Adam Stokes is not only an apostle for Church of Jesus Christ – The Assured Way of the Lord, but he has a divinity degree from Yale University. Does his scholarship training conflict with biblical literalism? How does he balance the competing ideas? We’re going to talk about Biblical Scholarship vs Literalism. Check out our conversation…
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Latin Scrolls
GT: All right, well, it worked out pretty good. I sent you a t-shirt, and you sent me three books. So, I thought we could talk a little bit about your books.
Adam 00:44 It’s a good deal.
GT 00:45 You’ve got The Latin Scrolls. And you’re a Latin teacher. [When] did you learn that? Was that your undergrad or your graduate degree, where you learned Latin?
Adam 00:55 That goes way before any college degree. This is seventh grade, Rick. I went to a small Christian Middle School in high school in Baltimore. And my mom forced me to take Latin, as a seventh grader. I didn’t want to do it. I thought it was a dead language. I just thought it was. And I was kicking and screaming. Technically, it’s a dead language. It’s more alive than you might think. But I went in kicking and screaming and hated it. And then something funny happened. Around, after a year or so, I had a really good teacher. And I fell in love with the classical world. I fell in love with Latin, and Latin has been with me ever since. So, even in college, I took classes. I took it all the way throughout high school. And then in college, I took classes on Caesar and on the Aeneid. And then in grad school, I read the Scriptures, the Bible in Latin and the Latin Vulgate. And in grad school, I did a lot, in fact, I was thinking about writing my dissertation on the Latin translation of the book of Job. So, Latin has been with me forever. And when my Ph.D. fell through, I was like, “What can I do with the skills that I have?” And so that led me to teaching in secondary education. So, I’ve taught, basically, every type of student you can imagine. I’ve taught in very urban settings, Trenton and Philadelphia. And I’ve taught very suburban settings, Allentown and the school I’m at now, the Lawrenceville School is actually a boarding school. So, it is very college prep Latin. So, I’ve had to be on my P’s and Q’s with these students.
GT 02:41 Okay, very good. So, when did you write The Latin Scrolls? I’m reading the subtitle here, Selections from the Five Megilloth Translated from the Latin Vulgate. So, these are just some selections from the Latin Bible, basically, right?
Adam 02:59 Yes.
GT 03:03 So why did you write this book?
Adam 03:07 So, in addition to teaching secondary education, I’ve taught for the past 12 years, a class on the Old Testament at St. Joseph’s University. And I have written, prior to that time, so I published Latin Scrolls in 2020. And in 2018, I had written a book, Perspectives on the Old Testament. And that book was basically, and still is, the basic textbook for the class. But I wanted my student, also, to have some exposure to the Latin translation of the Bible. St. Joseph’s is a Catholic school. And Latin is my own background. So, I composed that book, one, because I always wanted to do a translation of the Bible from Latin, and two, as a supplementary text for my St. Joseph’s students. So, as you could probably tell, it’s very student friendly. It gives a list of resources that students can go to, if they’re interested in researching these books even more. And it has a lot of stuff looking at the theology and the social-historical context of each of the books.
Adam 04:22 One of the reasons that its selections–I always kind of think this is funny, and I think I’ll go back and maybe translate all of the portions of the books, but I was on a time schedule. I only had, like, two or three months to get my translation in, and I was teaching at the time. So, with the exception of Ruth, the rest of the books are just selections of chapters that I translated from them. So, I’m very proud of it. the books I’ve written in the past, I wrote under duress. I was just talking to my wife about this. They were basically my escapism from jobs I didn’t like. So, I wrote this book, when I had a job that I actually really liked. So, this was a fun book to write. And I use it towards the end of the semester with my St. Joseph students. When we look at the third section of the Old Testament, the third section of the Hebrew Bible, which is the writings. The Megilloth is a sub-portion of that section of the Old Testament. So Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther and Song of Songs.
GT 05:25 Okay, yeah. So as I’m looking here in the book, you basically translated the Book of Ruth, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Canticles of Solomon. Is that like the Song of Solomon? I think it was.
Adam 05:42 The Song of Solomon, yes. What’s interesting is in the Mormon tradition, so you guys still have it in your Bible, but it’s not part of the Inspired Version. Joseph Smith, the Prophet didn’t consider it to be inspired.
GT 05:53 Yeah, I mentioned that, and I want to say Colby Townsend said that Joseph Smith still quoted from Song of Solomon, even though he said it wasn’t inspired.
Adam 06:05 Oh really?
GT 06:06 Yeah.
Adam 06:07 I didn’t know that. I’ve got to find that. Yeah.
