Thomas W. Murphy

THOMAS W. MURPHY has a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Washington. He has participated in ethnobiological research, funded by the national Science Foundation, in a Zapotec community in southern Mexico and in ethnomedical research, funded by the Stanley Foundation, in a Mormon congregation of Mayans and Ladinos in the highlands of Guatemala. His publications have appeared in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Ethnohistory, and elsewhere. He is currently chair of the Department of Anthropology at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Washington, where he has pioneered the use of molecular biology laboratories in introductory Anthropology courses.

Reinventing Mormonism: Guatemala as Harbinger of the Future?

Articles/Essays – Volume 29, No. 1

With the assistance of her family, Marta Angelica Solizo forms and paints incredibly detailed ceramic Nativity scenes. A standard set con sists of fourteen pieces: three sheep, a bull, four donkeys laden with corn, squash,…

Laban’s Ghost: On Writing and Transgression

Articles/Essays – Volume 30, No. 2

In his 1955 classic work, Tristes Tropiques, French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss recorded a story of unintended social impact evoked by his introduction of writing to the illiterate Nambikwara of tropical Brazil. Several days after Levi-Strauss…

An Other Mormon History | Jorge Iber, Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999

Articles/Essays – Volume 35, No. 2

Jorge Iber’s debut, Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, earned the impressive honor of the Mormon History As sociation’s 2001 Best First Book Award. Iber brings the intellectual tools and fresh insight of ethnic studies into…

All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage, by Armand L. Mauss

Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 4

Simply Implausible: DNA and a Mesoamerican Setting for the Book of Mormon

Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 4

Dialogue 36.4 (Winter 2004):129–167
Instead of lending support to an Israelite origin as posited by Mormon scripture, genetic data have confirmed already existing archaeological, cultural, linguistic, and biological data, pointing to migrations from Asia as “the primary source of American Indian origins

A Stark Contrast: Farewell to Eden: Coming to Terms with Mormonism and Science by Duwayne R. Anderson

Articles/Essays – Volume 38, No. 2