Chris Heimerdinger | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 26, 1963 Bloomington, Indiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Brigham Young University |
| Notable works | Tennis Shoes Adventure Series |
Chris Heimerdinger (born August 26, 1963) is an American author who has written twenty novels for adults and young adults, most famously the Tennis Shoes Adventure Series . He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), [1] and most of his stories center on religious themes familiar to Latter-day Saints.
Heimerdinger was born in Bloomington, Indiana. His father was a professor in theatre at Indiana University. His parents divorced when he was four years old and his mother remarried. Heimerdinger has one older brother and two younger sisters.
Heimerdinger excelled in Wyoming High School competitions for three years in the categories of Humor, Oratory, and Drama. [2] He began to write books at the age of 7, and continued through high school. [3] He also began making super-8 films beginning in junior high, and showed these films to the scholarship committee of Brigham Young University in 1981, earning a full scholarship in 'Theatre and Cinematic Arts' [4] after receiving a Sundance Institute 'Most Promising Filmmaker' award for his film Night Meeting. [5]
Heimerdinger read the Book of Mormon at age 18, during his first semester at college, and was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Oct 10, 1981. [4]
Heimerdinger is the author of the Tennis Shoes Adventure Series . His first published work was Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites (1989), based on events in the Book of Mormon. Thus far thirteen books have followed in the series, the first of which features three children who discover a secret cave capable of transporting its visitors back in time. The following books continue with the original characters as they go to college, get married, and have kids. The characters also have to deal with death, parenting troubles and time travel. The first books in the series were intended to be a fictional account of the Book of Mormon, while later ones explore other historical eras, including Ancient Rome, Israel during the Roman destruction in A.D. 73, and the time period of the Tower of Babel. The last five novels in this series include research notes at the end of each chapter. [6]
In 2005, Heimerdinger began production of the film Passage to Zarahemla . [6] Originally written in 1999 as a screenplay entitled "Summer of the Nephite" it was published as a novel, Passage to Zarahemla in 2003. The film was released to cinemas in October 2007 and as of 2011 ranks in the top 150 for both Christian and Fantasy Live-Action films. [7] It was released on DVD in June 2008. In August 2011, a book sequel to Passage to Zarahemla, entitled Escape From Zarahemla was released by Covenant Communications, Inc. A self-published novel, Muckwhip's Guide to Capturing the Latter-day Soul, was released as an ebook in November 2012 and as a paperback in December 2012.
In 2008, Heimerdinger was among the top 10 list of LDS authors as chosen by Mormon Times readers. [8]
Heimerdinger utilizes the title of his Tennis Shoes Adventure Series in helping around the world. In August 2005 Heimerdinger joined with Hearts and Hands for Humanity in American Fork, Utah to help collect tennis shoes for children 5 to 12 years old. [9]
In 2007, Heimerdinger again joined with Hearts and Hands for Humanity to collect tennis shoes. This time it was in honor of a dead soldier, Nathan Barnes, of American Fork, Utah. The goal this time was to collect and send thousands of tennis shoes to Iraq. [10]
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The Book of Helaman is one of the books that make up the Book of Mormon, a text held sacred by churches within the Latter Day Saint movement, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The book continues the history of the Nephites and the Lamanites from approximately 50 BC to 1 BC. It discusses political unrest among the Nephites and the formation of a group of secret dissenters called the Gadianton Robbers. Helaman, son of Helaman leads the Nephites for a time, and his sons Nephi and Lehi go on a successful mission to the Lamanites. When Nephi returns home, he correctly identifies the murderer of the chief judge using his prophetic powers, and sends a famine to the Nephite which lasts three years. After a digression from Mormon, the book of Helaman ends with Samuel the Lamanite's prophecy of the signs that will precede Christ's birth and death. Helaman deals with themes of external and internal conflict, hidden information, Nephite racism, and Mormon's views of history as deduced by his redaction of it.
The First Book of Nephi: His Reign and Ministry, usually referred to as First Nephi or 1 Nephi, is the first book of the Book of Mormon, the sacred text of churches within the Latter Day Saint Movement, and one of four books with the name Nephi. First Nephi tells the story of his family's escape from Jerusalem prior to the exile to Babylon, struggle to survive in the wilderness, and building a ship and sailing to the "promised land", commonly interpreted by Mormons as the Americas. The book is composed of two intermingled genres; one a historical narrative describing the events and conversations that occurred and the other a recounting of visions, sermons, poetry, and doctrinal discourses as shared by either Nephi or Lehi to members of the family.
The Second Book of Nephi, usually referred to as Second Nephi or 2 Nephi, is the second book of the Book of Mormon, the primary religious text of the Latter-day Saint Movement. Narrated by Nephi, son of Lehi, unlike the first Book of Nephi, 2 Nephi contains little history of the Nephite people and focuses predominately on visions and prophecies of Nephi himself and other prophets, particularly Isaiah.
In the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites are one of the four peoples described as having settled in the ancient Americas in the Book of Mormon. The Lamanites also play a role in the prophecies and revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants, another sacred text in the Latter Day Saint movement.
