Printed Journal Welcome to Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, the peer-reviewed journal of The Interpreter Foundation, a nonprofit, independent, educational organization focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Non-print versions of our journal are available free of charge, with our goal to increase understanding of scripture. Our latest papers can be found below.

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Abraham and His Family

In Scripture, History, and Tradition

Saturday, May 3, 2025
Saturday, May 10, 2025

Sponsored by
The Interpreter Foundation,
Brigham Young University Religious Education,
Scripture Central, and FAIR

For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2025-abraham-and-his-family-conference/


Joseph Smith: A Life Lived in Crescendo

Edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Available Now

This two-volume set (1100 pages total) seeks to enrich study of the life and teachings of Joseph Smith through essays by knowledgeable and faithful scholars on selected punctuation marks of Joseph Smith’s final years in Nauvoo. While some of Joseph Smith’s contemporaries saw these events and doctrinal developments as evidence that he was a fallen prophet, modern Latter-day Saints, looking back, see them as a glorious culmination to a faithful life.

Go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ for more information

Additional Janus Parallels in the Book of Mormon

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 47 (2021): 81-90
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Abstract: A little more than 40 years ago, Cyrus Gordon discovered and described for the first time an ancient literary technique which he had found in the Hebrew Bible, and he gave it a name — a Janus parallel. That is why no one, more than 40 years ago, could have faked a Hebrew Janus parallel in an English translation of an ancient document. But, as I reasoned, if Janus parallels were a Hebrew literary device at the time Lehi left Jerusalem (for an analog see chiasmus), then such parallels probably can be found in the Book of Mormon. In this article I describe the technical methodology for discovering Janus parallels in an English translation, and I provide two new examples.

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Vox Populi and Vox Dei:
Allusive Explorations of Biblical and Book of Mormon Politeias

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 47 (2021): 1-80
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A review of David Charles Gore, The Voice of the People: Political Rhetoric in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2019). 229 pp. $15.95 (paperback).

Abstract: David Gore’s book The Voice of the People: Political Rhetoric in the Book of Mormon is a welcome reading of Book of Mormon passages which engage in conversation with the biblical politeia — those parts of the Hebrew Bible that explore the constituent parts of the Israelite governance under judges and kings. Gore asserts that the Book of Mormon politeia in Mosiah is in allusive dialogue not just with the Bible but also the Jaredite experience of kingship in Ether. This allusive (intertextual) feature is present not just in the Book of Mormon but any text (Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and other writings) in the biblical tradition. The textual connection is conveyed when the biblical Noah is a type and King Noah the anti-type. The same is true of the biblical Gideon, who is a narrative bridge between the period of the judges and the transformation to monarchy; the Book of Mormon Gideon serves a similar typological function, bridging the reign of kings to the period of judges. Our modern notions of federalism and democracy owe much to the biblical legacy of covenant and republicanism, and although the Book of Mormon political structures share some features with modern federalism, the roots of both go deep into the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Mormon politeia, also a branch of that biblical political legacy, requires that readers understand that filiation, and demands awareness of the dialogue between the Book of Mormon and the Bible on the subject, so such reading can enrich our understanding of both Hebraic scriptures.

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Better Kingdom-Building
through Triage

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): vii-xiv
Reply

Abstract: We are called to take the Gospel to the entire world, but our numbers are few and our time and resources are limited. This is where cold calculation can help. A field-surgical technique pioneered during the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century and refined in the butchery of World War I a century later offers a useful model for making our missionary efforts more efficient and more effective.

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Mormon, Moses, and the Representation of Reality

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 291-312
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Abstract: In this essay, Richard Bushman borrows a critical perspective from Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. He analyzes the representation of antiquity in two of Joseph Smith’s striking translations, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses. The two texts, produced within a few years of one another, created distinctive stages on which to dramatize the human-God relationship. The question is: What can we learn from this comparison about God, prophets, and human destiny?

