You can now watch a thirty-second trailer for Episode 6 of our ongoing Becoming Brigham series: “Young Brigham Young,” Part One. Of course, Episode 5 is already available, the full Episode 6 will appear on Monday, and, along with other relevant materials, all of the episodes are accessible at becomingbrigham.com. Please watch, subscribe, and share.
Newly posted today on the long-dormant website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conversations with Interpreter: Episode 4: “Naming and Narrative Irony in Mosiah 23,” with Matthew Bowen:
In this episode, Avram and Thora interview Matthew L. Bowen, a professor of Religious Education from Brigham Young University-Hawaii. Bowen has published numerous studies on ancient wordplay in the Book of Mormon. Bowen discusses his study recently published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship which explores Mormon’s use of the Hebrew root ḥayil/ḥêl, a root that has a wide range of meanings, including “wealth,” “abundance,” and “army.” Bowen argues that Mormon deploys this in a variety of ways in his portrayal of the people of Helam in Mosiah 23, providing new perspectives on the idea of prosperity in the Book of Mormon. Building off of Bowen’s paper, this episode talks about how this helps us better understand other ancient aspects of Nephite culture like orality and the centrality of the Exodus narrative.
The full article can be read here: https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/they-did-multiply-and-prosper-exceedingly-in-the-land-of-helam-naming-and-narrative-irony-in-mosiah-23.
I apologize. In yesterday’s blog post, I became so enraptured with the subject of “The Gospel Vision of the Arts” that I failed to mention that a second Interpreter journal article had appeared just slightly after noon, in addition to Professor Kent Jackson’s “The Lord Gave Cain a Sign.” So here’s my announcement of that second article:
“Where Will We Turn for Peace?” written by Ralph C. Hancock, appeared yesterday at Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 68 (2026): 133-156, and is freely available online at the link just supplied.
Review of Patrick Q. Mason and J. David Pulsipher, Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021). 290 pages. $19.99 (paperback).
Abstract: Proclaim Peace is a very timely and serious engagement with questions of peace. Consisting of roughly equal parts challenging scriptural exegesis, well-documented historical research, and earnest social activism, it may be taken as exemplary of current LDS academic opinion and institutional action on the interface between religion and politics. This work compels us to consider a critical question: Do we interpret the core meaning of peace as a temporal project of seeking justice? Or do we understand, contextualize, and moderate our passion for temporal justice relative to a promise of eternal peace? If we are intent on unifying heaven and earth, we should be careful from which direction we are working.
The “timeliness” of Proclaim Peace is certainly evident in today’s news, as forces from the United States and Israel have launched strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iranian forces have responded with strikes against Israel and against other nations in the region. I’ve spent time in both Israel and Iran. I know people who live in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as well as in Tehran and Qom and Isfahan.
As I write, it remains to be seen how successful the US/Israeli strikes will be. Will they finally eliminate Iran’s nuclear program? Will they cripple Iranian military power? Will they defang the Basij and the noxious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? Will they cause the Iranian regime to collapse? (Israeli sources and now President Trump are saying that Ali Khamenei is dead. If true, will that be enough for the regime to fall?) Will there be significant American and Israeli casualties? Will Iran be able to inflict serious damage on American military assets in the region? Will the Iranians close the Straits of Hormuz? Will they hit American civilians and soft targets in the region? Will there be retaliatory terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States? If the Iranian regime falls, will it be replaced by more congenial leadership, or will Iran become more radical or fragment into civil war? It would be really nice, sometimes, if it were foresight that is 20/20.
My wife and I participate in a (roughly) once-a-month gathering with three friends to enjoy dinner together and to discuss a book that we’ve read in preparation for our meeting — sometimes a Latter-day Saint book but often not. For tonight’s gathering, we decided to do something rather different. (For the record: The Interpreter Foundation pays for neither our copy of the book for discussion, nor our transportation to and from the gathering, nor our meals. Why on earth would it? It also doesn’t buy my toothpaste or my socks.) For tonight, we’re reading or listening to talks from the late President Jeffrey R. Holland, whose passing we’ve mourned. I meant to devote more time to listening and reading to his talks today than I have; instead, I’ve been glued to news coverage about the news out of the Middle East. Still, I’ve listened to and read several of President Holland’s talks, and I’ve greatly enjoyed revisiting them. I’m going to continue to do it.
One of the talks that I’ve listened to — of course — is “Motions of a Hidden Fire,” which he delivered at the 2024 General Conference of the Church after an illness-dictated eighteen-month absence from that pulpit that had been dictated by serious and indeed nearly fatal illness. You will perhaps remember it:
Another experience began 48 hours after my wife’s burial. At that time, I was rushed to the hospital in an acute medical crisis. I then spent the first four weeks of a six-week stay in and out of intensive care and in and out of consciousness.
Virtually all my experience in the hospital during that first period is lost to my memory. What is not lost is my memory of a journey outside the hospital, out to what seemed the edge of eternity. I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.
I couldn’t help but feel I was receiving my own personal version of a revelation given to the Twelve nearly 200 years ago:
“Thou shalt bear record of my name … [and] send forth my word unto the ends of the earth. …
“… Morning by morning; and day after day let thy warning voice go forth; and when the night cometh let not the inhabitants of the earth slumber, because of thy speech. …
“Arise[,] … take up your cross, [and] follow me.”
My beloved sisters and brothers, since that experience, I have tried to take up my cross more earnestly, with more resolve to find where I can raise an apostolic voice of both warmth and warning in the morning, during the day, and into the night.
The last opportunity that my wife and I had to interact personally with President Holland, which I will always treasure, came after that experience of his and after the remarks quoted directly above. His mobility was poor and his health was fragile. At his request, we did a private screening of Six Days in August for him one night in the Church Administration Building. It was a privilege. I miss him.
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