Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Rising Scholars Mentored Through Summer Seminar

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

A select group of graduate and advanced under- graduate students participated in a seminar on Mormon thought at BYU this past May and June. The participants’ papers presented at a public sym- posium on June 25 will be published in the near future.

Book Of Mormon Critical Text Project Completes Text Analysis

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

The Maxwell Institute and Brigham Young University are pleased to announce the publica- tion of part 6 of volume 4 of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. Part 6 analyzes the text from 3 Nephi 19 through Moroni 10.

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

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New Appointment For Editor Of Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library

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

Donald W. Parry, Brigham Young University pro­ fessor of Biblical Hebrew and longtime contribu­ tor to the work of the Maxwell Institute, has been appointed as an editor for a new edition of Biblia Hebraica, the standard critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). He is one of about two dozen well­established Hebrew scholars from the world­ wide community also serving as editors for this new edition, and one of three from the United States.

Work Of The Maxwell Institute Highlighted In Presentations At Education Week

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

Brigham Young University Campus Education Week, slated for August 17–21, 2009, will feature a series of presentations that represent the range of the work done by the Maxwell Institute.

Beginning Wednesday, August 19, at 11:10 in the Assembly Hall of the Hinckley Center, Paul Y. Hoskisson, D. Morgan Davis Jr., and Kristian S. Heal will present on the topic “The Work of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU.”

New Nibley Volume Explores The Book Of Abraham

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

An Approach to the Book of Abraham, volume 18 in the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, is now avail­ able. This volume contains Nibley’s early work on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri and is his closest look at Facsimile 1 of the Book of Abraham. In chapter 5, Nibley is at his best as he has Mr. Jones, the curator, conduct Dick and Jane through an imaginary museum in which the most important lion­couch scenes have all been gathered together in a single hall. Mr. Jones possesses a hand­ book that tells him all. In a …

Missing The Mark, Paul Y. Hoskisson

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

In teaching Book of Mormon at Brigham Young University over the past quarter century, I have rarely found a student, whether true freshman or returned missionary, who knows what the word mark means in Jacob 4:14.1 Most of them know that the mark symbolizes Christ in this verse, but they do not know what a mark is. That is, if a mark symbolizes Christ, then mark must be something in real life other than Christ. In fact, most Book of Mormon readers justifiably feel satisfied and uplifted by relying on what they think mark means in this verse. While it …

Anderson Speaks At Third Annual Neal A. Maxwell Lecture

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

With the intent of probing the lives of Christ and Joseph Smith, Richard Lloyd Anderson, emeritus professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, gave the third annual Neal A. Maxwell Lecture, held March 20, 2009. Anderson discussed the reliability of the documentary process by which we know of events in the New Testament and in the early years of the Restoration.

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

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“Voices In The Human Conver­Sation” Available On Internet

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

Several video broadcasts exploring areas related to the work of the Maxwell Institute are available to view online through the BYU Web site. In February, the College of Humanities at BYU presented, as part of their “Voices in the Human Conversation” program that was originally broadcast on KBYU, a lecture by Roger Macfarlane, associate professor of humanities, classics, and comparative literature at BYU. Entitled “Illuminating the Papyri from Herculaneum, Oxyrhymchus, and Beyond,” Macfarlane discussed Multi-Spectral Imaging and ancient texts. In the past, the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at the Maxwell Institute (then under the auspices of …

Nibley Fellowship Program Assists Rising Scholars

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

For a number of years the Maxwell Institute has sponsored a graduate fellowship program that gives financial aid to students pursuing advanced degrees in fields of special interest to the Institute. Named in honor of the late eminent Latter-day Saint scholar Hugh W. Nibley, this program fosters the next gen- eration of faithful scholars by providing financial aid to students enrolled in accredited PhD programs in areas of study directly related to the work and mission of the Maxwell Institute. Work done under the auspices of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and the Foundation for …

Mentoring Students At The Maxwell Institute

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

We have all felt the excitement that comes from seeing a great scholar at work, whether in the classroom or the archives. No less palpable is the thrill of a personal encounter with the past through direct contact with ancient texts or artifacts. Most of us can trace our fascination with the ancient world back to just such a personal encounter. One of our roles at the Maxwell Institute is to help inspire the next generation of young scholars. We do this by providing opportunities for BYU students to work directly with Institute scholars on new research, and thus to …

Moving Syriac Literature Into The Digital Age, Carl Griffin

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

The mother tongue of Jesus and his disciples was not Greek or Latin or even Hebrew, but Aramaic, the language of Israel’s Babylonian captors. Aramaic, and in particular the dialect of Syriac, has continued to be spoken by many Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere down to the present time. This Semitic language became the vehicle for a vast body of early Christian literature that expressed Christian theology in singularly Semitic forms. For example, just as the Hebrew prophets expressed themselves primarily in poetry or rhythmic prose, rich with symbolism and analogy, so also early Syriac teachers composed didactic …

Between The Garden And The Gardener, Sara Lynne Lindsay

Theses and Dissertations

My work uses plant material and soil as a record of personal, cultural, and ecological history. History is not only held in the buildings and monuments, but in the soil itself. I gather this soil and foliage from both cultivated and uncultivated locations for my artwork. Using traditional domestic techniques of drying and canning, I preserve the materials that I have gathered. These will then be sewn together, cooked, and encrusted into objects. Despite my labor of preserving, these organic art supplies are transient. When made into works of art, they can be viewed in their vulnerable state, fighting against …

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

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New Book Explores Faith And Philosophy

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

The Maxwell Institute and Brigham Young University are pleased to announce the publication of a new volume by BYU philosophy professor James E. Faulconer.

