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From a small, specialized Interpreter Foundation gathering

From a small, specialized Interpreter Foundation gathering

Last updated on: September 4, 2026 at 9:05 pm by Dan Peterson

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From a small, specialized Interpreter Foundation gathering 2026-09-04T21:05:07-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A 2015 photograph of Salt Lake City after dark (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

My wife and I are up in Salt Lake City for the second biannual Interpreter Journal Development Conference. In attendance are most of those who prepare new article submissions for publication in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship every Friday, week in and week out. The participants included our managing editor, three executive editors, two source checkers, three copy editors, Kyler Rasmussen (who creates our Interpreting Interpreter materials), our typesetter, and our webmaster, as well as a representative each from FAIR and the Ancient America Foundation and a representative from the Church Communication Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I’m astonished and, candidly, more than a little moved by the number and quality of the people who have come together to make the Interpreter Foundation work. (And these were only a portion of that group.) The desire is to sustain and defend the Kingdom of God. We’re committed to the cause of the Restoration because we believe it to be true, good, and beautiful. We wish we could do more, and we want to do it better. There are imperfections in what we do, but there is no cynicism, only sincere devotion, doing the best that we can and the best that we know how to do. Happily, several very good suggestions came forward today.

The participants in our little conference hail from Alberta, New Mexico, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It’s really good to get them all together, to renew and built our camaraderie. My wife and I were very happy to be among them. (Most of us had dinner together last night at The Blue Iguana.) Virtual organizations and on-line publications offer many advantages, but there’s really no substitute for conversations in the hallway and by the water cooler, no true equivalent of face-to-face personal interactions.

The program today, which was masterfully planned and well led by Allen Wyatt, included an overview of our internal editing process, a panel discussion on the value and impact (if any) of the Interpreter journal, discussions of editorial resources and online source-checking tools and submission categories, as well as our still relatively-new website. I spent roughly half an hour discussing “apologetics,” Scott Gordon had half an hour to discuss how to understand and meet criticism of the Church, and then we had a general conversation on identifying possible future topics for the journal and potential authors.

The Arch, Land’s End, at Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

In the course of our discussions today, the “Baja California theory” of Book of Mormon geography came up. It has apparently gained something of a following over the past couple of years. Or, at least, so it was said today; I myself can’t say that I’ve noticed any particular surge in its popularity. In any case, I guess that I’ll remind any readers who might be out there that the Interpreter Foundation has actually published a review-article pertaining to that “Baja geography”:

“Some Good Questions, but Large Inferences from Tidbits,” written by David M. Belnap, appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 66 (2025): 327-384:

Review of R. Kent Crookston, Book of Mormon Ecology: What the Text Reveals about the Land and Lives of the Record Keepers (Provo, UT: Village Lane, 2020). 267 pages. $12.95 (paperback).

Abstract: As is well known, the Book of Mormon is a brief spiritual account from many centuries of Lehite and Jaredite peoples. Some of its authors mentioned that the book contains very little (not even 1%) of what happened, especially of non-spiritual matters. Nevertheless, from the tidbits of information found in the book, many have deduced or speculated on aspects of Nephite, Lamanite, and Jaredite life, including where the events took place. In Book of Mormon Ecology, R. Kent Crookston analyzes agricultural, ecological, and physical information in the Book of Mormon and proposes that its peoples lived in a Mediterranean climate, not in Mesoamerica. Seeds from Jerusalem growing well in America, seasons of grain and fruit, and east winds have good connections to Mediterranean climates. His analysis raises pertinent questions about Mesoamerican models. However, many conclusions have a weak basis or do not consider other evidence strongly correlated to a Mesoamerican setting, including ecological factors. For other details, reasonable explanations also fit a Mesoamerican model. A definitive post-oceanic locale of Book of Mormon peoples remains elusive and controversial because of meager non-spiritual information in the book, multiple plausible interpretations of non-spiritual words, and insufficient archaeological data throughout the Americas.

The Hale Centre Theatre, in Sandy, Utah, is (as I’ve often said before and will certainly say again, barring unforeseen catastrophe) a local, state, and regional treasure. My wife is there at this very moment. (Photo from the Hale Centre Theatre website)

After the conclusion of the program today, most of our group went out for dinner and then those who chose to do so attended the Thursday night rehearsal of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. My wife and I, however, had tickets (of longstanding) for the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy, where we attended a performance of Ken Ludwig’s Moriarty, which is billed as “A New Sherlock Holmes Adventure.” One of the highlights was running into people at the theater whom we know. Among them was Susan Porter, who was released on 1 August as the fifteenth general Primary president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), in which position she had served since August 2022. (For a year prior to her call as Primary general president, Susan had served in the Primary General Presidency as first counselor to her predecessor, Camille N. Johnson.) She is also the widow of Elder Bruce D. Porter of the Seventy, who had been a friend of mine since our freshman year at Brigham Young University. My wife and I haven’t visited with her in quite a while, so it was pleasant to have the opportunity tonight.

Posted from Salt Lake City, Utah

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