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Trevor Holyoak

FairMormon Conference Podcast #4 – Daniel Peterson, “What Difference Does It Make?”

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This podcast series features a FairMormon Conference presentation each month. If you would prefer to watch the videos, they can still be purchased here for the 2017 conference. Older conference presentation videos are available on our YouTube channel and FairMormon TV for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

Daniel Peterson, What Difference Does It Make?

Video and transcript available here.

Daniel C. Peterson

A native of southern California, Daniel C. Peterson received a bachelor’s degree in Greek and philosophy from Brigham Young University (BYU) and, after several years of study in Jerusalem and Cairo, earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU, where he has taught Arabic language and literature at all levels, Islamic philosophy, Islamic culture and civilization, Islamic religion, the Qur’an, the introductory and senior “capstone” courses for Middle Eastern Studies majors, and various other occasional specialized classes. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on Islamic and Latter-day Saint topics–including a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007)—and has lectured across the United States, in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and at various Islamic universities in the Near East and Asia. He served in the Switzerland Zürich Mission (1972-1974), and, for approximately eight years, on the Gospel Doctrine writing committee for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also presided for a time as the bishop of a singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University. Dr. Peterson is married to the former Deborah Stephens, of Lakewood, Colorado, and they are the parents of three sons.

FairMormon Conference Podcast #3 – Elizabeth A. Kuehn, “Finances and Faith in the Kirtland Crisis of 1837”

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This podcast series features a FairMormon Conference presentation each month. If you would prefer to watch the videos, they can still be purchased here for the 2017 conference. Older conference presentation videos are available on our YouTube channel and FairMormon TV for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Finances and Faith in the Kirtland Crisis of 1837

Transcript available here.

Elizabeth A. Kuehn is a historian with the Joseph Smith Papers at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is a co-editor on two volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers to be published in 2017: Documents, Volume 5: October 1835–January 1838 and Documents, Volume 6: February 1838–August 1839. She is a PhD. Candidate at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her MA in History from Purdue University and her BA in History from Arizona State University. She specializes in nineteenth-century financial records and women’s and gender history.

Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents Volume 6: February 1838 – August 1839

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore at 10% off

This volume of the Joseph Smith Papers was edited by Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, David W. Grua, Elizabeth A. Kuehn (who spoke at the FairMormon Conference last year about the Kirtland Crisis of 1837), Brenden W. Rensink, and Alexander L. Baugh. It covers the aftermath of the Kirtland Crisis of 1837 and the move to Far West, the identification of Adam-ondi-Ahman, the formation of the Danites, Hawn’s Mill, the Extermination Order, the stay at Liberty Jail, and the beginning of the building of Nauvoo.

As with all of the volumes, it contains an explanation of the Joseph Smith Papers Project and its methodologies, a volume introduction that gives the general history of the time covered by the volume, section introductions with more detailed history and context of the documents contained in each section, the documents themselves, and reference material such as source notes, timelines, maps, biographical information, organizational charts, and works cited. Each document is introduced by a source note and historical introduction. The document transcripts then contain extensive footnotes with sources and explanations. In some cases, the footnotes are multiple levels deep.

The editors did a good job of explaining controversial events and putting them in context, but also freely admitted when things are unclear. In the first document, the source note discusses Joseph Smith’s plural marriage with Fanny Alger, including Oliver Cowdery’s allegations of adultery. It is explained that “A few individuals who knew JS well recounted later that he had received a revelation about the doctrine of plural marriage as early as 1831, possibly in connection with his work on the revision, or new ‘translation’ of the Bible” (page 12). “After his separation from Alger and the controversy arising from Cowdery’s accusations, JS set aside the practice of plural marriage for several years” (page 13). A later footnote explains “It is unclear precisely what information JS entrusted to Cowdery regarding JS’s relationship with Fanny Alger. Later accounts variously claim that Cowdery performed a marriage ceremony between JS and Alger, was called upon by JS to mediate between JS and Emma Smith after the relationship with Alger was discovered, or had been taught the doctrine of plural marriage privately and took a plural wife contrary to JS’s instructions” (page 91, footnote 454). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents Volume 6: February 1838 – August 1839

FairMormon Conference Podcast #2 – Ben Spackman, “Truth, Scripture, and Interpretation: Some Precursors to Reading Genesis”

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This podcast series features a FairMormon Conference presentation each month. Please join us for the 2018 FairMormon Conference coming up August 1-3. You can attend in person or purchase the video streaming. You can watch older conference presentation videos on our YouTube channel and FairMormon TV for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

Ben Spackman, Truth, Scripture, and Interpretation: Some Precursors to Reading Genesis

Transcript available here.