GT 06:09 That was a fun interview with Colby. You’ve got selections from the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Esther. And so why did you why did you want to translate those yourself, I guess?
Adam 06:25 Yeah, I really liked the Megilloth. I think that they reflect having kind of a personal relationship to them. I think they reflect some of my faith crisis, before I got involved in the Restoration. So, the Megilloth are interesting. They give a completely different understanding of God than what you get, for example, in the traditional Pentateuch. In the Pentateuch, God speaks from Mount Sinai. God is clear and visible. You can’t look on God. But at the same time, God is described as having a body, as having anthropomorphic features. And the Megilloth are much more nuanced. In fact, Song of Songs, and Esther–I think it’s one of the reasons Joseph Smith didn’t like Song of songs, either. They don’t explicitly mention God. Now, in the history of interpretation, Song of Songs is interpreted allegorically as a love poem between God and the church. But on the surface level, it doesn’t explicitly mention God. And then some of the other books, God is much more indirect. So, in the Book of Ruth, God speaks. God interacts through human interaction, how we love each other, how we provide for each other is how God acts. And then in Ecclesiastes, God is somewhat more arbitrary. So, the world has its chaos. The world has its kinks. And that’s just the way God has made it. We’re not to question God about it. But we can thank God that we’re able to enjoy family, friends, good food, love, and stuff like that. So, a much different view of God and what you get, and I would say, not only in the Pentateuch, but also in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. And that’s always appealed to me, that’s always been something that’s drawn me in. I do think God speaks in our time, and in this world. But I think there’s still a part of me, that still feels like these books, speak to me, and they spoke to me at a time when I was trying to figure out who I was and where I was going.
GT 08:28 So one of the things that I found really interesting, I think most LDS people are familiar with the story of Ruth and Esther. But I noticed in your translation, you referred, we would say Boaz, and you spelled it Bo’oz. It looks like booze. Is that a more accurate translation for his name?
Adam 08:51 It’s interesting you mention that, Rick. So, I kept the B-o-o-z spelling, because that’s how his name is spelled in the Latin. Interestingly enough, the Latin gives us, in many ways, what the Hebrew would have been pronounced like. So, if you take a Hebrew manuscript, say you have a Jewish friend who’s doing a Bar Mitzvah or something like that. If you look at the Hebrew, if you look at the Torah scroll, that text is pointed with vowels so that you can read it. But those vowels were introduced much later, by a group– not to get too off topic here, known as the Masorete. The Masoretes were a bunch of rabbis who preserved the continental text of the Hebrew Bible, which is what it is in its original form, and they added vowels to it. But those vowels were added much later, in medieval times, very late. So, we don’t know how they would have pronounced [words.] But we have an idea, based on some of the consonants in the Hebrew Bible, how stuff might have been pronounced. But we don’t know exactly how they would have pronounced it, but the Latin translation and the Greek translation of the Septuagint, give us an idea of how people might have pronounced some of these words in Hebrew before the text was pointed by the Masorete. So, that Booz translation, they’re probably spelling it, Beth, holem, ayin, zayin, instead of an A. So Bo’oz, we get that in the Masoretic text. But Bo’oz was probably one of the ways that people read the text back, back in the day. So, that reflects a different type of pronunciation of the word than what we get in the later Masoretic text. I didn’t mean to be too confusing there.
GT 10:48 No, that’s really good. Because I was just curious about that. I was like, “He’s writing booze here. I thought it was just Boaz.” And I didn’t even say it right. It’s Bo-oz. Is that how you said it?
Adam 11:01 Bo-oz yeah, in the Latin text. And then No-Oh-Me in the Latin text as well. We’re used to Naomi, N-A-O-M-I but they pronounced it No-Oh-Me.
GT 11:15 Okay. Yeah, I did notice that.
Adam 11:16 Whoever used Hebrew text and translating it, he’s reading two O’s, two holems instead of a qamats or patah.
Is Biblical Scholarship at Odds with Literalism?
Interview
GT 11:27 Okay. And then I want to ask you about the Book of Esther, as well. It’s my understanding, you’re the divinity expert, not me. So, please correct me where I’m wrong. But some people have said that the Book of Esther, specifically, is anachronistic. And it’s almost a novel instead of historical. Was Esther a real person? I guess I want to ask that.
