Theotokos: Pentecost

February 3, 2012 | 4 comments
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Theotokos: Pentecost

Fourth and last in a series of essays about female identity. Previous posts explored this theme in the contexts of air, water, and earth. It was snowing when I drove to the hospital, and it wouldn’t be daylight for another hour at least. The only person in the lobby was the woman at the information desk. She directed me to the laboratory down the hall, where I handed over my paperwork and sat down in the empty waiting room. On the wall-mounted TV, a news reporter announced that an escaped convict had been captured. He’d broken out of federal... Read more »

The Real World of the Book of Mormon

February 2, 2012 | 4 comments
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The Real World of the Book of Mormon

This is the fourth in a series of posts taking a broad look at the Book of Mormon. This post continues the discussion of the prior post, The Book of Mormon as Narrative, by considering verisimilitude. This term refers to how faithfully a text represents the real world or,... Read more »

Conference Report: 3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

February 2, 2012 | 2 comments
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Conference Report: 3rd Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference

I returned yesterday from attending the 3rd annual conference of the Associação Brasileira de Estudos Mórmons (Brazilian Mormon Studies Association) inspired with the fascinating subjects covered during the conference and ready to dive into another year of research in preparation for next year’s conference. In particular, one presentation was... Read more »

Institute Report:Genesis week 3

February 1, 2012 | 9 comments
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Institute Report:Genesis week 3

(updated!) Attendance down a little this week; I know one student had a date, the weather was poor (no one likes to travel in the rain), and so on,... Read more »

Exploring Mormon Thought: ± God

February 1, 2012 | 12 comments
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Exploring Mormon Thought: ± God

What’s my margin of error? Adam ± .33? Read more »

Conference: Exploring Mormon Conceptions of Apostasy

February 1, 2012 | one comment
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Please join us for a conference, “Exploring Mormon Conceptions of Apostasy” to be held on March 1-2, 2012 at Brigham Young University. The notion of an apostasy from the... Read more »

Alan Lomax and All the Good

January 31, 2012 | 9 comments
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Alan Lomax and All the Good

Today, were he still alive, Alan Lomax would have celebrated his 97th birthday. I confess that I wasn't familiar with Lomax until after I got married. The long and... Read more »

Literary BMGD #6: Man’s Free Agency

January 30, 2012 | no comments
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Literary BMGD #6: Man’s Free Agency

One of the fascinating things that happen in Lehi’s fatherly advice to Jacob in 2 Nephi 1 and 2 is that he tries to put together an overall philosophical... Read more »

BMGD #6: 2 Nephi 1-2

January 30, 2012 | 8 comments
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Read more »

Reminder: Summer Seminar on The Gold Plates as Cultural Artifact, II

January 27, 2012 | no comments
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The deadline is approaching for the 2012 Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture. Applications are due February 15th for this 6-week seminar for graduate students and junior faculty, continuing for... Read more »

The Book of Mormon as Narrative

January 27, 2012 | 12 comments
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The Book of Mormon as Narrative

This is the third post in a series taking a broad view of the Book of Mormon (first, second). In this post I will discuss aspects of narrative encountered... Read more »

Snow, Citizens, and Stewards

January 26, 2012 | 8 comments
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It has recently been announced that Steven E. Snow will replace Marlin K. Jensen as the new Church historian. Elder Jensen has been a wonderful historian for our church, bringing... Read more »

Exploring Romney’s Tax Return

January 25, 2012 | 16 comments
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Like most people who've looked at Romney's return, I have to say: there's nothing terribly interesting there. Okay, let me walk that back: there's a lot of hugely interesting things,... Read more »

Exploring Mormon Thought: Prefaces

January 25, 2012 | 18 comments
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Exploring Mormon Thought: Prefaces

A close reading of Blake Ostler’s work is timely, and I’m happy to do it alongside of Adam Miller. I’ve left mostly to Adam’s post last week to state... Read more »

