Testimonies

With some hesitation I make a belated confession. I am not sure if or what I am to write.

Navigating between belief and knowledge is tricky. Well, at least tricky for me. When considering my testimony of Jesus Christ or of his Gospel, I have attempted not to rely on the newest facts or documents found in my research of early Mormonism. And that choice lies at the core of the paths I navigate.

My belief in the divinity of Christ, his infinite atonement, and the restoration of his Gospel is not rooted in facts. It has been found in a quiet morning on a business trip in Cleveland while reading my “travel” Book of Mormon, or while praying to help my missionary companion from Monticello gain his own testimony, or in the solitude of the Sacred Grove. My testimony travels a path of feelings, fragile at times, but inescapably real. When those feelings wane and fears of uncertainty creep in, I find my way back through pondering the things I believe—centered in the Book of Mormon. I don’t seek knowledge at those moments but the unique tranquility of the Spirit. This path is not littered with pseudo-intellectualism (most often of my own making). My study of history, even Mormon history, does not give me a superior advantage to these feelings or beliefs. My testimony is not of history—even Joseph Smith’s history. My testimony is the feelings of gratitude, unworthiness, faith, and love for a Savior. I believe. I honestly and simply believe.

My study of the life of Joseph Smith has resulted in knowledge. The historical record carefully examined reveals the integrity of the man. I have come to love and respect him as a prophet. Placed in context we find a compelling story—messy at times, but compelling. We find the vibrancy of inspiration coupled with the complexities of living at a time of great opportunity and implicit hardships. Within the early Mormon experience the consequences of ego can be seen in ironic tandem and competition with community building. As I travel on this path of gaining historical knowledge, using the aggregate of facts recounted through faded manuscripts, I develop skills to vet out speculation, exaggeration, and misdirection. While these facts can be interpreted into various narratives, I cling to the primary sources, allowing them to shape the story. This adventure is fascinating. It challenges my intellectual capacities and permits me to delve into nuances hidden by both time and agenda. I find myself on a unique path to tell the truth. Knowledge is indeed power.

Your inquiry for my testimony raises the question as to whether you want me to discuss what I know or what I believe. They are vastly different to me. One is acquired by time and work, while the other is a gift. One is lifted by aspiration or recognition. The other only survives by humility. I work to navigate between the two.

I am a believer and I am a historian.

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Raised in Michigan, Jeffrey N. Walker served in the Canada-Montréal Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Upon his return, he completed a B.S. from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude. He then earned a J.D., cum laude, from the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University, where he served as an editor for the BYU Law Review. He practiced in Los Angeles with one of the largest west coast law firms before joining the Salt Lake City law firm of Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough. He has worked as general counsel for a regional healthcare company, as a national consultant for Lexis/Nexis, and as a founding partner of the law firm Holman & Walker. He is the president and co-owner of Western Architectural Services, a thematic manufacturing company located in Draper, Utah; and a co-founder of the national watch store chain, Precision Time.

Jeffrey Walker is currently the associate managing editor and the series manager of the Joseph Smith Papers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as the co-editor for the Papers’ legal and business series. He is also a trustee and treasurer for the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation and the managing editor of the journal Mormon Historical Studies. Currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Church History and Doctrine and in the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, he teaches courses on Joseph Smith and the law.

He is married to the former Elizabeth Hepburn, and they have four children, three dogs, four cats, and two grandchildren.

Posted March 2011

Like many of you, my identity is shaped by my testimony, my membership in the Church, my family, my friends, my occupation, and my life experiences—both those that are joyful and those that are challenging. I am a sixth generation Latter-day Saint in virtually every one of my family lines. My ancestors came to Utah with the pioneers and the subsequent early waves of immigration. My parents were born and raised in New Harmony and Cedar City, Utah, but I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in the eastern United States in New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. So while I have a typically “Mormon” heritage, I was raised as a member of a religious minority and had wonderful, shaping experiences with people of other faiths and backgrounds.

Most of my friends were Roman Catholic and Presbyterian in New York; Evangelical Christians in Tennessee; Latter-day Saints at BYU and on my mission; and Jewish, agnostic, and “undefined” as I did my graduate work back in Philadelphia. I learned to appreciate their faith and beliefs while at the same time coming to better understand and define my own.

As a committed Christian and as a faithful Latter-day Saint, my identity is chiefly and foremost formed by my faith in and love of the Savior. I was raised in the Church and never remember not believing it, but just as we all need to become fully converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I have had pivotal conversion experiences in my life—as a senior in high school, during my mission, and shortly after arriving at the University of Pennsylvania to work on my PhD. I served as a missionary in the Thailand Bangkok Mission between 1985–86, have frequently taught in Sunday School and priesthood classes, served as a bishop in a wonderful but challenging ward from 1996–2002, and have since served as an ordinance worker in the Provo Temple while also singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Church work, too, has been a defining and fulfilling factor in my life.

I married my wife, Elaine, in 1993. After the Lord himself, she is the one great love in my life. Marriage has been a wonderful, challenging, and learning experience. I am the father of two children, Rachel and Samuel, and fatherhood has joined being a husband as another essential component of who I am as a Latter-day Saint. When he was four years of age, Samuel, now almost eight, was diagnosed with autism. This heart-rending reality has forever changed our family and my life, but it has also been a great tutorial and stretching experience.

I am a teacher, a speaker, and a writer. I completed my BA in Classical Greek and Latin at BYU and then received my MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Ancient History. I taught Classics at BYU for nine years beginning in 1994, but in 2003 I transferred to the Department of Ancient Scripture, where I specialize in the New Testament. You can see details of my career and work by visiting my web site or reading a spotlight interview done by the Religious Studies Center at BYU.

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Eric D. Huntsman, associate professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, has specialized in Roman imperial history and done work on imperial women—particularly Livia Drusilla, the wife of the emperor Augustus. His publications in religious studies and related fields include two BYU Studies articles on Josephus; “Christ Before the Romans,” in From the Last Supper Through the Resurrection: The Savior’s Final Hours (Deseret Book, 2003); “Galilee and the Call of the Twelve Apostles,” in From Bethlehem to the Sermon on the Mount (Deseret Book, 2005); “Teaching through Exegesis: Helping Students Ask Questions of the Text” (Religious Educator, 6.1, 2005); and “The Bread of Life Sermon,” in From the Transfiguration through the Triumphal Entry (Deseret Book, 2006). Together with colleagues Richard Holzafpel and Thomas Wayment, he has co-authored Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament: An Illustrated Reference for Latter-day Saints (Deseret Book, 2006).

More recent work includes three chapters in The Life and Teachings of the New Testament Apostles: From the Day of Pentecost to the Apocalypse (Deseret Book, 2010); “The Six Antitheses: Attaining the Purpose of the Law,” in The Sermon on the Mount in Latter-day Scripture (Deseret Book, 2010); “Livia Before Octavian,” Ancient Society 39 (2009); “And the Word Was Made Flesh: An LDS Exegesis of the Blood and Water Imagery in John,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 1 (2009); “Your Faith Should Not Stand in the Wisdom of Men: Greek Philosophy, Corinthian Behavior, and the Teachings of Paul,” in The New Testament Brought to Light: Latter-day Saint Insights into Acts through Revelation (Religious Studies Center, 2009); and “The Lamb of God: Unique Aspects of the Passion Narrative in John,” in Behold the Lamb of God (Religious Studies Center, 2008). Forthcoming in spring of 2011 is a book-length study of the Passion Narratives entitled God So Loved the World: The Final Days of the Savior’s Life (Deseret Book).