Number Manipulation For Profit, Or Just For Fun?, Paul Y. Hoskisson

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

When the writer of the Gospel of Matthew listed the genealogy of Christ, he divided it into three sections, each containing 14 generations, to wit, Abraham to David, David to the Exile, and the Exile to Christ (Matthew 1:17; also 1–17). In order to do this he had to manipulate the names by leaving out several ancestors mentioned in the Old Testament. The reason Matthew thought it necessary to create this mathematical/genealogical fiction has never been explained adequately.

Wordprint Analysis And Joseph Smith’S Role As Editor Of The Times And Seasons, Paul Fields, Matthew Roper, Atul Nepal

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

One of the issues that swirls around discus- sions of Book of Mormon geography is the rightful place the editorials in the 1842 Times and Seasons must take. The story of the editorials begins with Joseph’s receipt of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chaipas, and Yucatan, published in 1841. In early 1842, the Times and Seasons published several enthu- siastic articles that drew attention to the discoveries of Stephens and Catherwood in Central America and compared them favorably with the Book of Mormon. Two of these articles were signed by the editor, while …

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

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Summer Seminar Mentors Rising Scholars

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

Ten graduate and advanced undergraduate students selected from more than half a dozen institutions participated in the Mormon Scholars Foundation summer seminar held this past May and June under the auspices of the Maxwell Institute.

Meti Volume Highlights Education, D. Morgan Davis

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

Consider this picture: A sandy courtyard some- where on the outskirts of a desert village. A group of boys—ages perhaps 8 to 16—are gathered outside the entrance to a simple, well-worn little building. They are seated or kneeling in the sand, huddled in the last vestiges of the late morning shade. Each holds a text or a tablet. Some are reading, some are looking out to where the pale sky meets a broken line of housetops and trees, reciting, in a quiet murmur to themselves, the words of the book they are holding. Some gently rock back and forth as …

Zarahemla: Revisiting The “Seed Of Compassion”, Pedro Olavarria, David E. Bokovoy

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

More than ten years ago, Stephen Ricks and John Tvedtnes presented a case for interpreting the Book of Mormon proper noun Zarahemla as a Hebraic construct meaning “seed of compassion” or “child of grace, pity, or compassion.” The authors theorized:

It may be that the Mulekite leader was given that name because his ancestor had been rescued when the other sons of King Zedekiah were slain during the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. [See Mosiah 25:2.] To subsequent Nephite generations, it may have even suggested the deliverance of their own ancestors from Jerusalem prior to its destruction or the anticipation of …

“Symbolism In Scripture” Focus Of Willes Center Conference

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

“Symbolism in Scripture” was the theme of the second biennial Laura F. Willes Center Book of Mormon Conference held recently. The conference included presentations by 13 scholars addressing such topics as “The Symbolic Use of Hand Gestures in the Book of Mormon and Other Latter-day Saint Scripture” and “Light: The Master Symbol.”

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

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Latest Farms Review Tidies Garden Of Book Of Mormon Studies

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

A trio of essays in the current issue of the Review (vol. 22, no. 1) concerns John W. Welch’s The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple, which makes a highly original and important contribution to biblical studies by revealing the “temple register” and organic unity of Jesus’s famous sermon. George L. Mitton’s introductory remarks call attention to two scholarly reviews of Welch’s study that find his thesis intriguing and plausible. A substantial excerpt from Welch’s preface to his book follows, as does a review by Gaye Strathearn that offers a helpful summary of Welch’s approach and …

“And He Was A Young Man”: The Literary Preservation Of Alma’S Autobiographical Wordplay, Matthew L. Bowen

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

Thanks to the work of Hugh Nibley, Paul Hoskisson, Terrence Szink, and others, the plausibility of Alma as a Semitic name is no longer an issue. Hoskisson has noted that “Alma” derives from the root ‘lm (< *ǵlm) with the meaning “youth” or “lad,” corroborating Nibley’s earlier suggestion that "Alma” means “young man” (cf. Hebrew ‘elem,עלם). Significantly, “Alma” occurs for the first time in the Book of Mormon text as follows: “But there was one among them whose name was Alma, he also being a descendant of Nephi. And he was a young man, and he believed the words which Abinadi had spoken” (Mosiah 17:2; emphasis in all scriptural citations is mine). This first occurrence of “Alma” is juxtaposed with a description matching the etymological meaning of the name, suggesting an underlying wordplay: Alma (‘lm’) was an ‘elem. A play on words sharing a common root is a literary technique known as polyptoton.

Neal A. Maxwell Institute Hosts Conference On Avicenna

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

There are few figures in the history of Islamic thought whose stature can rival that of Ibn Sina (980–1037), or Avicenna, as he came to be known in the Latin West. Educated at Bukhara, in modern-day Uzbekistan, Avicenna was, by his own admission, a prodigy and recognized as such early on. If there is a certain lack of modesty in his making that claim, there is no disputing that he had the credentials to back it up. He was forced by the turbulent politics of his day to move a number of times, but through it all he never stopped …

Messiah Dvd Now Available

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

The long-anticipated DVD set, Messiah: Behold the Lamb of God, is now available for purchase. For the first time ever, teachings of the restoration, sound academic views from faithful Latter-day Saint scholars, and state-of-the-art documentary production have been combined in this seven-part series on Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

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

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Work Of Maxwell Institute To Be Presented At Education Week

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

Brigham Young University Campus Education Week, slated for August 16–20, 2010, will feature a series of presentations that represent a range of the work done by the Maxwell Institute.