Maxwell Institute Podcast

Hello, and thanks for listening to another episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Joseph Spencer, a Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU.In this episode, they discuss the text of the book of Enos, Jarom, Omni, and Words of Mormon, giving them context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

Hello, and thanks for listening to another episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Kristian Heal, a Neal A. Maxwell Senior Research Fellow, and former co-host of the Abide podcast.In this episode, they discuss the scholarship surrounding the book of Jacob, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

While our editing team is working on the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, we decided to re-release an episode from The Questions We Should Be Asking featuring Kimberly Matheson. We hope you enjoy it. If you can take the time to write us a positive review wherever you're listening to this, we would love to hear your feedback.

On this episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast interviews Jeffrey Cannon, a Laura F. Willes Research Associate and BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture. Jeff is currently teaching The Book of Mormon part 2 and Foundations of the Restoration.They delve into the book of Jacob, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

Welcome to another episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Timothy Farrant, a postdoctoral fellow at the Maxwell Institute.In this episode, they discuss the scholarship surrounding the book of 2 Nephi, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

Welcome to the third episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Joshua Sears, a professor of ancient scripture at BYU.In this episode, they discuss the text of Book of 2 Nephi, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

Part 2 of the 1 Nephi episode with Jasmin Rappleye.Welcome to the second episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Jasmin Rappleye Gimenez, the Communications Director of Scripture Central.In this episode, they discuss the scholarship surrounding the Book of 1 Nephi, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.References:Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8. Eds. Benjamin Keogh, Joseph M. Spencer, and Jennifer Champoux. Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2023. Available at https://a.co/d/7o8VLDr (https://a.co/d/7o8VLDr) Spencer, Joseph. 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction. Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2020. Available at https://a.co/d/8hdesoi (https://a.co/d/8hdesoi) Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem. Eds. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and JoAnn H. Seely. Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2004. Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/glimpses-lehi%E2%80%99s-jerusalem (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/glimpses-lehi%E2%80%99s-jerusalem) Reynolds, Noel B. “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates.” BYU Studies Quarterly27:4 (1987). Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/node/128 (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/node/128) Hardy, Grant. Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2010. Bradley, Don. The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories. United States, Greg Kofford Books, 2019. Welch, John W. “Legal Perspectives on the Slaying of Laban.” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1:1 (1992). Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/legal-perspectives-slaying-laban (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/legal-perspectives-slaying-laban)

Welcome to the second episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast talks with Jasmin Rappleye Gimenez, the Communications Director of Scripture Central.In this episode, they discuss the scholarship surrounding the Book of 1 Nephi, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.References:Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8. Eds. Benjamin Keogh, Joseph M. Spencer, and Jennifer Champoux. Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2023. Available at https://a.co/d/7o8VLDr (https://a.co/d/7o8VLDr) Spencer, Joseph. 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction. Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2020. Available at https://a.co/d/8hdesoi (https://a.co/d/8hdesoi) Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem. Eds. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and JoAnn H. Seely. Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University, 2004. Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/glimpses-lehi%E2%80%99s-jerusalem (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/glimpses-lehi%E2%80%99s-jerusalem) Reynolds, Noel B. “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates.” BYU Studies Quarterly27:4 (1987). Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/node/128 (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/node/128) Hardy, Grant. Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2010. Bradley, Don. The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories. United States, Greg Kofford Books, 2019. Welch, John W. “Legal Perspectives on the Slaying of Laban.” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1:1 (1992). Available at https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/legal-perspectives-slaying-laban (https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/legal-perspectives-slaying-laban)

In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable […]

Sections 116-120 reveal a Church and prophet trying desperately to make the best of a bad situation. By the date of the last revelation a third of the Quorum of the Twelve would apostatize. The Lord directed that the Church move its headquarters from Ohio to Missouri. The Latter-day Saints changed their main county of […]

I’m talking today with Professor Michalyn Steele, a member of the faculty at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, about Bryan Stevenson and his best-selling book Just Mercy. Stevenson has spent his career assisting people in some of the worst circumstances I can imagine: those on death row or facing a life sentence. He’s also a Christian, and his faith in Jesus and love of the Bible are on full display in his book. Professor Steele helped me see what Stevenson’s work with imprisoned people can teach all of us about mercy and justice. This is something she knows firsthand from her own experience ministering to incarcerated women in her community. As she says, “we're in a web of hurt and brokenness, but we're also together in a web of healing and mercy.” Too often, though, we look away from that web and choose not to see our brothers and sisters in their lowest moments. Or we simply don’t know how to make the connections we want to make. How to “get proximate”, as Stevenson puts it, is a question we should be asking--and it’s the topic of our conversation today. I hope you enjoy it.

