Here is another resource that you might find of value for your study and/or your teaching of the 2025 Come, Follow Me curriculum — especially as we move, in February, toward consideration of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon: “Episode 18: Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable?”
Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 18: Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable? Eyewitness testimony is used around the world in courts of law. But there’s a movement today that calls into question the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Is it true that eyewitness testimony is unreliable—and thus invalid? This is Episode 18 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. In this particular installment we feature Jeff Bradshaw, Senior Research Scientist, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.
And, by the way, have I mentioned yet that the Interpreter Foundation’s 2022 docudrama, Undaunted, is now available for free streaming at The Witnesses Initiative?
Please be aware, too, that the Foundation’s 2024 dramatic film Six Days in August is currently intended to begin streaming — though not, alas, for free — on Friday, 31 January. (I’ll share specific details when I have them.)
Moreover, here are two more items from the notoriously comatose Interpreter Foundation:
- Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps (2025): Doctrine and Covenants 6–9: February 3–9: “This Is the Spirit of Revelation” Jonn Claybaugh generously provides yet another of his series of concise aids for teachers and students of the Come, Follow Me curriculum.
- Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 6 (2025): “This Is the Spirit of Revelation”: D&C 6-9. During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there is some background noise. Volumes vary, probably depending upon where the recorder was placed in the room. Many are very low volume but in most cases it’s possible to understand the words. In a couple of cases the ends of one class were put on some space left over from a different class. There’s some mixup around D&C 90-100 that couldn’t be figured out so those recordings are as they were on the tapes. Even with these flaws and missing classes, we believe these these will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program.This week we have three Lectures relevant to the February 3 – 9 Come, Follow Me lesson, “This Is the Spirit of Revelation,” covering D&C 6-9.
From the Church News podcast: “Episode 225: Church historian Matt Grow encourages peacemaking amid historical misrepresentation: Sarah Jane Weaver hosts this important episode on peacemaking despite violent rhetoric.” Here is an excerpt from the interview that pleased me very much. One of our hopes in making Six Days in August was for audiences to recognize that Brigham Young was a highly spiritual man, and not merely an effective master of practical action:
Sarah Jane Weaver: As Ryan indicated, we’re here to talk about the new Netflix series that has actually put a spotlight on early Church history. And the show is set in the 1850s and depicts Brigham Young, the Shoshone and other indigenous groups, and Latter-day Saints as being very violent. Is this really what the early West was like?
Matt Grow: I think there’s a lot of inaccuracies in this portrayal. And I think it makes sense for us to begin with Brigham Young himself, putting him in a little bit of context so that we can understand his portrayal in this series. First of all, we have to understand how deeply Brigham Young believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was a believer. He was a believer from his early days and all through his life. He considered himself a disciple of the Prince of Peace. And some want to argue — and this has always been the argument about Brigham Young — that he was mainly a practical leader rather than a spiritual leader. And that just does injustice to Brigham. He was a believer.
And some over time have compared him to Moses, that he was an American Moses that led his people out of one place and into another place. I think another appropriate comparison is that he’s an American Enoch. And what I mean by that is he was trying to build a people, build a city. And in his mind, it was the sort of city that we read about in the Pearl of Great Price in the book of Moses, that it would be a place of peace, a place of safety, a place where there would be no poor among them, a place of unity. That was really what Brigham Young was after.
And if we look at the whole of his life, we see that there were several critical junctures where he proactively chose peace to avoid violence. . . .
I think it important to note — and I believe that I’ve mentioned this here previously — that LaJean Carruth, too, prefers to call Brigham Young an aspiring “American Enoch,” and actually objects to labeling him an “American Moses.” That, she says, is not how he saw himself.
This is very disappointing: “Church says Texas town not standing by settlement reached for the McKinney Texas Temple: The town of Fairview and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints negotiated a smaller temple in November. The agreement may be unraveling and the church may seek legal remedy”
Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada
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