Equipping Saints • Engaging Culture • Examining Claims
An Essay in Historical and Literary Criticism I. The Room With No Curtain There was no curtain. That single fact, so easily lost in two centuries of argument, is where any serious inquiry into the Book of Mormon must begin. In the spring of 1829, in a farmhouse in Fayette, New York, a twenty-three-year-old man…
Claude AI summary of Mormon Stories podcast “How the Book of Mormon was Composed” Ep. 1615 Source Program: Mormon Stories Podcast, Episode 1615 — “How the Book of Mormon was Composed,” installment ten of the LDS Discussions series. Participants: John Dehlin (host); Mike of LDS Discussions (guest); Douglas Stilgoe, known online as “Nemo the Mormon”…
The Garden’s Oldest Whisper: How LDS Cosmology Repackages Genesis 3:5 ❦ ❦ ❦ I. The Architecture of an Older Whisper Of all the doctrines a religion must defend, the doctrine of God is the one upon which everything else turns. As Latter-day Saint Apostle Dallin H. Oaks once told an audience at Harvard Law School,…
The 1894 “Servitor” Sealing of Jane Manning James: A Theological and Historical Examination ❦ ❦ ❦ Introduction: A Question Echoing Across the Centuries On a December day in 1884, an aging Black widow in Salt Lake City dictated a letter to the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had walked…
A Theological Examination of Eternal Progression, Premortal Life, and the Eternal Presence of Heavenly Father I. Two Promises, One Soul: The Knot at the Center A faithful Latter-day Saint who has knelt at a sealing altar in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been given two promises that, on…
Bibliographic Context The pamphlet, No. 231 in the Herald Publishing House series (Lamoni, Iowa — then the RLDS headquarters), was written by Elder A. B. Phillips and printed in 1912. Phillips’s central thesis is that forty “eminent archaeologists and authors” had, by the early twentieth century, unwittingly confirmed the Book of Mormon’s narrative of ancient…
Why the Entire Mormon Restoration Stands or Falls on One Man, Joseph Smith ❦ ❦ ❦ Introduction: The Hinge on Which Everything Else Turns There is a particular kind of theological conversation that, no matter where it begins, ends up in the same place. It may begin with the Book of Mormon. It may begin…
A Traditional Christian Examination of LDS Missionary Authority ❖ ❖ ❖ Introduction: The Doorstep and the Title Almost every American adult has met them. Two young men in dark trousers, crisp white shirts, conservative ties, and bicycles leaning against the curb. Pinned over their left breast pocket is a black plastic name tag bearing the…
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the middle of the most aggressive temple-building campaign in its nearly 200-year history. Under President Russell M. Nelson, who has personally announced 200 new temples in just seven years, the Church has transformed the American landscape — quietly, expensively, and with almost no financial accountability…
A scholarly examination of the Book of Mormon’s textual and literary fingerprints ❦ ❦ ❦ Introduction: A Book Worth Examining Honestly On the title page of every modern copy of the Book of Mormon, readers encounter a remarkable claim: that the volume in their hands is an authentic ancient record, translated by the gift and…