Category: Origins
Video of My Presentation with Noel Reynolds, “’Strong Like Unto Moses’: The Case for Ancient Roots in the Book of Moses”
On Sept. 18 and 19, 2020 in Provo, Utah, the Interpreter Foundation sponsored a virtual conference, “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses.” Dr. Noel Reynolds and I collaborated…
Turning Gems into Dirt: The Case for Adam Clarke as a Source for the “Inspired Translation” of the Bible
John Dehlin with his podcasts and videos criticizing the Church has recently stirred up a lot of interest in the “amazing” and “historic” case of “plagiarism” against Joseph Smith based…
Plagiarism Made Harder, or, The Book of Ether and the Genius of Joseph’s Plagiarism
Students of the Book of Mormon have long noted that the brief book of Ether is quite different in its content and style than the rest of the Book of…
The Willard Richards Book of Abraham Manuscript 2: Live Dictation of Abraham 3 in 1842, or Copying Existing Text?
In an important publication from the Joseph Smith Papers Project, The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts, eds. Robin Scott Jensen and…
Some Sources for the Kirtland Egyptian Paper’s Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, Part Two
In Part 1 of this topic posted earlier this week, I reviewed several pages of entries in the first part of the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, one…
Some Sources for the Kirtland Egyptian Paper’s Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, Part One
One of the vital issues in Book of Abraham debates is the role of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, including the large and mysterious work, the Grammar and Alphabet of the…
A Breakthrough in Understanding the Book of Mormon: Don Bradley’s Brilliant Sleuthing on the Lost 116 Pages (or Lost 400 Pages!)
Don Bradley’s new book, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories (Draper, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), is something I’ve been looking forward to for many…
Points to Consider in the Concoted “Egyptian” Characters in the KEP
Update, Dec. 24 and 26, 2019: The statement describing the papyri originally occurs in a letter signed by Oliver Cowdery, so it is his, not Joseph’s description. Perhaps because it…
More on the Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers: Recent Explorations Based on Comments at Interpreter
One of the best things about finally having a reply from the Joseph Smith Papers Project on the issue of alleged flaws in scholarship in their volume on the Book…
Romancing the Rio Wreck: Evidence for Ancient Transoceanic Contact in the Americas vs. a Romantic Notion of Peer Review
As a Ph.D. linguist providing his peer-review of Brian Stubbs’ work on linguistic evidence of ancient Old World contact with the Americas as evidence by the Uto-Aztecan language family, Dr….