Professor Huntsman’s areas of expertise include New Testament studies, particularly the Johannine Writings, Pauline epistles, and Luke-Acts; Koine and New Testament Greek; Greek and Roman history and classical literature; early Christianity and the Roman world; and women in classical antiquity. At BYU, he teaches New Testament, Old Testament, Book of Mormon, biblical Greek topics, Greek and Roman history, and Judaism and Early Christianity in the Classical Near East.

Posted February 2011

Lately I have come to understand that spiritual conviction, like the beautiful lotus blossom in Buddhist iconography, is often found sprouting from the mire of everyday life. In my case, the flower of testimony bloomed during my teenage years in the middle of an ugly and difficult family crisis.

I was raised in a small northern Utah town, overwhelmingly Latter-day Saint, with both sets of grandparents close at hand and family lines running back to early nineteenth-century LDS conversions in Great Britain, upstate New York, and the area around Nauvoo, Illinois. My immediate family, extended family, and even the surrounding community exuded Mormon heritage. That is not to say everyone was orthodox or perfect. One of the conclusions I drew early on in my life, in fact, was not that Mormons were good and non-Mormons were bad, but rather that Mormons were human like everyone else. In our town it was Mormons who burgled homes and embezzled, got drunk on weekends, cheated on their wives, and beat their kids, just like it was Mormons who gave generously to the poor, went out of their way for the needy, served tirelessly in lay church callings, and were as honest as the day was long. For many of my role models, who had been raised in similar rural Mormon communities, the question of goodness was not about whether or not one belonged to the faith per se, but rather whether one’s individual actions were virtuous. Integrity, rather than affiliation, was what mattered most, and the codes to which the general community subscribed—largely Mormon in nature—were those by which I learned to judge myself. This helped me learn to recognize and try to avoid the strong Us-versus-Them smugness that can prevail among the piously faithful.

Our family generally had maintained a modest reputation for virtue, integrity, and hard work. So, when the scandal of divorce hit in the mid-1970s, despite a growing national divorce trend, it was something of a sensation that tarred all of us with a broad brush, quickly and suddenly moving us from our secure place into a different, and less respected, echelon of society. I felt the impact in several ways. What had been a secure home and family life interrupted here and there by the usual sibling tussles suddenly became ‘a broken home.’ Socially and emotionally I was suddenly cast into a great insecure void.

During the summer following my parents’ divorce I worked at a Boy Scout camp near Yellowstone National Park. It was in a remote area, with no electricity and an hour’s drive by dirt roads to the nearest town. I love the outdoors, and had always enjoyed scouting, and each day was exciting and challenging for me, filled with teaching merit badge classes, leading hikes, swimming in a deep blue (and ice cold) lake, and enjoying some of the most pristine wilderness in America. It was nice to be away from the nerve-wracking world of family trauma.

Although camp staff life was busy, there was ample leisure time as well. Before arriving, I had chosen to read the Book of Mormon again (I had read it through when I was eleven), determined this time to test Moroni’s challenge at the end of the book and seek a confirming spiritual witness. I consequently spent many hours absorbed in its stories and pondering some of its truths. Providing counterbalance to this rich spiritual preoccupation were a few of the staff members at the camp, whose convictions varied from committed doubt to sneering contempt. After dinner, casual chats would often lead to gripe sessions about wrongful actions by Church leaders or outspoken criticism of Mormon doctrines at odds with scientific or philosophical theories. As I watched the reactions of other staff, some of them grown men with families, I also became aware of the apathetical comfort of those who chose not to invest too much of themselves in whether or not the Church was true. I was new to such ideas; I had either been insulated from or avoided them to date, but here, alone and on my own for the first time in my life, I decided to try on some of those attitudes. Although they felt dangerous, and filled me with anxiety, my mind felt challenged and awakened by the possibilities that these ideas offered, a brave new world, unbound and unmapped by the codes of my upbringing. In a certain sense it paralleled the surrounding wildness of the remote Wyoming world—both dangerous and liberating—so I was less prone to adhere to the trusted beliefs of my youth. Life took on a hard edge as I felt my soul turning into an arena within which churned a battling array of opposites: good and evil, tradition and progress, belief and doubt, optimism and cynicism.

I finished up my second reading of the Book of Mormon one Saturday evening, and the following day (our day off) I opted not go with most of the staff into town. Instead, with family turmoil in the background and some new questions arising from my forays into doubt, I felt compelled to take a walk in the woods. After meandering a bit, my mind filled with turmoil, I found myself some distance from camp on a bluff overlooking the lake. My personal prayers to date had never lasted more than a few minutes, but that afternoon something deep within my soul drew me to my knees to pour out my heart. It was, as I look back on it now, a watershed moment for me because I was teetering on the edge of faith: no one else was around, nobody was watching me or knew what I was doing, no challenge by an adult nor compulsory deadline had forced me to my knees. It was just me and either God or not-God, and I was determined to wait on Him for some kind of answer or fall through the paper window of illusion into a godless world.

After several hours of a combination of meditation, prayer, listening to my heart beat, and painful, silent waiting, during which time a great anxiety of soul arose within me and seemed to grow larger, I finally concluded that either I was out of tune or timing with the Divine and must continue to walk in blind faith, or that the gaping hole in life’s security that had opened with my parents’ divorce had, with God’s disappearance, just turned into a black, infinite abyss. I stood up and began to walk back to camp. On a whim I did not retrace my steps, but instead worked my way down to the base of the bluff and began walking through the thick pines toward a lakeshore trail.

Disheartened, I climbed over fallen logs and made my way through the underbrush until I suddenly came out into a small clearing shaped like a teardrop, the point of which was uphill, towards the late afternoon sun. Light streamed at an angle through the trees at the top of the clearing, illuminating the round white flowering tops of bear grass clumps that dotted the meadow. And, in the instant it took me to register that light reflecting off the flowers, I suddenly was overwhelmed, and felt showered with a deep sense of love and peace and well being. In that same instant something happened inside me as well; it was as if a dark window in my soul had suddenly been thrown open, and I knew, could sense and feel, that my soul was infinite, eternal. Prior to that moment I had inhabited a two-dimensional world where I defined existence by the coordinates of time and place alone. Suddenly, a third dimension of existence came into being. It is very hard to articulate, but I suddenly could feel myself having existed before I was born and knew that my existence would continue on forever after death. And, unlike other mystical or ephemeral impressions I had experienced before or have had since, this existential awareness anchored in my consciousness, becoming as much a part of me as an arm or an eye. And, in retrospect, it was not just a simple cognitive acquisition, like learning why it rains; nor was it a fact to be processed and remembered, like π to ten decimal places. It became part of how I interacted with life, and filled me with an immense awe at the magnitude of both the world I inhabited and also the infinite love of God.

Walking back through the woods I was filled with both elation and a more sobering sense of life’s gravity. God’s existence was now a personal matter, not just an issue for debate or casual doubt. It was a verity around which the rest of my life must necessarily revolve. It was as though I had been born blind, unaware of the sun save for the fantastic descriptions of it by the sighted, which were often drowned out by the skepticism of the blind majority, when suddenly my eyes could see. God’s existence became for me like the daily presence of the sun, illuminating my walk through life. I could no more doubt God’s existence than my own, and from that moment until now I have walked the earth under His light. Sometimes clouds of despair have dimmed that light, and I have had nights of the soul when I have walked on in darkness, making my way dimly through trials and challenges by the reflected light of others’ faith. Yet I knew, and know, that God is out there, that even during the darkest times the sun will rise again, and that my faith has been and will be rewarded.

From the mire of my confusing and troubled adolescence came the beautiful flower of conviction that has filled me through the years since. I firmly believe that, regardless of one’s upbringing—and especially for those raised in the faith—achieving personal conviction through faithful action initiated on our part is the most important step we can take towards building a relationship with God. I know that the flower of faith has sustained me during life’s turmoils and has been the basis for some of the greatest insights I have gained in my subsequent life as a spouse and as a father, and in my professional life.