On this episode of the podcast, I interview Dr. Brigham Frandsen, professor of economics at Brigham Young University. Brigham happens to be my little brother, but I’ve looked up to him almost my whole life for his intelligence and his goodness. I invited Brigham on the show because I was curious about what disciple-scholarship looks like in quantitative or technical disciplines. Most of my guests this season have been scholars of the humanities--history, philosophy, literature--things like that. It’s not hard to draw connections between those fields and the faith that we share. But are the methods and findings of economics, engineering, and mathematics equally relevant to the gospel? I think Dr. Frandsen shows convincingly that they are. Brigham shared with me an economics paper looking at the effects of certain policies aimed at rehabilitating ex-offenders by making it easier to get jobs after they’ve served their time. But those policies turn out to have unintended consequences that may harm employment opportunities for certain groups with clean records. So how do we protect the innocent, while helping those who want to turn their lives around? It turns out that this is a question with profound implications for lived Christian discipleship, and with immediate application in religious settings like a Latter-day Saint ward.

Welcome to the first episode of the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, where Rosalynde Welch, Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute and Host of the podcast interviews Kimberly Matheson, a Laura F. Willes Research Fellow at the Maxwell Institute.In this episode, they discuss the book of 1 Nephi, giving it context for readers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum for 2024.

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, host of the Maxwell Institute Podcast announces a new show–the Book of Mormon Studies Podcast, which will be hosted in this feed. 2 episodes will be posted each month, one exploring the assigned text from Come, Follow Me, and the other exploring the most important books or articles relating to it.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Dr. Mary Eyring, associate professor of English at Brigham Young University. Dr. Eyring studies early American literature, and her research has immersed her in the physical and spiritual suffering of ordinary women and men who, like the man Elder Eyring spoke of, reached their breaking point but had to go on. In our conversation, we turn to the work of theologian Sarah Bachelard, author of a short book titled Experiencing God in a Time of Crisis. We talked about how to move forward when a crisis, whether sudden or slow-motion, causes spiritual collapse, and how the pattern of the atonement can give us something to hold on to. Mary taught me a better question for a time of crisis. As natural as it is to ask “How could this happen?”, a better question might be: “How is God grieving in this situation?” Grieving as God grieves, not as our anxious and frightened human minds want to, can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death into a larger and truer life.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Dr. Christopher Oscarson, a scholar of environmental humanities and an associate dean of undergraduate education at BYU. Christopher, or Chip as he’s known, recently delivered an address entitled “Let Your Education Change You,” and I wanted to talk with him about another important speech he cited in his talk, President Spencer W. Kimball’s landmark address “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.” Dr. Oscarson challenged me to ask not how learning can help me get ahead, but how it can refine my character. We talk about the challenges of faith-based higher education, whether real learning can happen outside the classroom, and why President Kimball worried about “invading ideologies.” I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Life’s resistance is the topic of my guest Melissa Inouye’s new book, Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance. Dr. Inouye works in the Church History Department, where she specializes in global Christianity and the global Latter-day Saint tradition. Her new book draws on both her professional expertise and her personal experience to think about why and how and what to do when life is just … hard. The book is divided into three sections: struggles that result from human bodies and agency, the sacredness of our fellow creatures, and the imperative to build Zion. In each case, Melissa shows how sources of resistance can transform us into beings more like our Heavenly Parents--wiser, more loving, and more aware of the entire human family. At the same time, she manages never to romanticize or minimize suffering. She’s honest about anguish, but she’s tenacious in clinging to our vision of Zion. One of the things I enjoyed most about this book is Dr. Inouye’s love of the scriptures. She turns often to scripture for truth and encouragement, and she has a way of finding new meaning in familiar words. I decided to organize our conversation around a few of the most interesting scripture discussions in the book, and I think you’ll be surprised and enlightened at what she’s found.

