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Recommended

Lehi on the Great Issues: Book of Mormon Theology in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):83–104
Thus, regardless of how one chooses to resolve the issues surrounding its origins, one must conclude that the Book of Mormon’s theological arguments should be seen as designed to be read and understood by its early nineteenth-century audience.

Mormon Laundry List

The Unbidden Prayer

Jacob and the Angel: Modern Readers and the Old Testament

Response to Boyd and Farrell Edwards’s Response to My “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Dialogue 39.3 (Fall 2007):188–206
Others, including Wunderli, hold that the proposed chiasms in the
Book of Mormon are not deliberate applications of the chiastic form and
ascribe their chiastic structure to the ingenuity of the analyst, rather than
to the intent of the author.

John T. Clark: The “One Mighty and Strong”

“To Set in Order the House of God”: The Search for the Elusive “One Mighty and Strong”

The Prophet Elias Puzzle

All Content

Gethsemane and Atonement Again

In his 2022 Dialogue article “The Garden Atonement and the Mormon Cross Taboo,” Jeremy Christiansen adds to a fuller understanding of LDS reception history of the Lukan account of “Gethsemane,” namely Jesus’ agony and sweat/blood…

The Sidney Sperry/Heber Snell Debates: Critical Biblical Scholarship and Mormon Tradition

In 2018, the Sunday School instructor of my Mormon congregation was assigned to teach the stories about Lot found in Genesis 19. The teacher confessed that he was very uncomfortable discussing these narratives. Instead, he…

Roundtable: When Unnecessary Overinterpretation of Scripture Hurts, It Must Cease

I am not a member of any Native American tribal nation, neither do I claim Indigenous heritage. I am a white American, and three of my four grandparents trace their family back to Mormon pioneers.…

The Lamanite Dilemma: Mormonism and Indigeneity

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. Many times throughout my childhood, I heard various church members or my parents tell me that we had to choose between being Navajo and being Mormon. Our family went…

Finding Agency in Captivity: Resistance, Co-optation, and Replication Among Indentured Indians, 1847–1900

When Mormon settlers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, they brought with them their institutions and attitudes. These included a perception of Native Americans as fallen Israelites who, the Book of Mormon promised, would…

The Pearl’s Price Terryl Givens with Brian M. Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture

Givens and Hauglid are direct: their goal is to provide a sustained, academic, and nuanced treatment of the Pearl of Great Price [PGP]. Their motive lies in the fact that this volume has received relatively…

On Care: Performative Theology, Mosiah, and a Gathered Community

The question I am considering here is at its heart relational. What kind of relationship with scripture exists within performative theology? When we understand scripture as wisdom rather than history, what does this understanding do…

Dealing with Difficult Questions

Review: Embraced in Love Eric D. Huntsman. Becoming the Beloved Disciple: Coming unto Christ through the Gospel of John.

Reasonably Good Tidings of Greater- than-Average Joy Grant Hardy, ed. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition.

Plain and Precious Things Lost: The Small Plates of Nephi

Dialogue 52.4 (Winter 2019): 85
Such inconsistencies may cause some readers to question the credibility of the text. Upon observing doctrinal andprophetic variation within the Book of Mormon, some dismiss the book’s divinity

Empirical Witnesses of the Gold Plates

Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019): 59–84
Due to the fact that visiting with angels isn’t part of the normal human experience, it makes it hard for historians to prove that it happened through an academic investigation. The best way, as discussed by the author, to determine what really happened is by studying other individual’s first-hand accounts about the Gold Plates.

THE GOLD PLATES AND ANCIENT METAL EPIGRAPHY: APPENDIX

The Gold Plates and Ancient Metal Epigraphy

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.

Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon An Update

Dialogue 52.2 (Spring 2019):1–58Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has
worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so
well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over
180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations.

Review: A Private Revelation William Victor Smith. Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation

“Behold, Other Scriptures I Would that Ye Should Write”: Malachi in the Book of Mormon

“A Portion of God’s Light”: Mormonism and Religious Pluralism

A Double Portion: An Intertextual Reading of Hannah (1 Samuel 1–2) and Mark’s Greek Woman (Mark 7:24–30)

“In Christ All Things Hold Together”: A Christian Perspective (via Levinas and Shimony) on Quantum Entanglement

“The Perfect Union of Man and Woman”: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making

Dialogue 49.1 (Spring 2016): 1–26
Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself.