Adam 11:58 That’s a really good question. I guess, in the tradition, if I’m giving a Restorationist answer, yes. If I’m giving a biblical scholar answer, no. So, most people would say that Esther is a historical novel. It’s the same with Ruth. Ruth probably didn’t exist either. Ruth is an apologetic against the policies of Ezra and Nehemiah, in the early fifth century. So, Ezra & Nehemiah practiced this policy of racial exclusivism. They kick anybody out who’s not Jewish, who’s not from the lineage of Israel. And the Book of Ruth is written to show, “No. Anybody who follows God is to be accepted by God.” You have Ruth, this Moabite, this foreigner, but because she submits to God and does what God commands, she is accepted in the community. And in fact, King David is part of her bloodline.
GT 12:57 As is Jesus, right?
Adam 12:59 As is Jesus. Yep, exactly. Esther is probably historical novel. A couple of books in the Old Testament are like this: Daniel and Job. I don’t want to get too controversial here.
GT 13:11 Oh, come on. We like controversy here.
Adam 13:13 [Chuckles] These are probably novels written much later, kind of like I always give the example in my class of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind.” It is set in Civil War times but written in the 1930s. So that’s what we have an Esther, written much later than the time it portrays.
GT 13:24 Is that a conflict that you have with your Restoration [position.] You’re an apostle. I mean, do you find that as a conflict? Like, “I have to say Esther’s historical for my Restoration [position], but from my biblical background, No, she’s not.”
Adam 13:49 It’s sometimes a conflict. I mean, this is going to sound weird, Rick. I don’t do as much with the Old Testament as I used to, on a personal level. So, it doesn’t really bother me that much. But yes, that conflict sometimes exists there. It’s like in evangelical circles, where you have to say that Moses wrote the first five books of the of the Bible of the Old Testament, even though biblical scholarship refutes that idea.
GT 14:18 So where do you stand on that issue? Are you a documentary hypothesis guy?
Adam 14:23 I think the documentary hypothesis, and I tell my students this, it’s kind of messed up. I mean, it’s been chopped into little, itty bitty pieces. I don’t even know if it really stands anymore. I do think that you can identify some later sources, like the D source and possibly a P source. Most biblical scholars will say that there’s no such thing as a Yahwist source anymore. For me, it doesn’t matter. For me, I feel like even if you have these later sources, they might go back to an ur-Moses tradition. So, some of this stuff might come from Moses, and there’s certainly a lot of legal material that, traditionally, biblical scholars have dated late, but it seems to be pretty early. So, a lot of legal material in Exodus and Leviticus seems to conform with Hittite treatises and stuff that are, actually, really, really early. So, go figure. I don’t think biblical scholars will ever quite figure out what the Pentateauch is.
GT 14:23 Yeah. So what is your overall opinion of the Bible? Would you consider yourself a biblical literalist, or not?
Adam 15:34 I think I definitely lean more in the literalist direction, being a biblical scholar notwithstanding. I mean, when I read the Inspired Version of the Old Testament, I believe that Adam, and Noah and the giants, and Abraham, I believe these guys existed. So, I come to it, believing that this is history. This is how God spoke in the past, and the Restoration has restored this way that God spoke in the past, for the present.
GT 16:10 And so the Exodus, did it happen? There’s a Rabbi David Wolpe, who I adore. I think he’s awesome. But he basically has said, the Exodus didn’t happen the way the Bible says.
Adam 16:24 Yeah.
GT 16:25 How would you respond to that?
Adam 16:26 See, I take the position that there’s evidence for a historical Exodus, but I define Exodus, as the Exodus, literally, of a group identifying itself as Israel, from Egypt, into what becomes the land of Canaan or what is currently Israel/Palestine. So, I think that there’s historical evidence for that. Now, there’s a whole group of biblical scholars called minimalists, that basically reject everything that happened before Ezra and Nehemiah’s time. I’m not one of those people. I actually think that there is some evidence for the Exodus.
GT 17:06 Okay, because, oh, gosh, I’m rusty on this. I should have been looking it up. I didn’t know we were going to go this way. But this is great. There are some scholars that are like, “Look, if…” Well, there’s two things I’ve heard with regards to the Exodus. It says in there that 600 elith and people have translated that to 600,000. And back in the day, they only counted men. So, if you’re counting women and children, you double that, plus, and say, “Well, if [there were] 600,000 men, that would have been, like, 2 million people. They would have left garbage,” as they cross the Sinai Peninsula or whatever. I’ve heard another, shall we say, apologetic response that 600 elith–elith refers to a military unit. And so it could have been like 600 men or way smaller than 2 million? Which, okay, you’re not going to find 600 men that did an exodus. Even if you doubled that to 1200, or whatever. But, if it’s 2 million, there’s no way 2 million is correct. Because you would find artifacts, if they were that large. Where do you stand on that?
