Bible Scholarship, Professors of Religion VS Divine Revelation and Prophetic Counsel and Authority

One observation that I did not pay much attention to  for decades was how "Mormonism" or the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ is different from traditional orthodox Christianity as to how the two have developed.  I am familiar with the prophetic authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint but not how General Christianity developed its doctrines. My observations are simply those of someone that is looking at the discussions that take place among Christian apologists as they make claims against Latter-day Saint theology and write their scholarly articles.

I finally realized that the orthodox method of determining doctrinal teachings is scholarly endeavors and philosophical debates. There is no authoritative injunction other than what they themselves might impute to their efforts. They say that they must be inspired by God or they wouldn't be doing it. They study a closed canon of which they say they are the ones that give meaning to any utterances made by God through his previously authorized servants.

Latter-day Saint theology is the result of revelation.  The messages and teachings of the Bible are the results of revelation.  God continues to speak in the same manner as before.   For a time the heavens did not release the full light of truth as it had been rejected. 

In a similar fashion when Moses descended from the mount and saw the people that he led had in short order decided to make an idol for their worship. The eternal plan of God was not frustrated by apostasy and rejection of His Son.  This was understood to be the plan.  God knew the hearts of man.  The continuation of the fullness of the plan was only delayed and such delay was known and prepared for.

To give an example of how Bible scholarship works I did a search of a topic.  You can do this with many topics.  Bible scholars in their essays will inevitably put a disclaimer of some kind as to the disagreements that still exist in their subject of discussion.   Such is the case when the wisdom of men replaces the divine authority and guidance from the heavens themselves. 

LDS teachings do not discredit the faith of Catholics or Protestants or any other form of Christianity for ministering to the needs of fellow humans.  The teachings of the Bible will bless all that heed them. The authority to act in God's name for ordinances and covenants is what they are missing. They will be blessed with a fulness of knowledge of God's power when they are ready to receive it.

The mission of the Savior was and is to fulfill the covenant of the Father. God the Father has children. That is why he is called Father. His children are precious and he loves them all. They are his offspring.  They are the result of the eternal motherhood that coexists with his fatherhood.  They are the result of an eternal love and a covenant of marriage after the order of the heavens.  These patterns have also been established in the earth.

The Abrahamic covenant is the manifestation of God's plan to offer both agency and salvation to his children.  They can be saved on no other basis.  The plan requires a savior.  That person is Jesus Christ. He was foreordained to be our redeemer. Adam was the first to learn this order of salvation, the redemption of fallen man.  Adam was chosen pre-mortally to be the first man and to introduce the fall.

Bible scholars in their limited understanding of who God is and how he exists in eternity cause them to apply their biblical expositions to a 6000 year window.  They give no understanding or credence to the premortal nature of the existence of souls or of God. To these scholars all things simply appeared on the radar screen at the beginning of the Bible narrative. Their narrative essentially makes Adam the focal point of sin and Jesus as a backup plan to an eternity in the Garden of Eden that failed due to Satan's intervention.

Here is the example of scholarship that I will use to make my point.

"THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT by Keith H. Essex Assistant Professor of Bible Exposition (From the Masters Seminary)

https://www.tms.edu/m/tmsj10n.pdf

All admit the importance of the Abrahamic Covenant in understanding biblical revelation, but not all agree on its interpretation. Genesis 12 is a pivotal statement of the covenant because it contains God’s first recorded speech to Abraham. There God promises to make Abraham a great nation, to bless him, and to make his name great. Genesis 15 makes clear that the LORD took upon Himself alone the responsibility for fulfilling the covenant. Genesis 17 adds the revelation that the covenant would be everlasting. Genesis 18 and 22 restate terms of the covenant in connection with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the offering of Abraham’s son Isaac. Exodus through Deuteronomy describe the initial outworking of the Abrahamic Covenant. The elements of the covenant are threefold: making Abraham into a great nation, blessing Abraham personally, and blessing all nations in Abraham. The promises of the covenant are unconditional. The rest of the OT repeatedly refers back to God’s oath to Abraham in the Torah. The NT does the same by pointing out that Jesus Christ, Abraham’s seed, will make possible the final fulfillment of that covenant in the future."

All this professor sees is the making of a great nation that will exist for a time in the biblical history.  Where is this nation today?  How is it functioning today?  Is it performing the work of  blessing of all nations?  It can only be done in an organization by revelation to prophets not by biblical exegesis. That organization is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the priesthood restored by Peter, James and John to Joseph Smith.

Here is an example of how Bible scholars arrive at their conclusions from the same article above.

"The following based on the New American Standard Bible is a schematic of Gen 12:1-4 with footnotes that give reasons for exegetical decisions made in support of this rendering. The observations made on these verses will then be the basis for the following discussion of the need for and the narrative concerning the Abrahamic Covenant." 

They make decisions based on rendered opinions of other scholars. Orthodox Christianity isn't the religion or the church of the Bible. It is the construction of opinion  bible scholars.  None of it is authoritative except among themselves.  They then teach it in their seminaries as if it was God's will when he had nothing to do with it.