TA 1/2018 (123. vuosikerta)

The Bible as Mormon Scripture — The Bible is one of the four books accepted as scripture by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon mainstream. This article analyses how these Mormons view and use the Bible, its texts and related scholarship. The English-speaking church accepts the King James Version as its official Bible, whereas in non-English contexts, the church uses the common Bible translations available in each language or nation. Although not officially canonised, Mormons also use their founder’s commentary on and changes to the biblical text, known as the ‘Joseph Smith Translation’. Biblical exploration within Mormonism contains elements of explicit eisegesis, as scriptural texts are viewed through the lens of modern-day church teachings and traditions. Mormons generally emphasise conservative viewpoints when engaging in scriptural exegesis, but some openness to the results of historical-critical scholarship can also be seen.

Johan Samuel Pajula, a Forerunner of the Finnish Theological Research and a Victim of the 1918 Civil War — At the University of Helsinki, Johan Samuel Pajula (1856–1918) was the first to publish a doctoral thesis on Finnish Church History and the first Finnish theologian to write and publish his doctoral thesis in Finnish in 1891. Pajula, then a vicar of the Lutheran parish of Iitti, was murdered by the Reds during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. Despite his ground-breaking books and articles, Pajula was not able to gain a tenure position at the Faculty of Theology. By the 1890s, the leading Finnish theologians, having Swedish as their mother tongue and originating from the upper strata of Finnish society, had become supporters of Beckian Biblicism, a fundamentalist interpretation originating from the theology of Johann Tobias Beck. Pajula, a Finnish speaker and son of a saddle-maker, was not a Beckian.