It's symmetrical. Symmetrical. That's what I'm looking for. It seems very symmetrical that you would have a

Gentile woman writing to the Hebrews, as Paul is the Hebrew writing to the

Gentiles. And by the way, I think it would probably be good, especially for those who have just tuned in, if you could compare and contrast complementarianism, which you claim as your own position, and egalitarianism.

Well, I hope I don't overstate or offend either party by saying that, in general, complementarians believe that all of the functions within a local body, all of the public worship functions and other things, are shared equally and without distinction between men and women.

Complementarians believe that by a... I think you said complementarian, and you meant to say egalitarian for that first definition.

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I did mean egalitarian for that. Thank you. And so complementarian people, such as myself, have very much in mind the biblical symbolism of authority that they want to depict in public worship, especially.

Just as the Church submits to Christ, just as Christ submits to God, the

Father, that women, I myself would see myself by remaining silent in a public assembly, not teaching men without the authority being given to me.

I would see that as I get to participate in a symbol of things that are unseen. So, and to repeat, you are a complementarian.

I am a complementarian. Now, when you said, without being given permission, you mean, do you believe that a male minister can give a woman permission to teach an adult

Bible study that would include adult men? I don't know how other women would handle that.

But if in a, when the whole body is together, someone would walk into my congregation and say, this is the local body here.

And this is not a class. This is not a, you know, a support meeting.

It's not a, something that's part of the Church. If this is the

Church, when the Church comes together, Paul says that when the Church comes together, people from the outside are supposed to see something different.

And so if a, if a man asked me a question in worship service, which has happened before,

I respond to the question, but I never do it in such a manner. I personally, it's my view,

I never do it in such a manner that I'm doing anything other than responding to a request for information. So I, I don't,

I wouldn't, I don't participate vocally in our local worship except by singing.

And that's just, that's the way I handle it. I don't bind that on anyone else, but that's my understanding.

By the way, I do have to mention something that many of our listeners might not be aware of.

Latain C. Scott charged in on a white horse to my rescue not long ago when

I was, when I was being attacked by feminists on Facebook because I had a pastor's luncheon that only included men in the gathering and in the invitation to attend.

And a local liberal Lutheran congregation in fact, it was a male pastor there that informed a female associate pastor of what

I did. And he apparently was mocking the concept of having an all male gathering of pastors to her.

And she responded by saying that she was highly offended by this, that, that she was not invited.

And of course then there were like piranha swarming around me. There were other feminists.

I mean, I was amazed at what was being hurled at me. I was called a racist. I mean, how do you get a racist out of that?

Uh, and all kinds of accusations. I was, uh, accused of not having my lust in control and therefore, and therefore

I could not have women attend because I'm, I'm out of control and lust and all these things.

And I want to thank you Latain for coming to my rescue and making it clear that you did not believe

I was a chauvinist or misogynist or a woman hater or anything like that.

And that you agreed with my complimentary and understanding of male headship. Well, you know,

I've forgotten all about that, Chris, but I do it again in a heartbeat because that's true. That's true. Uh, you've always treated me, uh, with a great difference and respect and never have

I felt any of the things that those women were accusing you of. And so I could with authority say, you guys don't know what you're talking about.

I appreciate it very much. Uh, we have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, are the modern versions of the

King James Bible in print? I'm not talking about modern translations here. I'm talking about modern printing of the

King James version. Do they include this, uh, this statement about the book being attributed to Paul in them?

I believe they do. I don't have one that's been printed in the last 20 years.

My oldest version was printed back in the seventies. So, um, and I'm looking at it now, but I do not know if very modern versions of that say that or not, but the one mine, mine that was printed in the seventies does say that.

Huh? I'm actually looking at the King James Bible online in the book of Hebrews, and it doesn't mention it on the website, but that doesn't mean that it's not in the printed versions.

But anyway, well, thank you, BB. You have also won a free copy of A Conspiracy of Breath. Please make sure we have your full mailing address so that can be shipped out to you.