Cumorah is a drumlin in Palmyra, New York, United States, where Joseph Smith said he found a set of golden plates which he translated into English and published as the Book of Mormon.
Zarahemla is a land in the Book of Mormon that for much of the narrative functions as the capital of the Nephites, their political and religious center. Zarahemla has been the namesake of multiple communities in the United States, has been alluded to in literature that references Mormonism, and has been portrayed in artwork depicting Book of Mormon content.
King Noah is a Nephite king in the Book of Mormon who appears in the Book of Mosiah. Noah rules over a colony of Nephites who come from Zarahemla and settle in the land of Lehi-Nephi, succeeding his father, Zeniff. In the Book of Mosiah, King Noah distances from his father's teachings, committing what the text calls "all manner of wickedness." Noah and his priests sentence a prophet named Abinadi, who prophesies of his kingdom's downfall if they did not repent, to death by fire. During a Lamanite invasion, Noah and some of his people flee the land, and those who remain are subjected to Lamanite control. Noah attempts to forbid his men from returning to their families, and they burn him at the stake. Noah is succeeded by his son, Limhi.
Mormon fiction is generally fiction by or about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are also referred to as Latter-day Saints or Mormons. Its history is commonly divided into four sections as first organized by Eugene England: foundations, home literature, the "lost" generation, and faithful realism. During the first fifty years of the church's existence, 1830–1880, fiction was not popular, though Parley P. Pratt wrote a fictional Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. With the emergence of the novel and short stories as popular reading material, Orson F. Whitney called on fellow members to write inspirational stories. During this "home literature" movement, church-published magazines published many didactic stories and Nephi Anderson wrote the novel Added Upon. The generation of writers after the home literature movement produced fiction that was recognized nationally but was seen as rebelling against home literature's outward moralization. Vardis Fisher's Children of God and Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua were prominent novels from this time period. In the 1970s and 1980s, authors started writing realistic fiction as faithful members of the LDS Church. Acclaimed examples include Levi S. Peterson's The Backslider and Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun. Home literature experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when church-owned Deseret Book started to publish more fiction, including Gerald Lund's historical fiction series The Work and the Glory and Jack Weyland's novels.
Laban is a figure in the First Book of Nephi, near the start of the Book of Mormon, a scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement. Although he only makes a brief appearance in the Book of Mormon, his brass plates play an important role when they are taken by Laman and Nephi and are used by the Nephites.
In the Book of Mormon, Limhi is the third and final king of the second Nephite habitation of the land of Lehi-Nephi. He succeeds his father, Noah. Led by Ammon, Limhi and his people escape from the Lamanites with his people to the land of Zarahemla.
In the Book of Mormon, the Three Nephites are three Nephite disciples of Jesus who were blessed by Jesus to remain alive on the earth, engaged in his ministry and in their apostolic callings until his Second Coming. As described in Third Nephi chapter 28, this change occurred when they were caught up into heaven. Similar to Mormon beliefs about John the Apostle, the Three Nephites were granted immortality in order to carry out their ministering work on the earth. The account in the Book of Mormon reads that they ministered unto all the people in the surrounding lands, bringing many to the church by means of preaching and baptism.
According to the Book of Mormon, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies were an ethnic group of Lamanites formed around 90 BC in the Americas, after a significant religious conversion. They made a covenant that they would not participate in war, and buried their weapons. Eventually they changed their name to the people of Ammon, or Ammonites. During a later period of warfare, the young men of the group who had not made the pacifist covenant became a military unit known as the two thousand stripling warriors, and were protected by divine intervention.
This chronology outlines the major events in the history of the Book of Mormon, according to the text. Dates given correspond to dates in the footnotes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints edition of the Book of Mormon and to a Jaredite timeline proposed by Latter-Day Saint scholar John L. Sorenson.
The Tennis Shoes Adventure Series is a series of LDS fiction novels written by Chris Heimerdinger. They are most widely read by young adult members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A limited geography model for the Book of Mormon is one of several proposals by Latter Day Saint scholars that the book's narrative was a historical record of people in a limited geographical region, rather than of the entire Western Hemisphere.
Passage to Zarahemla is an adventure film directed and written by Chris Heimerdinger. It tells the story of a young pair of siblings seeking to find a new life following the abrupt death of their mother. Their exploits lead them to a relative's home in Utah and eventually a thrilling confrontation with their past and the merger of time. It is based partly on Book of Mormon people, including the Zarahemla of the title.
Margaret Blair Young is an American author, filmmaker, and writing instructor who taught for thirty years at Brigham Young University.
The historicity of the Book of Mormon is the historical actuality of persons and events that are written in it, meaning the quality of it being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. Most, but not all, Latter Day Saints hold the book's connection to ancient American history as an article of their faith. This view finds no confirmation outside of the movement in the broader scientific and academic communities. Relevant archaeological, historical, and scientific facts are not consistent with the Book of Mormon being an ancient record of actual historical events.
Various locations have been proposed as the geographical setting of the Book of Mormon, or the set of locations where the events described in the Book of Mormon is said to have taken place. There is no universal consensus - even among Mormon scholars - regarding the placement of these locations in the known world, other than somewhere in the Americas.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Book of Mormon:
