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<\/a>I\u2019m pleased to report that a full video recording of the lectures given on Saturday, 10 August 2024,\u00a0by Royal Skousen (\u201cThe Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project\u201d) and Stanford Carmack (\u201c\u201cThe Archaic Language of the Original Book of Mormon\u201d) has now been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0\u201cThe Innovative and Revolutionary Book of Mormon Critical Text Project: Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack: Saturday, August 10, 2024\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 The sound at the beginning of the recording is slightly weak, but the quality improves within much less than a minute.<\/p>\n Incidentally, I saw yet another iteration a day or two ago of the common assertion that the Book of Mormon is (clearly!) no more than a sloppy creation from the nineteenth century. \u00a0The work of Skousen and Carmack certainly doesn\u2019t count in favor of that unsupported declaration.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible that the four new and unexpected vacancies on the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s approaching tour of Mesoamerica<\/a> have already been filled. \u00a0I don\u2019t know. \u00a0But the first in our series of tour-related lectures<\/a> is now up online: \u00a0Blake Joseph Allen gave an \u201cInterpreter Foundation Book of Mormon Tour Preview.\u201d<\/p>\n I myself will speak this coming Wednesday, 28 August 2024, under the title of \u201cThe Importance, and Non-Importance, of Knowing the Geography of the Book of Mormon.\u201d \u00a0I will be followed by Kerry Hull, \u201cMaya Writing Systems\u201d (4 September); Brant Gardner, \u201cMesoamerica and the Book of Mormon Side by Side\u201d (11 September); Allen Christenson, \u201cPalenque World Tree\u201d (18 September); and Benjamin Jordan,\u00a0\u201cPotential Volcanic Activity Related to Events in the Book of Mormon\u201d (25 September).<\/p>\n All of the lectures will be live-streamed and, thereafter, most will be archived and placed on the website of the Interpreter Foundation \u2014 which, I\u2019m told, is essentially dead. \u00a0(Allen Christenson\u2019s lecture will be live-streamed but not archived thereafter.)<\/p>\n Because our budget for publicity and distribution is relatively limited \u2014 we would, I\u2019ll be honest, happily welcome some further donations along this line \u2014 advertising for the forthcoming Interpreter Foundation film Six Days in August<\/em> <\/a>will (as currently envisioned) be tightly focused, largely on Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. \u00a0Otherwise, we will rely to a great extent on word-of-mouth recommendations \u2014 which we hope will be positive! \u00a0We will also rely on specific requests that the film come to areas where there are people who would like to see it.<\/p>\n If you go to the website for Six Days in August<\/em><\/a>, you will be able there to watch the trailer for the film. \u00a0If, though, you look directly to the right of the button marked \u201cView Trailer,\u201d you will notice another button marked \u201cDemand It in Your Area.\u201d<\/p>\n If you click on that button, you will be able to fill out a very brief and simple form requesting that the movie come to a theater near you. \u00a0Please do so! \u00a0And please encourage your friends, neighbors, and family to do so, as well. \u00a0We are and will be paying close attention to submissions via that button. \u00a0If two or three or four people in an area request that the film come to their neck of the woods, the chances are good that, in fact, it will. \u00a0<\/em>And the more people who request the film, the merrier. \u00a0Theaters want to screen films for which they\u2019re confident of attracting an audience. \u00a0Requests from potential theater patrons are powerfully convincing to theater owners.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never given any systematic attention to the famous \u201cShroud of Turin,\u201d<\/a> which some believe to be the burial shroud of Jesus, on which an image of the Savior has been somehow miraculously preserved (perhaps at the very moment of resurrection). \u00a0Others hold to be a still-mysterious medieval (or even later) forgery. \u00a0I don\u2019t know exactly what to believe about it, and its authenticity or lack of authenticity is not at all pivotal for my faith.<\/p>\n Opinion remains divided, and the pendulum of expert opinion and research results has been swinging back and forth throughout my lifetime. \u00a0There is even a specific name for the study of the Shroud: sindonology<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Lately, though, the pendulum seems to have been swinging \u2014 in the minds of some, anyway \u2014 in the direction of authenticity or, at least, of authentic antiquity:<\/p>\n Newsweek<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cTurin Shroud Study Claims Controversial Cloth Does Date to Time of Jesus\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n New York Post<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cFace of Jesus? AI recreates stunning likeness of Shroud of Turin image that many believe to be Christ\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n It seems obvious to me that he must have been drawing from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122: \u00a0\u201cAt G20 Interfaith Forum in Brazil, Elder Soares Says Faith Fosters Healthier Societies:\u00a0Religion can \u201cprovide a filter from \u2026 toxic attitudes and declining morals,\u201d the Apostle says\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And here\u2019s another item from the Hitchens File<\/em> that actually, and utterly without shame, invites you<\/em> to participate<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cFrom Despair to Hope: How Meridian Readers Are Changing the Lives of India\u2019s Forgotten Children\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>