Friends, the Gift & Power conference has been postponed due to public health concerns. We'll re-announce when things have become safer. Stay safe, wash your hands, avoid crowds, be mindful of more vulnerable populations, and stay connected to the directions of public health officials!
Joseph Smith was the first prophet, seer, and revelator of the Restoration. But the prophet was also uniquely called to the office of “translator.” (See D&C 124: 94, 125.) In the work of Joseph Smith, new revelations from heaven joined newly recovered revelations of the past.
This “Gift & Power” conference will draw from some of the latest scholarship on the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, and more. Presentations are based on the coinciding publication of a new book on the subject, Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, forthcoming 2020).
SCHEDULE
SESSION I
9:00 am–10:30 am
Chair: Kate Holbrook
Samuel Brown, “Seeing the Voice of God: The Book of Mormon on Its own Translation”
Amy Easton Flake, “Reconfiguring the Archives: Women and the Social Production of the Book of Mormon”
SESSION II
11:00 am–12:30 pm
Chair: Jenny Reeder
Christopher Blythe, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’: Translation and the Gifts of the Spirit”
Mark Ashurst-McGee and Don Bradley, “‘President Joseph has Translated a Portion’: Joseph Smith and the Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates”
SESSION III
2:00 pm–3:30 pm
Chair: Janiece Johnson
David Grua, “The Tarrying of the Beloved Disciple: The Textual Formation of the Account of John in D&C 7”
Gerrit Dirkmaat, “Lost Scripture and the ‘Interpolations of Men’: Joseph Smith’s Revelation on the Apocrypha (D&C 91)”
SESSION IV
4:00 pm–5:30 pm
Chair: Kerry Muhlestein
Matthew Grey, “Approaching Egyptian Papyri through Biblical Language: Joseph Smith’s Use of Hebrew in His Translation of the Book of Abraham”
Thomas A. Wayment, “A Recovered Resource: The Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary in Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation”
CONCLUDING ROUNDTABLE
5:30 pm–6:00 pm
Michael MacKay, moderator
*schedule subject to change
Co-sponsored by BYU’s Religious Studies Center