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J. Scott Miller is a Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Brigham Young University. Following a mission to Japan, he received his B.A. from BYU in comparative literature and later earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian studies from Princeton University. (He has also studied at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.) He was an associate professor of Japanese at Colgate University, in Hamilton, New York, prior to joining the faculty at BYU in 1994. At BYU, he has served as chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages, associate dean of Undergraduate Education, Honors Program Director, and co-director of BYU’s International Cinema program. His research and publications revolve around nineteenth-century and modern Japanese literature, oral narrative and translation theory, and early Japanese sound recordings.

He has served in various Church callings, most enjoyable among them Primary pianist, stake music chair, and young men’s president.

He met his future wife, Judy Caccavella, in the Princeton Ward while going to graduate school. They are the parents of Michela and Joseph.

Posted February 2011

As a saint in a modern scriptorium,
I join with this thoughtful emporium
As a scholar to share
The delight that I bear:
“New truth! ad majorem Dei gloriam.”

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Thomas W. Draper is Professor of Human Development in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. He earned a Ph.D in developmental psychology from Emory University. He has also taught at the Atlanta University Center and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; done test construction and research for Educational Testing Service, of Princeton, New Jersey; and directed BYU’s graduate program in Marriage, Family, and Human Development.

Dr. Draper specializes in family methodological issues and biological development. He has published on family economics and poverty, the definition of marital dyads, and the biological precursors of personality. His work has been widely published and republished, including articles in top family journals, the International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Neurology, and the Family Studies Decade Review Yearbook.

Posted February 2011

When I joined the LDS Church, over thirty-seven years ago, we were living in a small village in North Wales, and I was teaching and carrying out research in chemistry at the University of Wales in Bangor. At that time the local branch of the Church was very small. Very soon after becoming a Church member, I was informed by an evangelical graduate student that our book of scripture known as the “Pearl of Great Price” was merely a poor translation of the “Egyptian Book of Breathings”. Now I had never heard of the latter, and was only scantily aware of the former, and so I was intrigued and somewhat curious. The missionaries looked very nervous and worried when I asked if they could enlighten me on this issue, and the mission president, whom I did not know, lived many miles away. So, turning to an old friend who was teaching at Brigham Young University, I asked him for some help, and he sent me much of Hugh Nibley’s writings concerning the book of Abraham. I devoured the material, and could not wait to discuss the matter with the student, only to find, much to my disappointment, that he knew next to nothing about it and that he was only repeating something he had heard an evangelical friend quote! However, my reading of Brother Nibley’s extensive writings opened my eyes to the fact that there were well-educated and well-respected LDS scholars researching and writing on matters that interested me greatly.

At that time it appears that I was one of very few Church members teaching at a university in the U.K., and so opportunities for enlightened discussions on matters such as science, religion, and the restored Church were very limited. The only recourse I had was to purchase and read as many books written by LDS scientists as possible, and I thoroughly enjoyed my introduction to the thoughts and conclusions of such scholars as the late Henry Eyring, James E. Talmage, Harvey Fletcher, John A. Widtsoe, etc. I found the philosophy of Eyring particularly attractive when he stated that there were a small number of concepts that he absolutely knew to be true and upon which he based his strong testimony, and that there were also questions to which he felt that he had correct answers, but that he was happy to place the many other questions to which he did not know the answers onto the “back burner,” so to speak, confident in knowing that one day, maybe not even in this life, he would have answers to all of them.

Reading the Book of Mormon, and thinking and pondering its words, led to that life-changing phrase that I remember expressing out loud to my wife: “The more I read this book, the more I think that it is true!” My testimony of the book and of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ developed quickly from that time. There is something quite remarkable that occurs to the reader when he or she decides to distill and think hard about the words and concepts that are found in the Book of Mormon. There comes a clear feeling that these are important and that they represent scriptural truths; such a feeling I now know comes directly from the Holy Ghost.

Some years later I wrote a book of about 250 pages with two of my colleagues on a topic and subject in which we were considered experienced and experts. With such modern conveniences as computers and appropriate software to help, the project took about two years to complete. Upon reading the finished book, I found several errors that we had missed during an extensive proofreading period. Upon comparing our book-writing project with the production of the more than 500 pages that comprise the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith completed in less than 90 days, I quickly came to the conclusion that there is no possible way that he could have completed that task unaided, given: (1) the very limited schooling that he had received, (2) the relative complexity of the narrative, (3) the dearth of any reference material at his disposal, and (4) that the volume is essentially unaltered from the original, except for some typographical and minor grammatical changes. Consequently, since there were witnesses to his having dictated the text himself from ancient records in that time-period, I am convinced that he must have received divine inspiration in accomplishing this task. My re-reading of the Book of Mormon many times since that first occasion has strengthened my testimony of the importance and the veracity of the text, and with each reading I gain new insights into the great Plan of Salvation that our Heavenly Father has for mankind. Albeit there are still a number of minor features in the book that puzzle me, I am quite content that someday they will become clear.

Other features of the Restored Church that impress me greatly and that signify to me that Joseph Smith’s experiences and narrative were truthful include the following:

1. We have prophets to guide and counsel us in these days (just as in days of old), and the administrative structure of the Church is based on that of the early Christian Church.
2. There is total harmony between the teachings of the Bible and those found in the Book of Mormon.
3. The Church is missionary orientated—which is what Christ intended and commanded for his followers to do.
4. The Church concentrates on giving everyone an opportunity to hear its message, and does not become involved in any criticisms of other religions and their beliefs.
5. The moral code of living it advocates is based directly on the teachings of Jesus Christ.
6. Its strong support of the nuclear family, and of traditional family values that fly in the face of all the current trends with which we are bombarded daily by various media.
7. It supports a huge number of humanitarian causes quietly, efficiently, and without fuss.

The basic rationale of a scientist is to observe, to hypothesize; to experiment, and to deduce whether the hypothesis can be sustained or needs to be modified. This approach has served me well in regard to the restored Church as well as in the field of chemistry—provided that I accept the fact that there is a spiritual component to life in addition to the ubiquitous material world in which we currently live. Consequently, there are some things that we have to discern through prayer and meditation and which cannot be understood from physical laws and principles. I have met and talked with great scientists who are believers and with others who claim to be agnostics or atheists, and my experience tells me that religious belief is a very personal matter, and that being brilliant in one particular area of study does not make that person omniscient in all others. Humility is crucial; it pays to be open minded and to be willing to accept that there are some things that science may never be able to answer or even comprehend. My personal belief in a Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ is very strong, and since science represents a search for truth, I see no qualms between accepting my own scientific training and my testimony of an overall creator, who is the Father of our spirits, and who is omniscient as far as we are concerned.

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Noel L. Owen earned his B.Sc. (Honors class 1) in chemistry from University College of North Wales, in Bangor, Wales, and received his Ph.D. in spectroscopy from the University of Cambridge, both in the United Kingdom. He then spent a postdoctoral year at Harvard University. Subsequently, he also received a D.Sc. in spectroscopy from the University of Wales.

From 1965 to 1987, he taught chemistry at University College of North Wales, interrupting his time there for visiting professorships at the University of British Columbia in Canada and the University of Utah, and for research sabbaticals at the universities of Oslo (Norway), British Columbia, Copenhagen (Denmark), Utah, Durham (United Kingdom), and Cambridge. In 1987, he joined the faculty of Brigham Young University, where he served as associate chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1995 to 2001. In 1994, he was a visiting professor at the University of Durham.

Professor Owen served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy (1987-1994) and is a member of the Royal Chemical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. He is the author of 122 publications, including a book and several book chapters.