Some Voices from the Dust | Ross T. Christensen, ed., Papers of the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures

Any volume with “fifteenth annual” in its title requires placement in historical and sociological context before it can be evaluated properly. Sponsor of this symposium is the 800-member University Archaeological Society. (The name was changed…

The Bible, the Church, and Its Scholars

In Professor Snell’s article and in the response to it by Professor Sperry, one finds the work of two committed members of the Church, who nevertheless appear to differ greatly on their interpretation of the…

Scholars and Prophets

Professor Snell’s article, “The Bible in the Church,” leaves me with very mixed feelings. On the first page of his essay he implies that his criticisms are intended to be constructive and that he seeks…

Lot’s Wife in the Latter Days

My dear brothers and sisters, this evening marks the end of a cycle in my life. Five years ago my husband and I left Durham, with his law degree and a lot of expectation. We…

Why the King James Version?: From the Common to the Official Bible of Mormonism

The excellence of the King James Version of the Bible does not need fresh documentation. No competent modern reader would question its literary excellence or its historical stature. Yet compared to several newer translations, the…

New Wine and New Bottles: Scriptural Scholarship as Sacrament

Jesus the Peasant

The Identity of Jacob’s Opponent: Wrestling with Ambiguity in Genesis 32:32

Gnosticism Reformed

Toward a Feminist Interpretation of Latter-day Scripture

Dialogue 27.2 (Summer 1994): 197–230
I am astonished that it took so many readings and a focus on the question of using gender-inclusive language in the simplified version to discover something that should have been obvious to me from the beginning: females scarcely figure or matter in our sacred books.

The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus

Divine Dialogue and the Lord’s Prayer: Socio-rhetorical Interpretation of Texts

The Structure of the Book of Mormon: A Theory of Evolutionary Development

Dialogue 29.2 (Summer 1998):129–154
WHEN JOSEPH SMITH BEGAN TO DICTATE the Book of Mormon, he did not understand the structure the book would ultimately take. He did not know that the first part of the manuscript would be lost, resulting in a major structural change in the first quarter of the book.

The Johannine Comma: Bad Translation, Bad Theology

“White” of “Pure”: Five Vignettes

Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1996): 119–135
The Book of Mormon variously uses “white” and “pure” in the same verse in different editions. This article traces the history of those changes, who was behind them, and why.

Scripture, History, and Faith: A Round Table Discussion

Retelling the Greatest Story Ever Told: Popular Literature as Scripture in Antebellum America

A Mosaic for a Religious Counterculture: The Bible in the Book of Mormon

Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1998):59–83
THE BOOK OF MORMON HAS OCCASIONALLY been portrayed as a deficient
first novel. Its characters appear flat and stereotypical; the plots and char￾acters seem to lack moral subtlety; and so on. Should we wonder that to￾day’s high literary circles ignore it?

Heaven and Hell: The Parable of the Loving Father and the Judgmental Son

Jesus’ Dispute in the Temple and the Origin of the Eucharist

The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10-31

Laban’s Ghost: On Writing and Transgression

Did the Author of 3 Nephi Know the Gospel of Matthew?

As Translated Correctly: The Inspiration and Innovation of the Eighth Article of Faith

Cosmos, Chaos, and Politics: Biblical Creation Patterns in Secular Contexts

Scriptural Chastity Lessons, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife; Corianton and the Harlot Isabel

Feasting on the Word by Richard Dilworth Rust

LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls by Donald W. Parry and Dana M. Pike

The Use and Abuse of Anti-Semitism in the Scriptures

The Authorship of the Pentateuch

Wisdom Traditions in the Hebrew Bible

Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis

Hebraicisms, Chiasmus and Other Internal Evidence for Ancient Authorship in Green Eggs and Ham

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2001):127–173
Upon an initial and cursory reading, the book appears to be a simple morality play. A zealous purveyor of an unusual gustatory selection hawks his wares to an Everyman, whose initial biases preclude his ac￾ceptance of the unfamiliar.

Coming Out of the Evolution Closet

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 143–145
Sometimes, I seem to be the only person in the entire church who
knows that it’s okay to believe in evolution and still be a faithful, believ￾ing Mormon.

