The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

Abstract: Twenty years ago, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies published “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies” as its second FARMS Occasional Paper. The first part of this essay provides an overview of Doctor Barker’s scholarship and its wider reception through early 2022, and then includes a broad survey of Latter-day Saint interaction with her work to the present. Part 2 of this essay (forthcoming) will address specific criticisms and appreciations of Barker’s work.

Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before.1

The new paradigm is that the Enoch tradition is ancient, as it claims, and that it was the original myth of the Jerusalem temple, long before Moses became the key figure and the Exodus the defining history. The world of the first temple was the taproot of Christianity, and that is why the young Church treated Enoch as Scripture. Those who preserved the Enoch traditions were a formative influence on Christianity and its key concepts: the Kingdom and the resurrected Messiah. [Page 2]Since Enoch was a high priest figure, and Jesus was declared to be “a great high priest” (Heb. 4:14), we should also concern ourselves with the high priesthood.2

Over twenty years ago, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (which became the Maxwell Institute) published my essay “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies.”3 Doctor Barker is an English biblical scholar and Methodist preacher who had, up to 2001, published seven books, many papers in a range of scholarly journals, and in 1998 had been elected as the President of the Society for Old Testament Study in England. In the wake of “Paradigms Regained,” Barker accepted an invitation to come to BYU for a week-long seminar in 2003, and that led to many interactions and collaborative ventures with Latter-day Saint scholars, including a notable 2005 talk on the Book of Mormon at the Joseph Smith Conference in Washington D.C., the organization of successful Temple Studies groups in London and Logan, and an appearance in the 2020 video Temples Through Time,4 produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.5 To date, she has increased the number of her published books to 17,

Presented at:

The 2012 Temple on Mount Zion ConferenceSaturday, September 22, 2012https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2012-the-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/

Conference Proceedings:

Temple Insights at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/temple-insights/

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

  Download audio recording

 

Between March 7th and October 17th in 1954, Hugh Nibley delivered a series of 30 weekly lectures on KSL Radio that were also published as pamphlets. The series called “Time Vindicates the Prophets” was given in answer to those who were challenging the right of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to call themselves Christians.

This lecture discusses Mysticism, the definition most scholars give it, and how that relates to prophets.

All 30 recordings are available immediately in the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/

 

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 48, “He Delighteth in Mercy” on Jonah; Micah. The panelists for this roundtable were Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson and Martin Tanner. This roundtable was extracted from the October 16th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-October-16-2022/. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Episode 1 ⎜ Episode 2 ⎜ Episode 3 ⎜ Episode 4 ⎜ Episode 5 ⎜ Episode 6 ⎜ Episode 7 ⎜ Episode 8 ⎜ Episode 9 ⎜ Episode 10 ⎜ Episode 11 ⎜ Episode 12 ⎜ Episode 13 ⎜ Episode 14 ⎜ Episode 15 ⎜ Episode 16 ⎜ Episode 17 ⎜ Episode 18 ⎜ Episode 19 ⎜ Episode 20 ⎜ Episode 21 ⎜ Episode 22 ⎜ Episode 23 ⎜ Episode 24 ⎜ Episode 25 ⎜ Episode 26 ⎜ Episode 27 ⎜ Episode 28 ⎜ Episode 29 ⎜ Episode 30 ⎜ Episode 31 ⎜ Episode 32

 

If the Book of Mormon was a fraud, why would supposed insiders to such a fraud allow themselves to suffer incredible hardship and pain, why would they face down mobs and actually risk their lives to continue insisting it was true?

This is the thirtieth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released each Saturday at 7pm MDT. These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Exe...

Abstract: Miracles occur relatively often in scripture, as do people who, for various reasons, want or even need to deny their occurrence. The arguments that are deployed to justify such denial haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. In fact, they’re still around today.

Most if not all present or former missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are quite familiar with the first three verses of the ninth chapter of the gospel of John:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. (John 9:1–3)

We know these verses because they seem to presuppose at least the possibility of premortal human existence. Thus, and importantly, they are congruent with the Latter-day Saint belief that we all lived in the presence of our Heavenly Parents before we were born. The notion that undergirds the disciples’ question, that the “man which was blind from his birth” might have been born blind because he had sinned, presupposes the idea that the man could have sinned prior to his birth. Obviously, though, that makes no sense if he hadn’t existed before his birth.