On this episode of the Maxwell Institute podcast, I talk with Rachael Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at the Maxwell Institute, and a brilliant young scholar of early modern intellectual history. Dr. Johnson studies Christian theologies of embodiment -- the spiritual and religious significance of Christ’s body, and of our own bodies made in his image.Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught powerfully that “We simply must understand the revealed, restored Latter-day Saint doctrine of the soul, and the high and inextricable part the body plays in that doctrine.” Our bodies are the ever-present condition of our experience, so it’s easy to tune them out and ignore--or resent--their role in our spiritual life. But Dr. Johnson gave me a whole new understanding of how our bodies can connect and empower us in light of the teachings of the Restoration and the gospel of Christ. ReferencesCaroline Walker Bynum. "Why all the fuss about the body? A medievalist's perspective." Critical inquiry 22.1 (1995): 1-33.Jeffrey R. Holland. “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments.” https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/souls-symbols-sacraments/ (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/souls-symbols-sacraments/)BYU Mission Statement (https://aims.byu.edu/byu-mission-statement#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20Brigham%20Young,for%20perfection%20and%20eternal%20life.)MI Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@byumaxwell) and Publications (https://mi.byu.edu/publications) Page

Finding Christ in the Covenant Path offers a fresh but faithful focus on the journey of covenants and discipleship through the double lens of ancient words and medieval images. The first part of the book helps us see Christ’s identity as our Redeemer by exploring the ancient words that connect covenants, redemption, worship, the presence […]

The post Abide: Malachi appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. […]

One of the most interesting days of my life took place a few years ago when I co-conducted a tour of the Jordan River Temple in Utah for non-Latter-day Saint specialists in American religion. As we walked from room to room, my co-tour guide, my second mission president, did his best to anticipate questions that […]

In Adam S. Miller’s lecture, “The Necessity of God: First person, Present Tense, Imperative Mood” Miller talks about Tim Farnsworth, a man who cannot stop walking from the fictional book The Unnamed. Miller said that everyone has different crosses to bear, and although we cannot change them, like Farnsworth cannot stop walking, we have to learn […]

The Book of Mormon Art Catalog seeks to provide unprecedented access to visual imagery inspired by the Book of Mormon through a comprehensive, open access, and searchable digital database. In this role, the Book of Mormon Art Catalog supports research and education, aids scholarly and artistic work, promotes a greater knowledge of artists worldwide, provides […]

The post Abide: Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

One of my favorite sermons in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a sermon delivered by President Hugh B. Brown at BYU. It’s entitled God is the Gardner; I’m confident that many of you have heard this before. But I love the part at the end where, when dealing […]

The post Abide: Amos and Obadiah appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Throughout the scriptures, the Lord and His prophets teach of covenants, the ability for us to bind ourselves to God through the power of the priesthood. Sometimes, though, we forget that we are also in covenant relationship to those we hold most dear. Indeed, that not only are we covenentally bound to our family members, […]

Andrew Jenson undertook a lifelong quest to render the LDS historical record complete and comprehensive. As Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jenson tirelessly carried out his office’s archival mission and advocated for fixed record keeping to become a duty for Latter-day Saints. Reid L. Neilson and Scott D. […]

The post Abide: Daniel 1-6 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

We are blessed to live in a time of prophets. I define this in two ways. The first is that we are fortunate to live in a time where the priesthood has been restored and that the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speaks for the Lord under priesthood authority. The […]

Latter-day Saints recognize the Book of Mormon as the “keystone of our religion,” a book that will bring a person closer to Christ than by any other book. How do non-Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon, though, especially in their academic work? To answer that question, we’ll speak to Dr. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, Research […]

In last week’s episode, we discussed how Jeremiah introduces ideas about seemingly disparate events, including the apocalyptic here-and-now and the hope of a better future for all of humankind. As we continue into our second episode on Jeremiah, we take a turn to earthy practicalities. How do we commit ourselves to God’s work? How do […]

The post Abide: Jeremiah Part I appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In June 2022, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and the David O. McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding hosted a conference based upon Patrick Mason’s and David Pulsipher’s new book Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict.  Participants–scholars and non-scholars alike–reflected together on the interpersonal, ethical, and social dimensions of Christian discipleship and the […]

Today we are joined by Dr. Joseph Spencer, a philosopher, theologian and Assistant Professor of Ancient Scripture here at Brigham Young University. Dr. Spencer is the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and a leading scholar of the Book of Mormon. He is a prolific author, and among his recent works are […]

Listen to Pastor Derwin Gray and Vicki Gray speak on Derwin’s new book, Healing Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation!Link to book: Amazon

Jesus promises in the Gospel of John that he will not leave us comfortless, but that He will come to us. He promises in Matthew that he will give us rest when we are weary and heavy-laden. In my experience, though, that isn’t at the first instance of pain, whether it’s physical, mental, spiritual, or […]