Helaman’s Stripling Warriors and the Principles of Hypovolemic Shock

“Without a Cause” and “Ships of Tarshish”

Jude’s Use of the Pseudepigraphal Book of 1 Enoch

A Triple Combination for Proclaiming Peace

Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm

Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):105–156
He has written about it at least four times. It reflects most of the problems with all of his extended chiasms. My argument is that he has im￾posed chiasmus on the Book of Mormon where none was intended.

Lehi on the Great Issues: Book of Mormon Theology in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):83–104
Thus, regardless of how one chooses to resolve the issues surrounding its origins, one must conclude that the Book of Mormon’s theological arguments should be seen as designed to be read and understood by its early nineteenth-century audience.

Mormon Laundry List

The Unbidden Prayer

Jacob and the Angel: Modern Readers and the Old Testament

Response to Boyd and Farrell Edwards’s Response to My “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Dialogue 39.3 (Fall 2007):188–206
Others, including Wunderli, hold that the proposed chiasms in the
Book of Mormon are not deliberate applications of the chiastic form and
ascribe their chiastic structure to the ingenuity of the analyst, rather than
to the intent of the author.

John T. Clark: The “One Mighty and Strong”

“To Set in Order the House of God”: The Search for the Elusive “One Mighty and Strong”

The Prophet Elias Puzzle

On Balancing Faith in Mormonism with Traditional Biblical Stories: The Noachian Flood Story

On Balancing Faith in Mormonism with Traditional Biblical Stories: The Noachian Flood Story

“The Living Oracles”: Legal Interpretation and Mormon Thought

Violence in the Scriptures: Mormonism and the Cultural Theory of René Girard

Unity and the King James Bible

The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work

Mormon Scholars in the Humanities Conference: Mormons, Films, Scriptures

Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Fellowship Conference: The Gold Plates in the Contemporary Popular Imagination

Letter to the Editor: Reading Scripture

Letter to the Editor: Brother, Can You Spare a Book?

Letter to the Editor: Bender Responds

Letter to the Editor: A Postapocalyptic Perspective?

Review: Patrick Q. Mason, J. David Pulsipher, and Richard L. Bushman, eds. War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives

Review: Jenn Ashworth. The Friday Gospels

An Interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner

Early Mormon Priesthood Revelation: Text, Impact, and Evolution

Archaic Pronouns and Verbs in the Book of Mormon: What Inconsistent Usage Tells Us about Translation Theories

Dialogue 44.3 (Fall 2014):53–101
Initially, I intended only one article on the usage of archaic pronouns
and the implications of certain irregularities. But as I delved deeper
into the implications, particularly what the erratic usage suggests
about the translation of the Book of Mormon, it became obvious
that this particular detour needed to stand alone as a companion
piece to the main article

Learning to Read with the Book of Mormon

Dialogue 48.1 (Spring 2015):169–177
In this “From the Pulpit,” Jared Hickman discussed the self-confessed weaknesses of multiple authors in the Book of Mormon, indicating that the text is not the literal word of God. He observes that it still has sacred truths to teach us including on racism.

Review: Job: A Useful Reading Michael Austin. Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poems

Living Scriptures

Timothy smiles as he hands a five-dollar bill to the teenager behind the window. “Keep the change,” he says. The teenager—a red-headed seventeen-year-old with almost as many piercings on her face as freckles—giggles and gives…

Chauvinist

The Lost Chapters of Moroni

Adam Had an Eden

The Thirteenth Article of Faith as a Standard for Literature

& the day that i believe is known as pentecost to some

The “Breathing Permit of Hor” Thirty-Four Years Later

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119
In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

Joseph Smith’s Identification of “Abraham” in Papyrus: JS the “Breathing Permit of Hor”

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119

In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

The Book of Abraham and the Islamic Qisas al-Anbiya’ (Tales of the Prophets) Extant Literature

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 137 – 146

“Perhaps the most controversial and intensely contested revelatory claim of Joseph Smith Jr. is his translation of ancient papyri ostensibly written by the hand of Abraham.”

Egyptology and the Book of Abraham

Dialogue, 28.1 (Spring 1995): 143 – 161
The matter which I propose to examine is whether the “present understanding of Egyptian religious practice” supports Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles found in the Book of Abraham. In addition, I will discuss the contribution which a study of Egyptian history can maketo our understanding of the nature of this book of scripture.

