Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019):37–58
Ryan Thomas highlights the different metal writing cultures from around the same time as the Book of Mormon periods to see if it is historically likely for the Gold Plates to exist from that time period.
The idea for this panel sprang from last year’s western Pilgrimage reunion, an annual meeting of women. We were sitting around observing who’d become a Relief Society president and being amazed. We tried to figure out what it could possibly mean and came to no conclusion but decided it would be interesting to talk about.
Participants
Todd Compton: Ph.D., classics, University of California, Los Angeles. Dean, Graduate Studies, Park College, Independence, Missouri; Director, Temple School Center, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, Missouri.
Steven Epperson: Assistant Professor of History, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, specializing in American religious history and history of Christian doctrine.
Mark D. Thomas: Scriptural Studies Editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
Margaret Toscano: Ph.D. candidate, comparative literature, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
David P. Wright: Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
I begin with a paradox. Sociologists of religion have found that religious orthodoxy tends to decline with educational attainment. However, among Mormons religiosity actually tends to increase with education. This is paradoxical because Mormonism apparently…
The year 1998 found the nation in the grip of a sex scandal in the White House, a sex scandal in which a president (named for Thomas Jefferson) flatly denied “improper sexual relations,” believing, evidently,…
Consider the Restoration of the gospel as a paradigm for Mormon criticism. Sensing some apostasy from truth, the critic rectifies this falling away through an act of restoration. As Joseph Smith sensed something incomplete about…
America is currently in the midst of state-by-state political activism and judicial appeals to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. In 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated one example of the related effort to roll back laws protecting homosexuals from civil discrimination, but this campaign moves forward on various fronts in every state of the Union. Its organizers will certainly extend this political activism into all states currently lacking a “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) which both prohibits same-sex marriage and refuses to recognize such unions legally performed in other states or countries. In view of the pace for this state by-state political activism during the 1990s, the Defense of Marriage campaign will probably continue throughout the United States for at least another decade.
A native of Salt Lake City, Lane Twitchell lives with his family in Brooklyn. He has exhibited widely in galleries and museums and has received numerous awards, grants, residencies, and commissions. His work is in…
Susan Lee Anderson, Appreciation for Frances Menlove
Tom Rogers, An Issue Reflecting Balance
LaVal W. Spencer, Kirk Hagen’s Accomplishment
David O. Tolman, Natural vs. Supernatural
William D. Russell, What Is FARMS Afraid Of?
Mark Ashurst-McGee, Ashurst-McGee Replies to Vogel
Ralph Hansen, A Founder Bows Out
Thomas G. Alexander, Faithful Historian Responds
Dan Vogel, What Is a Revival?