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

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New Version Of Scripture Index Announced

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

Last summer, a Scripture Index of F.A.R.M.S. Reprints and Preliminary Reports (CAM-87) was introduced. It lists every scripture by chapter and verse that is mentioned In F.A.R.M.S. materials. The Index is now available In a second format.

Bibliography Of Chiasmus Completed

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

John W. Welch, aided by Don Parry and DeeAnn Hofer, has compiled an extensive bibliography of scholarly books and articles dealing with the literary form of chiasmus. Listed are several hundred works from a broad range of sources, most scholarly. Collectively they demonstrate the widespread use of chiasmus in modern biblical studies. Anyone interested in thorough research into this distinctive form of parallel composition will find this bibliography indispensable.

A Service To Lds Gospel Doctrine Teachers And Students

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

The 1988 adult Sunday School curriculum will be the Book of Mormon. Free upon request are two lists of resources recommended as helpful background reading for the new curriculum.

Interest In Book Of Mormon Warfare Spurs Research

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

Although It Is a prominent Book of Mormon theme, Nephite warfare has yet to be comprehensively examined. To promote such research, F.A.R.M.S. sponsored a working conference Aug. 21-22. Papers dealing with military technology, strategies, fortifications, rituals, and other Issues were presented and critiqued. Other topics were Identified. Two new papers on war and the Book of Mormon are now available; others will be forth-coming soon.

Collected Biographies Of Book Of Mormon Scholars Available

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

In 1986, the Ensign magazine Issued a series of articles about prominent LDS Book of Mormon scholars, Including B. H. Roberts, George Reynolds, Francis W. Kirkham, Sidney B. Sperry, and Hugh W. Nibley. These articles, which have been available separately, are now combined Into a single reprint, together with the final article In that series.

Lehi's Vision In 1 Nephi 1 Analyzed

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

The Book of Mormon begins with an account of the vision in which Lehi beheld God seated in the midst of a heavenly congregation. In this experience, Lehi learned of the judgments of God that were about to befall the arrogant and unrighteous city of Jerusalem. Comparing this vision of Lehi's with similar so-called Council Visions had by other prophets near the time of Lehi is the aim of a new paper.

More Perspectives On Benjamin's Speech

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

Two more interesting insights into the complex nature of King Benjamin's speech have been noticed. First, in the June 1985 issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature, an article by William Kurz analyzes the twenty elements found in typical classical Greek, Roman and Biblical " farewell addresses." In such speeches, the person who is about to die summons successors, points to his own mission as an example, proclaims his innocence, discusses his impending death, gives exhortations, appoints a successor, etc. While many of these elements taken alone are unremarkable, the full pattern Kurz displays is interesting. It is apparent …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Wednesday Book Of Mormon Seminars

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

The Wednesday Seminar is a faculty research seminar organized by Noel Reynolds (Political Science, BYU). It has met bi-weekly this year to hear discussions on current research related to the Book of Mormon.

Review Of Books On The Book Of Mormon

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

Since publication of the last Newsletter, the first issue of the F.A.R.M.S. Review of Books on the Book of Mormon has been printed. It contains seventeen reviews of fourteen different books, most of which appeared during the years 1987-88. Some of the reviews are actually "review essays," since they represent important contributions to Book of Mormon studies in their own right.

Johannessen Visit

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

Professor Carl Johannessen, professor of geography at the University of Oregon, lectured in March at BYU on his research on evidence for pre-Columbian maize in India and nearby areas. F.A.R.M.S. has provided support for his work. He presented BYU botanists and others with an impressive array of actual specimens, pictures of sculptured representations of cobs of corn on Indian temples, and linguistic and historical data.

Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 65, No. 4

Restoration Quarterly

PDF of the cover of Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 65, No. 4.

This repository hosts selected Restoration Quarterly articles in downloadable PDF format. For the benefit of users who would like to browse the contents of RQ, we have included all issue covers even when full-text articles from that issue are unavailable. All Restoration Quarterly articles are available in full text in the ATLA Religion Database, available through most university and theological libraries or through your local library’s inter-library loan service.

Biblical Scholar Compares Moses And Joseph Smith

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

In "The Formation of the Canon of the Old Testament," in Religion and Law: Biblical, Judaic, and Islamic Perspectives, (edited by Edwin Firmage, Bernard Weiss, and John Welch and published in 1990 by Eisenbrauns), David Noel Freedman discusses the legacy of Moses and his Torah to the Western world. This legacy, he believes, is "the merger of law and religion, the inseparable joint expression of the divine will, communicated by his prophet. If true religion involves the right relationship between humanity and deity, then the law 1s the way in which that relationship is defined and regulated." Freedman concludes …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Dead Sea Scroll Expert Gives Farms Lecture

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

Emanual Tov, an eminent Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, delivered the seventh annual F.A.R.M.S. lecture on February 22 in the BYU Varsity Theater on "The Hebrew Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls." Tov is Editor- in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project and a world-renowned expert on the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. A transcript and video of his presentation are available on the order form. Tov gave a similar lecture in Salt Lake City (both lectures were presented to overflow crowds).

