The Interpreter Foundation Podcast

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 compares Latter-day Saint pioneers with ancient members and followers of Christ.

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 45, “There Is No Other God That Can Deliver” on Daniel 1–6. The panelists for this roundtable were Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen and Mark Johnson. This roundtable was extracted from the September 25th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-September-25-2022/. 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.

 

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Hiram Page, one of the Eight Witnesses, claimed to have received revelations through a seer stone. What do we know about this event?

This is the twenty-seventh 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,

Abstract: This paper brings contemporary Ancient Near East (ANE) scholarship in several fields together with the ancient scriptures restored through Joseph Smith to construct a new starting point for interpretation of the teachings of the Book of Mormon. It assembles findings from studies of ancient scribal culture, historical linguistics and epigraphy, and the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, together with the traditions of ancient Israel and the ancient scriptures restored to Joseph Smith, to construct a contextualized perspective for understanding Lehi, Nephi, and the Brass Plates as they would have been understood by their contemporaries — as prominent bearers of the Josephite textual tradition. This essay offers a hypothetical, but comprehensive backstory for the Brass Plates. Because of its hypothetical character, it cannot be claimed that it is the true account. Rather it is an attempt to build a plausible backstory given the current state of knowledge in the relevant fields of academic research and the facts provided in the ancient scriptures restored through Joseph Smith.

Contemporary achievements in scholarship regarding both the Bible and the Book of Mormon can provide a much-expanded platform for understanding the Brass Plates that Nephi obtained from the treasury of Laban and that served the Nephite people for a thousand years as “holy scripture.” Advances in ANE studies of ancient epigraphy, archaeology, ethnography, languages, history, scribal cultures, and the texts of the Hebrew Bible over the last century now make it possible to propose a comprehensive backstory for the Brass Plates that addresses questions of their origins, language, contents, production, and purpose.

[Page 200]Supporting Papers from the Larger Project

This topic is too broad for a single paper. This paper draws on six others that have been part of the same project, that develop separate pieces of the overall picture, and that are either recently published or available online as working papers. The first of these draws on the recent outpouring of studies of scribal schools in the ancient oral cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel to show why the Book of Mormon description of the Brass Plates presumes the existence of a Manassite scribal school that could trace its origins to Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, if not to Abraham himself. It also shows why the high literacy displayed by both Lehi and Nephi can only make sense in the oral culture of ancient Israel if they were trained in such a seventh-century scribal school in Jerusalem.1 They were both fluent in multiple languages; could read and write at the highest level; were masters of the distinctive, seventh-century bce Hebrew rhetoric; and could fabricate and use metal plates and other writing tools and materials.

A second paper updates and expands the continually growing literature on writing on metal in Lehi’s time.2 Two others identify and explain Nephi’s comprehensive and artistic application of the principles of seventh-century Hebrew rhetoric to his writings in 1 and 2 Nephi.

Stephen Ricks takes a close look at the literary structure of a psalm, reintroducing us to chiasmus both in modern and ancient texts, including the Book of Mormon, then uses this literary structure to show how the psalm contains the basic historic credo of the Israelites, as seen in Deuteronomy and mirrored in 1 Nephi 17. Ricks then goes on to show how an essential part of the psalm is a covenant (“a binding agreement between man and God, with sanctions in the event of the violation of the agreement”), which ties it back to the temple. Ricks shows this by pointing out the points of covenant: Preamble, review of God’s relations with Israel, terms of the covenant, formal witnesses, blessings and curses, and reciting the covenant and depositing the text. This form is maintained in Exodus 19, 20, 23, and 24, and in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 1-6. Psalm 105 follows this form, too. In the sacrament prayers, which in Mormon understanding is a covenant, points 1 to 5 are also present.

Presented at:

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

Article Reprint:

“Psalm 105: Chiasmus, Credo, Covenant, and Temple” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 45 (2021): 371-384https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/psalm-105-chiasmus-credo-covenant-and-temple/

Conference Proceedings:

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

Listen to an audio recording of this talk:

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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 is a history of schools and how they’ve affected prophets over the years.

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 44, “A New Spirit Will I Put within You” on Ezekiel 1–3; 33–34; 36–37; 47. The panelists for this roundtable were Bruce Webster and Kris Frederickson. This roundtable was extracted from the September 18th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-September-18-2022/. 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

 

James Strang was a recent convert to the church who claimed to be the successor of Joseph after the martyrdom. Strang also claimed to have discovered ancient metal plates, What do we know about this man and his claims?

This is the twenty-sixth 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 ...