To pursue the typical missionary argument a bit further: Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the disciples’ implicit belief in an antemortal human existence was misguided, the Savior could easily [Page viii]have corrected them. He could simply have informed them that the blind man couldn’t have sinned before his birth because he hadn’t yet existed. That he didn’t do so suggests rather strongly that he didn’t regard belief in human premortal human existence as misguided. He didn’t reject the concept, and the text may even imply that he shared it.

This is, as I say, all quite familiar and unexceptional. I expect that very few Latter-day Saint missionaries, at least among those who have served in predominantly Christian areas of the world, have never used John 9:1–3 in order to ground the restored doctrine of human existence before mortality. What I would like to do here, though, is to look briefly at some of the rest of the account, which takes up almost the entirety of John 9.

So, we return to the account of the healing of the blind man. Of course, a life of genuine Christian discipleship isn’t merely one of subscribing to a set of theological propositions — it entails action. The apostle James is unmistakably clear on this point:

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves …

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:22, 27)

Accordingly, it’s significant that Jesus doesn’t simply pass on after using the unfortunate blind man as a teaching tool for a doctrinal lesson on the problem of evil. He cures him. Or, anyway, he initiates the process of curing the man:

When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (John 9:6–7)

It may be significant, though it’s quite beyond the scope of this little essay to consider possible explanations or implications, that the Savior doesn’t instantly cure the blind man in this story — as he seems to have done in other cases. Instead, the anointing seems to represent the first stage of a two-stage cure. The man is told that he needs to proceed to the pool of Siloam and wash himself there. Clearly, action on his part,

This study seeks to compare and contrast the temple and ritual complexes alluded to in the Book of Mormon with those known from the archaeological record in Mesoamerica. Although superficially they may appear incompatible, an analysis of their underlying mythologies reveals many conceptual similarities, suggesting Nephite worship and ritual might not have been wholly out of place in that context. There are significant differences as well, but these likewise serve to provide insight into the interrelationship between the Nephites and the dominant Mesoamerican culture within which they may have been entrenched.

Presented at:

The 2012 Temple on Mount Zion ConferenceSaturday, September 22, 2012https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2012-the-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/

Article Reprint:

Axes Mundi: Ritual Complexes in Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 233-48https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/axes-mundi-ritual-complexes-in-mesoamerica-and-the-book-of-mormon-2/

Conference Proceedings:

Temple Insights at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/temple-insights/

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

Download PDF

  Download audio recording

 

Between March 7th and October 17th in 1954, Hugh Nibley delivered a series of 30 weekly lectures on KSL Radio that were also published as pamphlets. The series called “Time Vindicates the Prophets” was given in answer to those who were challenging the right of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to call themselves Christians.

This lecture addresses various peoples’ ideas that one can find certitude without revelation and discusses the idea that where there is no revelation, there is no certitude.

All 30 recordings are available immediately in the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/

 

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 47, “Seek the Lord, and Ye Shall Live” on Amos; Obadiah. The panelists for this roundtable were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the October 9th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-October-9-2022/. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Episode 1 ⎜ Episode 2 ⎜ Episode 3 ⎜ Episode 4 ⎜ Episode 5 ⎜ Episode 6 ⎜ Episode 7 ⎜ Episode 8 ⎜ Episode 9 ⎜ Episode 10 ⎜ Episode 11 ⎜ Episode 12 ⎜ Episode 13 ⎜ Episode 14 ⎜ Episode 15 ⎜ Episode 16 ⎜ Episode 17 ⎜ Episode 18 ⎜ Episode 19 ⎜ Episode 20 ⎜ Episode 21 ⎜ Episode 22 ⎜ Episode 23 ⎜ Episode 24 ⎜ Episode 25 ⎜ Episode 26 ⎜ Episode 27 ⎜ Episode 28 ⎜ Episode 29 ⎜ Episode 30 ⎜ Episode 31 ⎜ Episode 32

 

There are a number of unofficial witnesses of the Book of Mormon who were women—however, of the official witnesses of the Book of Mormon, there are none. Why would this be?

This is the twenty-ninth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released each Saturday at 7pm MDT. These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Executive Producer of Witnesses. For more information,