It’s time to shatter past, false assumptions and expectations of the Book of Mormon.   M. Russell Ballard in Feb 2015 to CES employees: Let me warn you not to pass along faith promoting or unsubstantiated rumors or outdated understandings and explanations of our doctrines or practices from the past…Consult the works of recognized, […]

  Last night, the youth of the Provo City Temple District put on a cultural celebration for the new temple dedication with the theme “Beauty to Ashes”. The Provo Tabernacle had special significance to me. As a young family, we lived in Provo, and I remember attending stake conferences with my little ones, holding the hands […]

  A challenge to Book of Mormon historicity is the anachronistic nature of content in the Book of Mormon from the New Testament, teachings about Jesus Christ, and especially specific Christian topics of debate in the modern era. This post is part 1 of 2 covering the seemingly ‘too 19th century sounding’ 2 Nephi 9. […]

      Remind them that James did not say, If any of you lack wisdom, let him Google.     Elder M. Russell Ballard emphasized a message many in the world of LDS apologetics have been repeating recently.  Speaking to seminary teachers and CES employees ‘An Evening with Elder M. Russell Ballard’ Feb. 26, […]

  Just thirty years ago, the idea of the Book of Mormon as non-historical inspired scripture brought forth through the mind of Joseph Smith and not an actual, literal history of ancient American prophets was a heretical notion.  Now, among some progressive LDS scholars and thinkers the idea is gaining traction.  There seems to be […]

  A common apologetic response to questions about the church is to tell the questioner to lower his/her expectations. This didn’t use to be a common response. In the past, the church and apologists had taken a literal/fundamentalistic approach to historical issues, and the answer would be to defend the historical fact. Now, as historical […]

  Nephi’s journey out of Jerusalem and the Exodus have many parallels.  Enough that you might wonder if this is really true history.   In 1 Nephi 17:12-14, Nephi explains some details about their trip from Jerusalem to the promised land.   12 For the Lord had not hitherto suffered that we should make much fire, as […]

Joseph at his worst; Joseph at his best. Thoughts from study on Gospel Doctrine Lesson 4.   Lesson 4 of the gospel doctrine manual this year for Book of Mormon is on 1 Nephi 12-14, which is the rest of Nephi’s vision, continued from the previous lesson.  These chapters are troubling for me. Nephi is […]

  Listening to this podcast with Dale Luffman, retired apostle in the Community of Christ Church and Book of Mormon historian, I remembered another thought I had studying Lehi’s dream.   Lehi starts out the telling of his dream of the Tree of Life in 1 Nephi 8:4 with the words ‘methought I saw.’ The […]

  This is a companion piece to a blog post I wrote meant as light, devotional reading, inspired by the passage of Nephi’s vision of Jesus Christ in 2 Nephi 11, with emphasis on the question ‘Knowest thou the condescension of God’.  This will explore this same view from a metaphorical standpoint, ie a view […]