Johnny Lingo; 8 cow wife. Mormon films and productions fall into a scale with at least two dimensions: campy versus professional, and anally retentive versus friendly.
Review of our Sunday February 2nd, 2014 visit to the Utah Science and
Technology Arts Museum (also known as the Leonard Museum), in Salt Lake
City, Utah.
Currently on display is a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit there, an exhibit which appears to be rotating around to various museums.
The admission price for the special exhibit is very high.
Here's what you'll see in side:
1. Sand on the floor.
2. Old pottery.
3. Old coins.
4. A few very small pieces of the scrolls, which are impossible to read or view in any reasonable way. Blown up images of the few pieces brought.
5. Staff who state that they believe in prayer.
6. A replica of the Jerusalem wailing wall (western temple wall), into which you can place a prayer paper, which will supposedly later be taken to Jerusalem.
7. A special Utah section about the Dead Sea Scrolls that talks about the contribution of Utahns - mainly talking about the involvement of the group FARMS (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies - now the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU), and strangely about the DNA work of Scott Woodward. FARMS and it's successor serve as a "scholarly" "scientific" apologetic instrument of the Mormon Church.
Mention of Scott Woodward's DNA work in the Utah section was particularly appalling. Where is the Lamanite DNA? Google plant geneticist Simon Southerton to find out - there is none. FARMS/Maxwell/BYU apologetic pseudoscience has no place in an honest science museum.
At the North American Museum of Ancient Life, in Lehi (near Provo), Utah (also should be known in my view as the 'Provo Dinosaur Museum'), they have a lot of nice exhibits. But
one key thing missing is any mention of human evolution, or that there were other 'homo' species, such as neanderthals. What's up with that? So
yes the place is nice & pretty, but they aren't telling the full
story with the glaring omission of human evolution. Zero mention in the
place - from what we saw. Nice & pretty to be sure, but not the full story of "ancient life." Video from our February 2nd, 2013 visit:
A talk by Dr. Southerton to at an Exmormon Foundation conference: http://exmormonfoundation.org/audio2006.html
...look under the text on that page that says
"Simon Southerton, Ph.D.: 'Losing a Lost Race: From Radishes to DNA and Outer Darkness'"