Posted February 2011

My view of the world and the gospel has been deeply affected by my upbringing. My family traveled constantly during my early years; I attended schools in Taipei, Tehran, and Athens before returning to the U.S. for junior high and high school. The impact of those years is distilled in my memory of a chance meeting I had with a ten-year old Palestinian boy, outside our hotel in East Jerusalem (as it was called in 1963). I don’t remember exchanging a word, but I do remember looking into his eyes and recognizing he had a different existence than I did. Ever since then, I have had to square my existence and my beliefs with the fact that the world is wide and varied; that the happiness and well-being (here and hereafter) of every other person who has, or does, or will live on it means as much to my Heavenly Father as my own.

Returning to Carbon County, Utah, as a seventh grader, I had little in common with those around me. I took refuge in sports and studies as I had done when we moved between places overseas. But I began to get in touch with the Mormon roots of my mother’s family. It wasn’t until we moved to California that I first heard the story of Joseph Smith’s vision, sitting in a Sunday School class. Some time later I learned about the Book of Mormon, which would become the key to my spiritual life and the way to stay true to my own vision of a young Palestinian and the world he represented.

I love the Book of Mormon for many reasons. I have felt its power affect the life of my family on a day-to-day basis. It speaks in clear, strong ways about the doctrine of Christ. But what I would emphasize here is how deeply moved I am by the very idea that such a book exists: that another scripture, from a different time and place, testifies that Jesus is the Son of God. The Book of Mormon teaches as well that other books of scripture will yet come forth. This is a simple, powerful idea: that God is mindful of all peoples, in all times and places. It reaches out and fills the horizon. It brings unity and purpose to life as I know it and feel it. The Book of Mormon means that I can believe in and testify of an all-embracing Father in Heaven, who has always known and loved my young Palestinian friend as well as He has known and loved me, and that every person who has ever lived holds a place in His plan of salvation.

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Frederick W. Axelgard is a husband and the father of five children, and grandfather to six grandchildren. He received his PhD in international studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His professional career has focused on the politics and security of the Middle East, during which he served in the U.S. Department of State and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. D.C. For the past decade he has been a director and vice president with responsibility for Middle East business development in General Dynamics Corporation.

Posted February 2011

Books have typically defined both my intellectual and religious life. In my very early teens a relative gave me a book surveying world archaeology, and from that time some tie to antiquity formed in my soul and brain and eventually dictated my selection of graduate studies. That fondness for archaeology and ancient history began to intermingle with my understanding and testimony of the Book of Mormon when I found Thomas S. Ferguson’s One Fold, One Shepherd among my father’s books. From the time I first picked it up, my interests in the gospel and in archaeology had fused. My father never got the book back.

I took that excitement about the Book of Mormon and archaeology with me on my mission in Spain. When I returned, the excitement still burned brightly enough that I decided that I should take my new fluency in Spanish to the chronicles that surely supported everything in the Book of Mormon. I wanted to be able to say that I knew that they were true because I had read the sources and they said just that. I did: They didn’t. I didn’t lose any faith in the Book of Mormon, but I certainly lost faith in LDS writers who opined about New World history and the Book of Mormon (including One Fold, One Shepherd). By the early 1970s, I resigned myself to the role of gadfly, poking at the obvious problems with the armchair archaeologists and their misuse of information relative to the Book of Mormon. Then I met John Sorenson.

Dr. Sorenson allowed me to vent about the problems that were obvious in the way LDS writers had attempted to use archaeology and history in support of the Book of Mormon. His response was to give me a manuscript (about a decade before it was published as An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon). At that time, my mental picture of Nephites and Lamanites vacillated between movie depictions of ancient Jerusalem and the Romans-from-an-alternate-universe depictions of Arnold Friberg. Sorenson painted a picture that comfortably placed the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica. I didn’t, and don’t, agree with all of Sorenson’s analyses, but he gave me a context in which for the first time I could see how the Book of Mormon could plausibly fit into a real place and time.

Nevertheless, the Book of Mormon took a distant back seat to the exciting world of Mesoamerican studies. However, while doing some fieldwork in Guatemala, all of the note cards I had amassed towards a dissertation were stolen. In the days of typewriters rather than computers, there were no backups. Lost was lost. Right at the point where all that remained was the final examination and the dissertation, that disheartening loss and our economic realities led my wife and me to decide that I should stop my program for a year and earn some money to get us on our feet. It has been a very, very, long year.

While concentrating on trying to find a way to support and raise a family, interests in Mesoamerica lingered in my reading. Eventually, it was the Internet that provided the impetus to reintegrate my academic interests and love for the Book of Mormon. While participating on a fascinating email list, the owner/moderator of the list asked if I would be willing to write a weekly column. I remembered James Faulconer‘s book entitled Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (FARMS, 1999). Faulconer suggested that one might go through the scriptures slowly and to ask lots of questions of them. Having read several scholarly commentaries on books of the Bible, I keenly felt the lack of a similarly scholarly and comprehensive commentary for the Book of Mormon. I agreed to do the article as an ongoing commentary on the Book of Mormon that would go slowly so as to be able to ask lots of questions of the text.

It has been a fascinating project and in some ways a blind leap of faith. Considering my background in Mesoamerican religious ethnohistory and Sorenson’s foundational work, I determined to read the text against a Mesoamerican historical and cultural background. When I started, I didn’t know if it would work, but I began as though it would. I soon found that whenever I attempted to look ahead I was going to be wrong. I had to plug along a verse at a time. It was not so much a process of fitting the Book of Mormon into a Mesoamerican setting as it was the text opening my eyes to the world in which it was written. The authors had to tell me their story; I couldn’t impose one on them. Why did the people in the Book of Mormon have the specific problems they had? Why did Nephite apostasy always take a very similar form? Why was victory defined so differently from my understanding of European history? Why did some faith-promoting stories in the text make so little sense if you looked at the story carefully? The authors seemed to patiently explain how their particular culture at their particular time provided the background that seemed to naturally answer such questions. Of course, I mean that metaphorically. The text, seen through the plodding and gradual travel through time and space, was not only a different kind of fit than I had imagined, it was a better one.

The Book of Mormon is very different from what I read as a teenager or even as a young father. The text is the same, but now I read about some of my best friends. They were real people with real lives, real problems, and, perhaps best of all, real solutions. Even after the commentary was published, the Book of Mormon keeps reminding me that there is even more to its story. I had thought I would have finished, but it seems that there is still more to understand. The Book of Mormon has become richer, more nuanced, more understandable—yet no more true. The Book that Mormon created was written by a very human man. It was translated by a very human man. Nevertheless, both Mormon and Joseph were touched by the divine, and it is the divine that shines in and through the text. It makes so much more sense to my mind as I understand it against history. The divine in it continues to make sense to my heart. It always did. It always will.

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Brant A. Gardner received a master’s degree in anthropology at the State University of New York, Albany. He published articles on the Aztec Legend of the Suns and Aztec kinship terminology in its descriptive and social uses. From 2007-2008, Greg Kofford Books published his six-volume Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon. Married to the former Valerie Carroll, with whom he has four children and eleven grandchildren, he lives in New Mexico, where he works as a sales engineer in a software firm.

Posted February 2011

Professor Ball has kindly permitted us to use the following text, which is adapted from Terry B. Ball, “Faith and the Scientific Method,” in Approaching a School in Zion: Proceedings of the Third Annual Laying the Foundations Symposium (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1994), 127-133.