Abstract: Jonathan Neville has offered a response to my two recent reviews of his works; however, in his response, Neville offers a poor defense regarding what he wrote and misrepresents my reviews of his works. As such, I present the following rejoinder in response to Neville’s concerns.

Jonathan Neville has offered some thoughts regarding my two recent reviews, and I am happy to discuss and defend what I wrote. In Neville’s response, he claims that I offered “caricatures” of his arguments that are “inaccurate” and that I “omitted” context in my reviews.1 I do not believe this is an accurate assessment, and Neville misrepresents what I wrote and ignores citations that he himself included in his books to which I responded. Ultimately, his response fails to defend his works.

After offering a brief overview of his Demonstration Hypothesis (which I will discuss shortly), Neville states the important context to be aware of is the competing claims regarding the origin of the Book of Mormon. This is true, and it is context with which many believers in the Restoration are intimately familiar. Neville cites Eber D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed as proof for his view of competing origins, but misunderstands and misappropriates Howe’s arguments to apparently make this an issue regarding how the Book of Mormon was translated. This is not the issue for Howe, however. The issue for him—and the entire basis of his book—is not how the Book of Mormon was translated, but whether it was translated at all.

[Page 186]Howe believed that Joseph Smith was a fraud and the Book of Mormon was false. Latter-day Saints claim otherwise. Howe, in his work, relates two different options for the translation of the Book of Mormon, but as I discuss in my review of Neville’s work, he attacks any and all forms of translation and revelation in modern times. It is disheartening to see a response defending one’s work avoid dealing with the points raised in my reviews regarding Howe’s work, and does not bode well for the rest of Neville’s response.2

In fact, Howe was not the first to claim that a hat was used in the translation process, with this detail found as early as 1829.3 Another important witness to the translation of the Book of Mormon came in 1830 from Josiah Stowell, a faithful friend of the prophet Joseph who staunchly defended the young prophet and never lost his faith in Joseph’s prophetic gifts. In 1830, as Joseph was (again) on trial for allegedly being a “disorderly person,” Stowell testified of the translation of the Book of Mormon in defense of Joseph, stating that: “as aforesaid, the prisoner [Joseph] said he translated the book of Mormon, prisoner put a certain stone into his hat, put his face into the crown, then drew the brim of the hat around his head to prevent Light—he could then see as prisoner said, and translate the same, the Bible, got from the hill in Palmyra.

Abstract: Since 1829, various theories about the production of the Book of Mormon have been proposed. Modern scholarship has moved away from the idea that Joseph Smith actually translated ancient engravings into English. Two books, A Man That Can Translate and Infinite Goodness, propose a “neo-orthodox” view, offering evidence that Joseph did translate ancient engravings into English. Recent reviews in the Interpreter of these two books significantly misunderstand and misrepresent the argument. This response corrects some of those misconceptions.

[Editor’s note: We are pleased to present this response to two recent book reviews in the pages of Interpreter. Consistent with practice in many academic journals, we are also publishing a rejoinder from the author of those reviews, immediately following this response.]

Spencer Kraus recently penned separate reviews1 of two of my books: A Man That Can Translate2 and Infinite Goodness.3 These companion volumes make a case for Joseph Smith as the actual translator of the [Page 172]ancient engravings on the Nephite plates. Because the books introduce the Demonstration Hypothesis to reconcile disparate historical accounts, they have generated considerable discussion, both positive and negative, and I welcome robust, respectful, and candid dialogue about these topics.

The Demonstration Hypothesis offers a faithful alternative reconciliation of the conflict between (i) what Joseph and Oliver claimed — that Joseph Smith translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates — and (ii) what others claimed — that Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by dictating words that appeared on a stone he placed in a hat. In my books, I propose that Joseph, who had covenanted with God not to display the plates or the Urim and Thummim (D&C 5:3), used the seer stone to “satisfy the awful curiosity” of his supporters by demonstrating how the actual translation worked. Later, some of these supporters conflated the demonstration with the translation to refute the allegations of the Spalding theory.

While I appreciate the attention brought to the Demonstration Hypothesis by Kraus’s reviews, they seriously misrepresent the purpose and content of my books. Because the Interpreter serves as an academic record of Latter-day Saint thought, clarification is appropriate, and I appreciate the Interpreter publishing this brief response.

In his review of Infinite Goodness, Kraus summarizes his review of A Man That Can Translate:

My previous review responded to his claims that (1) Joseph Smith memorized and recited Isaiah from memory rather than translate it from the Book of Mormon record; (2) Joseph Smith tricked his close friends and family, making them believe that he was translating the aforementioned sections of the Book of Mormon; (3) many witnesses to the Book of Mormon are not to be believed; and (4) we should instead rely on sources hostile to The Church of Jesu...