A New Age of Mormon Doubt
Pioneer Day is a time for Mormons to reflect on the contributions and sacrifices their forebears have offered to the faith and the building of Zion. In Utah, fireworks flood the skies with brilliant...
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Interview with Kirk Caudle of the Mormon Book Review Podcast
Kirk Caudle is the host and founder of the Mormon Book Review podcast, which was recently brought under the umbrella of BYU’s Maxwell Institute. In addition to running the Mormon Book Review, Kirk has...
View ArticleMormon Doubt Part 2: Two Recent Approaches to Reaching Out
The splash of the Hans Mattsson story has occluded what I think is a more significant story about continuing efforts to assist those Mormons who feel alienated from the LDS Church. The story of a...
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“All Things Unto Me Are Spiritual”: Worship Through Corporeality in Hasidism...
An important thread running through Mormonism is the religious significance often attached to secular acts. Part one will explore this phenomenon in light of similar traditions in Judaism, while part...
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“We Like It When Gentiles Study Us”: Sunstone Panel 2013, Or: Why I Think WWE...
“We like it when Gentiles study us. We already know we’re important, but it feels good to know someone else knows it, too.” – Richard Bushman to Chris Smith The following is a formalized transcript...
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Celebrations of Learned Men: Nibley, Schoolmen, and the Denial of Revelation
Worlds Without End is once again pleased to host Allen Hansen. Allen is originally from Israel, but is currently studying journalism at Utah State University. He is a regular commenter here at WWE and...
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The Truth of Untrue Storytelling in Mormonism
A common point of frustration many Mormons feel concerns the inconsistencies and contradictions between the official stories being told and the actual history behind those stories. Many then ask, “But...
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Can’t we all just get along?
This year I have had the enlightening opportunity to attend three Mormon-themed conferences. Each conference afforded me the opportunity to meet with, and mingle, with Latter-day Saints of all stripes...
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New Computer Study Purports to Detect Literary Influences on the Book of Mormon
The Internet’s been abuzz with hype this week about a new computer study by Duane and Chris Johnson which purports to identify four literary influences on the Book of Mormon (besides the King James...
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What the New Computer Study Can Tell Us about the Book of Mormon
In my last post I reviewed Duane and Chris Johnson’s new computer study that purports to identify four literary influences on the Book of Mormon. As I argued there, the study’s case for literary...
View ArticleAAR Northwest Call for Papers
Call for Papers 2014 PACIFIC NORTHWEST REGION AAR/SBL/ASOR Regional Meeting University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta May 9-11, 2014 SPECIAL TOPICS: MORMON STUDIES Description of the goals and rationale...
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“The Sometimes Sandy Soil of Doubt & Uncertainty”: Humility and Church...
In his best-selling book Good to Great, business author and former Stanford professor Jim Collins tried to pinpoint the traits that define “Good-to-Great” companies, i.e. “fifteen-year cumulative stock...
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“The Upward Path”: Progression in the Earthly and Heavenly Realms (Part 2)
An important thread running through Mormonism is the religious significance often attached to secular acts. Part one explored this phenomenon in light of similar traditions in Judaism; part two will...
View ArticleThe Imperative for a Historical Book of Deuteronomy
*Disclaimer: This is a revised edition of a recent article written by Stephen Smoot for the Interpreter Journal. It is not meant to be hurtful or to offend. It is meant to be playful in the way that I...
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Adjusting the Narrative: Part 2b – On Disavowed Theories
A (much delayed) continuation of the the series “Adjusting the Narrative”, initially begun as a proposed response to the new header to Official Declaration 2 in the 2013 edition of the Doctrine and...
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Joseph Smith Papers Project: Documents Volume 2
Volume editors Matthew Godfrey and Mark Ashurst-McGee with some original documents that were included in the Documents series of the Joseph Smith Papers Project The second volume of the Joseph Smith...
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Reading the Bible Critically and Religiously
LDS talk a lot about reading the scriptures but not so much about how to read them or the different ways they can be read. This is the first of five posts on how to read the Bible or how to practice...
View ArticleCowboy Apostle: The Diaries of Anthony W. Ivins, 1875-1932
As part of a series of essays on controversial topics, the church recently published an article discussing plural marriages performed after the Manifesto. The article noted, “on an exceptional basis,...
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A Mormon Response to a Jewish View of the Bible
This is the second of five posts on reading the Bible [Post 1]. This post reviews how Jewish readers read the Bible, as discussed by Marc Zvi Brettler in the first section of The Bible and the...
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A Great New Book about an Ancient American One
John L. Sorenson. Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book. Salt Lake City: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and Deseret Book, 2013. 826 pp. Maps, tables, figures, foreword,...
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