Jeffrey M. Bradshaw breaks down some of today’s most important questions from the Pearl of Great Price and introduces the 2020 Interpreter Foundation conference, “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses.” He is also the author of Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances and the lead editor of Hugh Nibley Observed.
Historian Lindsay Chervinsky is the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of An American Institution (Harvard University Press, 2020).
Neylan McBaine is the CEO of Better Days 2020, founder of Mormon Women, and author of Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West.
Scholar Matthew Grey shares his latest research on Joseph Smith’s usage of Hebrew in the Book of Abraham. Grey published a chapter on the topic in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (University of Utah Press, 2020).
It’s difficult to separate the life of Joseph Smith from his recurring role as a “translator.” The meaning and methods of the Prophet’s translation activities sometimes meant different things, such as the different approaches and outcomes for his translation of the Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon, and the Bible. Thomas Wayment’s chapter in Producing Ancient Scripture contributes to our knowledge about Joseph Smith and his translation of the Bible.
How did Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon, Bible, and Book of Abraham? What did translation mean to the Prophet? What do we know about how the Latter-day Saint founder produced ancient scripture—and what has yet to be revealed? In this interview, Michael Hubbard MacKay and Mark Ashurst-McGee discuss findings from their book about Joseph Smith’s translations.
If you’ve ever wanted to take a deep dive into the cultural, intellectual, and historical implication of Joseph Smith, you may want to consider Sam Brown as your muse. A physician and scientist by day, Brown dives deep into the esoteric metaphysics of the early Latter-day Saint prophet in his Oxford University Press publication, Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism.
Gary Boatright discusses the Latter-day Saint “Wagon Box Prophecy” and explains what happens when a false (but faith-promoting) story becomes accepted as fact.
Historian Steven C. Harper is one of today’s foremost experts on Joseph Smith and the First Vision. He was the Managing Editor for Saints, Volume 1, a new narrative history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that recounts the the years 1815 to 1846, roughly from the time of Joseph’s First Vision to shortly after his martyrdom in Carthage, Illinois.
Historian Tony Williams has tried to do the impossible: Write a 200-page biography of Alexander Hamilton.