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Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 11: September 1842 – February 1843

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

This volume of the Documents series of the Joseph Smith Papers covers a period of time when Joseph Smith hid from attempts to arrest and extradite him to Missouri while trying to lead Nauvoo and the Church. He then had a legal victory which enabled him to come out of hiding and attend to many items of business, including continuing to teach the Saints and becoming mayor of Nauvoo.  The collection of 105 documents includes letters, poems, discourses, deeds, notices, meeting minutes, affidavits, songs, etc. These combine to paint an interesting picture of a very busy time in Joseph’s life.

Among the illustrations in the introduction is a sketch of Joseph Smith by local artist Benjamin West, done during an extradition hearing in Springfield, Illinois, in January 1843. It is unknown whether it was meant to be accurate or more of a caricature, but it does match written descriptions of Joseph (see https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/12/what-did-joseph-smith-really-look-like?lang=eng). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 11: September 1842 – February 1843

FairMormon Conference Podcast #61 – Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph Smith’s ‘New Translation’ of the Bible, His Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary, and the Question of Plagiarism”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2020 conference, held in August. If you would like to watch the video of this and all the other presentations from our 2020 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Mark Ashurst-McGee, Joseph Smith’s “New Translation” of the Bible, His Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary, and the Question of Plagiarism

Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity is available from the FairMormon Bookstore.

Mark Ashurst-McGee is a senior historian in the Church History Department and the senior research and review editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, where he also serves as a specialist in document analysis and documentary editing methodology. He holds a PhD in history from Arizona State University and has trained at the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents. He has coedited several volumes of The Joseph Smith Papers and is also coeditor of Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is also the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saint history published in scholarly journals and popular venues.

Watch the 2020 Interpreter Conference

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Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

Live Streaming of the Conference
September 18 & 19, 2020

Program and other details available here.

Live streaming times:

  • 7:00 pm MDT, Friday September 18 — Keynote Session
  • 9:00 am MDT, Saturday September 19 — Morning Session
  • 1:00 pm MDT, Saturday September 19 — Afternoon Session

To Submit Questions During the Conference:

NOTE: The live-stream links will no longer be operational once the Conference finishes. We expect videos of the presentations to be available 6-8 weeks afterward. Freely downloadable drafts of the conference proceedings papers will be available within the ‘Book of Moses Bibliography’ at https://interpreterfoundation.org/book-of-moses-bibliography/ shortly after the conference.

Interpreter Conference

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by Jeffrey Bradshaw

Beginning in the 1970s, a few scholars, most notably Hugh W. Nibley, began to point to evidence relating to the ancient context of the Book of Moses. However, over-enthusiastic scholars (admittedly, at times, including myself) have not always been careful in their research and sometimes have gone farther in their claims than the evidence warrants. As a result, some of the early enthusiasm for comparative studies has waned and, paralleling the course of biblical studies, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme where comparisons of scripture to the ancient world became less common.

Now the pendulum is swinging back the other way. We hope that the presentations at the conference will reflect the still increasing maturity of the field, relying on more well-defined methodologies designed to better assure the reliability of their results — avoiding the extremes of both parallelomania and parallelophobia. In addition to more well-defined methodologies, recent research has also benefitted from new discoveries and better understandings of the manuscripts and other material remains of the cultures and religious traditions of the ancient Near East.

The conference is based on the premise that significant patterns of resemblance to ancient manuscripts not available during the lifetime of Joseph Smith and of unexpected conformance to conditions imposed by an archaic setting are potential indicators of antiquity that are best explained when the essential element of divine revelation is acknowledged. [Read more…] about Interpreter Conference

Update from Kerry Muhlestein re: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse

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[This is an update to a post from August 25, Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham]

UPDATE

I believe that academic dialogue is important and can be fruitful. There are many scholars who are academically interested in the Book of Abraham, its translation, and its content. Some scholars have even made such study their life’s work. (This is not unusual in many specialized subject areas.)

Regardless of the area of study, all scholars approach any topic with their own sets of existing beliefs. It is impossible for a scholar to be a “blank slate” when it comes to any field of study. It is no surprise that my existing beliefs are consistent with what I view as the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith. It is likewise no surprise that others, including Professor Ritner, start with a set of beliefs that preclude divine involvement in the work of Joseph Smith.

With that in mind and because I am truly interested in academic dialogue about the Book of Abraham, before I posted any kind of response online, I personally contacted Professor Ritner. I suggested that we work together on creating an academic volume on the subject. I suggested possible guidelines for doing so, possible academic venues, possible editors, and even a potential table of contents. I modeled it after volumes on contested issues that have been successfully done in academia elsewhere. The goal would be to have a balanced approach observing the highest academic rigor and tone, creating a dialogue with each other rather than having parties who speak past each other. If done correctly, I believe that such an approach can lead to real progress. [Read more…] about Update from Kerry Muhlestein re: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse

FAIR Voice Podcast #13: Sunday Special on Scripture Study

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The early day saints worshiped in their homes due to a variety of reasons such as ongoing persecution, lack of worship space, habit, unclear instructions, limited availability of scripture, low literacy rates, etc., but they still gathered together to break bread and worship Christ.

In Acts 5:42, we read that: “from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”

Part of my personal worship (and academic life) for the last few years has included the study of early Christianity because I find that a close connection with these early saints gives me a deeper appreciation for how I have experienced Christianity.

The Oxyrhynchus hymn is an early Christian hymn translated as: “. . .let the luminous stars not shine, let the winds and all the noisy rivers die down. And as we hymn the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Let all the powers add, ‘Amen. Amen.’ Empire, praise always, and glory to God, the sole giver of good things. ‘Amen. Amen.’ ”

Tomorrow, for some of us, we do not have an opportunity to attend worship services. But we do have the opportunity to worship Jesus Christ in our homes, to learn from the scriptures that we have wide access to, to enhance our scripture study with great resources, and to become better disciples of Christ. [Read more…] about FAIR Voice Podcast #13: Sunday Special on Scripture Study

Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

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by Kerry Muhlestein

Cross-posted from The Interpreter Foundation

See also: Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

[Kerry Muhlestein also gave a presentation at the recent FairMormon Conference on “Egyptian Papers and the Translation of the Book of Abraham: What Careful Applications of the Evidence Can and Cannot Tell Us.” You can purchase access to watch the full conference here.]

We live in an era of online communications. If you want to reach large numbers of people in quick fashion, then online videos, blogs, memes, and podcasts have become the tool of the moment. These tools are effective at conveying information in an attractive and user-friendly format and in a way that can reach across the globe in mere minutes. Moreover, they are quite convenient for the consumer, which further helps spread the message. They certainly have their place, and do some things very well.

If these online communications have a downside, it is insuring the accuracy of the information they convey. Many are accurate, many are not, and it is difficult to tell which is which. Like news sound bites, such media often seem to lend themselves to simplistic and over-reduced explanations that frequently misrepresent complex matters. Further, somehow they often easily fall into a low level of discourse. This is not true of all them, it really depends on the hosts and forums. Yet too often this is exactly what happens. Some who engage in these electronic venues work very hard to try to provide accurate information at an honorable level of rhetoric, but the forum does not require it and thus many are extremely poor at ensuring a high academic quality of information and sometimes make little to no effort at maintaining the kind of respectful and noble level of discourse that is supposed to be the hallmark of the academic world. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in some podcasts that have recently been released in various venues about the Book of Abraham. [Read more…] about Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

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Cross-posted from The Interpreter Foundation

See also: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

[Kerry Muhlestein also gave a presentation at the recent FairMormon Conference on “Egyptian Papers and the Translation of the Book of Abraham: What Careful Applications of the Evidence Can and Cannot Tell Us.” You can purchase access to watch the full conference here.]

The Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price continues to generate considerable interest (and controversy) among readers. Ever since George Reynolds published his series “The Book of Abraham—Its Genuineness Established” in the year 1879,[1] members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have sought to both make sense of this small yet profound book of scripture and provide evidence for its authenticity and inspiration. Those skeptical of Joseph Smith’s claims to have a divine gift of translation, on the other hand, have argued for the problematic or outright fraudulent nature of the text.[2] “Needless to say,” remarks one neutral observer, “neither side has been convinced by the other, and as a result, the controversy continues.”[3]

Those who wish to hear a representative opinion on the skeptical side of the debate need simply listen to a series of recent podcasts with Dr. Robert Ritner of the University of Chicago, who has vocalized his criticisms of the Book of Abraham and his low opinion of Latter-day Saint scholarship on this text.[4] To help them easily access the Latter-day Saint side of the argument, the following resources have been collected for readers’ convenience. To help orient readers with this material, this blog post will take a few moments to frame the interlocking issues of the historicity of the Book of Abraham, the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham, and the translation of the Book of Abraham and the respective scholarship that has gone into them. [Read more…] about Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

2020 Interpreter Foundation Conference

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Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

September 18-19, 2020
Due to the COVID-19 situation, this will be a live-streaming-only conference. For updates on conference details, watch this page

Presented by
The Interpreter Foundation
Brigham Young University Department of Ancient Scripture
Book of Mormon Central
FairMormon

[Read more…] about 2020 Interpreter Foundation Conference

FAIR Voice Podcast #5: Interview with John Gee on the Book of Abraham

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Please register for the FairMormon Conference that is on August 5-7. It’s a great opportunity to support FairMormon, hear from amazing speakers, and ask questions directly to speakers!

Today, Hanna interviews Professor John Gee of Brigham Young University.

John Gee is the William Gay Assistant Research Professor of Egyptology at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. They begin by touching upon the difference between John Gee’s and Brian Hauglid’s claims before going into a greater discussion about the Book of Abraham. John Gee relays the most important evidences for the Book of Abraham, outlines faithful positions on historicity that believers can have, discusses his favorite Abrahamic stories, and much more. He offers a preview of what his FairMormon presentation will be. In a truly great interview, John Gee offers an excellent case for why the Book of Abraham has historical probability and also, why that matters.

Note: At the end, Hanna says “historical probability” and it should be “historical plausibility.”

 

Hanna Seariac

Hanna Seariac is a MA student in Greek and Latin at Brigham Young University. She is writing a book on the history of the priesthood and another one that responds systematically to anti-LDS literature. She works as a research assistant on a biblical commentary and as a producer on a news show. She values Jesus Christ, family, friends, hiking, baking, and good ice cream.