On the latest episode of Mormon Book Reviews Steven Pynakker interviews one of the most important scholars of Mormonism, Brent Metcalfe. In this fascinating conversation Brent details that while working for Church security he was working on scholarly endeavors that he hoped would help contribute to apologitic defenses of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All was going well until he encountered a particular book in the Church History library. When it was discovered that he was researching this book, it was reported to Mark E. Peterson. Shortlty thereafter Brent was fired from his job. This lead him down a path that would eventually lead to his excommunication from the Church. In this engaging conversation we discuss his early interactions with Jerald and Sandra Tanner, where in a newsletter they described Brent as the next Hugh Nibley! The conversation includes his fathers invovement in selecting Temple sites, his research history of the Book of Mormon, discoverying a photograph that was thought to be Charles Anthon but was misidentified, indentifying the unkown third scribe of the Book of Mormon, and his work on the Caracters Document. In the conclusion we discuss the legacy of Curt Bench and Brent's involvement in the docuseries "Murder Among the Mormons". I want to thank Brent for coming on and hopefully it lead to more future conversations!

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