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Joseph Smith as a Book of Mormon Storyteller

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 253-290
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Abstract: For nearly 200 years, skeptics have promoted different naturalistic explanations to describe how Joseph Smith generated all the words of the Book of Mormon. The more popular theories include plagiarism (e.g. of the Solomon Spaulding manuscript), collaboration (with Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, etc.), mental illness (bipolar, dissociative, or narcissistic personality disorders) and automatic writing, also called “spirit writing, “trance writing,” or “channeling.” A fifth and currently the most popular theory posits that Joseph Smith possessed all the intellectual abilities needed to complete the task. A variation on this last explanation proposes that he used the methods of professional storytellers. For millennia, bards and minstrels have entertained their audiences with tales that extended over many hours and over several days. This article explores their techniques to assess whether Joseph Smith might have adopted such methodologies during the three-month dictation of the Book of Mormon. Through extensive fieldwork and research, the secrets of the Serbo-Croatian storytellers’ abilities to dictate polished stories in real time have been identified. Their technique, also found with modification among bards throughout the world, involves the memorization of formulaic language organized into formula systems in order to minimize the number of mental choices the tale-teller must make while wordsmithing each phrase. These formulas are evident in the meter, syntax, or lexical combinations employed in the storyteller’s sentences. Professional bards train for many years to learn the patterns and commit them to memory. When compared to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, the historical record fails to support that he had trained in the use of formula systems prior to 1829 or that his dictation employed a rhythmic delivery of the phrases. Neither are formula patterns detected in the printed 1830 Book of Mormon. Apparently, Smith did not adopt this traditional storyteller’s methodology to dictate the Book of Mormon.

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Alma’s Reality: Reading Alma as Sinful, Repentant, Traumatized, Questioning, and Righteous

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 249-252
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Review of Kylie Nielson Turley, Alma 1–29: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020). 162 pages. $9.95 (paperback).

Abstract: Kylie Nielson Turley delves deep into the conversion and ministry of Alma the Younger, reading new life into a well-known narrative. By analyzing Alma’s story with the full weight of his humanity in mind, she breathes emotion into Alma’s conversion and missionary efforts. Her efforts to read Alma without a veneer of superhumanity result in a highly relatable figure who has known wickedness, repentance, loss, depression, and righteousness.

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Axes Mundi:
Ritual Complexes in Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 233-248
Reply

Abstract: An axis mundi refers to a sacred place that connects heaven and earth and is believed to be the center of the world. These places are sanctified through ritual consecration or through a divine manifestation that results in qualitatively detaching that space from the surrounding cosmos. Often expressed in architecture as a universal pillar, these axes mundi incorporate and put in communication three cosmic levels — earth, heaven, and the underworld. As Mark Alan Wright notes, Mesoamerican sacred architecture was designed according to cosmological principles and finds a modern analogy in Latter-day Saint temples. Also, among Mesoamerican civilizations and in the Book of Mormon, the temple, the axis mundi, served as a place where worshipers go to engage in sacred rituals that bridge the divide between heaven and earth and allow the worshiper entry into the divine presence.

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The Practice and Meaning of Declaring Lineage in Patriarchal Blessings

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 209-232
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Abstract: In this paper, I show that declarations of lineage in patriarchal blessings have, since the earliest days of the Restoration, evolved in terms of frequency of inclusion, which tribal lineages predominate, and understanding of the meaning of the declaration. I argue for a non- literal understanding consistent with scripture and science, but posit that these declarations have deep and important significance in connection with the gathering of Israel.

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The Origin and Purpose of the Book of Mormon Phrase
“If Ye Keep My Commandments Ye Shall Prosper in the Land”

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 201-208
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Abstract: We are told in the Title Page of the Book of Mormon that the Book of Mormon was revealed in our day “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever.” Hence, the covenantal context, structure, and logic of the Book of Mormon demand further consideration, exploration, and elucidation. A prosperous starting point is the phrase “If ye keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land.” This covenantal phrase is used throughout the Book of Mormon as a summary of the theological logic of the suzerain-vassal treaty covenant type in which God sought to secure the fidelity of his people, who would receive in exchange continued prosperity in His appointed promised lands.

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Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement

and
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 157-200
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Abstract: The authors begin by highlighting the importance of Book of Moses research that has discovered plausible findings for its historicity, rendering it at least reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to sacred premises — even if, ultimately, the choice of premises is just that, a choice. Emphasizing the relevance of the Book of Moses to the temple, they note that the Book of Moses is not only an ancient temple text, but also the ideal scriptural context for a modern temple preparation course. Going further, the authors address an important question raised by some who have asked: “Since Christ is at the center of the gospel, why doesn’t the temple endowment teach the story of the life of Christ? What’s all this about Adam and Eve?” The answer given in detail in the paper is as follows: “The story of the life of Christ is the story of giving the Atonement. And the story of Adam and Eve is the story of receiving the Atonement. Their story is our story, too.”