“That Is the Handwriting of Abraham”

Dialogue, 23.4 (Winter 1990): 167 – 169
In his stimulating article, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator” (DIALOGUE, Winter 1989), Karl Sandberg seeks to explain the Prophet Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham almost exclusively in terms of seership (where one does not necessarily actually view the material being deciphered, as opposed to using prophetic gifts to bring to light what was previously hidden or unknown).

Gethsemane and Atonement Again

In his 2022 Dialogue article “The Garden Atonement and the Mormon Cross Taboo,” Jeremy Christiansen adds to a fuller understanding of LDS reception history of the Lukan account of “Gethsemane,” namely Jesus’ agony and sweat/blood…

The Sidney Sperry/Heber Snell Debates: Critical Biblical Scholarship and Mormon Tradition

In 2018, the Sunday School instructor of my Mormon congregation was assigned to teach the stories about Lot found in Genesis 19. The teacher confessed that he was very uncomfortable discussing these narratives. Instead, he…

Roundtable: When Unnecessary Overinterpretation of Scripture Hurts, It Must Cease

I am not a member of any Native American tribal nation, neither do I claim Indigenous heritage. I am a white American, and three of my four grandparents trace their family back to Mormon pioneers.…

The Lamanite Dilemma: Mormonism and Indigeneity

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. Many times throughout my childhood, I heard various church members or my parents tell me that we had to choose between being Navajo and being Mormon. Our family went…

Finding Agency in Captivity: Resistance, Co-optation, and Replication Among Indentured Indians, 1847–1900

When Mormon settlers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, they brought with them their institutions and attitudes. These included a perception of Native Americans as fallen Israelites who, the Book of Mormon promised, would…

The Pearl’s Price Terryl Givens with Brian M. Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture

Givens and Hauglid are direct: their goal is to provide a sustained, academic, and nuanced treatment of the Pearl of Great Price [PGP]. Their motive lies in the fact that this volume has received relatively…

On Care: Performative Theology, Mosiah, and a Gathered Community

The question I am considering here is at its heart relational. What kind of relationship with scripture exists within performative theology? When we understand scripture as wisdom rather than history, what does this understanding do…

Dealing with Difficult Questions

Review: Embraced in Love Eric D. Huntsman. Becoming the Beloved Disciple: Coming unto Christ through the Gospel of John.

Reasonably Good Tidings of Greater- than-Average Joy Grant Hardy, ed. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition.

Plain and Precious Things Lost: The Small Plates of Nephi

Dialogue 52.4 (Winter 2019): 85
Such inconsistencies may cause some readers to question the credibility of the text. Upon observing doctrinal andprophetic variation within the Book of Mormon, some dismiss the book’s divinity

Empirical Witnesses of the Gold Plates

Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019): 59–84
Due to the fact that visiting with angels isn’t part of the normal human experience, it makes it hard for historians to prove that it happened through an academic investigation. The best way, as discussed by the author, to determine what really happened is by studying other individual’s first-hand accounts about the Gold Plates.

THE GOLD PLATES AND ANCIENT METAL EPIGRAPHY: APPENDIX

The Gold Plates and Ancient Metal Epigraphy

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.

Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon An Update

Dialogue 52.2 (Spring 2019):1–58Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has
worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so
well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over
180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations.

Review: A Private Revelation William Victor Smith. Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation

“Behold, Other Scriptures I Would that Ye Should Write”: Malachi in the Book of Mormon

“A Portion of God’s Light”: Mormonism and Religious Pluralism

A Double Portion: An Intertextual Reading of Hannah (1 Samuel 1–2) and Mark’s Greek Woman (Mark 7:24–30)

“In Christ All Things Hold Together”: A Christian Perspective (via Levinas and Shimony) on Quantum Entanglement

“The Perfect Union of Man and Woman”: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making

Dialogue 49.1 (Spring 2016): 1–26
Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself.

