Arts and Humanities Commons^™

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Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

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Byu Today Publishes Article On Critical Text Project

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The May 1992 issue of BYU Today carried a very good summary of the project that Royal Skousen, professor of English at BYU, is conducting to produce a critical text of the Book of Mormon. The main purposes of this project are to establish the original English language text of the Book of Mormon, to the extent that it can be discovered, and to determine the history of the text-in particular, the changes that the text has undergone, both editorial and accidental.

Review Does It Again--Offers Careful Analyses, And Pulls No Punches

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

F.A.RMS. has published the fourth volume of its annual Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, edited by Daniel C. Peterson.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

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Journal Devoted To Questions Of Ancient Transoceanic Contacts

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Academia has often ignored controversial evidence of early cultural contact between the Old and New Worlds. Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts brings attention to rigorous scholarship supporting diffusionist claims while meeting the demands of scholarly and scientific objectivity. Developed by Stephen C. Jett, a geography professor at the University of California, Davis, the interdisciplinary journal offers studies that have been reviewed by a panel of scholars that includes John L. Sorenson, a BYU emeritus professor of anthropology and FARMS associate who has published widely on the subject.

New Festschrift Explores Scripture And Ancient World

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

When Richard L. Anderson retired from the Religious Education faculty at Brigham Young · University in 1996, the Department of Religious Education and FARMS agreed to sponsor a Festschrift (a compilation of essays written in honor of an individual) that would commemorate his distinguished academic career. The positive response from Anderson's friends and colleagues who wished to contribute to the publication has resulted in two volumes of scholarly articles.

Evidence Surveyed For Book Of Mormon Authenticity, Old World-New World Contacts

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Two recent magazine articles on topics of interest in Book of Mormon studies are available from FARMS as reprints (see the order form).

The first article, "Mounting Evidence for the Book of Mormon," by Daniel C. Peterson, appeared in the January 2000 issue of the Ensign magazine. The article explains the role of Book of Mormon scholarship, notes the tremendous surge in publications of that kind in recent years, and highlights secondary evidence that supports the book's claim to ancient origins and inspired translation.

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

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Lecture Report

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

On 10 October 2003, Father Columba Stewart presented an Institute-sponsored lecture at BYU titled “The Practices of Egyptian Monastic Prayer: Desert, Cell, and Community.” Fr. Stewart is a Benedictine monk of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, where he is professor of theology at St. John’s School of Theology and teaches monastic studies. He is also the interim director of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, which is working closely with the Institute on its manuscript preservation projects in the Middle East and Ethiopia.

Temples Everywhere, Hugh W. Nibley

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Those of us who saw the recent television documentary American Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith may have noticed an interesting defect in the script, namely, that it was Hamlet with Hamlet left out. It was as if one were to produce the life of Shakespeare with charming views of Stratford-upon-Avon, country school, the poaching story, marriage to Anne Hatha-way, showbiz in London, and respectable retirement without bothering to mention that our leading character gave the world the greatest treasury of dramatic art in existence. Or a life of Bach with his niggardly brother-guardian, his early poverty, his odd jobs …

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Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

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Dss Library Wins Ala Choice Award

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Each year in January, Choice magazine recognizes a short list of the best academic titles from among the 7,000 or so reviewed in the previous year. Among the winners of the January 2008 awards is BYU’s Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library, which was produced by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and published by Brill Academic Press. This electronic database contains searchable texts of all of the published non-biblical scrolls. High resolution images of the scrolls and a complete English translation accompany the texts. The latest version of the database, published at the end of 2006, is the …

Scripture Update: El Niño And Lehi’S Voyage Revisited, Warren P. Aston

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

In recent years several scholars have drawn the attention of Latter-day Saints to the phenomenon popularly known as “El Niño.”1 In 1990 David L. Clark highlighted the fact that a mechanism was now known to science that would permit, periodically, easterly sea travel across the Pacific, the direction Lehi’s party is understood to have traveled.2 ENSO, the more formal acronym for this phenomenon, comes from El Niño (the Christ child) and Southern Oscillation, referring to the fact that the changes commence in the southern Pacific Ocean. The intermittent ENSO effect creates an easterly equatorial current running counter to the prevailing …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Inscribed Gold Plate Fits Book Of Mormon Pattern, John A. Tvedtnes

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

An inscribed gold plate 2.2 centimeters in length has been uncovered in a third-century ad Jewish burial. The burial, that of a young child, is located in a Roman cemetery in Halbturn, Austria. The news was released by archaeologists at the University of Vienna’s Institute of Prehistory and Early History.

Mesoamerican “Cimeters” In Book Of Mormon Times, Matthew Roper

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Book of Mormon first mentions a weapon called a cimeter during the time of Enos (some time between about 544 and 421 bc). Speaking of his people’s Lamanite enemies, Enos says, “their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax” (Enos 1:20). Later, in the first and second centuries bc, the weapon was part of the armory of both Nephites and Lamanites in addition to swords and other weapons (Mosiah 9:16; 10:8; Alma 2:12; 43:18, 20, 37; 60:2; Helaman 1:14).