Religious Education Commons^™

Children Are A Heritage From The Lord: A Procreation-Centric Approach To Christian Marriage And Family Education, Nicholas Lee Hagerman

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Hagerman, Nicholas L. "Children Are a Heritage from the Lord: A Procreation-Centric Approach to Christian Marriage and Family Education." Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2022. 242 pp.

As youth and young adults are being raised in the church, they are often taught about issues related to sex and marriage. However, procreation and raising families are rarely mentioned in such teaching, which tends to focus instead on relational issues between spouses, the avoidance of sexual sins, and the marital institution's reflection of the relationship between Christ and His church. This project seeks to remedy this deficiency by taking …

Book Review: Worship With Teenagers: Adolescent Spirituality And Congregational Practice, Chelsea Flow Stirman

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

Worship with Teenagers: Adolescent Spirituality and Congregational Practice, by Eric Mathis. Baker Academic, 2022. 243 pages, $17.00.

The First Jesuits And The First Jesuit Universities, Paul Grendler

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

John W. O’Malley S. J. in The First Jesuits described well the basic principles of the Jesuit educational ministry that shapeed Jesuit schools and universities. He did not discuss what constituted a Jesuit university because that was not the purpose of the book. After assessing the major contributions that O’Malley made to define the principles of Jesuit education, this article will pick up where O’Malley left off by describing the first Jesuit universities. There was not a single model of a Jesuit university. Instead, the Jesuits taught in four kinds of universities: the all-Jesuit university, the civic-Jesuit collegiate university, the …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Forthcoming Publications

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

Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, edited by John Gee
and Brian Hauglid, is volume 3 in the Book of Abraham
Series. It includes FARMS conference papers on the Book
of Abraham and its commonalities with ancient texts,
Abraham’s vision of the heavens, and the significance of
the Abrahamic covenant. Available autumn 2003.

A Call For Emendations, Royal Skousen

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

As I have been working on the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, people have
occasionally written or talked to me about passages in the Book of Mormon that seem strange or difficult. A good many have made specific suggestions about emendations (or revisions to the text). Surprisingly, a large percentage of these have ended up being correct or have led me to come up with an appropriate emendation.

The New World Promised Land’S Economic Base

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

A majority of people in the modern world are absorbed in performing their daily work, conceived in terms of jobs, money, food, and other things practical and economic. Would it have been different for the Nephites or Lamanites? Not really. The center of their daily concerns, too, was “making a living.” But what that meant differed greatly from what we mean by the expression.

The Desert Libraries Of Timbuktu

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

The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution have opened an exhibit titled “Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu,” the famous trading town at the edge of the Sahara Desert in Mali. The manuscripts include Qur’anic teachings, mathematics, physics, medicine, and astronomy.

Institute Researchers Share Findings At Lds Apologetics Conference

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

Three Institute researchers were among the speakers at the fifth annual FAIR conference, held August 7–8 at Utah Valley State College, in Orem, Utah. Founded in 1997, the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research is a nonprofit
corporation dedicated to providing sound information and research that support the doctrine, beliefs, and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly on matters that are challenged by unbelievers.

Brown Bag Report

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

With fall semester under way at Brigham Young University, we look forward to keeping you abreast of another round of Institute-sponsored brown bag lectures. These presentations, which are not open to the general public, enable researchers to share their expertise and findings with their peers in related fields and to receive constructive input. Following are reports of three such presentations from earlier this year.

Confession Of Sins Before Execution, John A. Tvedtnes

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

Alma 1:15 records the execution of Nehor for the murder of Gideon: And it came to pass that they took him; and his name was Nehor; and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death.

Etruscan Gold Book From 600 B.C. Discovered

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

The Bulgarian National Museum of History in Sofia, Bulgaria, recently placed on public display an ancient book comprising six pages of 23.82-karat gold (measuring 5 centimeters in length and 4.5 centimeters in width) bound together by gold rings. The plates contain a text written in Etruscan characters and also depict a horse, a horseman, a Siren, a lyre, and soldiers. According to Elka Penkova, who
heads the museum’s archaeology department, the find may be the oldest complete book in the world, dating to about 600 B.C.

Spiritual Intelligence And Personality, Jayne Ann Harder, Andrew S. I. D. Lang, Leighanne Locke, J. Bryan Osborne, Aleksandra Turtova, Enrique F. Valderrama-Araya, Stephen R. Wheat, Jan H. R. Wörner

Salubritas: International Journal of Spirit-Empowered Counseling

This study quantifies the relationship between measures of spiritual intelligence and personality traits. A random sample of 240 undergraduate students from a mid-sized private Christian university in the West South-Central United States were administered both the SISRI-24 survey instrument for spiritual intelligence as well as the Pathway U survey for HEXACO personality traits. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between critical existential thinking and openness to experience; personal meaning production and extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness; transcendental awareness and extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness; and conscious state expansion and extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness. Statistically significant negative …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Jacob’S Connections To First Temple Traditions, Kevin Christensen

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

In a previous report I showed how the Book of Mormon’s portrayal of Nephi, son of Lehi, compares favorably to a preexilic Hebrew wisdom tradition reconstructed by biblical scholar Margaret Barker.1 This report highlights further connections between the Book of Mormon and traditions from ancient Israel that Barker asserts “have been lost but for the accidents of archaeological discovery and the evidence of pre-Christian texts preserved and transmitted only by Christian hands.”