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The Reverend John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge professor of physics and a truly world-class scientist, once expressed a dilemma experienced by many scientists who are also persons of faith with the following observation:

There is a popular caricature which sees the scientist as ever open to the correcting power of new discovery and, in consequence, achieving the reward of real knowledge, whilst the religious believer condemns himself to intellectual imprisonment within the limits of an opinion held on a priori grounds, to which he will cling whatever facts there might be to the contrary. The one is the man of reason; the other blocks the road of honest inquiry with a barrier labeled “incontestable revelation”…. If that were really so, those of us who are both scientists and religious believers… would be living schizophrenically, believing the impossible on Sundays and only opening our minds again on Monday mornings.¹

In recent times, religious scientists have not only had to so defend their faith in God and revelation, but also frequently find their commitment to scientific principles unjustly questioned. A Georgia judge, arguing against the teaching of evolution in school, offered an over-zealous polemic that illustrates the point well. Making absurd accusations about the effect of Darwin’s theories on society, the judge claimed that the “monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning, and proliferation of crimes of all types.”² Such pejorative and irrational rhetoric only serves to fan the flames of hostility between science and religion while deepening the dilemma for men and women devoted to both disciplines.

Many members of the Church, past and present, though, illustrate the fact that one can indeed harmonize secular scientific learning and spiritual development. Some, for example, though trained as scientists, have provided great ecclesiastical leadership to the Church, like the apostles John A. Widtsoe, a chemist and agronomist; James E. Talmage, a geologist; Joseph F. Merrill, a chemical engineer; Russell M. Nelson, a physician; and Richard G. Scott, a nuclear engineer.³ Others, while maintaining faith in the restored gospel, have made significant contributions to their scientific fields, like the physicist Philo T. Farnsworth, whose research led to the development of television; the chemist Henry Eyring, who developed the Absolute Rate Theory (or Transition State Theory) of chemical reactions; and the physicist Harvey Fletcher, who pioneered the development of stereophonic sound reproduction.⁴ As Elder Widtsoe taught, “The Church supports and welcomes the growth of science…. The religion of the Latter-day Saints is not hostile to any truth nor to scientific search for truth.”⁵

One area of persistent tension between science and religion is that of the relationship between faith and the scientific method. Among practicing scientists there is a wide variety of opinions on the nature of that relationship. A review of the basic philosophies of the two most opposing schools of thought on the issue is helpful in understanding the controversy. For the sake of convenience I will refer to one extreme as scientific atheism, and to the other as scientific theism.

Scientific Atheism

Although the term scientific atheism is usually associated with the Marxist-Leninist world outlook, the term can appropriately be used to describe the extreme position of those scientists who insist that there is, and can be, no relationship between faith and the scientific method.⁶ Three basic propositions seem to lead them to this conclusion. First, they tend to believe that the scientific method is a supremely efficient and reliable tool for discovering truth. As one author describes it, they wish to view the scientific method as a “methodological threshing machine in which the flail of experiment separates the grain of truth from the chaff of error.”⁷

This confidence in the efficiency and reliability of the scientific method naturally leads them to a second proposition, which is that the scientific method in and by itself can answer any kinds of questions. As the nuclear chemist Jan Rydberg professed, “Science has no limits. There are no questions it should not approach.”⁸

With the assurance that the scientific method can efficiently answer all kinds of questions, scientific atheists arrive at a third proposition, which is that there is no need for faith or religion on the part of one skilled at using the scientific method in the pursuit of truth. This proposition was well illustrated by Pierre-Simon Laplace (d. 1827) when, as tradition has it, in response to Napoleon’s observation that he had failed to mention God in his book on the origin of the universe, he said, “Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis.”⁹

Not only do scientific atheists claim no need for faith, they also declare that any conclusions based on faith are categorically unscientific. As Leonid Brezhnev (d. 1982) proclaimed to the Soviet Central Committee, “True science takes nothing on faith.”¹⁰ This philosophy leads it adherents to reject any superhuman source of enlightenment and to disallow any data that cannot be perceived and described by the temporal senses. The final conclusion drawn by those who accept these propositions was well illustrated by the German physicist Wilhelm Westphal when he lamented:

If there is a God, then I am very sorry to say that he has never revealed himself to me. He could have done this, in fact he should have. But he didn’t. Therefore I became an atheist.¹¹

Jan Rydberg confessed that he had arrived at the same conclusion when he declared “I do not need a God,” and “I have no use for religion.”¹²

Scientific Theism

In contrast to the faithless philosophies of the scientific atheists, those who support the tenets of the school of thought I call scientific theism feel that a practitioner of the scientific method need not abandon faith. Although they are willing to agree that the scientific method is an efficient and reliable research tool, they do not believe that it is supremely or unquestionably so. In recognizing that the scientific method does not always yield unchallengeable truth, the chemist John Friedrich offers this disclaimer:

Scientists are quite often misquoted in the area of certainty. I don’t believe anything is absolutely certain. Things are more or less certain depending upon the data which we have to support a given conclusion. If there is a sufficient amount of data supporting some conclusion, and no contradictory data, then we say with a certain degree of certainty that it is a true reliable conclusion.¹³

Dr. Bernard Waldman carried the thought further when he suggested that there are some scientists who, not realizing the limits of the scientific method, are “brash and very sure of what they are doing and how they have solved all the problems.” But, he continued, in his discipline of physics, “the people who make the major contributions and the major breakthroughs are remarkably humble.”¹⁴ In recognizing the limits of the scientific method, scientific theists are also willing to admit that there are some questions that it simply cannot address. While serving as the dean of the College of Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Willis Worcester asserted that these questions often deal with issues of faith, saying that

There are people who feel that everything can be explained on a purely scientific basis, but all of them eventually run into unanswerable questions, questions of their own origin, of the earth’s origin, of their ultimate fate, which simply cannot be answered on the basis of any currently known scientific method.¹⁵

Some proponents of scientific theism are willing to suggest not only that one can utilize the scientific method without abandoning faith, but that, in reality, a kind of faith can play an important role in the scientific method itself. A former dean of the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Alberty, expressed the principle this way:

Faith is not too different from a part of the regular life of the scientist. If he didn’t have faith that experiments can be reproduced and that the human mind is competent to learn more and that somehow things can be rationalized, he wouldn’t go into the lab. All these acts of faith are necessary to the scientist. Maybe he doesn’t look at it as faith, but it really is. This doesn’t necessarily make him accept things easily, but it’s wrong to think that he operates by some kind of cold calculating logic. Good scientists are highly intuitive and don’t follow rigid logic. They have a great feel for things, as opposed to a detailed mastery. We present it to our students as if it were all coldly factual, but that’s not the way the frontier of science is.¹⁶

What Alberty would call intuition, others have called inspiration. The Norwegian physicist Ole Gjotterud said, “I feel that science is the process of asking questions and trying to answer them critically, but also with inspiration.”¹⁷ This inspiration is a source of enlightenment that would be discounted by many scientific atheists because it can neither be quantified nor described in terms of the physical senses.

The willingness of scientific theists to recognize that faith and inspiration can play a role in the pursuit of truth facilitates their belief in the divine. Many confess that the further they progress in their scientific investigations, the greater their faith in, and conviction of, a supreme being. Alberty said that it is this very phenomenon that “keeps God alive for scientists.”¹⁸ Atomic physicist Dr. Jules Duchesne agrees, as he concludes that “The scientist’s universe has become so large, so wonderful, so unexpected, he almost needs a God.”¹⁹ Perhaps the best response to the arguments of the scientific atheist was offered by the Nobel Prize winning German physicist Max Born (d. 1970) when he simply declared, “Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly people.”²⁰

In my own experience as both a teacher of religion and a researcher in a scientific field, three principles have been especially beneficial in helping me recognize a harmonious relationship between faith and the scientific method:

Principle One: Faith enhances the truths learned through the scientific method.

