An unparalleled scholarly effort begins to wind down

Last updated on: March 14, 2026 at 1:59 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

An unparalleled scholarly effort begins to wind down 2026-03-14T13:59:41-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A scene of ancient Mesoamerican warfare in a detail from a reproduction of one of the murals at Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Up today on the immutable and never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conversations with Interpreter: Matt Bowen, “‘Inspired by a Better Cause’: The Function of Alma 43:44-45 in Mormon’s Account of the Monarchic Wars Against the Nephites”:

In this episode, Dr. Matthew Bowen discusses his recent article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, where he analyzes Mormon’s wordplay in what are commonly called the war chapters in Alma. Dr. Bowen builds on his previous work, connecting Nephi’s name with the Egyptian word nefer, meaning “good,” showing how the Book of Mormon authors will often associate Nephite or Nephi with ideas that are positive and pleasing to God. In this article, Dr. Bowen contrasts that with names coming from the Hebrew root mlk, which refers to kingship or rulership. In the podcast, Bowen discusses how this can indicate oppressive behavior that is displeasing to God. Mormon uses this wordplay in Alma to illustrate how the Lord wants individuals to focus on the true king, Jesus Christ, who brings everything good.

The full article can be read here: https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/inspired-by-a-better-cause-the-function-of-alma-4344-45-in-mormons-account-of-the-monarchic-wars-against-the-nephites.

Jana Dahmer as Miriam Works Young, with John Donovan Wilson as Brigham Young, in the 2024 Interpreter Foundation dramatic film Six Days in August.

You can watch all of the currently available installments of Becoming Brigham at a site that is rather cryptically called Becoming Brigham, All Episodes. And the brief trailer for Episode 8 of Becoming Brigham, the fuller version of which will be posted on Monday, is already up for your enjoyment.

The audience for Becoming Brigham thus far has been respectable but not as large as we wish it to be. This is pretty much in keeping with our expectations; we anticipate (certainly we hope) that viewership will slowly grow, and that the miniseries, which will be up online indefinitely, will continue to draw attention even after we’ve moved on either to other projects or to oblivion. We’re relying on word of mouth to carry the project (along, of course, with its quality and its availability at no charge). So we hope that you will let others know about it. But we would also welcome any ideas that you might have for helping to get the word out.

A handful of The Usual Critics are claiming, of course, that the vast majority of Latter-day Saints (in Canada and the United States, at least, if not altogether in Ghana, Thailand, Bolivia, Fiji, New Zealand, Germany, and beyond) have sampled Becoming Brigham and rejected it (and me) out of sheer boredom and lack of interest or, much to be preferred, with utter contempt. And that may, of course, be true. Even perhaps charitable. My own impression, though, is that most Latter-day Saints (even in my home ward!) are completely unaware of Becoming Brigham. Not, of course, that all members of the Church, even those who are active, would choose to watch it under the best of circumstances. But I hope and believe that many more would find it worth watching than have currently seen it. So, please, spread the word.

The spine and the cover design for Royal Skousen’s second edition of The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, published by Yale University Press

The final book in Royal Skousen’s epic Book of Mormon Critical Text Project is beginning to emerge from the press. (It still needs to go to the bindery.) Here is a statement that he sent to me just this morning:

In this last book, I consider in detail the typesetting for the Book of Mormon editions from the 1841 edition (the first British one) up through the Orson Pratt 1879 edition, with chapters broken up and verses added. I also briefly discuss the 1879 Deseret Alphabet edition, the 1905 and the 1920 editions, all the RLDS editions, and the table of contents for the early B of M editions. Then I take up textual criticism of the B of M, with chapters on how I created the computerized collation over three plus years, and annotating its versions for use, beginning in 2003, from which all of parts 3 and 4 derive. This version of the collation is now available from Digital Humanities, a department in the College of Humanities at BYU. I have chapters describing how I got the copytext for the Yale edition (the collation is the copytext, no previous edition alone was the copytext). No errors in the 2009 edition because the letters of the text itself were never keyed in. I also talk about various textual criticism issues: (1) the need for a complete collation, not selective; and (2) the need to link the apparatus to the arguments for and against various readings to the most up-to-date version of ATV. Purchasing volume 5, the collation, from Digital Humanities will satisfy these two conditions.

Next I turn to the work of the Joseph Smith Papers on providing photos of the two manuscripts, along with my (revised) transcription of the text of those manuscripts. I discuss both the positives and the negatives of the JSP work. I go into their failure to recognize two leaves from the University of Chicago as forgeries. Stan Carmack, my collaborator, and I then have a large chapter going through all the archaic entries in parts 3 and 4 of volume 3 and using more up-to-date databases from earlier English are able to make a more databased analysis of which word meanings, phrases, expressions, and grammar were actually in earlier English and those which were still in use near the end of the 1700s. Most of the archaic readings are still holding, and no scholar has found evidence for their use around the time of Joseph Smith (late 1700s and early 1800s or after), neither in upstate New York nor in Kansas! Carmack then provides a single chapter reviewing ten syntactic uses in the Book of Mormon that are only in early modern English.

The final part of part 8 deals with conjectural emendations. First, I list all the English language conjectures and who first proposed them and whether they are in the current LDS text or in the current Yale edition. Then I have three chapters that discuss the Yale conjectural emendations and whether they exist in the early translations of the Book of Mormon. I find over one hundred of these for both the 1852 French and the 1852 German editions, plus the nearly 50 conjectures for 1954 Finnish edition, all first editions and done without supervision, only the honest attempt of early translators to make a correct translation. This is a greatly neglected area of textual criticism (checking translations for conjectures).

It has been a privilege and an honor for me, personally, and for the Interpreter Foundation to be even peripherally involved with this monumental scholarly effort — especially given its focus on the keystone text of the Restoration.

A felucca on the River Nile at sunset. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Ian Pudsley.). We took many such rides on the Nile when my wife and I live there — it was, for example, a Cairo Branch tradition to load every member onto one or two large boats for Easter sunrise gatherings.

Here’s something to which people in Las Vegas; Ephraim, UT; Salt Lake City; Nampa, ID; and Cedar City, UT, can look forward this Easter season: “”The Redeemer” features familiar hymns, original compositions and portions of Handel’s Messiah: Jenny Oaks Baker’s “The Redeemer””

History and Religion

Travel and Religion

Critical Text Project

Miriam Works

Royal Skousen

Previous Post

March 13, 2026

Gratitude for Religious Liberty