Uh, let's see here. We have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.

Dear Latane, I suggest you look up William Hendrickson's comments on why Priscilla cannot be the author of Hebrews.

He and other commentators have noticed why the Greek itself rules this out. He says Priscilla could not have written

Hebrews because of the original Greek of Hebrews 11 verse 32.

The writer uses a participle with a masculine ending when he refers to himself.

I think you have some very good concepts, but proposing Priscilla as the author of Hebrews is not the best way to bring them across.

Do you have any response to Joey in Clifton, New Jersey? Thank you, Joey. And actually that issue is addressed in Ruth Hoppen's book where she points out the fact that a male participle can be used of an author without referring to gender and without referring to the male gender specifically.

And it's actually done that way in scripture more than once, not just in the book of Hebrews.

Ruth Hoppen's book is called Priscilla's Letter, and she addresses that.

You can also look online, just look for the name Ruth Hoppen, and maybe

Google the word participle, and you will see her very reasonable explanation of why that is the case.

I am familiar with that argument. I do not accept that as an exclusion of Priscilla as author of the book of Hebrews, but I do appreciate the comment and I appreciate the learned and informed listener who would bring that up.

Well, since William Hendrickson has been in heaven since the 80s, I guess this is not a brand new theory that's been...

No, not at all. Thanks, Joey. Make sure you give us your mailing address so you can receive a copy of A Conspiracy of Breath by our guest,

Dr. Latane C. Scott. Let me now go back to Dr.

Lynn K. Wilder's question. A Conspiracy of Breath is one of my favorite books of all time.

Talk to us about the various theories of female authorship of the book of Hebrews and why you believe the author may be female.

Why is a female author significant? And you've already covered some of that. Do you have anything to add to it? No, just that.

I wanted to flesh out, as any biblical fiction does, I mean, the definition of biblical fiction, whether it's written by Francine Rivers or Tepha Aschar or anyone who writes fiction about biblical characters, it always involves supposition.

Because if you just wrote the words of scripture, you would just have scripture, you know, right? So it involves supposition, it involves research, which

I did a lot of research on Roman customs and Roman life at the time.

But I came to a close move, I guess, to the concept of a woman who was not in doubt, or let me say, her battle having her writings accepted was not because she was a woman, because women in the early

Christian church had a very high status. Her credibility was the fact she was a

Gentile, which is exactly the big controversy that was going on in the first century.

It wasn't that women were excluded, it was the Gentiles were suspect. And she being a

Gentile would have had more doubt cast on her for being a

Gentile than she would have been for a woman. And I think that's surprising in our society, but that's absolutely true.

You read all of the big, I mean, the Council of Jerusalem and the disputes between Peter and Paul were not about gender, they were about race, they were about whether or not you were

Jewish or not. Well, thank you, Lynn, and we look forward to having you back on the program as well in the near future,

God willing. And our mutual friend, you're switching places now. Yesterday, you were the questioner while Dr.

Efflegard -Smith was the guest, and now he is the questioner while you are the guest. Dr. Efflegard -Smith says, writers often bring much of their own experiences to their writing.

What, if anything, might you have brought into your portrayal of Priscilla? I believe that the book of Hebrews is one of the most elegant writings of all of the ancient world.

And I tried my very best to put all of my literary skills to work in producing what

I, this is my life's opus. People think the Mormon Mirage is my life opus. It's not.

It is this novel. This is what, if I want to be remembered for anything, I want to be remembered for this novel because I poured all of my literary skill into it, because I wanted to create a work of literary quality that could stand up to Christian or secular literature.

And if people didn't agree with the premise, and, you know, Lagarde doesn't agree with the premise. He doesn't, you can ask him.

He doesn't agree necessarily with the premise that Priscilla wrote the book of Hebrews. And yet he was raving about it on my show yesterday.

Yes. And yet, and yet he has given me the great compliment of saying that I accomplished the goal that I had, which was to create a work of literary quality that was to the best of my feeble ability.

