Bowman on Joseph Smith, Theosis, and Daniel Peterson

A while ago (early August 2011), BYU professor and LDS apologist Daniel C. Peterson authored a somewhat popular-level article for Deseret News, "Joseph Smith's restoration of 'theosis' was miracle, not scandal", in defense of the claim that the LDS conception of 'exaltation' was original to apostolic Christianity. In the course of this brief defense, Peterson appeals to a variety of ancient Jewish and Christian writings.

More recently, however, Christian apologist Robert M. Bowman Jr. has replied to Peterson's arguments in a five-post series titled "Did Joseph Smith Restore Theosis?", hosted at the Parchment and Pen blog. I've found Bowman's critique to be quite worthwhile reading, and I'd invite any of my readers to seriously consider making their way through it entirely:

1. The Mormon Doctrine of Exaltation
2. The New Testament and Joseph Smith's Doctrine of Exaltation
3. The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's Doctrine of Exaltation
4. Esoteric Jewish Theology and Joseph Smith's Doctrine of Exaltation
5. Early Church Fathers and Joseph Smith's Doctrine of Exaltation
   

I for one really hope that someday Bowman expands this critique in some more suitable venue to also interact with the best LDS scholarship in detail. What he's done here, I think, is quite good; an in-depth critique of the academic treatments of exaltation by Peterson and others, however, would have the potential to be utterly magnificent in pushing the dialogue forward.