Henry Eyring introduced this principle well when he wrote:

The scientific method which has served so brilliantly in unravelling the mysteries of this world must be supplemented by something else if we are to enjoy to the fullest the blessings that have come of the knowledge gained. It is the great mission and opportunity of religion to teach men “the way, the truth, the life,” that they might utilize the discoveries of the laboratory to their blessing and not to their destruction.²¹

Eyring’s teachings suggest that when the discoveries of the scientific method become working partners with faith each enhances the other to the blessing of mankind.

Principle Two: Faith has an application in the scientific method as well as in religion.

While teaching the Zoramites, the Book of Mormon prophet Alma declared that “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). In other words, Alma taught that one can have real faith neither in something that is directly visible nor in something that is not true. This observation leads to the question: How then does one know if something not seen is true? An answer can be found in the definition of faith attributed to Paul in the New Testament epistle to the Hebrews. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Paul’s definition suggests that one can have hope for and faith in a thing not seen, by examining the evidence of its existence. For example, though one has not seen God, the witness of the Holy Ghost can provide sufficient spiritual evidence necessary to develop faith in His existence. Moreover, many have testified that temporal evidence for the existence of God can be found in the complexity and wonders of his creations.

This principle of faith, that through observation of evidences one can have confidence in the existence of something not directly seen, has found similar application in science. For example no scientist has ever seen electrons, yet the evidence of their travel through a bubble chamber testifies of their existence.²² In similar fashion, long before the planet Neptune was ever viewed in a telescope, Adams and Leverrier were able to predict its existence by the evidence of its gravitational influence on the planet Uranus.²³ By Paul’s definition both Adams and Leverrier exercised a principle of faith in their scientific investigations. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Principle Three: The scientific method and the paradigm for developing faith are remarkably similar.

The scientific method is often outlined in four steps. First, the scientist forms a hypothesis. Second, he conducts an experiment to test the hypothesis. Third, he evaluates the data from the experiment, and, fourth, he draws a conclusion.

In the paradigm for developing faith as outlined in the thirty-second chapter of Alma in the Book of Mormon, some cognates to this four-step process are evident. Alma introduces the process of developing faith with these words:

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you (Alma 32:27).

Alma seems to be suggesting that the first step is to arouse one’s faculties to a desire to believe. For example, in order to obtain faith in the truthfulness of Alma’s teachings one would begin by observing, “I desire to believe the teachings of Alma.” This can be compared with the scientist’s hypothesis statement (i.e., the scientist would say, “I hypothesize that the teachings of Alma are true”).

After so hypothesizing or arousing ones faculties, Alma indicates that the next step, just as in the scientific method, is to perform an experiment upon his words. He explains how to conduct the experiment and evaluate the data:

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart (Alma 32:28).

Thus, Alma has instructed that the experiment be conducted by metaphorically planting the seed of his teachings in one’s heart. This can be interpreted as meaning that one is to apply the teachings of Alma in one’s personal life.

The third step of the scientific method, the analysis of data, is paralleled in this chapter by Alma’s teachings that:

behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts (Alma 32:28).

Thus, as one evaluates the data, one recognizes that some kind of growth—a good kind of growth—has taken place!

The final step of the scientific method, that of drawing a conclusion, finds a cognate in Alma’s paradigm for developing faith, when Alma teaches that, after analyzing the data of the experiment upon his words, one will come to the realization that:

It must needs be that this is a good seed or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. (Alma 32:28)

This enlarging and enlightening can be considered the “spiritual” data produced by the experiment.

It should be noted that this kind of spiritual evidence is very different from the temporal data acceptable to the scientific method. Unlike temporal data, spiritual information cannot be quantified or easily described in terms of our physical senses, but, rather, its observation requires the development of spiritual faculties. As a result, it may never be observed by one who has not learned how to use spiritual senses, or who limits his tools for the pursuit of truth to the scientific method. Moreover, spiritual information may manifest itself in different ways to different individuals. Thus, for those following Alma’s procedure for developing faith, the spiritual data generated may not be felt or recognized by each “experimenter” in exactly the same way. This admission does not, however, diminish the reality or reliability of the data for those who have observed it. Herein may be the greatest source of frustration for scientific atheists. Because they cannot accept or recognize data in the form of spiritual witnesses and evidences, they are handicapped in their ability to learn religious truth, and often deny its existence. As Paul explained to the Corinthians:

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Biologist Hanjochem Autrum expressed a similar concept when he suggested that “Science cannot find God, but the scientist can.”²⁴

In the remainder of this discussion on faith, Alma takes the scientific method one step further and, in so doing, illustrates what every good scientist should do with a newly discovered truth. He instructs that it should be nourished and cared for so that, “then my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence” (Alma 32:43). In other words, returning to the instructions of Henry Eyring, that “they might utilize the discoveries of the laboratory to their blessing.”²⁵

The scientific method demands that the data gathered and the conclusions drawn from an experiment be reproducible by anyone who follows the procedures of the original experimenter. As Latter-Day Saints we believe that the experiment by which one can gain faith as outlined by Alma does indeed meet this criterion. And this in part helps explain the success of the great missionary program of the church. In a sense, our missionaries challenge investigators to be “scientific” by trying this experiment upon the word, with the promise that if they follow the procedures and carefully analyze the results, they too will come to the conclusion that God lives and that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

With the understanding of the above principles, that faith can enhance and supplement the scientific method, that the principles of faith can have application in the scientific method as well as in religion, and that the process for developing faith can be similar to the scientific method, we can be confident that one need not abandon faith to be a scientist, and conversely, that a testimony of the gospel does not mandate the forsaking of science.

These principles have served me well as both a research scientist and religious educator at Brigham Young University. Over and over, my faith has informed my science, and my science has informed my faith.

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Notes:
¹ J. C. Polkinghorne, Reason and Reality: The Relationship Between Science and Theology (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991), 49.
² E. Geissler and H. Hörz, “Darwin Today—Introductory Lecture,” in Darwin Today: The Eighth Kuhlungsborn Colloquium on Philosophy and Ethical Problems of Bioscience (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983), 19.
³ Robert L. Miller, “Science and Scientists,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 3:1272-1274.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1943), 1:129.
⁶ Vladimir Zots, “Atheism and the Spiritual Culture of Socialism,” in Religion in the USSR: The Truth and Falsehood (Moscow: Editorial Board, 1986), 31.
⁷ Polkinghorne, Reason and Reality, 49.
⁸ Cited in Frederick E. Trinklein, The God of Science (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), 21.
⁹ Cited in Henry Eyring, The Faith of a Scientist (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967), 57.
¹⁰ Cited in Stephen Fortescue, The Communist Party and Soviet Science (London: Macmillan, 1986), 22.
¹¹ Cited in Trinklein, The God of Science, 68.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Ibid., 4.
¹⁴ Ibid., 15.
¹⁵ Ibid., 30.
¹⁶ Ibid., 19-20.
¹⁷ Ibid., 2.
¹⁸ Ibid., 61.
¹⁹ Ibid., 64.
²⁰ Ibid.
²¹ Eyring, The Faith of a Scientist, 37.
²² Cyril Henderson, Cloud and Bubble Chambers (London: Methuen, 1970), 1-5.
²³ Morton Grosser, The Discovery of Neptune (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 99-101.
²⁴ Cited in Trinklein, The God of Science, 67.
²⁵ Eyring, The Faith of a Scientist, 37.

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Dr. Terry B. Ball is a Professor of Ancient Scripture and the Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Prior to joining the BYU faculty, he worked for twelve years as a seminary and institute teacher.

Professor Ball received his B.S. from BYU in botany and education, interrupting his undergraduate studies to serve a two-year mission in Japan. He later received an M.A. from BYU in ancient Near Eastern studies and a Ph.D. from BYU in archaeobotany, with an emphasis on the ancient Near East. He has taught and traveled extensively in the Holy Land, including teaching at BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.

