Stephen Edward Robinson was a religious scholar and apologist, who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) was an informal collaboration of academics devoted to Latter-day Saint historical scholarship. In 1997, the group became a formal part of Brigham Young University (BYU), which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2006, the group became a formal part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, formerly known as the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, BYU. FARMS has since been absorbed into the Maxwell Institute's Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies.
The Encyclopedia of Mormonism is a semiofficial encyclopedia for topics relevant to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The text is available free online.
Signature Books is an American press specializing in subjects related to Utah, Mormonism, and Western Americana. The company was founded in 1980 by George D. Smith and Scott Kenney and is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Book of Mormon, the founding document of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the four books of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is an account of three groups of people. According to the book, two of these groups originated from ancient Israel. There is generally no direct support amongst mainstream historians and archaeologists for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith, a Congregationalist minister in Vermont, who argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, a relatively common view during the early nineteenth century. Numerous commentators on Mormon history, from LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts to Fawn M. Brodie, biographer of Joseph Smith, have noted similarities in the content of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, seven years after Ethan Smith's book.
Daniel Carl Peterson is a professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University (BYU).
The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, or simply the Maxwell Institute, is a research institute at Brigham Young University (BYU) made up of faculty and visiting scholars who study and write about religion, primarily The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Institute's namesake, Neal A. Maxwell, is a former LDS apostle, known by Latter-day Saints and others for his writings and sermons. The mission statement reads: "The Maxwell Institute both gathers and nurtures disciple-scholars. As a research community, the Institute supports scholars whose work inspires and fortifies Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engages the world of religious ideas."
Terryl Lynn Givens is a senior research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University (BYU). Until 2019, he was a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, where he held the James A. Bostwick Chair in English.
Many members of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that the Book of Mormon is historically accurate. Most, but not all, Mormons hold the book's connection to ancient American history as an article of their faith. This view finds no acceptance outside of Mormonism in the broader scientific community. Mormon apologists have proposed multiple theories to explain apparent inconsistencies with the archaeological, genetic, linguistic and other records.
John Laurence Gee is a professional Egyptologist. Gee is a Latter-day Saint scholar and apologist. He currently teaches at Brigham Young University (BYU) and serves in the Department of Near Eastern Languages. He is known for his scholarly writings in support of the Book of Abraham.
Louis C. Midgley is a Mormon apologist and retired professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Since his retirement he has been closely involved with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, writing many book reviews, articles, and book chapters defending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from perceived critics.
The Religious Studies Center (RSC) is the research and publishing arm of Religious Education at Brigham Young University (BYU), sponsoring scholarship on Latter-day Saint (LDS) culture, history, scripture, and doctrine. The dean of Religious Education serves as the RSC's director, and an associate dean oversees the two branches of the RSC: research and publications.
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of those known by the term Mormon and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement whose members do not generally go by the term "Mormon". The Latter Day Saint movement includes not only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but also the Community of Christ (CoC) and other groups, as well as those falling under the umbrella of Mormon fundamentalism.
Mormon Studies Review is an annual academic journal covering Mormon studies published by the University of Illinois Press. Previously, until and including its 2018 issue, the journal was published by Brigham Young University's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In November 2018, ownership transferred to the University of Illinois Press, which continues to publish the journal.
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship is a non-profit, peer-reviewed, and educational academic journal published by the Interpreter Foundation covering primarily topics relating to the canon of scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Latter-day Saint apologetics, and Mormon Studies. It was established in 2012 by The Interpreter Foundation with Daniel C. Peterson as founding editor-in-chief. Peterson had previously been the founding editor of the journal FARMS Review, which in 2011 had been renamed Mormon Studies Review and soon thereafter re-launched without apologetics as its main focus. The Interpreter Foundation also sponsors debates and discussions. These have included two symposia focused on the relationship between science and Mormonism. The journal publishes historical surveys, responses to critics, book reviews, personal essays, and other scholarly literature — all with the primary goal of increasing understanding of Latter-day Saint scripture and defending it.
Martin H. Raish is Director of the David O. McKay Library at Brigham Young University—Idaho. He has previously worked as an associate librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University (BYU), as well as at the Glenn G. Bartle Library at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He has also worked as an adjunct professor at the School of Information Science and Policy at the University of Albany, State University of New York.
Brian M. Hauglid is an emeritus professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University (BYU). From 2014 to 2017, he was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and he currently serves as director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, a part of BYU's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.
Grant Hardy is professor of history and religious studies and former director of the humanities program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He earned his B.A. in ancient Greek in 1984 from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in Chinese language and literature from Yale University in 1988. Having written, cowritten, or edited several books in the fields of history, humanities, and religious texts as literature, Hardy is known for literary studies of the Book of Mormon.
Eyewitness accounts associated with the Joseph Smith Papyri have been analyzed extensively to understanding the content, purpose and meaning of the Book of Abraham, a canonized text of the Latter Day Saint movement. In 1835, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, came into possession of four mummies, two papyrus rolls, and various papyrus fragments, which Smith said contained the writings of the ancient biblical patriarchs Abraham and Joseph.
