From our good friends at BYU and the Church History Department. You can follow up-to-date changes at the conference’s website.
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Approaching Antiquity:

Joseph Smith’s Study of the Ancient World

CHURCH HISTORY SYMPOSIUM

March 7-8, 2013

Jointly Sponsored by

The Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University

The Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Symposium Committee

Lincoln H. Blumell (Co-Chair), Department of Ancient Scripture

Matthew J. Grey (Co-Chair), Department of Ancient Scripture

Steven C. Harper, LDS Church History Department

Andrew H. Hedges, LDS Church History Department

Linda Godfrey (Secretary), Department of Church History and Doctrine

 

Thursday, March 7 – Brigham Young University (Provo)

9:00-10:00 (HBLL Auditorium): Key Note Address

• Lincoln H. Blumell (Ancient Scripture, BYU), Welcome (10min)
• Richard L. Bushman (History, Columbia University), “The Academic Study of Antiquity in Antebellum America” (45min)

10:15-11:45 (HBLL Auditorium): Scholars, Scripts, and Folklore of Antiquity

• Andrew H. Hedges (LDS Church History Department), Moderator
• Richard E. Bennett (Church History, BYU), “‘To The Most Learned Men of this Generation’: Martin Harris and His Visits East, 1828” (25min)
• Michael Hubbard MacKay (LDS Church History Department), “‘Git Them Translated’: Joseph Smith, Ancient Characters, and Translating the Plates” (25min)
• Steven C. Harper (LDS Church History Department), “Joseph Smith’s Relationships to Hermeticism and Masonry” (25min)
• Richard L. Bushman (History, Columbia University), Respondent (15min)

1:30-3:30 (HBLL Auditorium): Joseph Smith and Ancient Texts

• Matthew J. Grey (Ancient Scripture, BYU), Moderator
• Jared Ludlow (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith’s Reading of Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha” (25min)
• Lincoln H. Blumell (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “What has Palmyra to do with Jerusalem? Joseph Smith and the Writings of Flavius Josephus” (25min)
• Thomas A. Wayment (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith and Early Christian Apocrypha” (25min)
• Kristian S. Heal (Maxwell Institute, BYU), “Joseph Smith and the Early Church Fathers” (25min)
• Benjamin E. Park (History, University of Cambridge), Respondent  (15min)

3:45-4:45 (HBLL Auditorium): Joseph Smith’s Interest in the Ancient Americas

• Andrew H. Hedges (LDS Church History Department), Moderator
• Mark Alan Wright (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith and Native    American Artifacts” (25min)
• Matthew Roper (Maxwell Institute, BYU), “Joseph Smith and the Ruins: Central   American Archaeology and Early Views about the Book of Mormon” (25min)
• Andrew H. Hedges (LDS Church History Department), Respondent (10min)

7:00-8:30 (JSB Auditorium): Plenary Session

• Elder Steven E. Snow (Church Historian and Recorder), Conducting
• Opening Song, “Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise”
• Special Musical Number, “If You Could Hie to Kolob”
• David F. Holland (History, UNLV), “Joseph Smith and Antiquity: Points of Contact between the Prophet and the Ancient Sources” (50min)

 

Friday, March 8 – LDS Church Conference Center (Salt Lake City)

9:00-11:45: Joseph Smith, the Bible, and 19^th Century Biblical Scholarship

• Steven C. Harper (LDS Church History Department), Moderator
• Kent P. Jackson (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith and the Bible” (25min)
• Nicholas J. Frederick (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith and the Gospel of John” (25min)
• Justin R. Bray (LDS Church History Department), “The Seventy Disciples in Early 19^th Century Christian Thought” (25min)
• Break (10min)
• Samuel Brown (Medical Ethics and Humanities, University of Utah School of Medicine), “The Prisca Theology in Early Mormonism” (25min)
• Matthew B. Bowman (Religion, Hampden-Sydney College), “Joseph Smith and 19^th c. Biblical Commentaries” (25min)
• David F. Holland (History, UNLV), Respondent (20min)

1:45-3:15: Joseph Smith’s Study of Biblical Languages

• Lincoln H. Blumell (Ancient Scripture, BYU), Moderator
• Matthew J. Grey (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “‘The Word of God in the Original’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew and its Impact on His Translations, Thought, and Theology” (25min)
• Craig K. Manscill (Church History, BYU), “‘By the Help of God I Can Read in the Hebrew Bible’: Hyrum Smith’s Study of Hebrew” (25min)
• John W. Welch (Law, BYU), “Joseph Smith’s Awareness of Greek and Latin”  (25min)
• Kevin L. Barney (Independent Scholar), Respondent (15min)

3:30-5:00: Joseph Smith and 19^th Century Egyptology

• Lincoln H. Blumell (Ancient Scripture, BYU), Moderator
• John Gee (Maxwell Institute, BYU), “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt” (25min)
• Kerry Muhlestein (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “Joseph Smith and Egyptian Artifacts: Towards a Preliminary Paradigm for Evaluating Prophetic and Mundane Ideas Regarding Aspects of the Ancient World” (25min)
• Brian M. Hauglid (Ancient Scripture, BYU), “‘Endowed with a Knowledge of Hidden Languages’: Joseph Smith and the Egyptian Project” (25min)
• John S. Thompson (Egyptology, University of Pennsylvania), Respondent (15min)