The launch of the Interpreter Foundation was publicly announced twelve years ago, at the beginning of August 2012, during the concluding session of the 2012 FAIR conference. (The decision to launch the Foundation had been made only one week before, over soup and salad at the Olive Garden Restaurant in Provo.) As part of that public launch, the first article appeared in a new online publication that is now called Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.... Read more
A new very short video that features retired federal judge Paul Warner has now been posted by the Interpreter Foundation. Drawn from the Interpreter Foundation’s 2022 docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, it is entitled “They Never Denied Their Testimonies.” If you enjoy it, I hope that you will share it further. I’ve been slowly reading through Robert Christopher Coppes, Impressions of Near-Death Experiences: Quotations from Over 100 Experiencers (Durham, NC: International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2023).... Read more
Two new items have appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and I hope that you’ll enjoy them: “The Anomaly: Elliott West’s Continental Reckoning and its Latter-day Saints,” written by Robert Swanson Review of Elliott West, Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023). 704 pages, $39.95 (hardcover). Abstract: This review explores how Latter-day Saints are portrayed in a new landmark history of the American West. Noting... Read more
My most recent article for Meridian Magazine has now gone up: “The Journey to the Earliest Book of Mormon Text: Royal Skousen’s 36-year Project.” I hope to see y9u on Saturday, 10 August 2024, between twelve o’clock noon and 3 PM. I also hope that you will enjoy this new series of short video features from the Interpreter Foundation and that, if you do, you’ll share them further. Here is the latest, entitled “Oliver Cowdery was sincere” and featuring... Read more
I want to call this new article to your attention: Neal Rappleye and Stephen O. Smoot, “Stephen Burnett versus the Eight Witnesses: An Exercise in Mature Historical Thinking,” Religious Educator 25/2 (2024). Stephen Burnett has long been a favorite weapon among critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often deployed (especially by the secularist variety of critics) against the credibility of not only the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon but even that of the... Read more
The reviews of Six Days in August continue to roll in from The Usual Suspects. And, of course, they’re all negative — and, also of course, none of the reviewers has actually seen it. (Who says there’s no such thing as prophecy?) The film is shallow and dishonest propaganda, plodding and dull, a whitewashed pseudo-history, embarrassing and amateurish, with a stilted and pretentious script, and already, months before its final completion (to say nothing of its scheduled theatrical release),... Read more
Interpreter Radio Show — July 21, 2024 For the 21 July 2024 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Bruce Webster, Robert Boylan, and Kris Frederickson discussed Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 33 and a variety of topics including upcoming events and concerns about the ownership of farmland by the Church. Their conversation was recorded. It was also freed from commercial interruptions, and it has now been archived and made available for your enjoyment and edification. The “Book... Read more
In sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, my ward sang one of the new hymns that will eventually be included in the revised hymnal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is entitled “Bread of Life, Living Water.” Along with many other such hymns and, for that matter, very many other aspects our belief and practice, I think that lyrics such as these of “Bread of Life, Living Water” place those who seek to depict us as... Read more
One of the great moments at the current Summer Olympics in Paris, one of the most impressive displays of heroism, was not an athletic one. It had nothing directly to do with sports, and it won’t — alas! — win a gold medal. It was Céline Dion singing “Hymne à l’amour,” a song that was originally made famous by the great Édith Piaf (1915-1963), at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Coincidentally, as I’m writing this, a television drama... Read more
As, according to credible reports, the Interpreter Foundation continues to fade and its website and journal continue to stagnate, here are four new articles that have just appeared: “LDS Perspectives on the Atonement?” written by Blake T. Ostler Review of Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman, eds., Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024). 344 pages, $35.00 (paperback). Abstract: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement promises to provide new perspectives on the atonement that reflect... Read more
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