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As part of the Young Scholars Series, Laura Harris Hales interviews Bible-enthusiast Daniel Smith, creator of the YouTube channel “Messages of Christ.” Smith’s channel is equal parts fascinating and popular, evidenced by its view count of over 1 million.

On perusing Smith’s channel, it’s apparent that he has a particular interest that at first glance may seem a bit unusual: ancient tabernacles and its artifacts. That interest has led Smith not only to study them, but actually to build them in addition to creating unique, authentic tabernacle clothing.

During his interview, Smith recounts how and why he creates tabernacle clothing, (get this: it involves a hand-built Lego machine) what exactly happened in the tabernacle in Biblical times, and why it’s important for members of the church to understand it today.

Sometimes, as Smith explains, the best way to understand something is to experience it.

Tabernacle camps are popping up — typically in Youth Conferences — in stakes all over the United States. There’s even one coming to BYU in the coming months, which will be used to teach students about its ancient biblical context. Find out what happens there and why, as well as how it relates to our current temple experience, in this episode of LDS Perspectives Podcast: “Learning from the Ancient Tabernacles.”

Re-posted with permission from LDS Perspectives.

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Award-winning author Michael Austin, a self-proclaimed writer of an “incoherent assortment of different topics,” is anything but incoherent in his expansion on the true message found in the Old Testament’s Book of Job.

The story of Job is one that will be familiar to most listeners — Job is righteous, but God tests his faith by essentially wreaking havoc on his life. Most notably, Job loses his family and his livelihood — yet he is ever-patient, never losing his temper with God.

Austin, however, is here to turn what we know about Job completely upside down: Job didn’t constantly praise God in the midst of his trials, and he certainly wasn’t always patient. And that’s okay. Yet our limited understanding of Job as a person or character isn’t the only thing Austin revolutionizes. The satan mentioned in the story? That’s not the Satan. It’s not Lucifer — the Prince of the Morning, the Father of All Lies. No, it’s someone else entirely.

Get ready to rethink what you know and the evils of being impatient in the midst of trials.

The details Austin shares in this episode of LDS Perspectives provide a more complete understanding of the book of Job. Typically when Job is referenced, we hear about the first two or last few chapters of his book — but what about the rest? A biblical book with 42 chapters undoubtedly contains wisdom that is not strictly limited to only a few short sections. Job, Austin explains, is so much more than the often one-dimensional figure we make him out to be. And in learning that, we learn so many gospel truths that we otherwise miss.

Listen as Sarah Hatch of LDS Perspectives Podcast interviews Michael Austin about wisdom literature, the true nature of Job and his relationship with God, and what we can learn from what very well may be the greatest ancient poem ever written.

If you’re as fascinated by this episode as we are and find yourself hungering to learn more about Job, check out Michael Austin’s acclaimed book, Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem.

Re-posted with permission from LDS Perspectives.

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In the winter of 1836, the Kirtland temple was nearing completion, the Saints were experiencing a period of peace after persecution, and 100 church members enrolled in a seven-week, intensive Hebrew language course. Besides being one of the most ambitious CES endeavors ever, the study of a difficult foreign language seems a bit random considering some of the students lacked even a basic pioneer education.

Matthew Grey has studied this period of history extensively and believes that the Hebrew study was anything but random or casual. Rather it was an outgrowth of the larger translation project that Joseph had begun in the summer of 1835.

A review of church history shows that Joseph purchased scrolls and mummies from Michael Chandler in July 1835. Shortly thereafter, he translated what became known as Abraham 1 and Abraham 2 through the use of a seer stone. He then began working on a “Grammer and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language” (GAEL). In the fall, he started looking for a teacher of Hebrew for the Kirtland School. By January, the school committee had hired Joshua Seixas as a Hebrew teacher.

Joshua Seixas had published his own textbook and worksheets that were specifically designed for beginners. In his primer, he used his native Sephardic Hebrew in his transliterations, which varied substantially from the more common Ashkenazi Hebrew spellings. Because of the distinctive Hebrew transliterations in Seixas’s texts, we can trace Joseph’s use of his Hebrew training in succeeding years.

What Grey found in his research is that Joseph used his training at key moments. Traces of Sephardic Hebrew can be found in revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Abraham, and recorded Nauvoo speeches. For Joseph, there seemed to be no dichotomy between intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Translations were neither purely static nor pure revelation, but a mixture of both. He used his intellectual training to unpack theological possibilities by creatively reworking traditional translations.  Some of the most distinct Mormon teachings revealed in Nauvoo such as the nature of God, expansions on the plan of salvation, and even verbiage in the temple ritual can be traced to Joseph’s Hebrew studies.

