Good grief, and the moron above who lists all these books about the bible, who’s to say those books are true. He says Talmage is wrong when this other author is right, why, how? Where you there? How do you know those are right? Did God tell you personally, did you talk with him face to face, or do you like what he has to say because it supports your believe’s?

Anyways, everyone I’ve seen who has left the church is miserable and can’t find anything else to do other than bash the church! Wow, what great christians, oh wait, I don’t really know what a christian is because I can’t read and understand the bible on my own without reading your books, how lame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
~ Bart D. Ehrman
(This is my personal favorite!)

2) Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
~ Bart D. Ehrman

3) The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
~ Karen Armstrong
(I’m not Armstrong’s biggest fan. I don’t agree with all of her ideas. But this and the next in the list are pretty good and full of interesting info.)

4) A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
~ Karen Armstrong

5) Who Wrote the Bible? ~ Richard Elliott Friedman
(By far the best book on the Bible I have ever read! Very informative, very interesting, short, and even cheap at $11.)

6) Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years
~ David L. Edwards
(Written by an Anglican (Church of England) scholar and priest the vocabulary is often tedious and boring, but it is full of amazing stories from early church history.)

There are others but these (especially Ehrman’s works and “Who Wrote the Bible?”) were enough to convince me that the Bible and Jesus are very far from what Christians today think. And Talmage was so very wrong. Jesus The Christ is hardly an accurate picture of historical Jesus.

Thank you for sharing a bit of your self here.

I’m stll active in the church right now and although I love the church it is still one almighty frustrating place to be sometimes. Actually make that ‘one almighty frustrating place to be most of the time’!!! I think I’m still active due to the perspectives I gained, initially from Mormon Stories and now from Mormon Expression. I’ve tried switching off my belief but the damn thing won’t go away so I’ll stay for now.
Please keep the podcasts coming, this project is worth it…

Great, great episode. You are super talented, bro. Your work here has been amazing.

Most days I practically sit at my computer hitting the browser refresh button…waiting for another episode to arrive.

Thanks so much for all you and the other guys do.

I didn’t listen to Dehlin’s podcasts as he was producing them, but downloaded a bunch this summer and listened to them. Listening to this interview helped me understand much better the difference between Mormon Expression and Mormon Stories — all a matter of perspective.

I also feel quite alone in my doubt. Though several of my Bishops have known of my disaffection they choose to ignore it. I’m not sure if this is on purpose or if they just don’t know how to handle it, being untrained, temporary clergy.

I am a pretty avid reader. Can you narrow it down a little?

Great hearing more about your story. I very much related to the experience you have had with your family since leaving Mormonism. While no criticism has been verbally directed towards me, the silence is deafening and the elephant in the room is always there. Growing up in my family, it was made clear exactly how the currently active members feel about people like myself and thus the silence could be accurately described as a passive violence or a violence of omission. There is an unwillingness to engage in an real and authentic relationship where both parties can be honest about their feelings. This unfortunately indicates anything but health in a relationship. Anyway, those were the thoughts I had as I listened to that part of the podcast. Thanks again for all the work you put into Mormonexpression.

Wes