Ben Spackman received a BA from BYU in Near Eastern Studies and a MA in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, where he did several years of further work towards a PhD. He then studied general science at City College of New York. Currently a PhD student in History of Christianity at Claremont Graduate University, Ben’s general focus is the intertwined history of science, religion, and interpretation of scripture. In particular, he studies how shifting worldviews drove changing interpretations and understandings of Genesis, from its ancient Israelite/Babylonian origins through the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, eventually generating today’s conflict between Young Earth Creationism and well-established evolutionary science. Ben taught volunteer Institute and Seminary for a dozen years in the Midwest, New York, and California, has also taught Biblical Hebrew, Book of Mormon, and New Testament at BYU, and recently TA’d a course on God, Darwin, and Design. Ben has published with BYU Studies, Religious Educator, the Maxwell Institute, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, and Religion&Politics, and blogs occasionally at Times and Seasons and Benjamin the Scribe. He has presented lectures, firesides, and papers at various conferences, this year including the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology (March), the Mormon History Association (June), the Maxwell Institute Seminar on Mormon Culture (August), and the Sperry Symposium at BYU (October). He is currently writing a book on Genesis 1 for an LDS audience and intends to write his dissertation on some aspect of the scripture/evolution conflict in Mormonism. You can help Ben pay his tuition here.

Audio and Video Copyright © 2017 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.

FairMormon Conference Podcast – Keith Erekson, “Witnessing the Book of Mormon: The Testimonies of Three, Eight, and Millions”

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This is a new podcast series which will feature a FairMormon Conference presentation each month. If you would prefer to watch the videos, they can still be purchased here for the 2017 conference. Older conference presentation videos are available on our YouTube channel and FairMormon TV for Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

Keith Erekson, Witnessing the Book of Mormon: The Testimonies of Three, Eight, and Millions

Transcript available here.

Keith A. Erekson is an internationally acclaimed writer, speaker, and public historian. He currently serves as director of the Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Erekson has authored numerous books and articles about public interest in over history, including book-length studies of popular commemoration of Abraham Lincoln and the recent debate over the social studies curriculum in Texas. His work has been published in numerous journals, including the Journal of American History, The History Teacher, the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Oral History Review, and various Mormon studies journals. Before leading the Church History Library, Erekson was a tenured associate professor of history at The University of Texas at El Paso, where he also served as executive director of UTEP’s Centennial Celebration and founding director of UTEP’s Center for History Teaching & Learning. He possesses more than a decade of international management experience in higher education, scholarly publishing, and automotive manufacturing. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Brigham Young University, a doctoral degree in history from Indiana University, and a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Texas at El Paso. Erekson grew up near Baltimore, Maryland, and now lives near Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and four daughters.

Mormon Temples and Freemasonry

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The video of Scott Gordon’s presentation from the 2017 FairMormon Conference is now available for free viewing. The transcript can be read here. You can purchase access to the rest of the conference videos here.

Scott Gordon
Scott Gordon is president of FairMormon and as such has been a writer of several articles and a speaker at firesides. He has a master’s degree in Business Administration from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s in Organizational Communication. He has held many Church callings, including Bishop, and currently serves as the Ward Mission Leader. He is married to Sheri Farnsworth Gordon and has five children.

Book Review: An Introduction to the Book of Abraham

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10% off at the FairMormon Bookstore

Publisher: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University and Deseret Book
Author: John Gee
Number of Pages: 197
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-9443-9406-6
Price: $19.99
Click to purchase the book.

The Book of Abraham is my favorite book of scripture. Mostly it is because of chapter 3, which contains information that is not found anywhere else in LDS scripture. I also remember discovering the facsimiles as a child and thinking that they were really neat. Unfortunately, the Book of Abraham has also become a favorite for critics to attack, as it is the only book of scripture that Joseph Smith translated for which there appears to be any extant source material, and that material does not seem to match what is in the Book of Abraham. But it’s really much more complicated than that.

This book explains what is currently known about the Book of Abraham and its associated artifacts and documents, and why the critics are wrong. It is written by John Gee, who is a professor of Egyptology at BYU. He got his PhD in Egyptology at Yale and has written many research publications for professional journals as well as writing for LDS audiences. The book is written to be understandable by any reader (although an LDS background is very helpful) in a straightforward manner that actually makes for a fairly quick read.