Join Laura Harris Hales as she discusses with Matthew Grey the influence of Joseph’s Hebrew study on his subsequent teachings and the vital piece of the Book of Abraham translation puzzle this new research provides.

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Steven L. Peck is a scientist, BYU professor, and acclaimed author. In recent years he has emerged as a powerful advocate for science and evolution, publishing two books about the topic in as many years.

His latest offering, Science the Key to Theology, is an impassioned plea to members of the LDS Church to teach the compatibility rather than a supposed conflict between science and religion.

He reaches out to individuals who can’t accept the argument for evolution to at least acknowledge that the LDS Church does not have a stated position on the topic. In teaching capacities, members have a duty to respect that position. He hopes that by removing conflicting narratives, the tension between what our youth are taught in school and what they sometimes are taught in church settings will disappear. Too many youth feel they need to make a choice between believing science and believing in religion.

As a youth, Steven became less active after learning that his Seminary teacher didn’t believe in dinosaurs. If there had been room in his teenage theology for prayers and pterodactyls, he wonders, perhaps it would have made a difference for him.

Luckily Steve moved on to BYU where he found faithful professors who modeled a healthy fidelity to both scientific and religious truths. He bemoans that some members of the church insist on misusing scripture as a scientific document rather than teaching of its miraculous ability to show us how to build a relationship with God. Science speaks to the “how” of creation, but religion speaks to the “why.”

Listen in as Laura Harris Hales of the LDS Perspectives Podcast and Steven Peck share a blunt discussion about the harmful effect teaching a tension between science and religion can have on testimonies. Both science and religion can work together in Steven’s model of theology to build faith.

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Ardis Parshall is one half of the duo behind the Mormon Image in Literature series published by Kofford Books. Along with Michael Austin, Ardis rescues literature from the past that otherwise would remain largely unknown. The works that Ardis and Michael are republishing are rare, fragile, and soon could be lost. They hope to preserve these types of works for a generation of researchers.

Dime Novel Mormons, their current offering, presents four Mormon-themed novellas.  Dime novels were a popular genre from about 1870 through the turn of the century. America was going through an educational revolution and people needed things to read. Dime novels filled that need with affordably priced, page-turning excitement.

The way Mormons were portrayed in dime novels was remarkably consistent. The authors played on common stereotypes and themes such as Danites, polygamy, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

These stereotypes couldn’t help but affect the public opinion and the reception of Mormon missionaries. No matter how clean-cut the missionaries were, they had to overcome literary baggage pointing to the secret, suspicious, and nefarious nature of Mormons.

These melodramatic portrayals represented reality for millions of people. In fact, one sensational novel became so popular in England that citizens called for a removal of all Mormon missionaries, which resulted in a thorough investigation and later vindication from Winston Churchill.

While readers may become frustrated when reading these outlandish tales that scarcely represent history, they are recreating what it meant to be a Mormon in the nineteenth century. Akin to dressing up in pioneer clothes and pushing handcarts, reading these novels help reenact a historical event. They allow the reader to enter the experiences of members and non-members alike as they read the same words they read about “Mormons.”

Laura Harris Hales of LDS Perspectives Podcast interviews Ardis Parshall about preserving the literature of the past and inspiring the current generation to own the real Mormon story and share it with the world.

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Taylor Halverson and Tyler Griffin are co-founders and co-directors of the BYU Virtual Scriptures Group.

This group recently released the Virtual New Testament App for desktop computers, mobile devices, and tablets. The app allows users to navigate in and through locations in New Testament Jerusalem and surrounding areas. They are currently working on a Book of Mormon geography app.

Creating a map or a virtual app for Book of Mormon geography has been a bit more challenging because there is no widely accepted location to pin on our modern maps.

While many individuals and groups forward various theories on Book of Mormon geography, the LDS Church officially holds a position of neutrality as to geographic locations.

Some members are either apathetic or confused by proposed Book of Mormon geography models. Tyler and Taylor sympathize with the challenge many learners experience and are motivated to bring some sense of clarity and meaning to learning Book of Mormon geography.

In this LDS Perspectives Podcast, Nick Galieti discusses the usefulness of mapping Book of Mormon geography with Tyler Griffin and Taylor Halverson.

Their efforts are not aimed at situating the Book of Mormon within America but rather within the text.  They hope that their app will facilitate more indepth study from youth who are often confused by the geographic references in the text.

The model may also help readers gain a respect for how geography plays a role in motivating characters in the Book of Mormon to make certain decisions.

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In November 2015, George Handley, associate dean of the College of Humanities at BYU, spoke on his journey of faith in an Education in Zion lecture that was later published in BYU Studies.

Partially because of its timing and mainly because of its powerful message, his speech has been widely circulated since that time. Not only did he offer words of comfort to those who were struggling but also tools to be a more critical consumer.