Dr. Ball has researched, lectured, and written extensively about the prophet Isaiah, and has also devoted attention to LDS theology and the environment. In addition to teaching and researching in ancient scripture, he is an active researcher in the field of archaeobotany, focusing on phytolith systematics.

He is married to the former DeAnna Hill, and they have six children.

Posted February 2011

Over the years, I have had many opportunities to speak and publish about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and particularly about the Book of Mormon. In a variety of ways, every time I have written or talked about these subjects, I have borne my testimony that this work is good, that it is true, that it is what I want, that it is what I need, and that it is what this world has always needed and what it needs now more than ever. This I know in hundreds of ways, spiritual and intellectual, rationally and faithfully, academically and religiously, deductively and inductively, privately and publically, at home and abroad, in English or German, Greek or Latin, practically and theoretically, alone as well as in my family and community, in times of birth and on occasions of death, through the sacred and the secular, by thought and by deed, in word and in action, with analysis and synthesis, through fasting and feasting, in happiness or tears, with reinforcing ritual repetition as well as arresting original revelations, through study and faith, as a bishop and as a layman, by giving advice and receiving counsel, in salient moments of humility and submissiveness to God imbedded in years of hard work and tedious prospecting in the dusty corners of human life.

I trace my testimony a long way back in my life, part of which I describe in the autobiographical foreword and personal acknowledgements at the beginning of my book, The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon (2008). I learned of the truth and goodness of the gospel when I was six years old getting my hands dirty alongside volunteer electricians and tile layers building an LDS chapel in the early 1950s in Southern California, when as a teenager I had a couple hours to read Hugh Nibley’s Lehi in the Desert basking in the warm sun and pure air of the High Sierra wilderness area near Mt. Whitney, when as one of a few Mormon kids in a very large Pasadena high school I prayed about the Book of Mormon at the invitation of my seminary teacher in my junior year, when I was riveted as a freshman at BYU by the spirit of the Prophet David O. McKay while watching him speak up close, when as a missionary in 1967 in Regensburg, Germany, I was awakened and led very early one morning to discover chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, and on many other occasions, for which I am profoundly grateful. Similar experiences have continued throughout my life, in marriage and child-raising, at Oxford and Duke, in numerous professional positions, personal associations, and religious callings. And on all of these grounds, I offer my testimony, in every way I know how, that the Bible and Book of Mormon, that the restoration of the priesthood and of the organization of the Church, that the plan of salvation and the atonement of Jesus Christ are eternally good and genuinely true in every meaningful way imaginable.

Rather than repeating here what I have said in bearing my testimony on many other occasions, let me invite you to read or listen to the following items, which are available free on the web.

In 1988, I gave a devotional speech at BYU entitled “Study, Faith, and the Book of Mormon.” I told of many experiences and gave several reasons how and why I know that the Book of Mormon “bears a true witness that Jesus is the Christ.” I concluded that speech by saying, “I testify that the Lord has given us a truly marvelous blessing in the form of the Book of Mormon. He and his servants, the prophets, have given much so we could have it. I pray the Lord will bless us all to love and to know him and this marvelous book, with all of our hearts and might, minds and strength, that we may thereby come to eternal life.” The full text is available at http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7020&x=64&y=11.

Seven years later, in 1995, I was invited to deliver a plenary address at the Sperry Symposium at BYU, celebrating the one-hundredth birthday of Sidney B. Sperry. My topic was “The Power of Evidence in the Nurturing of Faith.” Here I explored the various ways in which reason and revelation work together, the various forms in which evidence may appear, and how evidence is powerfully related to the nurturing of faith. I concluded my testimony on that occasion with these thoughts: “As a young man and still today, I have always felt satisfied in my testimony of the Book of Mormon. At first, I believed that the book was true with little or no evidence of any kind at all. Never expecting to find great proofs or evidence for the book, I have been astonished by what the Lord has done. In all of this, I have not been disappointed but richly satisfied. It seems clear enough that the Lord does not intend for the Book of Mormon to be an open-and-shut case intellectually, either pro or con. If God had intended that, he could have left more concrete evidences one way or the other. Instead, it seems that the Lord has maintained a careful balance between requiring us to exercise faith and allowing us to find reasons that affirm the stated origins of this record. The choice is then entirely ours. Ultimately, evidences may not be that important, but then it is easy to say that the airplane or the parachute has become irrelevant after you are safely on the ground. We are blessed to have the Book of Mormon. It is the word of God. It would be ideal if all could accept it without suspicion and then, upon humble prayer, receive the witness of the Holy Ghost that it is true, but in this less than ideal world, it is good that so much evidence can bring us to believe and help us to nurture faith in this extraordinary book.” This presentation, now going into its third publication, is on line at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=8&chapid=60.

In 1996, Susan Easton Black assembled a collection of twenty-four testimonies of Latter-day Saint scholars and published them in a book entitled Expressions of Faith, the entire book being on the web site of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. My contribution, just one among these many, was entitled “Good and True,” and I am glad that readers can find it easily at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=107&chapid=1218. There I again focus my attention on the Book of Mormon: “Like most people, I am grateful for good friends who give my life meaningful opportunities for happiness, companionship, love, compassion, appreciation, and a host of precious feelings and memories. I like to remember the adventure, travel, discovery, exploration, research, learning, challenge, emotion, excitement, and many other experiences that life has brought me. For all those same reasons, I am grateful for the Book of Mormon. I love and respect this book. It is a good and true friend. It has filled my life with purpose, perspective, ideas, values, happiness, adventure, challenges and many sacred experiences. Its truth and goodness are sufficiently evident to me in many ways. Yet, at the same time, I know that I glimpse only a part of its full and good news.”

I see the Book of Mormon as a true classic, whose truth is manifested in its spirituality, consistency, accuracy, coherency, complexity, antiquity, reality, subtlety, profundity, clarity and artistry. Likewise, I commend its goodness, which may be defined and felt in many ways: in its unflinching testimonies of Christ, its practical wisdom, its sensitive social conscience, its embracing dynamic universalism, its honest candor, fullness, idealism, and optimism.

By putting James 1:5 and Moroni 10:4 to the test, I have learned that it is one of the gifts of the Book of Mormon that a person can know that it is true and feel its goodness without yet knowing everything it contains. I also have learned that the Holy Ghost is not found at the end of a syllogism. For over forty years, I have worked almost continuously on various Book of Mormon research projects. Not far in the back of my mind during most of my studies in history, philosophy, classical languages, biblical and Near Eastern studies, and law, has always been the prospect of angles on Book of Mormon texts. For me, the results have been rewarding and stimulating, intellectually and spiritually. I have come to esteem the Book of Mormon as one of the intellectual wonders of the world and a key part of the miracle of the Restoration.

The Book of Mormon impresses me most as a profound source of knowledge and perspective. It teaches the gospel in doctrinal passages that are crystal clear and uncannily pertinent both to the minutiae of personal life and to the megatrends of world affairs. The Book of Mormon has taught me in quiet moments such things as the essential requirements of God’s plan of salvation, the errors of many tendencies in modern society, and the spiritual ills of contention and disputation. I find it quite remarkable that, on the myriad arguments written against the Book of Mormon, hardly any have been directed against its ethical positions or religious teachings. It offers all its readers—even its critics—the promise of mercy and comfort, if they will only come unto Christ and be reconciled with him, as he has asked.

An important part of my testimony is that I will see the Book of Mormon again some day at the judgment bar of God. My students always want to know in advance something about what is going to be on their final exams. Fortunately, the Lord has not left us in the dark on the most important final exam: “And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man?” (Moroni 10:27). And King Benjamin bore similar testimony that his words “shall stand as a bright testimony against this people at the judgment day” (Mosiah 3:24).

