Category: Bible
Mary, Mother of the Lord: Thoughts for Mother’s Day
In the final week of Christ’s life, we see more of an ongoing theme in which Christ reveals to us the importance of, and His love for, the people we…
Relational Faith: An Essential Book for Understanding “Faith” as Used in New Testament Times and for Appreciating the Restoration
There’s a new book, Brent Schmidt’s Relational Faith, that may be one of the best resources around to help Latter-day Saints and perhaps many other Christians understand and explain what…
The Light of Christ and the Birth of Christ
This is the short message I gave near the end of the musical Christmas Devotional for the Appleton, Wisconsin Stake on Dec. 24, 2022 in Neenah, Wisconsin. The Light of…
Joshua Berman’s Ani Maamin: An Orthodox Jewish Scholar Provides Help in Keeping the Faith in the Face of Secular Bible Scholarship
During a recent trip to Atlanta, my wife and I connected two of our Latter-day Saint friends with dear Jewish friends there. Among the many topics of the evening, we…
A Tough Question: What’s the Single Most Impressive Evidence for the Book of Mormon?
A critic recently asked me a tough question: what’s the single most impressive piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon? I think he wasn’t looking for evidence that might change open his mind, but perhaps was looking to simplify his goal of attacking the Book of Mormon. But for those who really want to understand more, what evidence is most important and impressive? Here I offer a few thoughts and several possibilities for the “one best” issue to consider.
The “Arise from the Dust” Theme and the Unity of Isaiah
In my exploration of the “arise from the dust” theme in the Book of Mormon, published in several articles for Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day saint Faith and Scholarship (see “Arise from the Dust,” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and “Strong Like Unto Moses”) and the topic of my 2018 presentation at the FAIR Latter-day Saints Conference, I noted that passages from Isaiah 49 and Isaiah 52 play an important role in the Book of Mormon. Both involve the theme of dust….
What Day Was Christ Crucified? Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick Argues That the Book of Mormon Provides Valuable Information
An archaeologist and professor at BYU, Dr. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, published an article in that provides a great example of how the Book of Mormon can help us better understand…
About That Burial Marker in Yemen for a Man Named Ishmael: Impossible That He Was a Hebrew?
Neal Rappleye recently reported that a grave marker in Yemen bearing the name Ishmael could fit the time and place for the burial of Ishmael inn the Book of Mormon. David Bokovoy argues that this is impossible because the marker bears the image of a face, and real Jews forbade images of faces. I discuss why that is an oversimplification of ancient Jewish practices. If cherubim in the Tabernacle can have faces, I suppose a grave marker can, too, as long as no idolatry was intended.
The Words of Gad the Seer: Thoughts on a “Lost Book” Preserved by the Jews at Cochin, India
The cover of the Hebrew edition of Meir Bar-Ilan’s The Words of Gad the Seer An old Jewish manuscript said to contain writings of Gad the Seer, one of the…
News from Mount Ebal: An Ancient Hebraic Inscription on Metal, a Chiasmus, Possibly Dating to the 13th Century BC or Earlier
An ancient Hebraic text dating to the 13th to 14th century BC has been discovered by sifting through the detritus of an archaeological dig at Mount Ebal in Israel. The…