The book contains 17 chapters, most of them fairly short, that build on each other. At the end is a series of questions and answers that basically provides a summary of the book. It also has photos of the extant papyri, maps, charts, diagrams, and other helpful or interesting illustrations scattered throughout. At the end of most chapters is a list of “Further Reading” with notes about each item. Unfortunately, there are not many footnotes in the book; they only exist to provide sources for quotes. So you have to refer to the notes in the “Further Reading” section to deduce where some of the information came from. This did lead me to find one inconsistency – on page 97, it says “The Book of Abraham begins much like other autobiographies from Abraham’s time and place.” However, on page 103 in “Further Reading,” there is an entry that says, “This essay is a comparison of the Book of Abraham with the only other autobiographical inscription to survive from the approximate time and place of Abraham.”

After the introduction, the book begins with a historical overview which explains how Joseph Smith got the papyri and then what happened to them after his death, with the church finally receiving surviving fragments in 1967 (most of what Joseph had in his possession ended up burning in the Chicago Fire of 1871). “To the disappointment of many, although these remaining fragments contained the illustration that served as the basis for Facsimile 1, they were not the portion of the papyri that contained the text of the Book of Abraham” (page 9).
The next chapter is about the translation. Some have thought that Joseph may have used a seer stone (see my review of Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones), but Gee says that “Some thirdhand accounts claim he did, but those accounts do not come from anyone who actually observed the translation” and that “By the time that Joseph finished translating the Book of Mormon in 1829, he no longer needed to use the Urim and Thummim to receive revelation” (page 20.) What is known is that much more was translated than what ended up being published (the rest has been lost), and that it was done without using a dictionary or grammar as a conventional translation normally would. It does appear that W. W. Phelps attempted to compile an Egyptian grammar after the translation, but the extent of Joseph’s involvement in that is unknown. [Read more…] about Book Review: An Introduction to the Book of Abraham

Book Review: The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History

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Publisher: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University
Editors: Matthew J. Grow & R. Eric Smith
Date Available: September 4, 2017
Number of Pages: 201
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-9443-9421-9
Price: $21.99

On October 3, 2016, the Joseph Smith Papers Project published a volume called Administrative Records: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844-January 1846 (reviewed and explained here). It is a massive tome of around 800 pages containing information that had never before been published or studied. It contains many insights that help fill in gaps in Mormon history during this period. The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History is an introduction to some of those insights, or it can also serve as a summary of them for those that would rather not peruse the vast source material.

This book contains 15 chapters, each of which is a separate paper written by historians (many of which have worked on the Joseph Smith Project) such as Richard Bushman, Richard Turley, Patrick Mason, Gerrit Dirkmaat, Matthew Grow, Matthew Godfrey, Richard Bennett, Jedediah Rogers, and Paul Reeve. Like a sacrament meeting where each speaker is given the same topic, there is some overlap among many of the papers, yet each writer brings their own perspective and expertise. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History

Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents Volume 5: October 1835 – January 1838

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Publisher: The Church Historian’s Press
Date Available: May 15, 2017
Number of Pages: 768
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1629723129
Price: $54.95

(Page numbers are from an Advance Review Copy, and may be different in the published version.)

This volume covers an interesting period of Joseph Smith’s life that includes the finishing and dedication of the Kirtland Temple and the associated visions, work on the Book of Abraham, the Kirtland Safety Society, and persecution and apostasy. Some of the documents included are from Joseph Smith’s journals, and so have already been published in Journals, Volume 1:1832-1839. Others are from Minute Book 1, archival collections, periodicals, other peoples’ diaries, legal records, etc. There are no journals available covering April 1836 to January 1838, so some of the best contemporary sources were chosen to try to fill things in.

The book starts with the usual material for this series, including a timeline of Joseph Smith’s life, maps, an explanation of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, a volume introduction, and an explanation of the editorial method. The book is then divided into seven parts, based on time periods. There is an appendix with blessings to Don Carlos Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Frederick G. Williams, and Sidney Rigdon. And then there is the usual reference material with source notes, a chronology, geographical directory and maps, pedigree chart, biographical directory, organizational charts, essay on sources, works cited, a cross-reference with the Doctrine and Covenants, index, etc. At the very back is a note about resources available on the Joseph Smith Papers website that relate to the series as well as this particular book.

Most of the first and second chapters of the Book of Abraham are included as “Book of Abraham Manuscript, circa Early June – circa November 1835-A [Abraham 1:4-2:6].” There is a historical introduction that explains how the papyri were obtained and what is known about the translation, as well as the publication in Times and Seasons. A footnote points out that “Though a notice printed in the 1 February 1843 issue of the Times and Seasons suggested that JS would publish ‘further extracts’ from the Book of Abraham, there is no documentary evidence that other extracts were produced. All extant manuscripts generated by JS and his associates during their study of the Egyptian papyri, dated circa 1835 to circa 1842, are available at the Joseph Smith Papers website, josephsmithpapers.org.” (page 77) [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents Volume 5: October 1835 – January 1838