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The Goodness of God and His Children as a Fundamental Theological Concept in the Book of Mormon

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 131-156
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Abstract: The phrase goodness of God does occur occasionally in the Hebrew Bible but has not been considered by Old Testament scholars to be an independent principle in Israelite theology. Rather, it has been interpreted as just another way of talking about God’s acts of hesed, or loving kindness for his covenant people and is usually interpreted in the context of the covenants Israel received through Abraham and Moses. The Book of Mormon clearly echoes that Old Testament pattern but also presents two additional conceptual frameworks that are explained in terms of the goodness of God. It advances an explicit divine plan of redemption or salvation that existed before Abraham — even before the creation of the earth — which had as its purpose making eternal life possible for God’s human children universally — not just the descendants of Abraham. And it also teaches the gospel or doctrine of Christ that provides the path individuals must walk to take full advantage of that plan — as they become good like God and qualify to enter his presence and receive eternal life. Nephite usage radically expands the Old Testament concept by portraying this mortal probation as each person’s God-given opportunity to become good like God. The goodness of God is frequently invoked by the Nephite prophets as a basic theological concept which can explain why God advanced his plan of salvation for men before the world was and why he is completely reliable in blessing and protecting those who have entered the covenant path by embracing his gospel and striving to endure to the end. The Nephites also used the phrase in the Old Testament pattern to explain the acts of God in delivering, blessing, and preserving his covenant people. Furthermore, some usages seem to invoke all three of these contexts simultaneously, demonstrating the comfortable integration of each of these perspectives in Nephite theological understanding.

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Glad Tidings from Cumorah:
Interpreting the Book of Mormon through the Eyes of Someone in Hell

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 101-130
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Abstract: This article offers evidence that at least some Book of Mormon authors may have understood the potential for post-mortal preaching of the gospel. Indeed, they may have recognized that the future Book of Mormon would be a tool to spread the gospel not only among the living but also among those in the spirit world. Prophecies about the message of the Book of Mormon and the restored gospel being for all mankind may have broader scope than previously recognized, with application on both sides of the veil.

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Early Christian Temples and Baptism for the Dead: Defining Sacred Space in the Late Antique Near East

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 77-100
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Abstract: This paper addresses the early Christian transition from temple-based Judaism to the Constantinian basilica of the fourth century. David argues that some Christians of the second and early third centuries may have had places of worship that, while not monumental in scale, qualify typologically as temples and were understood as such. These sacred structures may have been used for the performance of baptisms for the dead, as suggested by Doctrine and Covenants 124. In support of this thesis, he takes as case studies the Christian places of worship at ancient Edessa and Dura Europos, based on a combination of textual sources and archaeological remains. David then briefly applies these findings to a question posed years ago in studies by Hugh Nibley and John Lundquist, “What Is a Temple?”

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“If Ye Believe on His Name”:
Wordplay on the Name Samuel in Helaman 14:2, 12–13 and 3 Nephi 23:9 and the Doctrine of Christ in Samuel’s Speech

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 49-76
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Abstract: The Semitic/Hebrew name Samuel (šĕmûʾēl) most likely means “his name is El” — i.e., “his name [the name that he calls upon in worship] is El” — although it was also associated with “hearing” (šāmaʿ) God (e.g., 1 Samuel 3:9–11). In the ancient Near East, the parental hope for one thus named is that the son (and “his name”) would glorify El (a name later understood in ancient Israel to refer to God); or, like the biblical prophet Samuel, the child would hear El/God (“El is heard”). The name šĕmûʾēl thus constituted an appropriate symbol of the mission of the Son of God who “glorified the name of the Father” (Ether 12:8), was perfectly obedient to the Father in all things, and was the Prophet like Moses par excellence, whom Israel was to “hear” or “hearken” in all things (Deuteronomy 18:15; 1 Nephi 22:20; 3 Nephi 20:32). Jesus may have referred to this in a wordplay on the name Samuel when he said: “I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead” (3 Nephi 23:9). Samuel the Lamanite had particularly emphasized “believ[ing] on the name” of God’s Son in the second part of his speech (see Helaman 14:2, 12–13) in advance of the latter’s coming. Samuel thus seems to use a recurrent or thematic rhetorical wordplay on his own name as an entry point to calling the Nephites to repent and return to living the doctrine of Christ, which activates the blessings of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Mormon took great care to show that all of the signs and prophecies that Samuel gave the Nephites of Zarahemla were fulfilled at the time of Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection as Jesus glorified the Father’s name in [Page 50]every particular, and found further fulfillment in some particulars during Mormon’s own life and times.