Adam 18:26 One of the things I always tell my students is that biblical history, the biblical authors aren’t writing history in the same way that we’re writing history. I love reading World War II true stories. So I’m reading one. This actually is not a World War II story. I’m reading one right now called Devotion, which is about this African American pilot and this white pilot, who became best friends in the Korean War. And they basically, they led a charge with the plane that basically saved thousands of Marines. And the black pilot, Jesse, was shot down and he died. The white pilot was given the Medal of Honor, but they were best friends. And so the historian who writes that, he crosses every–dots every I crosses every T. He’s talking about how many sharecroppers Jesse was working with when he was a boy and everything. He spent 14 years doing research for this book. Biblical history is not like that. Biblical writers are not like that. And, oftentimes, they’ll inflate numbers, they’ll exaggerate numbers for a theological purpose. One of the examples I give to my students is the book of Joshua. You read the book of Joshua, Joshua comes in, he’s killing, he’s attacking people, thousands and hundreds of thousands and tens of hundreds of thousands of people. And I say [that] the point of these numbers is not to give a historically accurate assessment of the event. There’s a theological purpose here, namely, that Joshua is following God’s commands. God is blessing him. And the outcome of this blessing is that all these people are getting hacked up and chopped up, and he’s fighting them. He’s successful. He’s victorious. So, the purpose is to highlight how powerful Joshua is, how powerful a person is, when someone follows God’s commandments. And if you look at the context, the Deuteronomic history, this is an author who has tried to get the people to worship God again. They’ve gone to worshipping idols. They’re worshiping Asherah. They’re worshipping these female goddess figurines, and these pillars. And the Deuteronomic historian is trying to get them back on track. So, he uses these numbers. He uses inflated numbers to get his theological point across. Is that manipulative? I don’t know if it’s manipulative, I just think is the way they wrote back then.
GT 20:58 That would tend to make me say, you’re not really a biblical literalist. Are you?
Adam 21:05 I believe that the events in the Bible occurred, as the Bible says that they occurred. But I do give leeway to the biblical authors, that they may have–I hate using this word, but it’s the best word I can use. Rick. They may have exaggerated certain things.
GT 21:22 Okay.
Adam 21:24 I hate using that word. I wish I could find another word, but they may have elaborated certain things.
GT 21:30 So, are you a young earth guy or an old earth guy?
Adam 21:33 Old earth guy, yeah.
GT 21:35 Old earth. So, the earth is millions of years old, not 6000?
Adam 21:40 Yes.
GT 21:40 Oh, that’s interesting. Then you can’t be a literalist, can you?
Adam 21:45 But there’s a tradition of people interpreting–we didn’t get 6 day creationism until the 19th century. There are traditions. I mean, Jewish rabbis and even Muslims, the Bible wasn’t really relevant for them, but they read [it.] They always interpreted the creation story, Genesis 1 as referring to, each day referring to thousands of years. So, there’s a history of interpretation behind that. Now, I have more problems. I’ll just admit this, with evolution. And I think there I’m more of a biblical literalist. But I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be, to take the old earth view, that the earth is millions of years old. I think that that corresponds to the fossil record.
GT 22:31 Okay, so, you’re geologically an old earth guy, but you don’t like evolution?
Adam 22:39 Yeah, I guess. That’s a good way of saying it, yeah.
GT 22:44 That’s interesting. Worldwide flood?
Adam 22:48 Yes, absolutely.
GT 22:49 You believe in a worldwide flood.
Adam 22:51 Yes.
GT 22:52 Because I read all three of your books, and now I’m getting them mixed up.
Adam 22:59 You know, the one book, From Egypt to Ohio book–I think my big hang up with evolution is not that– I think everything promotes an agenda. I think it promotes a specific agenda. But, in my view, I think that humanity is de-evolved from what it was. Now, I know that may sound weird, but I think that we were greater, we were stronger and better fit human beings than we are now. So, I kind of take the opposite way, that we have de-evolved, somewhat, rather than evolved.
GT 23:38 Do you know Steven Pinker? Do you know who he is?
Adam 23:44 He sounds familiar.
GT 23:45 He’s a Harvard guy. And he’s basically like, “We used to kill so many more people. We’re so much more civilized now.” So, he’s going the opposite. He’s like, “We’ve evolved to be better people. We’re more peaceful than we’ve ever been.”
Adam 24:03 I think we’re definitely more peaceful than we’ve ever been. But whether, physically, are we the pinnacle of humanity? I would debate that, just my own personal opinion. So I’m not going to run to school and say, “Hey, you’d better teach creationism,” or something like that, but that’s my own personal opinion.
{End of Part 3}
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