Photo by Natalia Y. on Unsplash Dear Friends: We’re coming to the end of 2024. Accordingly, on behalf of The Interpreter Foundation, I want to look back at some of the year’s highlights and forward to one or two of the things that we anticipate for 2025. Please think...
read moreUnpublished typescript of Mormon Doctrine class lecture given at University of Utah Institute, 23 October 1967 Moroni brought the Book of Mormon; John the Baptist brought the Aaronic Priesthood; Peter, James, and John brought three things: number one, they brought the...
read moreIntroduction ⎜ Part 2 ⎜ Part 3 | Part 4 ⎜ Part 5 ⎜ Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 See the Introductory blog (#1) for explanation about this series on hearing the voice of the Lord in the mind. The below...
read moreLetter to his son Spencer Levan Kimball [Note: Levan was beginning to distance himself from the Church at the time and eventually became atheist. His father was deeply concerned and used this missive as a means of trying to fortify him in the faith. Slight editing has...
read moreIntroduction ⎜ Part 2 ⎜ Part 3 | Part 4 ⎜ Part 5 ⎜ Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 See the Introductory blog (#1) for explanation about this series on hearing the voice of the Lord in the mind. The below...
read more[Editorial Note: The Church Archives has just recently scanned and posted a letter written in 1947 by Elder Spencer W. Kimball, by then an apostle for only a few years. The letter is largely doctrinal in nature, being answers to questions posed by his missionary son...
read moreAs we begin the 2024 curriculum for “Come, Follow Me,” which is focused on the Book of Mormon, it’s appropriate to consider, once more, the testimonies of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They represent the only “secular” evidence, the only evidence in addition to...
read morePearls . . . gems . . . nuggets . . . whatever you want to call them. Probably 98% of President Kimball’s diary (thousands of pages) is tedious in the general sense of being notations about meeting itinerary, travelogue, mission tours, ordination names, and...
read moreElder Kimball’s Apostolic calling had several main components: the “long-distance” telephone call from Pres. J. Reuben Clark Jr.; the mountain-top experience in which Elder Kimball received, after much mental anguish, spiritual confirmation and...
read moreStories of the Saints in the DR Congo: “Why I Believe” Live/virtual fireside, Boise Idaho Mission, 13 February 2022 In this presentation, an update of a presentation made a few years ago at a FAIR conference, I share six stories about loving, courageous, and faithful...
read more[Editorial Note: This post is only meant to be what its title says it is. It is not an historical treatise on related teachings from various past or present church leaders, or an attempt to compare or contrast them. A few other leaders’ thinking on the subject...
read moreThe Promise and Peril of Generative AI Recent advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI)—digital technology that mimics human cognition—hold the potential to address some of society’s most pressing challenges. From diagnosing disease with...
read moreOn 18 October 2024, Daniel Peterson interviewed Ben Spackman, a Latter-day Saint historian of religion, science, and biblical interpretation, on the topic of Latter-day Saint views of evolution, and Dr. Samuel T. Wilkinson, an active Latter-day Saint who currently...
read moreNOTE: This is a pre-print of a chapter that will appear in The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, Proceedings of the Seventh Interpreter Foundation Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference. As such, we have not made it available for downloading or printing....
read moreGood morning! I’m pleased to share with you something that we have been working on at The Interpreter Foundation for quite some time. We are in the middle of a multimonth effort to rebrand the Foundation, and you’ll start to see the fruits of those efforts...
read moreI have heard people say that the Book of Mormon does not contain the fulness of the Gospel because the only references to the higher temple ordinances are short and superficial. However, a careful examination of the writings of Nephi and Lehi, including the well-known...
read moreAnew book, Brent Schmidt’s Relational Faith, may be one of the best resources around to help Latter-day Saints and perhaps many other Christians understand and explain what the Bible means when it talks about faith in Christ. Not only does this book help us cut...
read more[Editorial note: most of the below comes from either official minutes or diary narrations of formal Council meetings in the Temple. Follow links to read all of the entries. A church email account is needed to access the diary.] Journal, March 5, 1953 Thursday,...
read moreOn Saturday evening, 12 November 2022, Royal Skousen delivered a talk at Utah Valley University under the title of “Textual Criticism and the Book of Mormon”—a subject to which he has devoted meticulous scholarly attention extending over the past several decades. In...
read moreOn August 13 2002, Elder Neal A Maxwell delivered an address at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Church Educational System Religious Educators Conference at Brigham Young University. Through the good offices of Jeff Bradshaw, we have obtained and posted on YouTube the...
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