Newly available from the Interpreter Foundation: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 26: James Strang’s Witnesses James Strang was a recent convert to the church who claimed to be the successor of Joseph after the martyrdom. Strang also claimed to have discovered ancient metal plates, What do we know about this man and his claims? This is the twenty-sixth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film... Read more
Three new items went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation — two of them in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “A Man That Can Translate and Infinite Goodness: A Response to Recent Reviews,” written by Jonathan E. Neville Abstract: Since 1829, various theories about the production of the Book of Mormon have been proposed. Modern scholarship has moved away from the idea that Joseph Smith actually translated ancient engravings into English. Two books, A... Read more
I imagine that very few of the readers here are unfamiliar with Murphy’s Law: “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.” If you’re like me, alas, you know it intimately well, from direct personal experience. There are also a whole host of corollaries to Murphy’s Law, all of them somewhat dire and all of them absolutely true. Probably my favorite among them is this: “It’s impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.” I... Read more
Two new links appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: “From Dust to Exalted Crown: Royal and Temple Themes Common to the Psalms and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” by David J. Larsen David J. Larsen, after showing how many of the Qumran texts rely on the “Royal Psalms” in the Bible—which have a vital connection to the temple drama—then goes on to exaltation in the views of the Qumran community. He indicates how... Read more
Three new items have gone up on the Interpreter website: “Nibley Lectures: Time Vindicates the Prophets — Prophets and Gnostics” Between 7 March 1954 and 17 October 1954, Hugh Nibley delivered a series of thirty weekly lectures on KSL Radio that were also published as pamphlets. The series, called “Time Vindicates the Prophets,” was given in answer to those who were challenging the right of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to call themselves... Read more
First of all, I want to apologize to all of those who, on my recommendation, tried to watch the promised fireside by Jeffrey Mark Bradshaw this past Sunday night. (See “Virtual Fireside Tonight on “Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances.”“) Something technological went wrong, I guess, and, for whatever little it may be worth, I wasn’t able to watch the fireside either. (I don’t know whether anybody was.) Some have inquired about whether or not... Read more
Here’s a note from Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, who serves on the board of trustees and as one of the vice presidents of the Interpreter Foundation: Virtual Fireside on Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances As is well known, there are elements of the Nauvoo temple ordinances—for example, some of the signs and tokens and related language—that are almost identical in form to those used in Masonic rites. Since modern Freemasonry is largely an 18th... Read more
Yet another of the products of our overall “Witnesses” film project went up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation at 7 PM on Saturday evening, Utah time. You can view it, along with the other “Insights” videos in this series, at absolutely no charge. And we hope that you will share it with others. That’s the use that we’ve designed these short videos to serve. Please do share them with family members, aluminum siding salesmen, friends, office... Read more
Halifax, Nova Scotia, is sadly well acquainted with tragedy. In a blog entry that I posted yesterday, I mentioned the city’s connection with the sinking of the Titanic, which occurred seven hundred nautical miles away, and with some of the victims of that terrible event. About five and a half years thereafter, though, an even more horrible catastrophe occurred far closer to home: On 6 December 1917, the Norwegian ship Imo, a neutral relief vessel contracted to carry... Read more
Two new articles appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of them is the latest article to appear in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: ““Unto the Taking Away of Their Stumbling Blocks”: The Taking Away and Keeping Back of Plain and Precious Things and Their Restoration in 1 Nephi 13–15,” written by Matthew L. Bowen Abstract: In the latter part (1 Nephi 13–14) of his vision of the tree of life (1 Nephi 11–14),... Read more
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