Some Voices from the Dust | Ross T. Christensen, ed., Papers of the Fifteenth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures

Any volume with “fifteenth annual” in its title requires placement in historical and sociological context before it can be evaluated properly. Sponsor of this symposium is the 800-member University Archaeological Society. (The name was changed…

The Bible, the Church, and Its Scholars

In Professor Snell’s article and in the response to it by Professor Sperry, one finds the work of two committed members of the Church, who nevertheless appear to differ greatly on their interpretation of the…

Scholars and Prophets

Professor Snell’s article, “The Bible in the Church,” leaves me with very mixed feelings. On the first page of his essay he implies that his criticisms are intended to be constructive and that he seeks…

Lot’s Wife in the Latter Days

My dear brothers and sisters, this evening marks the end of a cycle in my life. Five years ago my husband and I left Durham, with his law degree and a lot of expectation. We…

Why the King James Version?: From the Common to the Official Bible of Mormonism

The excellence of the King James Version of the Bible does not need fresh documentation. No competent modern reader would question its literary excellence or its historical stature. Yet compared to several newer translations, the…

New Wine and New Bottles: Scriptural Scholarship as Sacrament

Jesus the Peasant

The Identity of Jacob’s Opponent: Wrestling with Ambiguity in Genesis 32:32

Gnosticism Reformed

Toward a Feminist Interpretation of Latter-day Scripture

Dialogue 27.2 (Summer 1994): 197–230
I am astonished that it took so many readings and a focus on the question of using gender-inclusive language in the simplified version to discover something that should have been obvious to me from the beginning: females scarcely figure or matter in our sacred books.

The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus

Divine Dialogue and the Lord’s Prayer: Socio-rhetorical Interpretation of Texts

The Structure of the Book of Mormon: A Theory of Evolutionary Development

Dialogue 29.2 (Summer 1998):129–154
WHEN JOSEPH SMITH BEGAN TO DICTATE the Book of Mormon, he did not understand the structure the book would ultimately take. He did not know that the first part of the manuscript would be lost, resulting in a major structural change in the first quarter of the book.

The Johannine Comma: Bad Translation, Bad Theology

“White” of “Pure”: Five Vignettes

Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1996): 119–135
The Book of Mormon variously uses “white” and “pure” in the same verse in different editions. This article traces the history of those changes, who was behind them, and why.

Scripture, History, and Faith: A Round Table Discussion

Retelling the Greatest Story Ever Told: Popular Literature as Scripture in Antebellum America

A Mosaic for a Religious Counterculture: The Bible in the Book of Mormon

Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1998):59–83
THE BOOK OF MORMON HAS OCCASIONALLY been portrayed as a deficient
first novel. Its characters appear flat and stereotypical; the plots and char￾acters seem to lack moral subtlety; and so on. Should we wonder that to￾day’s high literary circles ignore it?

Heaven and Hell: The Parable of the Loving Father and the Judgmental Son

Jesus’ Dispute in the Temple and the Origin of the Eucharist

The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10-31

Laban’s Ghost: On Writing and Transgression

Did the Author of 3 Nephi Know the Gospel of Matthew?

As Translated Correctly: The Inspiration and Innovation of the Eighth Article of Faith

Cosmos, Chaos, and Politics: Biblical Creation Patterns in Secular Contexts

Scriptural Chastity Lessons, Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife; Corianton and the Harlot Isabel

Feasting on the Word by Richard Dilworth Rust

LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls by Donald W. Parry and Dana M. Pike

The Use and Abuse of Anti-Semitism in the Scriptures

The Authorship of the Pentateuch

Wisdom Traditions in the Hebrew Bible

Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis

Hebraicisms, Chiasmus and Other Internal Evidence for Ancient Authorship in Green Eggs and Ham

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2001):127–173
Upon an initial and cursory reading, the book appears to be a simple morality play. A zealous purveyor of an unusual gustatory selection hawks his wares to an Everyman, whose initial biases preclude his ac￾ceptance of the unfamiliar.

Coming Out of the Evolution Closet

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 143–145
Sometimes, I seem to be the only person in the entire church who
knows that it’s okay to believe in evolution and still be a faithful, believ￾ing Mormon.

Helaman’s Stripling Warriors and the Principles of Hypovolemic Shock

“Without a Cause” and “Ships of Tarshish”

Jude’s Use of the Pseudepigraphal Book of 1 Enoch

A Triple Combination for Proclaiming Peace

Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm

Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):105–156
He has written about it at least four times. It reflects most of the problems with all of his extended chiasms. My argument is that he has im￾posed chiasmus on the Book of Mormon where none was intended.