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Ancient Temple Imagery
in the Sermons of Jacob

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 31-46
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Abstract: This essay makes a compelling argument for Jacob, the brother of Nephi, having deep knowledge of ancient Israelite temple ritual, concepts, and imagery, based on two of Jacob’s sermons in 2 Nephi 9 and Jacob 1-3. For instance, he discusses the duty of the priest to expiate sin and make atonement before the Lord and of entering God’s presence. Jacob quotes temple-related verses from the Old Testament, like Psalm 95. The allusions to the temple are not forced, but very subtle. Of course, Jacob’s central topic, the atonement, is a temple topic itself, and its opposite, impurity, is also expressed by Jacob in terms familiar and central to an ancient temple priest. The temple is also shown as a gate to heaven.

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The Implications of Some Standard Assumptions of New Testament Scholars:
Responding to a Modern Anti-Christ

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 15-32
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Review of Raphael Lataster, Questioning the Historicity of Jesus: Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2019). 508 pages. Hardback, $210.

Abstract: In a recent book, Raphael Lataster correctly argues that the acceptance of the general premises of New Testament scholarship, exemplified in the writings of Bart Ehrman, brings into question whether Jesus ever existed. Latter-day Saints who are serious about their witness of Jesus Christ need to be aware that acceptance of these presuppositions undermines their witness of the reality of Jesus Christ and his atonement and makes their faith vain.

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Nephi’s Gethsemane:
Seventeen Comparisons from the Literary Record

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 46 (2021): 1-14
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Abstract: This note explores a literary comparison between Nephi’s confronting of Laban and shrinking from the act of shedding blood, to Jesus’s experience in the Garden of Gethsemane of shrinking from the act of shedding blood. Comparing these two stories suggests that we can profitably read Nephi’s experience with Laban as Nephi’s personal Gethsemane.

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De Profundis

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 45 (2021): vii-xvi
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Abstract: Is the Gospel profound? Yes, it is. And one of the goals of the Interpreter Foundation is to call attention to that sometimes-overlooked profundity. In one sense, though, the question is a peripheral one. If we were drowning — which, figuratively and from the vantage point of eternity, we absolutely are — we wouldn’t complain at a life preserver thrown to us if it were chipped, poorly painted, or unattractive, let alone if it were defective as a work of great art. We would simply be grateful to be saved. In another sense, the Gospel is clearly profound because it answers the deepest and most basic of human questions.

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Psalm 105:
Chiasmus, Credo, Covenant, and Temple

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 45 (2021): 371-384
Reply

Abstract: In this essay Stephen Ricks takes a close look at the literary structure of a psalm, reintroducing us to chiasmus both in modern and ancient texts, including the Book of Mormon, then uses this literary structure to show how the psalm contains the basic historic credo of the Israelites, as seen in Deuteronomy and mirrored in 1 Nephi 17. Ricks then goes on to show how an essential part of the psalm is a covenant (“a binding agreement between man and God, with sanctions in the event of the violation of the agreement”), which ties it back to the temple. Ricks shows this by pointing out the points of covenant: Preamble, review of God’s relations with Israel, terms of the covenant, formal witnesses, blessings and curses, and reciting the covenant and depositing the text. This form is maintained in Exodus 19, 20, 23, and 24, and in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 1-6. Psalm 105 follows this form, too. In the sacrament prayers, which in Mormon understanding is a covenant, points 1 to 5 are also present.

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Understanding the Year 1820

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 45 (2021): 369-370
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Book Note: Richard E. Bennett, 1820: Dawning of the Restoration (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University / Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2020). 380 pages. Hardcover, $31.99.

Abstract: Richard E. Bennett’s 1820: Dawning of the Restoration takes a look at this significant year in a global historical context. He has produced a fascinating book for both members of the Church and non-members.

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