Finally, in 2003, I delivered another BYU Devotional, entitled “And with All Thy Mind,” in which I asked, “What does it mean to love God with our mind?” and how can we be sure that we are keeping the first and greatest commandment, to love God with all our hearts and minds. I answered these questions in many ways, testifying that God cares very much about his children, including what they think and how they use their minds. I spoke of personal experiences, for which I thank and praise God, when I have received his direct intervention and support. I testified then, as I do now, that I know the gospel and the Book of Mormon are true. This speech is available at http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7694&x=50&y=9.

Dear reader, I close, as I have on all of these previous occasions, with my honest and forthright declaration of what I know and count to be true. I swear this to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In the name of Jesus Christ and through the power and influence of the Holy Ghost, I offer you my witness, based on all that I know to be good and true, that God and Christ are good and true, that the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain the word of God, and that God has sent heavenly ministers with power and with discernment to gather the wheat from among the tares, the truth from error, wherever it may be found among his children here on this earth. I gratefully thank the Lord for his goodness, and humbly pray that this report of the reasons for the hope that is in me may in some still, small way be worthy of your acceptance.

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John W. Welch is Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University. He has also practiced law both in his native California and in Utah. In 1979, he established the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), serving as its president until 1989 and as a member of its board of directors until 2005. Since 1991, he has also served as editor-in-chief of the University’s flagship journal, BYU Studies, and, in that capacity, has supervised numerous publications that have received awards from the Mormon History Association and the Western History Association.

Educated at Brigham Young University (B.A., history; M.A., classical languages), Professor Welch proceeded to study Greek philosophy as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Oxford University and then earned a J.D. from the law school of Duke University, where he was articles editor for the Duke Law Journal.

Professor Welch served on the editorial board of Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism (1988-1992). Long interested in Jewish law, he was a member of the executive committees of the Jewish Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools (1993-1999) and of the Biblical Law Section of the Society of Biblical Literature (1999-2005), and has been the Biblical Law Abstractor for the Jewish Law Annual since 1992.

The author or co-author of many scores of important articles on the law, Mormon history, the Book of Mormon, the New Testament, and other subjects, he is also the author, editor, co-author, or co-editor of The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple (London: Ashgate, 2009); The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2008); with Larry E. Morris, Oliver Cowdery: Scribe, Elder, Witness (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2006); The Worlds of Joseph Smith: A Bicentennial Conference at the Library of Congress (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2006); Biblical Law Cumulative Bibliography (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns; and Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2006); with John F. Hall, Apostles and Bishops in Early Christianity, in the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2005); Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2005); with David and Jo Ann Seely, Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Provo, Utah: FARMS; American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2004); with Stephen Fleming, Lectures on Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2003); with Donald W. Parry and Daniel C. Peterson, Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002); A Latter-day Saint Compass: Readings from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2002); with John F. Hall, Charting the New Testament (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002); David Daube Bibliography, distributed in Denver, November 2001, at the national meeting of the Biblical Law Section of the Society for Biblical Literature and published on www.biblicallaw.org; editor for Ze’ev W. Falk, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times, 2d ed. (Provo, Utah: BYU Press; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001); An Epistle from the New Testament Apostles (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1999); Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and Sermon on the Mount (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999); with Daniel B. McKinlay, Chiasmus Bibliography (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999); with J. Gregory Welch, Charting the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999); with Melvin J. Thorne, Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1999); with Stephen D. Ricks, King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998); with Donald W. Parry, Isaiah in the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998); with Doris R. Dant, The Book of Mormon Paintings of Minerva Teichert (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997); editor for Gila Hurvitz, The Story of Masada, English edition (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1997); with John F. Hall, Masada and the World of the New Testament (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1997); with James B. Allen, Coming to Zion (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1997); with Jeannie Welch, The Doctrine and Covenants by Themes, 2d ed. (Provo, Utah: FARMS and BYU Studies, 1997); with Jan Shipps, The William E. McLellin Journals, 1831–1836 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press; Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1994); with Stephen D. Ricks, The Allegory of the Olive Tree (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1994); editor for B. H. Roberts, The Truth, The Way, The Life (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1994); Reexploring the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992); with Stephen D. Ricks and Donald W. Parry, A Bibliography on Temples of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean World (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991); A Biblical Law Bibliography (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990); The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1990); with Edwin Firmage and Bernard Weiss, Religion and Law: Biblical, Jewish & Islamic Perspectives (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990); Chiasmus in Antiquity (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1981).

Professor Welch has been the co-director or director of several museum exhibits and conferences at BYU and beyond. He serves as the general editor of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1985–) and was the producer and publisher of Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 78 DVDs in 2 vols., directed by Richard E. Turley Jr. (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 2002).

He is married to the former Jeannie Sutton, and they have four children and sixteen grandchildren. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was a missionary in southern Germany and has served as a counselor in a stake presidency and twice as a bishop.

Posted February 2011

My testimony reflects my knowledge that my Heavenly Father knows me, loves me, and blesses me. In my life I have wanted to be in control, perhaps the reaction of being the youngest of six children who had many family members telling me their opinions of how I should live my life. As is often the case, others rarely know what is best for another person but I have learned that my Heavenly Father does.

I have experienced tension in my life between what I felt my Heavenly Father has blessed me with, talents of curiosity and a desire to learn, and Mormon societal expectations. These expectations were voiced by my mother stating that I would not be happy unless I was a wife and a mother. I have indeed found joy in these roles, but also in my role as an individual who loves to research and learn.

I majored in history and then earned a Master of Library Science because it seemed an appropriate degree for a woman. But while working at the Genealogical Society as a librarian, I decided to return to full time studies. I met my future husband, who had already been accepted at the University of Chicago. We married and left for Chicago and we continue to live in the Chicago area after over thirty years. While supporting my husband while he earned his PhD, I decided that I wanted to return to graduate study, and about the time my husband finished I began my own doctoral studies in Ottoman history at the University of Chicago. This was difficult, but what inspired my determination was the knowledge that my Heavenly Father had made this option possible for me. More than once when I thought I would not qualify for a grant I put the matter in the Lord’s hands. In ways that seem miraculous to me despite numerous obstacles, I received my PhD six months before my daughter graduated from high school. While my professional life has never followed a traditional course, I find more opportunities appearing for me than ever before.

I know the Lord wants his daughters to develop their talents, which vary widely from individual to individual. I try to excel as a scholar and as a mother, and while this is challenging it is also fulfilling. I am grateful to my children, who understand that their mother has commitments in addition to mothering. I have been blessed with remarkable children, and I appreciate the love and support of my husband, children, and extended family.

I am grateful for the personal revelation which I have received, which has been a comfort and support to me when I feel discouraged by what some church members express about how they feel others should live their lives. One example of this personal revelation is from my patriarchal blessing. It quotes the scripture “Be thou humble and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answer to thy prayers” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:10). It then continues: “I bless you that in your scholastic endeavors your mind may be enlightened and your understanding quickened that you may readily grasp and understand the lessons presented to you.” Toward the end of the blessing it states: “I bless you with health and strength, with vigor of mind and of body and of spirit, that you may live to fill the full measure of your creation here upon the earth and have joy, peace, happiness and satisfaction therein.” I am striving to live up to my blessing “to fill the full measure of [my] creation,” which means in my case to be active in research, writing, and publishing, as well as being a wife and a mother.

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Christine Isom-Verhaaren received her PhD in 1997, from the University of Chicago. She teaches History and Global Studies at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois, near Chicago. She is the author, among other publications, of Allies with the Infidel: The Ottoman-French Alliance in the Sixteenth Century (2011) and is currently researching and writing The Sultan’s Fleet.

Posted February 2011