Handley suggests that the three crucial ingredients of criticism, compassion, and charity must work together to create a quality intellectual and spiritual life. These elements also work together to develop meaningful relationships and build communities.

Exploring the humanities offer an incomparable opportunity to expand the soul, increase creativity, learn from others, and criticize our environment. Critical judgment allows us to step back and analyze a situation and to get out of ourselves emotionally; it is a deliberate and calm process of evaluation. We can’t experience all things so must look to others for deeper understanding of diversity in this complex universe.

Handley has found that the major driver in one’s relationship with the church can be the relationship one has with the people within the church.  People who struggle stay because they feel loved and that they belong. A community cannot be realized without coming to terms and accepting difference through compassion and charity and realizing the natural ebbs and flows of any relationship.

Join Laura Harris Hales of LDS Perspectives Podcast as she discusses with George Handley the importance of encouraging criticism, compassion, and charity in order to build community and find belonging.

Check out the resources referenced in the podcast at LDS Perspectives.

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From the New Testament, we learn that Jesus’s favorite mode of teaching was through fiction; he taught parables. Although the characters and events may not be historical, few Christians question the truth in the messages.

Despite comfort with parables, some Christians become unsettled thinking about elements of the Bible as being non-historical. Biblical scholar Ben Spackman points out that this hesitancy is inherited from Enlightenment thinking, which regarded revelation as truth and truth as scientific or historical fact. This thinking, Ben points out, causes many readers to jettison common sense and plain readings of scriptural text.

Often times when reading scripture, the assumption is made that the text is either literal or figurative, but these two categories are insufficient to describe the different genres of scriptures.

It would be more helpful to approach the Bible as if it were a library that contained books of many different genre instead of being all the same type of writing. No Christian would presume to label all scripture as parable. Likewise all scripture should not be labeled as history. The Bible contains books of satire, law codes, poetry, parables, myth, conquest narratives, and prophetic revelation among other things.

The type of “thing” or genre of a given book is indicated by genre markers. For instance, Americans can tell a book is a fairy tale if it begins with “Once upon a time.” Genre markers in the Bible can be identified similarly by biblical scholars familiar with the culture.

Readers should also keep in mind that ancient Israelites approached the use of history in scripture differently than modern authors. Historical accuracy is actually a modern concept. Biblical writers often fashioned history to teach a higher purpose. If some of the historical details were fudged, then that was regarded as acceptable if done to make a point.

Join Laura Harris Hales of the LDS Perspectives Podcast as she interviews biblical scholar Ben Spackman about the different genres of literature found in the Bible.

Check out the resources referenced in the podcast at LDS Perspectives.

Ben Spackman will be speaking at the 2017 FairMormon Conference in August. More details can be found here.

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In 1835, the church published the Doctrine and Covenants, which contained significant additions to the 1833 Book of Commandments. At the beginning of the collection of revelations were seven theological lectures that had originally been delivered at the Kirtland School the preceding winter.

Details about the purpose and curriculum of the Kirtland School, later referred to as the “School for the Elders” or “School of the Prophets,” are uncertain. Most of what we know is taken from late reminiscences recorded nearly fifty years after its commencement. Lessons included at least an English grammar element and the seven theological lectures, which were part of a series to “unfold … the doctrine of Jesus Christ.” The classroom consisted of prospective missionaries and church leaders and, by all accounts, was presided over by Sidney Rigdon.

The lectures were removed from the Doctrine and Covenants in the 1921 edition, but they did not fade away. They have proven to be particularly buoyant as they have experienced resurgent popularity over the years and an ability to maintain a loyal following. But the history of the Lectures on Faith are a cautionary tale for members of the church that illustrates the dangers of historical forgetting.

It was common knowledge in the 19th century that the lectures were written by Sidney Rigdon, but by the mid-twentieth century it was thought that the Prophet Joseph Smith had penned them. Perhaps enamored with the arcane rhetorical style of the arguments, some members latched on to them as a source of deep theological thought. What they didn’t realize was that the style mimics that of the preachers of the 19th century and of the Campbellites in particular. Especially telling is the reference to a binary Godhead in the fifth lecture. Joseph Smith explicitly declared in Nauvoo that his concept of the Godhead had never changed, and he had always taught the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were separate entities.

But all the historical evidence to discredit Joseph Smith and attribute Sidney Rigdon as author was circumstantial. It wasn’t until Noel Reynold’s discovered some new documents that he realized he had found the “smoking gun” and the confirmation that he needed to form a solid argument for Sidney Rigdon as the author.

Join Laura Harris Hales as she discusses with Noel Reynolds the mystery of the authorship of the Lectures on Faith and what we can learn from this episode in Mormon history.

Check out to the resources referenced in this podcast at LDS Perspectives.