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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 He holds a PhD in history from Arizona State University and has trained at the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents.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.

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

FAIR Voice Podcast #10: Polygamy and 1 Corinthians 13

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Polygamy is a difficult concept for many to grasp, but Hanna dives into the Hebrew Bible and the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s to understand polygamy in a way that shows how it was not just acceptable– it was ordained and good for the time. She unapologetically explains how God consecrates everything for our good and how polygamy made sense for the time. She, then, dives into 1 Corinthians 13 and expresses love for the idea of love.

Hanna SeariacHanna 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 really good ice cream.

FAIR Voice Podcast #9: Interview with Chris Blythe on the Terrible Revolution

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Christopher Blythe, a research associate at the Maxwell Institute and co-editor of the Journal of Mormon History, released a new book Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse. In this engaging interview, he discusses with Hanna some of the foundational sources that construct LDS theology on last days prophecies.

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.

Historicity: Not By Scholarship Alone

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As I reflected upon the relationship between faith and scholarship, I have come to realize something I feel is crucial in regards to historicity of scripture: we should evaluate historicity as a matter of faith; not as a matter of scholarship. When examining whether or not the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, or Book of Moses contain any historical truth, we often overlook necessity of the fundamental principle of it: “it rests first upon faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”[1] Satan moves scriptures wholly to a secular sphere because it invites skepticism. While many evidences exist in favor of the historicity of the Book of Mormon[2] and Book of Abraham[3], there exists much to explore and uncover. Indeed, we do not have a complete picture of any ancient civilization, especially not in the Americas. By transitioning the conversation about historicity into an entirely secular sphere, we do not encounter scriptures on the terms that they must be encountered upon. [Read more…] about Historicity: Not By Scholarship Alone

Q&A with editors of Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

This book includes a mixture of scholarship about all of Joseph Smith’s translation projects, including the highly anticipated paper by Thomas A. Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon on the use of the Clarke Commentary in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. We had the opportunity to discuss the book with Michael Hubbard MacKay and Mark Ashurst-McGee. A review of the book will be forthcoming.

Q1: What is the purpose of the book?

Mike and Mark: The book was conceived as an attempt to cover all of the various Joseph Smith translation projects—not only the Book of Mormon and the “New Translation” of the Bible and the Book of Abraham but also the excerpt from the new account of John (D&C 7), the excerpt from the “record of John” (in D&C 93), the Kinderhook plates, and anything else. This had actually never been done before—at least not at this depth. [Read more…] about Q&A with editors of Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity

Enduring in Faith to the End: “Take Heed That No Man Deceive You”

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What is Enduring to the End? 

Once we have entered into the covenant path that leads to eternal life, what more is there to do? We “must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men;” we must “endure to the end” (2 Nephi 31:20).

“Endure” can carry a negative connotation in our modern language. It sounds tedious, difficult, unbearable, or boring! “The end” sounds a bit ominous, too.

Thankfully several scriptures add the important and clarifying details that we are to endure in faith to the end, and that to “endure” means to “continue” (For examples, see Mosiah 4:6, 30; Alma 5:13; Alma 27:27; Moroni 3:3; 8:3; and Doctrine and Covenants 63:20).

In other words, “enduring to the end” is “to continue in faith.” Enduring to the end isn’t just an exercise in patient suffering, it is a conscientious effort to be a committed, faithful, life-long disciple of Jesus Christ.

Three Hazards to Enduring in Faith

 In order to do that, we need to be aware of the hazards that would prevent us from continuing as faithful disciples. To help us in this challenge, Jesus predicted three specific hazards we would face in the latter-days. Each of us have or will face these hazards to some degree or another.  [Read more…] about Enduring in Faith to the End: “Take Heed That No Man Deceive You”

Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter

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[FairMormon has received several questions about this recently, so we were pleased to see Interpreter publish this essay by Christopher J. Blythe. It has been cross-posted with permission.]

Abstract: In this essay, I examine a letter written by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone in 1983 and deposited in the cornerstone of the Atlanta Georgia Temple. The letter is addressed to twenty-first century members of the Church and is written with the expectation that these future Saints will have been alive for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I consider the claims made about this letter from a recent viral video entitled “7 Year Tribulation in the SEVENTH Seal TIMELINE.”

On March 12, 2020, the video “7 Year Tribulation in the SEVENTH Seal TIMELINE” was released on YouTube.1 Six weeks later it had 375,000 views and had made the rounds on various Facebook groups, including one devoted to discussion among seminary teachers. The video presents a last days timeline that places the Second Coming in the very near future. The video’s creator, Masayoshi Montemayor, makes his points largely through official Church sources, including the Church’s website, institute manuals, and conference reports. However, in other instances, he points to obscure sources, including an April 1983 letter written by Seventy Vaughn J. Featherstone. This letter serves as Montemayor’s final piece of evidence for an imminent second coming. In this essay, I examine this document to understand its limitations for the argument Montemayor makes. My goal is not to criticize Elder Featherstone or to disparage sincere Latter-day Saints — among them presumably this video’s creator — who like myself are eager to be present for our Savior’s coming. [Read more…] about Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter

Book Review – 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

This is the first in a series of books from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute meant to seek “Christ in scripture by combining intellectual rigor and the disciple’s yearning for holiness,” (page vii) and focusing on theological aspects of the Book of Mormon. “In this case, theology, as opposed to authoritative doctrine, relates to the original sense of the term as, literally, reasoned ‘God talk’”  (page viii). This volume is by Joseph Spencer, an assistant professor of ancient scripture at BYU and the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

At 146 pages, the book is indeed brief. It is a small paperback, but it has a lot of nice features. The front cover is embossed and both the front and back covers have flaps that can (almost) be used as bookmarks. There are woodcut illuminations matching those in the recent “Study Edition” of the Book of Mormon, also published by the Maxwell Institute. And the text has orange highlights and notes throughout.

The book has two parts. The first part, “The Theological Project of 1 Nephi,” was the most interesting to me. It talks about the original chapter breaks, and how they made it easier to see that Nephi intentionally structured the book to have two parts. The first part is an abridgment of the record kept by Lehi, and the second part, beginning with the original chapter three (now chapter ten) is about Nephi’s life. “The first half of the book prepares for the second by explaining how Nephi’s family came to possess the two key prophetic resources [the brass plates and the vision of the tree of life] essential to Nephi’s own subsequent ministerial efforts. The second half of the book then recounts Nephi’s ministry to his brothers, built on parallel expositions of the two key prophetic resources from the first half of the book” (pages 19-20). This is all shown in two diagrams, which explain that each of the original chapters had a theme and how they relate to each other. [Read more…] about Book Review – 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

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2020 Interpreter Foundation Conference

 

Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

September 18-19, 2020
Brigham Young University, Tanner Building, Room 251
(If temporary COVID-19 restrictions preclude gathering on campus, we will hold the conference virtually. For late-breaking news, watch this website.)

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

Because we believe that the Book of Moses includes authentic history, the possibility of evidence for that belief interests us as scholars. Although the primary intent of Joseph Smith’s translations is to meet the needs of modern readers, not to provide precise matches to texts from other times, we consider significant patterns of resemblance to ancient manuscripts that the Prophet could not have known and of unexpected conformance to conditions imposed by an archaic setting as potential indicators of antiquity that are best explained when the essential element of divine revelation is acknowledged. [Read more…] about Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses