Author: Clark Goble
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Fishing Adventures with President Monson
Many people know of Pres. Monson’s cabin up Provo Canyon at Vivian Park. His son, Clark Monson, reminisces about this on the pages of BYU Studies in “Rod Tip Up!” Kurt Manwaring talked with Monson about the essay. “When I was young, my family and relatives spent considerable time during summers at the family cabin…
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Elvis, the Book of Mormon, and the Story
Starting at the end of the 80’s a story came to be told of a Book of Mormon written in by Elvis Presley. Over the years people retold the tale, including in the pages of newspapers, inspirational speaking and the like. Even the Osmonds got into the tale, telling people of the King’s interest in…
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Paul and Authority
Jana Reiss had up an interesting post last week where she suggested Mormons don’t know what to do with Paul as an apostle. In particular she claimed, “it’s discomfiting to realize that Paul’s apostleship was entirely of the self-proclaimed, charismatic variety.” I’d take some exception to this. A few brief thoughts.
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Nephi’s Apocalypse
One of the most interesting, most popular, yet also quite controversial elements in the Book of Mormon is Lehi’s and Nephi’s vision. Some readers might agree with the interesting part but be surprised by the controversial part. This is after all one element of the restoration that seems such a big part of our culture.…
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Echoes of the City of Joseph
Scott Esplin is a professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU with a background in late 19th, early 20th century history and educational history. He recently published a social history of Nauvoo with Return to the City of Joseph: Modern Mormonism’s Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo through University of Illionis Press. The book…
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The Neglected Louie B. Felt
RoseAnn Benson’s book Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith: 19th-Century Restorationists compares the two best known and successful figures in the broad restorationist movement of the 19th century. While those familiar with Latter-day Saint history know the relationship between the two movements, oddly in broader religious history only Campbell and his Disciples of Christ are considered…
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Cut Off From the Prophets
One interesting thing about most scripture is the gap between the texts we have the the prophets themselves. The Old Testament was heavily redacted and edited during the Hellenistic period to give us the texts we now have. As Nephi was taught, “when [the scriptures] proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained…
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10 questions with Thomas Alexander
We’re happy to have an other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring with 10 questions with Thomas Alexander. Thomas Alexander was the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Professor of Western American History at BYU. Alexander has had an illustrious career teaching at Berkeley, University of Nebraska, University of Utah and more along with 40 years at…
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Battle for the Public Square
While it seems too soon to say the US is moving towards a more fully secular society like most of Europe, the tensions of the recent changes are playing out in interesting ways. The most recent kerfuffle is between the Catholic journal First Things and more traditional conservative outlets like National Review. Much of the…
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10 Questions with Matt Godfrey
We’re happy to have an other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring. This is 10 questions with Matt Godfrey. Matt Godfrey is the editor of Zion’s Camp: 1834 March of Faith and is also a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers. He has a doctorate in American history from Washington State University. Before working…
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Some Abortion Thoughts
Abortion has been in the news of late. Given the polarized times we live in, particularly those of us in the United States, it’s perhaps unsurprising that states are pushing extreme bills. New York’s passed a very liberal law at the beginning of the year making it purely a health care issue. Georgia, Alabama and…
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God and Being
One of the big differences between our faith and traditional Christianity is over the question of Being. Being is one of those weird terms that confuses people studying philosophy. The idea is that “to be” whether within our conscious perception or out in the world has to have an origin. Within our materialist way of…
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10 Questions with Quincy Newell
We’re happy to have an other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring. This is 10 questions with Quincy Newell. Newell is an associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. She’s also the author of Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James from Oxford Press. James has been a focus of…
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On the Honor Code
Let me state my priors on the honor code. I think it’s an important set of rules that really sets BYU apart from most other top universities. Yet simultaneously I worry the honor code office has been poorly run for decades. At least it sure seems that way from many reports I’ve heard over the…
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Easter
I’m not big on religious holidays. I know some look at all the holy days of Catholicism or similar faiths with envy. I don’t. I’m definitely a minimalist when it comes to religious days. Yet since the first day I arrived in Utah it has struck me as odd how minor a day Easter is.…
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Church Statistics 2019
Now that the latest Church statistics are out everyone is putting up their analysis.[1] I’ve not written a lot on statistics of late so I thought I’d retouch some of the topics I’ve discussed in the past.[2] The short summary is that missionary effectiveness is up slightly but overall growth is decreasing, partially driven by…
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10 questions with Philip Barlow
We’re happy to have an other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring. This is 10 questions with Philip Barlow . Barlow is the Associate Director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU. He’s written or edited a large number of books including Mormons and the Bible, The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism,…
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On Early Modern English and the Book of Mormon
In some ways new discoveries about our modern scriptures have become much rarer of late. There was a burst of information and discoveries when I was young but that has definitely tapered off the past decade or so. Recent work that has pushed our knowledge forward includes discoveries about some of the content on the…
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On the Church Masonry Essay
As some of you may have seen, the Church recently released two new doctrinal and historical essays. One is on Masonry and the other on Book of Mormon Geography.[1] Both have a prominent “beta” in the upper left so they may be revised over the following months. LDS Living wrote up a bit on the…
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10 Questions with Susan Easton Black
An other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring is here. This is 10 Questions with Susan Easton Black. Black has written some great books over the years and contributed a lot to apologetics as well. I’ve given friends many copies of her 400 Questions and Answers about the Book of Mormon. It’s a great entry…
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A Reaction to the Church’s Recent Essay on Book of Mormon Geography
Brant Gardner has kindly agreed to offer some comments on the recent Church essay on Book of Mormon geography. He’s a research assistant with Book of Mormon Central and arguably one of the top experts in the question of Book of Mormon geography. I’ve enjoyed discussing the Book of Mormon with Brant going way back…
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10 Questions with Grant Hardy
We’re happy to share an other in our series of interviews by Kurt Manwaring. This week’s is his interview with Grant Hardy. He’s the author of the recently released The Book of Mormon: Maxwell Institute Study Edition. Kevin Barney recently reviewed that study edition. Prior to that he was well known for the Book of…
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Hell Part 3: Egypt in the Book of Mormon
Back when I first was invited to join T&S I started doing a series on Hell in the Book of Mormon. This is a long delayed follow up. Previously I’d discussed the three broad categories of how hell has been viewed theologically and vulcanism metaphors in the Book of Mormon. This time I want to…
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Death and Immortality
One of the interesting questions about the plan of salvation is why we need to think we’re going to die. Clearly death has an important role in our development, but why? I came upon a great interview with Todd May, the philosopher behind the popular TV show The Good Place, on what it means to…
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Jesus the Precocious and the Angel’s Slap
For family scripture study in the mornings we’ve started just following the Primary manual rather than merely reading the scriptures. This has lead to much, much more fruitful scripture study I think. If you’ve not done this yourself, consider trying it out for a week or two. I’m not sure kids get as much out…
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Future Mormon 9: Network Theology Part 1
Welcome to the ninth chapter of the never quite weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to give your thoughts on the chapter. We’re hoping for a good thoroughgoing critical engagement with…
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Ordinances and the Ship of Theseus
The ship of Theseus was an old Greek philosophical question. Over time a ship has various elements replaced – boards, masts, sails, etc. Over time less and less of the ship is the same as when it started. When is it the same ship? Various thinkers over the centuries have had different answers for what…
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10 Questions with Thomas Wayment
We’re happy to share Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Thomas Wayment. He’s the author of the just released The New Testament: A New Translation for Latter-day Saints. Kevin Barney recently reviewed that work. He’s also responsible for quite a few interesting papers, particularly on the New Testament from a Mormon perspective. Last year he shook things…
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2018 The Year that Was
It’s that time of year when everyone does their year in review columns. He’s mine with a more Church focus. I don’t claim this is comprehensive but it’s the major stories I saw over the last year.