Richard Bushman once told me that “panic precedes revelation.” Dr. Bushman was discussing the process by which Joseph Smith received the First Vision (recall the line from the Pearl of Great Price that “at that moment of great alarm” that the Father and Son appeared to the boy prophet). While reading, Isaiah, though, I think […]

Isaiah. Latter-day Saints have a special relationship to this Old Testament prophet. Not only do we recognize prophets across all dispensations, but his words were carried by Lehi’s family to the Americas. How do we think about Isaiah? What should we know about the construction of the book of Isaiah? We discuss this, and much […]

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs can fall by the wayside when we study them in Sunday School. They don’t always fit into the narratives that we understand about dispensations of authority or give us sustained treatises in the way that a theologian might consider during personal scripture study. However, in preparing for this […]

Kate Holbrook, PhD (1972–2022) was a leading voice in the study of Latter-day Saintwomen and Latter-day Saint foodways. As managing historian of women’s history atthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints history department, she wrote, studied,and interpreted history full-time. Her major research interests were religion, gender,and food. Her primary professional activity was to discover, […]

A book has many lives. It’s thought, it’s edited, it’s printed, it’s reprinted, it’s commentated on, and this repeats, if the book merits it, ad infinitum. This is certainly true for the Bible as a whole, but, I suggest, for the Psalms in particular. How do we think about Psalms as an ancient text conveyed […]

In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable […]

One of the first things I tell my students, and that I repeat throughout a semester, is that texts do not interpret themselves. Every time a person reads scripture they see it with new eyes and with shifting perspectives. The words on the page may be the same, though, of course, with the Bible, those […]

Psalms! There’s over 150 of them marked in the book by the same name in the Old Testament. How can we read them? Are they more useful as a narrative thread, or as a spice to season our spiritual diet? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

Job, as a literary and biblical figure, gives us a lot to think about. He goes from riches to rags to riches again. He loses his family but begins another. He’s at the center of a contest between god and a devilish character. He relies on his friends but those same friends accuse him of […]

In Original Grace, Adam S. Miller proposes an experiment in Restoration thinking: What if instead of implicitly affirming the traditional logic of original sin, we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasized the deeper reality of God’s original grace? What if we broke entirely with the belief that suffering can sometimes be deserved and claimed that […]

Can one be directed by God when one doesn’t know that one is being directed? The answer, of course, is yes. We learn about how God directed Esther in ways that may not have been recognizable to her, to ancient Israelites, and in ways that still surprise us today. We’ll discuss that, and more, in […]

If an eighteenth-century cleric told you that the difference between “civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far,” the words would hardly come as a shock. But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In a sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the […]

How do we learn from failure? Especially the end of an organization as large as a kingdom? What if two kingdoms fall? Today, as we look at the end of both Kingdoms of Israel, I hope that we can explore what it means to understand a people’s historical failures and recognize that modern people are […]

Elijah and Elisha are well-known to Latter-day Saints. The prophecy that Elijah would return was foretold in each of the four books of the Latter-day Saint canon. Indeed, Elijah visited the Prophet Joseph Smith and his counselor, Sidney Rigdon, in the Kirtland Temple, restoring the keys of the sealing power to the earth. Elisha may […]

Solomon’s reign was glorious, but what he gained in wealth, wives and infrastructure he lost in spiritual standing. He had not been faithful to the God of Israel. Instead, he adopted a cosmopolitanism that accommodated the religious preferences of his wives. However, God kept faith with David and Solomon, and the kingdom was split in […]

The post Abide: 2 Samuel 5-7; 11-12; 1 Kings 3; 8; 11 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Spiritual experiences are famously transformative. They sometimes inspire dramatic effects of conversion and healing, of vision and new life direction. But even in their more quotidian forms they expand our cognitive and emotional capacities, help cultivate virtues, and intensify our feelings of closeness to God, others, and things we deem ultimate. For Matthew Wickman, spiritual experience […]

In Mosiah 29, Mosiah says that “if it were possible that you could have bjust men to be your kings, who would establish the claws of God, and judge this people according to his commandments, yea, if ye could have men for your kings who would do even as my father dBenjamin did for this […]

The Old Testament names more women, and has more books named for women, than any of the other texts in the Latter-day Saint canon. They fulfill their roles as disciples, family members, and in following their personal integrity with living up to their commitment within community relationships. How do they fulfill those roles? And how […]

There’s a difficulty in reading the scriptures. I’m not referring to words on the page. I’m also not referring to the habit of scripture reading, though that could certainly apply, too. No, I’m referring to making the scriptures, whose figures and narratives are familiar to many Latter-day Saints, new and refreshing and insightful. In today’s […]