MLB Hall of Fame and Soccer Draft Updates

January 25, 2012 | 6 comments
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MLB Hall of Fame and Soccer Draft Updates

I’ve been a bit remiss in keeping up with my interest (OK, perhaps mania) with Mormons in sports. Baseball selected the newest members to the Hall of Fame early... Read more »

Institute Report: Genesis Week 2

January 24, 2012 | 9 comments
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Institute Report: Genesis Week 2

I was gratified to see most of the class come back, but we’ll see if it happens again. (Update: Here’s the tentative syllabus for the next few weeks.) I... Read more »

A Romney Tax Return Placeholder Post

January 24, 2012 | 19 comments
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Right now, I have 200+ pages of Mitt Romney’s 2010 tax return clogging up my work printer. He’s a Mormon, it’s a tax issue, I’m a tax guy, so... Read more »

Literary BMGD #5: Trials

January 23, 2012 | 2 comments
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The story of Lehi’s family and their travels to the promised land perhaps reaches its height in the crisis point during the storm while they are on board the... Read more »

Romney’s Taxes and The Clueless Media

January 22, 2012 | 85 comments
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Dear Media, Read more »

The Standard Packet, the Book of Mormon, and Critical Thinking at BYU

January 20, 2012 | 23 comments
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The Standard Packet, the Book of Mormon, and Critical Thinking at BYU

Perhaps due to the authoritarian structure of the Church, students at BYU (more than elsewhere?) come to college expecting Pure Truth to be bestowed by The Authorities (i.e. professors) on... Read more »

The Scholar of Moab: Believing Bees

January 20, 2012 | 3 comments
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The Scholar of Moab: Believing Bees

“Belief” is more like an armchair anthropologist’s naive explanation of what’s going on with religious people than a description of what actually happens when someone sits in a pew... Read more »

Exploring Mormon Thought: Signs of the Times

January 19, 2012 | 36 comments
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Exploring Mormon Thought: Signs of the Times

 Do Mormons do theology? Sure. Do they do theology qua theologians? Not really. Read more »

Mitt Romney’s Tithing Problem (?)

January 18, 2012 | 75 comments
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Mitt Romney’s Tithing Problem (?)

ABC broke the news: Mitt Romney has donated millions of dollars worth of stock to the Mormon church. SEC filings disclose that a Bain partner donated $1.9 million of... Read more »

The Scholar of Moab: Interviduality

January 17, 2012 | 24 comments
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The Scholar of Moab: Interviduality

How many am I? Read more »

Institute Report: Genesis, Week 1

January 16, 2012 | 19 comments
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Institute Report: Genesis, Week 1

If there’s sufficient interest,  I will post some general notes, handouts and materials here instead of mailing out everything to my class. Handouts are pdf format and have live... Read more »

Literary BMGD #4: On the Latter-day Dispensation

January 16, 2012 | one comment
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From a literary point of view the second part of Nephi’s vision, his vision of the future, is very like an epic. It covers a broad sweep of human... Read more »

BMGD #4: 1 Nephi 12-14

January 16, 2012 | no comments
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Note that I will not be posting notes for lesson #5; I’m taking the week off.  (Notes for lesson #6 should be right on schedule, however.)  Also note that... Read more »

Times and Seasons’ 2011 Mormon of the Year: Jimmer Fredette

January 15, 2012 | 13 comments
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Times and Seasons has selected Jimmer Fredette as Mormon of the Year for 2011. James Taft “Jimmer” Fredette began 2011 leading BYU’s basketball team to the NCAA championships, leading... Read more »

The Book of Mormon: What has it done for you lately?

January 12, 2012 | 29 comments
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Julie is posting detailed commentary and Kent is providing literary reflection; I’m afraid all I have to offer on the Book of Mormon is general observations. This week let’s... Read more »

Sex-Ed and Social Justice*

January 10, 2012 | 30 comments
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***WARNING: This post mentions sex. I use the word a lot in this post. If that makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the post for you.*** Over the... Read more »

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