What Does Recent Scholarship Really Say About The Book Of Mormon

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

A recently published collection of essays purports to examine the Book of Mormon using the latest scholarly tools and information. The authors of New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology assert that such scholarship shows the Book of Mormon is not of ancient origin, that it was written, not translated, by Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century and reflects that time and that time alone.

New Farms Book Shows Olive Tree Allegory Merits Honor And Attention

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

One of the most magnificent allegories in all of sacred literature, Zenos's allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5, is the focus of a new collection of essays by LDS scholars: The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5. The result of more than ten years of research, culminating in the 1992 annual F.A.R.M.S. symposium, these twenty-one essays by twenty LDS scholars examine the allegory of the olive tree and related topics from many perspectives, including historical, botanical, symbolic, religious, linguistic, and theological. Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch, both professors at …

Revelation And The Urim And Thummim, Matthew Roper

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

In the past most biblical scholars viewed the Urim and Thummim as a rather mechanical device used merely to obtain a yes or no answer, similar to casting lots. This is quite different from the function of the device described in the Book of Mormon as "interpreters" and by the Prophet Joseph Smith as the "Urim and Thummim." In these descriptions of the use of the Urim and Thummim, revelation played a large role. For example, accounts of the translation of the Book of Mormon indicate that Joseph Smith could not translate without the Spirit and that a great deal …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Farms Board Expands With Two New Members

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

M. Gerald Bradford, Director of Research for FARMS (who was highlighted in the June issue of Insights), and David Rolph Seely, assistant professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU, have joined the FARMS board of directors.

Journal Features Sperry's Book Of Mormon Scholarship

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

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sidney B. Sperry, an individual who did much ground-breaking work in the study of the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. In honor of that occasion, and to make Sperry's writing more available to a new generation of Book of Mormon students, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies has devoted its Spring issue to printing some of his essays that are out of print, hard to find, or never before published.

Upon The Tower Of Benjamin, John W. Welch, Terry L. Szink

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

When King Benjamin crowned his son Mosiah, all the people in Zarahemla sat in tents around the temple while Benjamin addressed them. Because he "could not teach them all within the walls of the temple, therefore he caused a tower to be erected, that thereby his people might hear the words which he should speak unto them" (Mosiah 2:7). Was the need to improve the acoustics the only reason for the construction of this tower? Recent research has discovered ancient precedents for the use of such "towers" in royal convocations and coronation ceremonies. These biblical and Jewish precedents are not …

Brown Bags Report Preliminary Research Findings

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

The first three presentations of 1995 at the FARMS brown bag seminar (held every other week at BYU) reported on research in progress on topics as diverse as errors in the transmission of the biblical text of Samuel, the Egyptian roots for Hebrew religious terminology, and a hierarchy of settlements in the Book of Mormon.

The Allegory Of The Olive Tree, Stephen D. Ricks, John W. Welch

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

The allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5 is one of the most magnificent allegories in all of sacred literature. The essays in The Allegory of the Olive Tree examine this allegory and related topics from many perspectives, and in doing so they not only illuminate the meaning of this portion of the Book of Mormon, they also increase our understanding of much that is contained in the New Testament. The olive is a powerful image in the New Testament, and the efforts of these authors to understand that image and its use in the allegory shed light on …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Call For Papers

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

Proposals for papers are being sought for the 1997 Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Fall Semester), sponsored by BYU Religious Education. This year's theme will be "Voices of the Prophets: The Old Testament."

Terms For Ancient Places

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

The terminology that we use to refer to long lost lands and cultures can be confusing. For example, the October FARMS Update (number 108) referred to Mesopotamia in the cultural sense rather than in a geographic sense - ancient Ebla was at various times within the cultural sphere of Mesopotamia but is not part of the geographic area usually referred to as Mesopotamia. Even the geographic sense is ambiguous; some reputable reference works (perhaps the majority) use Mesopotamia to refer to the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, while others extend the area considered to be part of …

Nibley Fellowships Awarded

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

The Nibley Fellowship awards support graduate students working in accredited programs throughout the world who are studying in areas of particular interest to FARMS. In addition to support for three of last year's recipients, this years' awards will help six new fellows.

Lectures Highlight Connections Between Scrolls And Mormonism

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

Selections from the March conference entitled "LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls" are now available for purchase on video and audiotape. The presentations teach about the ancient scrolls and how they contribute to LDS understanding of gospel teachings, the Bible, and other aspects of biblical life.