Latest Meti Book Probes Soul, Self-Knowledge

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

A parallel English-Arabic text of the Islamic philosophical work Iksir al-Arifin, or Elixir of the Gnostics, is the latest publication in the Islamic Translation Series, part of the Institute’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. The author, Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi, better known as Mulla Íadrā (A.D. 1572–1640), is considered one of the greatest Islamic philosophers of the last 600 years and in recent years has become one of the most well known. Adept at finding flaws in the work of previous great thinkers, he was at the same time able to think independently of them, creating his own philosophical approach that …

Biblical Scholar Presents Lectures At Byu

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

During the week of 5–9 May, the Institute sponsored a visit by British biblical scholar Margaret Barker to Brigham Young University. Each morning, Barker offered a seminar (usually three hours in length) to a group of invited faculty and guests in which she summarized her research and numerous publications. She also delivered a university forum address during her stay, as well as an evening public lecture in the auditorium of the Harold B. Lee Library.

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Institute News

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

Noel B. Reynolds has been appointed director of the Institute. A professor of political science and a past president of FARMS, he recently completed a five-year term as associate academic vice president for undergraduate studies at BYU. Further coverage on this change in leadership will appear in a future issue of Insights.

The Baptism Of Little Children In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, Matthew P. Roper

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

In a letter to his son Moroni, Mormon warns against the practice of baptizing little children. He identifies two false assumptions of his day used to justify infant baptism: little children are born with sin (see Moroni 8:8) and will suffer divine punishment in hell if they die without having been baptized (see Moroni 8:13). While the exact nature of this aberrant practice is unknown, it was apparently common enough among the Nephites of Mormon’s day to warrant swift and unequivocal prophetic censure. Mormon describes the rite as particularly wicked and erroneous in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Farms Review Probes Cowdery, Chosenness, Chiasmus, And More

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

Keeping step with its expanding role, The FARMS Review sports a new title and cover design. Further departures from tradition are the introduction, written for the first time by someone other than the founding editor; a book notes section; and a study relating to chiasmus that not only gives an update on contemporary works on the subject but also surveys those available in the 1820s.

Yale Conference On Mormon Perspectives, Matthew P. Roper

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

Between 250 and 300 people took part on 27–29 March 2003 in a conference in New Haven, Connecticut, devoted to the subject of “God, Humanity, and Revelation: Perspectives from Mormon Philosophy and History.” The conference, hosted by the Divinity School of Yale University, was organized by Kenneth West, a Latter-day Saint graduate student there. The Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts was one of the conference sponsors.

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Forthcoming Publication

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

The FARMS Review (vol. 15, no. 1), edited by Daniel C. Peterson, contains reviews of a FARMS publication titled Uncovering the Original Text of the Book of Mormon: History and Findings of the Critical Text Project, Terryl L. Givens’s study of the Book of Mormon titled By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion (published by Oxford University Press), three books on the Book of Abraham, and an evangelical critique titled The New Mormon
Challenge, initially treated in the last Review. The FARMS Review (formerly FARMS Review of Books) also includes a study of …

Upcoming Event

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

A set of meetings on the Institute’s Graeco-Arabic Sciences and Philosophy series (GrASP), a part of the Institute’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, will be held at the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C. Under the joint sponsorship of the Library and the Institute, the event will include a meeting of GrASP’s international advisory board, a meeting of that board with key Library curators, and a public meeting on the field of Graeco-Arabic sciences and philosophy and on the aims and character of the series. Other possible events remain to be finalized. Watch the Web site for further details.

Institute News

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

The Institute appreciates opportunities to facilitate meaningful scholarly discussion of Mormon studies. One recent instance was its cosponsorship of a conference titled “God, Humanity, and Revelation: Perspectives from Mormon Philosophy and History,” held at the Yale University Divinity School on 27–29 March. The event featured more than two dozen scholars and authors, including several Latter-day Saints. A report of the conference will appear in the next issue of Insights.

Nephi, Wisdom, And The Deuteronomist Reform, Kevin Christensen

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

Biblical scholar Margaret Barker has argued that Judaism was reformed initially in response to the discovery of the “book of the law” (2 Kings 22: 8; 2 Chronicles 34:14) in King Josiah’s time (reigned 640–609 B.C.) and later in response to the destruction of the Israelite monarchy and the experience of the exile. Those reforms were carried out by a priestly group known to scholars as the Deuteronomists, credited with editing the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings (to celebrate Josiah and to address aspects of later Jewish history) and leaving a distinct imprint on the Hebrew Bible.

Brown Bag Report

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

On 13 November John F. Hall, professor of classical languages and ancient history at Brigham Young University, spoke about his new book, New Testament Witnesses of Christ: Peter, John, James, and Paul. The book draws on early Christian writings to show that the “four pillars” of early Christianity—Peter, John, James (the brother of Jesus), and Paul—consistently testified of the life and mission of Jesus Christ. The book is important, Hall believes, because many professing Christians, even many ministers, do not accept Christ as the literal Son of God even though the scriptures and the writings of the early church fathers …

The Book Of Mormon At The Bar Of Dna “Evidence”

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

On 29 January a capacity crowd gathered in the Harold B. Lee Library auditorium to hear BYU biology professor Michael F. Whiting address the topic “Does DNA Evidence Refute the Authenticity of the Book of Mormon? Responding to the Critics.” The size of the audience suggested the great interest people have in the role and limitations of DNA research in unlocking the past, especially the religious past.

Refining The Eden Community’S Pathways For Shaping Regenerative Christian Culture In The Apprenticeship For Regenerative Culture, Laura Callarman

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This Doctor of Ministry thesis presents a project designed to meet a need of the Eden Community, an intentional Christian community, regarding the pathways it uses to shape regenerative Christian culture among college students in its apprenticeship program, ARC. In this thesis, I connect the pragmatic aims of the Eden Community to theological foundations regarding the importance of ecclesial diversity and creative contextualization, features that empower the church to embody a variety of life-giving “alternative stories” with the capacity to present the gospel as truly good news to the entire world.

In this project, a team of nine stakeholders met …