Category: Problems
A Simple Example from the Book of Mormon Showing Why Scholarship Is Needed
Many Latter-day Saints seem unaware of the great body of scholarship that can strengthen faith and understanding for members of the Church and those exploring it. Such scholarship can be…
New Scholarship on the Influence of the Small Plates on Mormon’s Writings
One of the things that fascinates me in my role as a co-editor for the Interpreter Foundation’s journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, is seeing how…
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…
An Update, Barely, on Barley
A Dec. 23, 2019 news release from Washington University in St. Louis reports new research results about the “lost crops” of North America that could have been more productive than…
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….
Feeling Blue About the Red Sea in the Book of Mormon?
Criticism about the Book of Mormon’s references to the Red Sea came up in some recent comments, so I thought I’d share a couple of perspectives that might be helpful…
The Last Section of the Words of Mormon May Be Part of the Book of Mosiah
The Book of Mosiah begins in a puzzling way relative to the other books before it. For a book that is supposed to be connected to Mosiah, it starts with…
Joseph the Amusing Teller of Tall Tales: Lucy Mack Smith’s Puzzling Statement in Perspective
One of the pillars of disbelief for critics of the Book of Mormon is the notion that Joseph Smith was well known as an imaginative story teller. He was allegedly…
A Rookie Mistake in Forging an Ancient Document
Biblical Archaeology Review just shared an interesting story on a purportedly ancient Jewish document. As reported in October 2016, a papyrus mentioning the city of “Jerusalem,” “the king,” and “jars…
In Defense of Dr. John E. Clark’s “Ludicrous” Assessment of Early Criticism of the Book of Mormon
Dr. John E. Clark’s presentation on archaeology and the Book of Mormon, the subject of a recent post here, has been taken to task by one of our critics for…