Lehi on the Great Issues: Book of Mormon Theology in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Dialogue 38.4 (Winter 2006):83–104
Thus, regardless of how one chooses to resolve the issues surrounding its origins, one must conclude that the Book of Mormon’s theological arguments should be seen as designed to be read and understood by its early nineteenth-century audience.

Mormon Laundry List

The Unbidden Prayer

Jacob and the Angel: Modern Readers and the Old Testament

Response to Boyd and Farrell Edwards’s Response to My “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Response to Earl M. Wunderli’s “Critique of Alma 36 as an Extended Chiasm”

Dialogue 39.3 (Fall 2007):188–206
Others, including Wunderli, hold that the proposed chiasms in the
Book of Mormon are not deliberate applications of the chiastic form and
ascribe their chiastic structure to the ingenuity of the analyst, rather than
to the intent of the author.

John T. Clark: The “One Mighty and Strong”

“To Set in Order the House of God”: The Search for the Elusive “One Mighty and Strong”

The Prophet Elias Puzzle

On Balancing Faith in Mormonism with Traditional Biblical Stories: The Noachian Flood Story

On Balancing Faith in Mormonism with Traditional Biblical Stories: The Noachian Flood Story

“The Living Oracles”: Legal Interpretation and Mormon Thought

Violence in the Scriptures: Mormonism and the Cultural Theory of René Girard

Unity and the King James Bible

The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work

Mormon Scholars in the Humanities Conference: Mormons, Films, Scriptures

Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Fellowship Conference: The Gold Plates in the Contemporary Popular Imagination

Letter to the Editor: Reading Scripture

Letter to the Editor: Brother, Can You Spare a Book?

Letter to the Editor: Bender Responds

Letter to the Editor: A Postapocalyptic Perspective?

Review: Patrick Q. Mason, J. David Pulsipher, and Richard L. Bushman, eds. War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives

Review: Jenn Ashworth. The Friday Gospels

An Interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner

Early Mormon Priesthood Revelation: Text, Impact, and Evolution

Archaic Pronouns and Verbs in the Book of Mormon: What Inconsistent Usage Tells Us about Translation Theories

Dialogue 44.3 (Fall 2014):53–101
Initially, I intended only one article on the usage of archaic pronouns
and the implications of certain irregularities. But as I delved deeper
into the implications, particularly what the erratic usage suggests
about the translation of the Book of Mormon, it became obvious
that this particular detour needed to stand alone as a companion
piece to the main article

Learning to Read with the Book of Mormon

Dialogue 48.1 (Spring 2015):169–177
In this “From the Pulpit,” Jared Hickman discussed the self-confessed weaknesses of multiple authors in the Book of Mormon, indicating that the text is not the literal word of God. He observes that it still has sacred truths to teach us including on racism.

Review: Job: A Useful Reading Michael Austin. Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poems

Living Scriptures

Timothy smiles as he hands a five-dollar bill to the teenager behind the window. “Keep the change,” he says. The teenager—a red-headed seventeen-year-old with almost as many piercings on her face as freckles—giggles and gives…

Chauvinist

The Lost Chapters of Moroni

Adam Had an Eden

The Thirteenth Article of Faith as a Standard for Literature

& the day that i believe is known as pentecost to some

The “Breathing Permit of Hor” Thirty-Four Years Later

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119
In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

Joseph Smith’s Identification of “Abraham” in Papyrus: JS the “Breathing Permit of Hor”

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119

In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

The Book of Abraham and the Islamic Qisas al-Anbiya’ (Tales of the Prophets) Extant Literature

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 137 – 146

“Perhaps the most controversial and intensely contested revelatory claim of Joseph Smith Jr. is his translation of ancient papyri ostensibly written by the hand of Abraham.”

Egyptology and the Book of Abraham

Dialogue, 28.1 (Spring 1995): 143 – 161
The matter which I propose to examine is whether the “present understanding of Egyptian religious practice” supports Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles found in the Book of Abraham. In addition, I will discuss the contribution which a study of Egyptian history can maketo our understanding of the nature of this book of scripture.

“That Is the Handwriting of Abraham”

Dialogue, 23.4 (Winter 1990): 167 – 169
In his stimulating article, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator” (DIALOGUE, Winter 1989), Karl Sandberg seeks to explain the Prophet Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham almost exclusively in terms of seership (where one does not necessarily actually view the material being deciphered, as opposed to using prophetic gifts to bring to light what was previously hidden or unknown).