Noel Reynolds On “”Lehi And Nephi As Trained Manassite Scribes”

Sharon Cooperative Education and Recreation Association? — The SCERA Theater, which is part of the much larger SCERA Center for the Arts, is located at 745 South State Street, in Orem, Utah. It’s the location of the 2022 LDS Film Festival and, therefore, of tonight’s premiere of “Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.” I hope to see you there.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

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In conjunction with the premiere, tonight, of the Interpreter Foundation’s new docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, I’m scheduled to do an interview with Doug Wright of KSL Radio (1160 AM) at roughly 2 PM today. (Probably a few minutes after 2 PM, I suppose, because of the news break?) I’m assuming that it will be a live interview, but I’m not absolutely certain of that.

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Another new article has just gone up in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:

“Lehi and Nephi as Trained Manassite Scribes,” by Noel B. Reynolds

Abstract: This paper brings together contemporary Ancient Near East scholarship in several fields to construct an updated starting point for interpretation of the teachings of the Book of Mormon. It assembles findings from studies of ancient scribal culture, historical linguistics and epigraphy, Hebrew rhetoric, and the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, together with the traditions of ancient Israel to construct a contextualized perspective for understanding Lehi, Nephi, and their scribal training as they would have been understood by their contemporaries. Lehi and Nephi are shown to be the beneficiaries of the most advanced scribal training available in seventh-century bce Jerusalem and prominent bearers of the Josephite textual tradition. These insights give much expanded meaning to Nephi’s early warning that he had been “taught somewhat in all the learning of [his] father” (1 Nephi 1:1). This analysis will be extended in a companion paper to provide the framework that enables the recognition and tracking of an official Nephite scribal school that ultimately provided Mormon with the records that he abridged to produce our Book of Mormon.

Also new, as of yesterday, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation are these two items from the estimable and remarkably prolific Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw:

Old Testament Commentary Genesis 32-33:20: “In His Own Time, and in His Own Way”: Part 2 of 3: Jacob’s Wrestle with an Angel and Promise of a New Name

Old Testament Commentary Genesis 34–35:1–15: “In His Own Time, and in His Own Way”: Part 3 of 3: Jacob’s Ascent to the Heavenly Temple

Слава Україні! Героям слава!

[ETA: It turns out that it wasn’t Doug Wright and it wasn’t KSL. Other than that, I got it all correct. I think that our director may have done an interview with Doug Wright, though. But maybe not. This obviously isn’t the famous “fog of war,” but, on a very hectic day, it’s something like that.]

Noel Reynolds on “”Lehi and Nephi as Trained Manassite Scribes”