Book of Mormon

We here at FAIR Blog are pleased to report on the latest Olivewood Books fireside featuring BYU law professor John Welch. In case you missed it,  we have covered past speakers John Sorenson, John Gee, Mark Wright, and Daniel Peterson. If you live in the Utah County area and don’t want to miss out on future events, you may consider bookmarking this informative site and checking often.

Ever the prolific scholar, Welch authored a recent book examining legal cases in the Book of Mormon. Since attending his lecture, I have read the new book, which will inform my recap and commentary. Welch related the story of how Rex E. Lee recruited him to teach at to work at the fledgling BYU law school in 1979. Lee’s pitch was that if Welch taught a designated course he could teach whatever else interested him. Welch half-jokingly suggested Babylonian law as it relates to the scriptures and Lee responded that that was exactly the type of course BYU needed. [Read more…] about John Welch on Book of Mormon Legal Cases

Ever since FAIR published an introductory review concerning Rod Meldrum’s presentations and DVD, various members of FAIR have been vilified by him for shining some light on what he was doing. On Rod Meldrum’s blog he wrote this:

[Read more…] about The Truth Will Out At Last

Upon the loss of the 116 pages containing the Book of Lehi, Joseph Smith turned to the small plates of Nephi for this period of history. This translation concludes with the Book of Omni and his brief description of Mosiah’s move to the land of Zarahemla.

This is followed by the Words of Mormon. This section was apparently written in preparation for his transfer of the plates to Moroni.

[Read more…] about The missing introduction to Mosiah

Late in June of this year, FAIR posted an initial review of Rodney Meldrum’s DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography. At the time, there were several folks who indicated that they were looking forward to the promised analysis of the DVD’s use of research and scholarship.

[Read more…] about Examining the Secular Side

The Book of Mormon is inextricably intertwined with Joseph Smith. We undeniably have the text because he translated it. Recently there has been much ado about what Joseph Smith thought about the book’s geography. Without trying to tie Joseph down to any particular idea at any particular time (and there is also evidence that he was flexible in his thinking on the subject, altering and refining some of his views with later information), the real question is what we should expect of Joseph as a geographer of the Book of Mormon. For those who might suggest that Joseph should be held as the definer of Book of Mormon geography, that suggest appears to be based on one or more assumptions about Joseph that neither the church nor he would accept as accurate. Any of the following might be the basis for assuming that Joseph knew the geography of the Book of Mormon, but none are correct.

[Read more…] about Joseph the Geographer?

Last night I attended another in a wonderful series of firesides hosted by the Olivewood bookstore. Tyler Livingston was also there and took good notes, so I will refer everyone to here. The speaker used his knowledge of Mesoamerican languages and interpretations of murals, stela, and other Classic period art to draw intriguing parallels with various passages in the Book of Mormon.