“This Church will stand, because it is upon a firm basis. … The Lord has shown it to us by the revealing principle of the Holy Spirit of light.” Lorenzo Snow, April 1900 That quotes embodies much of what is going on in the third volume of SAINTS, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day […]

Scholars spend entire careers debating texts, their origins, their impact, and the most valuable contributions they make to broader understanding. At the Maxwell Institute, we participate in these debates, but recognize that a text’s value cannot be narrowed down to observable fact–the long-lasting test of scripture is how it shapes the readers’ or hearers’ faith. […]

Deuteronomy is the final book in the Pentateuch, containing Moses’ last sermons, as well as poetry regarding Israel’s future. Moses pleads with Israel not to repeat their past mistakes, such as falling into idolatry. They must keep their covenants and keep the law given by Yahweh, or else they will lose the Promised Land. What […]

Elder Neal A. Maxwell once preached, “Faith also includes trust in God’s timing, for He has said, “All things must come to pass in their time.” (D&C 64:32.) Ironically, some who acknowledge God are tried by His timing, globally and personally!” We certainly see that in the Book of Numbers. The Israelites were thirsty but […]

When someone brings up Leviticus, my mind turns almost automatically to the Law of Moses. Which, I admit, doesn’t always seem like the most applicable thing to my life. However, when reframing it to think about the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ, I can’t think of anything more important for Latter-day Saints to know […]

Knowing how to transform conflict is critical in both our personal and professional lives. Yet, by and large, we are terrible at it. The reason, says longtime mediator Chad Ford, is fear. When conflict comes, our instincts are to run or fight. To transform conflict, Ford says we need to turn toward the people we […]

Often, when we speak about matters of religion, we discuss belief. “I know the Church is true. I have received a witness for myself that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I have had these experiences and share them in Sunday school and other venues. For me, though, faith also takes place in the […]

President Spencer W. Kimball said in 1976 that “Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings. Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer […]

Easter. A time for Christians to consider the life, atoning sacrifice, and miraculous resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How can we use our knowledge of the Old Testament to deepen our Easter experiences? And how can understanding how other religions approach Easter help us commit to being better Christians and Latter-day Saints.

“When we begin to see ourselves as the prodigal in that famed biblical parable, we are better able to minister to that prodigal daughter or that prodigal father. When we see them as in process and recognize the same in ourselves, we can forgive their wandering because we know we must.”

In some ways, Israel has to be feeling pretty great in Exodus 14-17. They’re finally escaping enslavement and have been delivered by God through His prophet. On the other hand, they are also between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea. Spoilers: they escape. But they didn’t know that until the moment of deliverance–they had to […]

God delivers us. That’s one of the central takeaways of Exodus’s story. But what do we do to ensure that we remember that takeaway? In this episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast, we discuss what it means to hold on in the face of adversity, to remember the actions that ensure our temporal and […]

Exodus: a movement of the people. As we move into the second book of the Tanak, or Old Testament, we have more than a movement of people. We have a flurry of new people, ideas, and we see Jehovah’s miraculous work through ancient Israelite eyes. But how can we be moved? How can we learn […]

Throughout the Old Testament we learn much about the relationships of tribes, clans, and family groups. We began discussing Israel’s family in the last episode, focusing on Joseph, the favored son sold into Egypt whose meteoric rise in Egyptian politics through the spiritual gift of interpreting dreams ultimately provided a land inheritance that would keep […]

The version of Joseph in Egypt I got growing up was shaped heavily by Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Despite the delightful music and vivid color, there’s far more to the Joseph narrative than even Donny Osmond can share in 90 minutes. In today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast, we explore several […]

Volume 5 of the Revelations and Translations series from the Joseph Smith Papers Project presents all extant fragments of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon. For the first time ever, researchers have access to a photograph and color-coded transcripts of each fragment of the manuscript, showing every change made and which scribe made […]

Readers of the Tanak or Old Testament see that The Lord marks Israel as a chosen people. Modern Latter-day Saints identify with being a “peculiar people.”  But what does it mean to be a chosen people? And how does one’s peculiarity mark boundaries of values, identity, and peoplehood? Chosenness does not mean a life without […]

As Genesis marches on we are introduced to new people, whose lives are in some ways different than our own, but in many ways are similar. In this episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we meet Isaac and Rebekah, who push us to think about what our responsibilities are in our families, and how […]