And so this, this is my, the opus of my life is the Conspiracy of Bread.

Well, thanks Lagarde. We look forward to having you back on the show as well. And I really loved our time together after so many years.

And let's keep in touch and get you on the program again soon. Let's see here.

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, are there any complementarians that you know of that agree with you on the

Priscilla authorship of Hebrews? I don't know if you've answered that question yet, but Harrison Mechanicsburg wants to know.

Well, most of the people that I know who have read it, I don't think regard themselves as egalitarians necessarily.

It's got, it's got probably 20 pages of endorsements from people like Cynthia Rooktee, who is a very well -known

Christian author, Shelley Beach, Kathleen Rogers. To my knowledge, they are not all out complementarians, egalitarians.

I don't believe, I mean, they may be, but I think the people that are complementarians who read it realize that I'm not trying to push an agenda.

I'm not, I'm not even really trying to push that Priscilla was the author. I'm trying to push the idea of what it would have been like for anybody to receive the

Holy Spirit and produce scripture. And in this case, I'm a woman writing about a woman doing it.

A woman that has scholarly, a theory that has scholarly support and scholarly opposition.

Well, thanks, Harrison. You've also won a free copy of A Conspiracy of Breath. Please make sure we have your full mailing address in Mechanicsburg so that cvbbs .com

can ship that out to you. It's interesting. I haven't like done an exhaustive survey, but I have asked a number of people who are scholarly, who know the original languages of scripture and who are complementarian about what their thoughts are on the possibility of Priscilla being the author of Hebrews.

And it's interesting that they all said, Oh no, no, she was not. She couldn't have been.

And I, whenever I have said, is there any possibility that she could have been, they've all backed down and said, well, yeah.

Well, yeah. Because, because otherwise you have this major prophecy of the book of, uh, on the day of Pentecost being unfulfilled, right?

I mean, you got, you got a lot of logical question here, you know, where are the words of the

Acts 2 women? Now, do you think that there was some reason that you said, and forgive me if you said this earlier, do you think that the fact that the author of Hebrews is anonymous actually even gives further weight to her being possibly a woman?

Um, egalitarians would say, yes, her name was suppressed. I'm not sure about that. I don't know why. I don't have a theory on that.

Yeah. I don't, I don't mean by suppressed, but, uh, there are reasons why, uh, you know, not everything was revealed in scripture.

Uh, like for instance, even in revelation, the very figurative language of, and regarding to the beast and so on, there's like code words used, you know, that they didn't explicitly say who the beast wasn't.

There are many people who believe that was Nero of the first century. But anyway, we have, we have actually run out of time

Latayne and I had such a joy interviewing you. And I know that you're, I know that your website is latayne .com.

L A T A Y N E dot com. Do you have any other contact information or anything else that you'd like to say before we go off the air?

No, that's good. And thank you so much. Thank you. Well, uh, once again, uh, the website to find out more about A Conspiracy of Breath and the other books that our guest,

Dr. Latayne C. Scott has written is latayne .com L A T A Y N E dot com.

And, uh, you could also get the majority of books we discuss here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com.

And if they don't have what you want in stock yet, they can order it for you.

That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible book service .com. And, uh,

I just want to thank everybody who listened today, especially, uh, those who took the time to write in questions.

I want to thank my guest, Dr. Latayne C. Scott. It's always a joy to have her on the program.

Uh, tomorrow, mark your calendars for tomorrow, uh, May 10th, we are having part two of our discussion slash debate between the

Calvinist scholar, Dr. Tony Costa, uh, on the faculty of Toronto Baptist Seminary and the

Molinist scholar, Dr. Kirk McGregor from McPherson College.

They are going to be continuing the discussion slash debate that they had on Calvinism versus Molinism.

And if you don't know what either of those things are, tune in tomorrow and you'll find out. And I hope that you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater savior than you are a sinner.