Conference Talks: Mormon, Moses, and the Representation of Reality

Richard L. Bushman gave the keynote address at the 2021 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference on Friday, April 23, 2021.

In this presentation, I will borrow a critical perspective from Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. The talk will analyze the representation of antiquity in two of Joseph Smith’s striking translations, The Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses. The two texts, produced within a few years of one another, created distinctive stages on which to dramatize the human-God relationship. The question will be: What can we learn from this comparison about God, prophets, and human destiny?

All of the conference presentations were filmed, and both video and audio recordings of each presentation are available. Videos, audio recordings and transcripts are available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2021-book-of-moses-conference/videos/. The videos are also available on the Interpreter Foundation YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/theinterpreterfoundation. A YouTube playlist is available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRMn4gyXMWLtulXZ-y4mAph138aNdAWlw.

Presented at:

2021 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses ConferenceKeynote Session, Friday April 23, 2021https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2021-book-of-moses-conference/

Conference Proceedings:

Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses: Inspired Origins, Temple Contexts, and Literary Qualities, Volumes I and II at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-threads-in-the-book-of-moses/

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

  Download PDF

  Download audio recording