Today, Dr. Elisa Eastwood Pulido joins us to discuss her book, The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista: Mexican Mormon Evangelizer, Polygamist Dissident, and Utopian Founder, 1878-1961 (Oxford University Press, 2020). Dr. Pulido’s book is the first full-length biography of Margarito Bautista (1878-1961), a celebrated Latino Mormon leader in the U.S. and Mexico in the early […]

The Lectures on Faith teaches that, “…a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” But how much can we be asked to sacrifice? For Abraham, he seemed to have been asked to sacrifice in a myriad of ways. […]

The post Abide: Genesis 12-17 and Abraham 1-2 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Have you ever had anyone ask you “what is scripture?” For such a short question it has the possibility to open up into thousands of answers. For Latter-day Saints, it can be defined as “whatsoever [God’s representatives] shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost.” This definition is somewhat broader than many other Christian […]

Introduction: The world of the Old Testament, like our own day, is swimming in violence. From the direct and intimate violence of person-to-person interaction to the structural violence that reinforce hunger, war, and inequality, each of us is affected by others’ use of force. Despite this reality, or perhaps because of it, the Lord commanded […]

Moses 7 features Enoch, a figure that receives scant attention in Genesis, but has an overwhelming impact on the Pearl of Great Price. Importantly, Enoch’s experience with God also shapes how we view the Father, His relationship to us, and recognize his character and disposition. In today’s episode of Abide, we discuss Moses 7 and […]

The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #136: Documenting a Relationship: Early Latter-day Saints and the Book of Mormon, with Janiece Johnson appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

A lot of time passes in Genesis 5. We see fathers and sons’ names and their ages when sons were sired. They lived a lot longer than we do now! In Moses 5 we receive far more detail about post-Eden life but without the connections to genealogy beyond Adam, Abel, Cain, and Lamech.  What are […]

Please enjoy Dr. Jennifer Reeder’s 2021 Neal A. Maxwell Lecture! You can watch the address, with Dr. Reeder’s slides, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7GR8ql_xY.

“Adam fell that men might be. And men are that they might have joy.” Lehi’s declaration in 2 Nephi 2 is transformative in Latter-day Saint theology, transforming an event portrayed often in negative terms throughout Abrahamic faiths into something fulfilling and meaningful.  That isn’t the only way that Latter-day Saints understand the Fall differently than […]

The post Abide: Genesis 1–2; Moses 2–3; Abraham 4–5 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

The post Abide: Moses 1 and Abraham 3 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #134: Proclaim Peace with Patrick Mason and David Pulsipher appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In October 1995 at the General Relief Society meeting of LDS General Conference, then President Gordon B. Hinckley presented “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It was the 5th of 6 proclamations–we now have 7. the most recent being the Proclamation on the Restoration in 2020. Church communications come in a variety of modes. […]

Spencer W. Kimball, his counselors, and their fellow apostles prayed about the revelation that Latter-day Saints have canonized as Official Declaration 2 in June 1978. They immediately let it be known that the Lord had told them that all worthy people, of any race, color, creed, or nationality, would be eligible for temple blessings and […]

In September 1890, Wilford Woodruff, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met with his counselors with a vexing problem. How could they, as prophets and the First Presidency of the Church, prevent their religion from being squashed by the federal government over the practice of plural marriage? They ultimately decided that […]

Though raised as a Latter-day Saint in Utah, Samuel M. Brown was an atheist from an early age and proud of it. Yet, by his own account, God became an undeniable presence in his life. Now a faithful Latter-day Saint, this practicing research physician narrates some of the waypoints on his journey into believing and […]

The post Abide #22: Doctrine and Covenants 137-138 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

The Constitution of the United States guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Despite that promise, Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century sometimes found themselves as victims of legal and extralegal violence against their leaders and lay members alike. When Joseph Smith ran for President […]

The post Abide #20: Doctrine and Covenants 133-134 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we are studying four of Joseph Smith’s revelations. Three of them, Sections 129-131 are written in Joseph Smith’s own style, you can hear him teaching the Saints. This makes sense; they are quite literally teachings from Joseph Smith in both personal and public settings, compiled and […]

Following the Latter-day Saints’ expulsion from Missouri and while they worked to make a new home in Nauvoo, IL, Joseph Smith received several revelations that brought divine insight into earthly problems. For instance, what to do for those who could not afford to live in Nauvoo, or who desired to live in small cities surrounding […]

From acting as a scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon to founding the Relief Society, Emma Hale Smith was a key figure in the Restoration. She was also her husband’s anchor and the love of his life. But how much do we really know about her role, teachings, and leadership? Drawing upon […]